Oh my god, have we got some shit to wade through. My house began this week in film with an awful mistake, as I actually joined my housemates for a genuine hate-watch. I’ve on the whole stopped seeking out things that I know are going to be bad; there is infinite great media out there, which is all great in a variety of new and enriching ways, whereas bad media tends to be predictable, familiar, and dull. It doesn’t feel fulfilling to flex on something that’s bad; it’s too easy, and generally I’d rather just enjoy something good. Well, I broke that rule this week, and I duly paid the price for it. Fortunately, the rest of this week’s viewing experiences were much more compelling, so let’s just take the medicine first then, as we plow through another Week in Review!
Kaiba – Episode 4
What is truly precious, or irreplaceable? In the world of Kaiba, where both bodies and memories can be bought and sold, it can begin to feel like nothing has any genuine value. Cronico sold her body to help her family, but it only brought her stepmother more grief. Meanwhile, her “precious” memories were ultimately tossed out like garbage, to float into the firmament like a lost balloon. Ultimately, Cronico’s body at least allowed Kaiba to sneak back onto the cruiser; but even that was an insidiously transactional process, relying on the wanton, lascivious hungers of the Chief of Security. Only the opening song seems to disagree – as hands flash through a myriad of forms, their determination to connect remains undiminished. Might we perhaps hold onto love, or at least its memory?
Great Pretender – Episode 3
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll checking out the third episode of Great Pretender, where Edamura has at last proven his value to the team, by jacking up the prices of Laurent’s fake drugs. Having reaffirmed his talents as a swindler, Edamura at last seems genuinely comfortable with his new companions, and committed to their collective scheme.
Of course, from Laurent’s perspective, I can’t imagine Edamura’s rash actions have really changed his opinion of his new partner. Laurent seems less interested in this particular scheme than he is in cultivating a specific group of talents, and pursuing a more long-term ethical agenda. From his perspective, Edamura is an insecure kid with more ego than sense – unsculpted clay, with no real direction but a childish desire to prove himself. Edamura believes he can prove his value through his skills as a swindler; in contrast, Laurent has nothing to prove, but is happy enough to wield Edamura’s emotional levers against him. The two are an intriguingly mismatched team, and I’ll be interested to see if Laurent is actually invested in helping Edamura grow up, or simply use him as a talented but naive weapon. Let’s get to it!
Hugtto! Precure – Episode 20
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today we’ll be returning to Hugtto! Precure, where when we last left off, Henri was busy destroying the gender binary. After Emiru’s brother attempted to lecture him on how girls aren’t allowed to be heroes, Henri confronted him in a full dress, and said that boys and girls are allowed to be what they damn well please. Even when held in the grip of a giant monster, Henri somehow kept his cool, and actually reached out to the monster with such empathy and understanding that he essentially won the fight himself. Hugtto! has always preached kindness in a general sense, but I was delighted to see it celebrate Henri’s specific, vital kind of self-love and tolerance.
With Henri having instilled that self-love in Emiru as well, she is now capable of admitting her own desires. Emiru wants to be a Precure, and goddamnit, we’re gonna make her a Precure. Let’s get to work!
Winter 2021 – Week 11 in Review
Hello all, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. I had a fairly light week in extracurricular film studies this time, as my free time was mostly just spent hammering out the last act of Control, and also playing even more Slay the Spire. Look, the game has twenty difficulty levels for four different decks, and is specifically designed to tell me I’m awesome for learning to draft Magic cards in middle school, so me and it will likely remain acquainted for quite some time. In the meantime, I did manage to sneak in my second Dario Argento film, as well as an interesting but flawed recent attraction, and yes, even more Bleach. Without further ado, let’s break ‘em down in the Week in Review!
Spring 2021 Season Preview
Oh my god, what the fuck, what week is it? Week eleven of the winter season? Jesus fuck, these preview articles are supposed to go out on week nine, what am I even previewing at this point. The shows aren’t actually out yet, right? Okay, good, we’ve got some time. Great. I’m slipping, but we’ve got some time. We can work with this.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today, we’ll be turning our eyes towards the spring anime season, as I highlight the productions that most caught my interest. I am admittedly not that much of a seasonal anime watcher at this point – it basically takes something of Wonder Egg Priority’s caliber to truly demand my attention, so I’m not expecting to keep up with all these weekly. What I’m instead pinning down here is simply potential – shows that, through their source material or staff pedigree, seem like they might appeal to someone like me. If you’re looking for the full list of shows and synopses, you can check out anichart for all of that – this list comes pre-narrowed, and will mostly just cover what about each show stuck out to me. Without further ado, let’s preview the god dang spring season!
Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 10
You folks ready for some space adventures? It’s been altogether too long since we checked in on the travels of Marika and her fearless crew, so today we’re returning to Bodacious Space Pirates, as our team at last sets off in search of the golden ghost ship of Serenity!
I know, I know, I’ve been saying that for like three straight episodes now. Well, the thing about Bodacious Space Pirates is that, in spite of its preposterous title and plentiful high school girls, it hews about as close to “hard scifi” as you’re likely to get in anime. Ships aren’t propelled by hopes and dreams in this show; they’re propelled by fuel you must purchase, and protected by defense systems you must maintain, and afforded freedom of movement by licenses that must be procured and renewed.
Through conveying the intersection of future space travel and bureaucracy in all its alleged glory, Bodacious Space Pirates emphasizes the true and ever-present danger of space, as well as the magnitude of Marika’s new responsibilities. This also means that the crew can’t simply fly off in search of destiny, and conveniently find it right after the ad break – they must plan, and prepare, and choose their moment. Fortunately, I think Marika actually has chosen her moment, and that in fact this precise pre-episode moment is the moment she’s chosen. So to make a long story short, let’s actually set off in search now, and find that glorious golden ghost ship!
Dorohedoro – Episode 8
So what is it that makes Dorohedoro’s fantastical worldbuilding so special? I was just discussing this with a friend, as in general, I feel like “emphasis on worldbuilding” tends to be one of anime’s greatest narrative weaknesses. Rather than focusing on an emotionally resonant human narrative, many shows focus entirely on scaffolding and set dressing, and yet I never feel genuinely entranced by their worlds. So where does Dorohedoro succeed where all these isekai and trapped-in-a-game shows fail?
Well, first of all, it helps a great deal that Dorohedoro has genuinely unique ideas. Systems of magic and videogame-reminiscent technology only feel fresh and engaging the first couple times; in contrast, Dorohedoro fills its every episode with marvelous incidental concepts like the Hell Toilet, and its worldbuilding never feels strictly derivative of other ideas. I admit that “have a lot of unique ideas” isn’t the most actionable writing advice, but it’s certainly an area where Q Hayashida shines.
But more fundamentally, what Hayashida understands is that great fantasy should stretch our minds and inspire us, not simply flatter our ability to understand mechanical systems. Dorohedoro’s fanciful worldbuilding isn’t designed to make its world understandable – in fact, it’s rather the opposite. Through its inexplicable setpieces and vaguely alluded-to rituals, Dorohedoro constantly pushes back against our ability to categorize and contain it, positing a world that is vaster than our ability to imagine it. Great fantasy offers not just marvelous adventures, but the promise of a world undefined, with dangling, inexplicable threads that capture our imagination, and ideas that remain in view but distant, vast monoliths implying more untold stories. That is what makes great fantasy special, and it’s a quality that Dorohedoro has in endless supply. Let’s delight in its riches once more then, as we bound through one more episode of Dorohedoro!
Winter 2021 – Week 10 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Over in the hyperbolic media chamber, this was a week of projects, as I dug into games that had been sitting on the shelf for too long, and also passively watched maybe fifty episodes of background anime. After my housemates decided to watch the Bleach live action film (my review: it’s an anime live action film), one of them was inspired enough to return to The Source itself, and power through the entire goddamn Soul Society arc. So for once, the answer to “where is Bleach” is truly “here is Bleach.” We’ve got that and more to get to, so let’s start powering through the Week in Review!
Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Episode 6
Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to Kaguya-sama: Love is War, which, if you’ve been following along with my articles, you know I’ve been having a pretty tough time with. The main issue is simply that I don’t really enjoy its jokes, which are presumably supposed to ingratiate me towards its cast, in order for me to feel that much more invested in its eventual dramatic turns. This is a pretty common structural trick, but if the audience isn’t amenable to your style of comedy, you run the risk of losing them entirely – like in my experience with, say, Clannad, which so utterly failed to amuse me that I instead entered its dramatic phase with a feeling of ingrained resentment.
I’m doing my best, though. The advice I received from readers was to try assessing it as a character piece now, rather than a comedy, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do. With my expectations hopefully calibrated successfully, let’s dig into another episode of Kaguya-sama!