Hakujaden

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be exploring the oldest work of anime I’ve ever covered on the blog, and in fact, the first full-length film Toei Douga ever produced. Known as Hakujaden, “The White Serpent,” or “Panda and the Magic Serpent,” it’s an adaptation of a classic work of Chinese folklore, and is essentially the anime equivalent to Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

In this film, we will be witnessing the process of a new art form coming into being, as the scattered shorts of prior years gave way to a new era of anime production, led in large part by the luminaries of Toei Douga. Eventually the studio’s film productions would jumpstart the careers of modern legends like Takahata and Miyazaki, but for Hakujaden, the key animation would be composed by just two animators: Akira Daikubara handling the humans, and Yasuji Mori taking care of the animals. Hakujaden is a staggeringly significant work by any metric, and I’m frankly well outside my depth in attempting to “critique” it in anything but the most wildly ahistorical of styles, but I hope at the very least we can simply sit and appreciate it together. Let’s explore the birth of Toei Douga’s film catalog!

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Scum’s Wish – Episode 4

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to the torturous drama of Scum’s Wish, wherein basically everyone is having a lousy time not being with the one they want. Our misguided leads started unhappy and have only gotten worse, with their preposterous hopes for a “relationship of surrogates” predictably falling apart the moment it began.

Though they are united under the vague umbrella of each wanting someone they can’t have, it’s already clear that what Hana and Mugi want from each other is quite different. It seems Hana is beginning to realize the impossibility of getting together with Kanai; having observed Ecchan’s own hopeless crush, she now sees the emotional burden her desires are placing on others. If not for Akane’s presumed infidelity driving her forward, she’d likely be happy to honestly date Mugi in a totally healthy, non-displaced-affection sort of way.

On the other hand, Mugi probably shouldn’t be dating anyone right now. It’s clear that his relationship with Mei messed him up pretty badly, with her push for sexual contact leaving him uncomfortable with any sort of physical relationship. What Mugi actually needs is a therapist, but this is anime, and so presumably those feelings will be synthesized into chaos by the trauma-to-drama pipeline. That’s the shit we’re here for, so let’s batten down the hatches and get ready for a storm as we return to the world of Scum’s Wish!

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Seeking the Ineffable in Otherside Picnic

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When I set out to write up Otherside Picnic’s first volume, I figured it’d be best to first investigate the story’s formal predecessors: the original novel Roadside Picnic by brothers Arkadis and Boris Strugatsky, as well as its acclaimed film adaptation, Stalker. The context seemed vital for really digging into Otherside Picnic’s approach, but more importantly, both Roadside Picnic and Stalker are beloved works of fiction, and fit squarely within my own preferred genres. I’ve read countless works of weird and speculative fiction, forever captivated by stories of humanity at the fraying edge of reality, meaning it was only a matter of time before I dug into the Strugatskys’ vision on my own time.

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Spring 2022 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve currently got a post-Covid spring in my step, as well as a quiet sense of embarrassment about how much work I got done while I was trapped in quarantine. It turns out when you’re not allowed to socialize or even really leave your room, it’s not hard to keep working from the moment you wake up to the moment you lie back down. As a result, my article buffer has never looked healthier, I’ve finished my latest ambitious weekend project, and I even made some progress on cleaning my room. Well, a little progress. Look, if you’d seen it before, you’d appreciate it looks better now.

Dubious lifestyle habits aside, I’ve also got a fine stack of film reviews for you all, freshly plucked from my massive bag of takes. Let’s see what we’ve got in the latest Week in Review!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to one of the series that actually started my anime writing career, way back when I was just making rambling reddit posts. That’s right, it’s time to check out Zoku Owarimonogatari, the as-of-now final piece in the vast Monogatari tapestry.

Monogatari has been one of my favorite series ever since 2013’s Second Season blew my mind, offering a richness of characterization and purposefulness of visual storytelling that basically no other series can match. In fact, as far as character writing goes, I consider it and Evangelion to be the peak works of the medium, exploring the nuances of identity formation and interpersonal relations with a subtlety, sharpness, and compassion that puts them in the running with the great works of film and literature. Frankly, if Monogatari weren’t so good, I’m not sure I’d be writing about anime right now – it was the brilliance of this show’s characters that provoked in me a need to write about these stories, and it was the positive response to that writing that gave me the encouragement to keep going.

This franchise embodies that particular alchemy that is most resonant to me in anime, that combination of deep-dive character studies, doggedly humanist themes, and visual synthesis of both that first electrified me as a teenager, back when Evangelion became my favorite work of art. It is a rare and beautiful thing, a harnessing of animation’s infinite aesthetic potential, as well as anime’s often deeply personal priorities, in order to make the raw clay of human nature viscerally felt and transcendently visualized. Though I can certainly appreciate visual splendor, I will always be a writer at heart, and Isin is one of the greatest authors to lend his pen to animation. His work has had a profound impact on my aesthetic sensibilities and life more generally, and it all started with Bakemonogatari.

All that said, in my view, the greater arc of the Monogatari franchise was essentially concluded by Owarimonogatari Second Season. As such, I’m expecting this to be more of a victory lap than an essential addition to the canon, and have preemptively forgiven it for its presumably extraneous nature. Of course, “extraneous Monogatari” is still one of the best writers to touch anime riffing on his masterpiece, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty to savor in this encore performance. For perhaps the very last time, let’s dive into the world of Monogatari!

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Anne of Green Gables – Episode 7

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to report that the ferry ride has concluded, a carriage has been arranged, and we are on our way to Green Gables. When last we’d visited, Marilla had finally confirmed that Anne can stay, on condition that she be a good girl and learn how to say her prayers properly. Anne broke the first of these conditions pretty much immediately, rushing out the door to tell all the flowers and trees about her victory, and I can’t imagine she’ll have better luck with the second one. But the truth of it is, I doubt Marilla could imagine parting with Anne regardless, and these stern proclamations are simply the last, futile gasps at reasserting some pre-Anne order.

But Anne is not just Anne anymore, she is now Anne of Green Gables. Flush with confidence and standing on ground that is truly hers, Anne’s expansive personality is sure to reshape this family’s lives in all sorts of ways. It’s been a pleasure to spend time with Anne even in the pits of despair, so I can’t wait to see how she tackles this world with a renewed spring in her step. Let’s get right back to Green Gables!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 13

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we arrive at the end of a long and fascinating journey, as we explore the final episode of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Over the course of its run, Fujiko Mine has explored the politics of sexuality with a frankness and maturity I’ve elsewise never seen in anime, excepting the more adolescence-focused analysis of Utena. The show has swum through the nuances of femininity as an ideal, sexual agency as a weapon, and the ever-pressing strictures of society with grace, and beyond that, it’s done it without ever feeling the least bit didactic or slow. Beyond anything else, Fujiko Mine has always been fun, never compromising on either its intellectual perspective or its love of adventure.

The show was frankly at its best in its episodic vignettes, where Fujiko was better able to push back against the world’s fetters. But I’m told this final arc ends with a bang, and am eager to see what Okada and Yamamoto have cooked up. For the last time, let’s return to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine!

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Spring 2022 – Week 4 in Review

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Well folks, it happened. I’ve taken every possible precaution, I still only leave the house rarely and fully masked, but I still caught goddamn Covid. As a result, I’ve spent the last four days feeling utterly wretched, guzzling ginger ale and Dayquil, and living pretty much exclusively out of my bedroom/home office. It’s painful, it’s isolating, and it comes with the fun bonus feature of desperately hoping I didn’t infect any of my friends or family before symptoms emerged. The plague has come home at last, and has only intensified my internal fury at all those who believe we have no social responsibility towards our fellow human beings.

Fortunately, while I’ve been feeling far too under the weather to actually engage with any new movies, I’ve still got a healthy film review buffer to deplete before doing anything so drastic as skipping a weekly post. So let’s reach into my bag of film delicacies, and see what I was watching before I was struck down by the hand of god.

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Oregairu S3 – Episode 12

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Alright folks, it’s time to finish this journey. I’ve been watching and writing about Oregairu for basically as long as I’ve been writing about anime; I was writing seasonal reflections back on reddit during the first season, handled Anime News Network’s articles for the second, and am appropriately finishing off the third on my own humble website. After nearly a decade of writing about Oregairu, it’s an exceedingly bittersweet feeling saying goodbye.

That said, it certainly feels like the time is right for this story to end. To be honest, this third season itself has felt somewhat superfluous; both Haruno’s claims of codependency and Yukino’s need to host the prom felt like new injections of drama, not conflicts that emerged naturally from the initial premise. This season also can’t help but embrace the sort of melodrama its predecessors would sneer at, with its character study origins giving way to something a lot more heightened and sentimental. But in spite of the ways we’ve grown apart, I still feel a great fondness for this cast, and am eager to see them step out into the wider world. Let’s say goodbye to Oregairu!

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Eureka Seven – Episode 13

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into Eureka Seven, where we most recently experienced Renton’s first full-on psychological breakdown. As an admittedly post-Evangelion property marked with countless parallels to its big brother, it was clearly only a matter of time before we dove into the weeds of Renton’s mental state, as well as the familial trauma he’s been so assiduously denying. And as a first look at that trauma, this episode provided a number of fresh connections with its predecessor, along with some key points of differentiation.

Much of last episode’s imagery seemed to link Renton’s burgeoning adolescence with the environmental catastrophe facing his planet. Imagery like Renton staring down at himself in a classroom emphasized his expanded post-childhood perspective, while simultaneously evoking the sense of looking into a fishbowl, in keeping with Eureka Seven’s general aquatic theme. Other sequences offered a similar fusion of the personal and portentous – his navigation of an endless bathroom illustrated common feelings of adolescent sexual shame, while the ensuing sequence of falling into a deep sea brought us back to this world’s tectonic emergency. A great deal of anime could be summed up as “adolescent awakening framed as a battle for the fate of the world,” and Eureka Seven is effectively interweaving its internal and external conflicts towards just such an end.

Beyond the episode’s general evocation of adolescent anxiety, there was the further question of Renton’s absent sister. Renton’s sister is the key to his story, the blank space that explains everything else, and his relationship with her complicates his burgeoning feelings for Eureka. Does he truly desire Eureka as a romantic partner, or is he just looking for a feeling of safety, a home to return to? Evangelion made this mismatch of desires explicit: all of the Eva pilots were seeking parents rather than lovers, and thus could never truly comfort each other. But Eureka Seven seems to believe there is hope for its leads to connect, and I’m eager to see how. Let’s get to it!

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