Ranking of Kings – Episode 2

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Confession time: between the last Ranking of Kings article and this one, I took the time to watch the entire goddamn series, in preparation for 2021’s year-end article. This turned out to be a remarkably easy process; Ranking of Kings is a delight from start to finish, and its story winds in such unexpected yet ultimately satisfying ways that it’s easy to one-more-episode your way through the entire first season.

Bojji’s adventures feel simultaneously iconic and personal, with the show using its ostensibly archetypal characters to ultimately reveal the irreducible complexity of any one person’s experience and perspective. It’s simultaneously a work of fantastical invention and poignant humanism, a combination that describes many of the very best works in anime. It’ll take until the show’s second half to determine if Ranking of Kings stands among them, but for now, I’m happy to once again experience one of 2021’s greatest productions!

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Winter 2022 – Week 6 in Review

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I have a confession to make: I have no idea what days or weeks are anymore. Initially, as a replacement for the original reflection on weekly anime episodes, it felt effortless to simply echo that pattern with the films of the week. But of course, as a nervous workaholic who uses art consumption to stem the terror of existence, I’ve ended up watching and writing well ahead of any reasonable or sustainable weekly output. As a result, I now have a “Week in Review buffer” of like fifteen films, and yet couldn’t begin to place any of these films in the theoretical weeks I ostensibly reviewed them. Time is an illusion, but content is forever, so I hope you’ll forgive me for the increasingly loose conceptual justification for this weekly article conceit. Let’s get to the films!

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Star Driver – Episode 1

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be embarking on a new journey, as I at last dig into one of the few modern anime remaining on my must-watch list. It’s time at last for Star Driver, that variably beloved collaboration between writer Yoji Enokido and director Takuya Igarashi.

This pair have spent the last decade mostly slumming it on the mediocre action/comedy Bungo Stray Dogs, but there was a time when they were each key contributors to some of the greatest anime of all time. Yoji Enokido wrote scripts for Revolutionary Girl Utena and Evangelion, along with spearheading the writing of stunning GAINAX projects like FLCL and Diebuster. And Igarashi has been a legend since the ‘90s, shifting from Sailor Moon to Ojamajo Doremi and Ashita no Nadja, while more recently finding time to direct cult favorites like Ouran High School Host Club.

Enokido and Igarashi’s talents are beyond question, but I have almost no experience with Star Driver – I basically just know “it’s a giant robot show where teen hormones power the robots,” and also “it’s far less acclaimed than you’d expect given its key creators.” Conjecture is cheap, so let’s waste no more time pondering what Star Driver might be, and get right into the business of what it actually is. Onward!

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Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 16

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Ladies and gentleman, we have finally arrived. After fifteen episodes of setup and space adventures, Bodacious Space Pirates has at last reached the promise of its title: an entire yacht club’s worth of high schoolers, let loose and in command of a majestic pirate ship. As much as I love the Bentenmaru’s usual crew, it is even funnier to see them wince and grind their teeth as the equivalent of a litter of puppies is set loose on their delicate machinery. The yacht club almost blew up the ship just sending it into hyperspace; god knows what will happen if they actually have to cross blades with an enemy ship, or really accomplish anything more difficult than progressing through empty space. This production’s sturdy scifi groundings and slice of life stylings have at last converged into beautiful madness, and I am pretty much vibrating in my seat in anticipation of the chaos to come. Let’s return to Bodacious Space Pirates!

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ODDTAXI – Episode 13

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It’s not that I go to art specifically seeking punishment, or anything like that. I understand the appeal of stories that simply sooth or excite us; these are noble causes, and any balanced art diet will naturally contain many cheerful and comforting stories, works that can serve as emotional candles in the dark. But ultimately, it is the works that test their heroes to the limits that most directly speak to me – the stories that acknowledge a genuine darkness in the world, and are both too smart and too earnest to answer that darkness with either platitudes or escapism. Even when the protagonists of such stories fail, there is a vitality in their striving that feels inspirational all the same. The more bleakly honest a narrative’s perspective, the more solace I can take in its heroes’ struggles, as they bravely face the unrelenting terror of existence.

ODDTAXI’s heroes have all struggled to make peace with that terror, and I love them for that all the more than if they’d somehow “figured it out.” There is no “figuring out” the modern intersection of technology and capitalism; we live in an era where we’ve all been redefined as products, and humanity is, in a very literal sense, not built to handle the pressure of society’s collective surveillance. All we can do is find some peace within this paradigm, holding close to the people we care for, and understanding we are far more than our retweets or viral posts or dating profile cachet. The world can attempt to commodify us, but to the people we love, our worth will always be beyond measure. Here’s hoping at least a few of ODDTAXI’s lost souls come to see their true worth, as we return for the last time to this poignant production.

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Winter 2022 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. After the overwhelming sequence of complex and criticism-rich films from last week, I was more than ready to enjoy some straightforward comfort food. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a whole bunch of horror screenings for this week’s post, but don’t worry, I also found time to check out a hidden gem of animation, along with whatever films I’ll hopefully add to this post between writing this paragraph and releasing it. In the meantime, it’s starting to feel like our house is actually running out of reliable horror selections, so if you’ve got any suggestions, please do your best to terrify us. Alright, let’s kick off the Week in Review!

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Anne of Green Gables – Episode 5

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to Anne of Green Gables, a shimmering jewel of a show, and one that has been thoroughly brightening my weekly schedule. I say this in spite of the show’s last two episodes serving as a delicate lesson in heartbreak; even when Anne is down in the dumps, her personality remains vibrant and idiosyncratic, making for delightful company. Meanwhile, the world around Anne is painted in a dazzling array of colors, with distant towers and forested alleyways promising adventure around every turn. With one of anime’s greatest appreciators of pastoral beauty at the helm, Anne of Green Gables illustrates the beauty and allure of the natural world like few features I’ve witnessed – and most of those also in Takahata’s oeuvre.

For this episode, Takahata will actually be stepping back a bit, as we’re moving into the first episode he didn’t personally script and storyboard. This episode’s scriptwriter Seijiro Koyama is a regular on Anne, but otherwise only worked on the Tom Sawyer masterpiece adaptation. On the other hand, storyboarder Fumio Ikeno is a masterpiece theater mainstay, having boarded or directed on over a dozen of the block’s properties. Let’s see how Takahata’s collaborators illustrate this generous production, as we return to Anne of Green Gables!

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Big Windup! – Episode 8

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Our boys have done it! After nine agonizing innings of tense gameplay and fraught psychological drama, Abe and his teammates have secured victory over Mihashi’s old team. Of course, a great part of that victory came from accepting that Abe is not the undisputed leader of his team. It took Tajima’s support to get Mihashi back in the dugout after failure, and it was actually Mihashi himself who made the crucial discovery regarding Oda’s batting strategy. As a fellow control freak, I can sympathize with Abe’s desire to micromanage every aspect of his victory – but ultimately, his perfect team can only flourish through him letting go, and trusting his players as much as his own instincts.

The results of that trust are already clear to see. When offered the opportunity to return to a repentant Mihoshi, Mihashi unambiguously declared his new allegiance, and then passed out for his first peaceful sleep in a week. Abe believing in his teammates means they will believe in him, too, and play far better for it. With our heroes having secured their first victory and consolidated into a true team in the process, I’m eager to see where their journey leads us next!

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Oregairu S3 – Episode 9

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What the fuck is wrong with you kids? Why can’t you let yourself embrace happiness for one goddamn second? Why you always gotta be martyring yourself for the sake of social conventions you don’t even fully understand? What is so wrong with having a good time with the people you love!?!?

Jesus cripes this show drives me crazy sometimes. The challenge to Yukino’s prom has been circumvented, yet our heroes are actually even more distraught than before, more certain they’re doomed to majestically drift apart. Kids, you’re only seventeen, you could fuck up for the next five years straight and still be ahead of the curve. And why would you take advice about relationships from a woman who’s destroyed all of her own personal bonds, anyway? Sometimes I feel like Ray dealing with Little Nephew when it comes to these anxious little devils, but it’s hard to fault the realism of teenagers thinking they don’t deserve love. I’m really hoping this is the low point of their journey, but I’ll be sticking by them regardless to the end. Let’s dive back into Oregairu!

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Winter 2022 – Week 4 in Review

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Boy oh boy do I have a collection of films for you today. With our house’s reliable contributor of genuinely bad suggestions on vacation (sorry Neil, but it’s true), we experienced a week of all-thriller-no-filler, storming through unimpeachable classics and a variety of great new features alike. We cleared out a couple of 2021’s top outstanding features, leaned back to snag Kaufman’s latest film, and also spent some time with that irrepressible showman, Orson Welles. It all made for a weighty, criticism-ready pile of cinema, and I feel like my thoughts are going to start tumbling out of my head if I don’t get to them immediately, so I’m just gonna quit with this labored introduction and get to the good stuff. Let’s run down the Week in Review!

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