Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I have some bittersweet news, as we’ll soon be reaching the end of a delightful journey, and leaving some friends behind. Yes, it’s time at last to watch the conclusion of Adachi and Shimamura, and see if these two mixed-up kids are gonna make it out okay.

Of course, it’s unlikely that this episode is going to feel truly definitive in its resolution of our heroines’ drama. For one thing, the light novel series this show is based on just released a new volume five days ago. But more importantly, Adachi and Shimamura are still a great distance away from true emotional honesty, or even a comfortable understanding of themselves.

This isn’t their fault, obviously; I mean, they’re high schoolers, how well could they know themselves? But it’s a credit to Hitoma Iruma’s storytelling that I can already see the road sprawling out beyond them, the hills they’ll traverse and hurdles they’ll encounter on the way. Adachi and Shimamura are imperfect and unsure in resoundingly human ways, and at all times, their story has emphasized that our identities are not fixed points.

The Adachi and Shimamura we met at the beginning of this story are quite different from the Adachi and Shimamura we now know, or the ones we might meet in the future. The easy, ignorant solace of their first few encounters has been lost; they each know too much about the other, and have each grown in their own way. Adachi has gained the confidence to act on behalf of her desires, while Shimamura has begun to feel like she has desires, after a long period of emotional dormancy. The desire for intimacy and inevitability of change have set our heroines on a tumultuous course, but their feelings for each other have held strong. Let’s join Adachi and Shimamura for one last time!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d say we’re past due to check in on that most hapless of couples, the perpetually self-defeating Adachi and Shimamura. In spite of Adachi’s joy at the two of them once again sharing homeroom, the slight barrier of their desks’ distance proved to be almost insurmountable. And when a new group of students decided to make friends with Shimamura, it was all too easy for each of them to slip back into old habits.

Adachi and Shimamura has been refreshingly honest about the stop-and-start pacing of personal development. Its characters falter often, embracing the comfortable over the unknown, and frequently second-guessing their own emotional development. Nothing about Adachi and Shimamura’s relationship is “fated” – it would have been easy for the two to drift apart right here, and for Adachi to become another Tarumi-like figure of nostalgia and regret. The fragility of this relationship is nerve-wracking, but it’s also what makes the drama land; these characters feel imperfect in emphatically human ways, and my ability to relate to their frailty makes me want to see them happy all the more. With two episodes left, I’m guessing we’ve got time for maybe three-and-a-half more heart-stopping emotional revelations. Let’s see what’s next!

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into Adachi and Shimamura, as our beleaguered heroines continue to inch closer to each other. Valentine’s Day turned out to be an unmitigated success, with Shimamura’s feelings for Adachi coming across even more clearly in contrast. After a day of nostalgia and melancholy spent with her old friend Tarumi, retracing the same steps with Adachi fostered some very different feelings. Rather than introducing the prospect of a love rival, Tarumi ultimately ended up reaffirming how Adachi is genuinely special to Shimamura.

Of course, that was just one of last episode’s many rewards. The Tarumi meetup also offered an opportunity for Shimamura to reflect on her shifting identity, as she lamented the pain of reaching out to her prior, “incomplete” self. The person Tarumi sought was a stranger even to Shimamura – but ultimately, Shimamura decided that the friction of attempting to restore these once-sundered bonds was worth it. Where Shimamura would have once discarded both Tarumi and Adachi when they became an emotional burden, she is now making a genuine effort, and working to maintain the relationships that are important to her. That in turn reflects the fact that she cares now – these bonds providing genuine comfort, partially dispelling the grey malaise that has characterized her unchanging days. Shimamura has made tremendous progress, and I’m eager to see how her dynamic with Adachi changes now that she actually wants things again. Let’s find out!

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It’s just one thing after another with these two, isn’t it? It seemed like we were making some genuine progress through their Christmas date, but then Adachi pulled her usual disappearing act, resurfacing just in time to get anxious all over again about Valentine’s Day. Then, when it seemed the two of them were actually inching towards some sort of mutual understanding, Shimamura’s original Adachi-like lamprey appears, eager to rekindle a personal relationship with her. Considering Adachi’s profound insecurities regarding her importance to Shimamura, I imagine we’re in for a real charnel house of a Valentine’s Day celebration.

That said, our leads have made some key, undeniable steps forward in terms of their psychological conflicts. Both of them have admitted that the other’s presence has “returned some color” to their world, a clear enough metaphor for rising above the muffling haze of depression. Additionally, they’re each starting to recognize the differences in how they perceive each other; Adachi understands that Shimamura doesn’t reciprocate her overwhelming passion, while Shimamura is doing her best to respect Adachi’s intense feelings. They’re close enough now that the idea of genuinely honest conversation is no longer a distant dream – so of course, here comes Tarumi to throw a wrench in the works. Let’s wince our way through the fallout for another episode of Adachi and Shimamura!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to that utterly hopeless couple Adachi and Shimamura, as the two do their best to navigate the perils of Valentine’s Day. Adachi raised the specter of Valentine’s Day through what has become her signature romantic gesture: asking Shimamura to hang out on what she frames as an arbitrary day, and then reacting with shock when she learns this day is apparently Christmas or something. Her gambit is obvious, adorable, and kinda sad all at once, but at this point she’s two for two on tricking Shimamura into dates, so something must be working.

As for Shimamura, it seems like she may have reached a genuine turning point in her emotional struggles. Shimamura has spent most of this series in a depressive haze, seeing no color or joy in the world around her, and mostly just going through the motions of high school life. With nothing to inspire her passion or drive her forward, she felt detached from the world around her, and too distant to reciprocate Adachi’s feelings. Now, having long grappled with the fear of Adachi disrupting her sense of self, she is beginning to see the world in color once more. Adachi has begun the work of restoring her passion, and I’m eager to see if this date will represent another step forward. Let’s get to it!

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Oh my god Adachi, what the hell are you doing. After a full episode of working herself up to asking Shimamura on a date, and another episode of screaming internally all through that date, she ultimately capped off Christmas by declaring her intent to become Shimamura’s… best friend. The girl is a mess, but Shimamura isn’t exactly helping. She can clearly recognize Adachi’s much stronger feelings, and isn’t really sure what to do about them. Paralyzed by indecision about her future course, she sees reciprocating Adachi’s feelings as a step too far – and if she acknowledges them without reciprocating them, their current relationship would collapse. The two are currently progressing by telling each other lies that they both know are lies, and if that’s not the proper foundation for a lasting relationship, I don’t know what it is.

However this mess plays out, I’m sure it’ll be as entertaining and thoughtfully observed as the road so far. Let’s dive back into the mess of emotions that is Adachi and Shimamura!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to Adachi and Shimamura, where the tension is heating up as we approach their Christmas day utterly platonic friend-cherishing celebration. Though Adachi wanted to ask Shimamura on a genuine date, a combination of her own fear and Shimamura’s clear hesitance prompted her to append some qualifiers to the invitation, and assure Shimamura that this is purely about not wanting to be alone. And for her part, Shimamura was happy to embrace that deception, rather than risk fracturing their fragile bond.

Both of their fears are completely understandable, but it is also clear that their current dynamic cannot last. In spite of her anxieties, Adachi is steadily moving towards admitting her romantic desire for Shimamura. In contrast, Shimamura isn’t even sure if she wants a romantic relationship, or what Adachi truly means to her. This mismatch of desires is making it harder and harder for each of them to feel satisfied with their relationship, and is furthermore creating an unequal power dynamic, where Adachi must subvert her own desires in order to keep Shimamura from abandoning her. Though it’s been framed as a platonic outing, I have to imagine this Christmas meetup will only exacerbate the tension of their unequal desires, offering us plenty of that painful friction that makes character dramas so satisfying. It’s time for some emotional fireworks, so let’s get to it!

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be continuing our journey through the achingly anxious courtship of Adachi and Shimamura, two individual messes who somehow get exponentially messier in each other’s vicinity. Last episode, Shimamura managed to drag Adachi along on a karaoke expedition with her other friends, though it really didn’t do much to break the ice between them. Instead, Adachi learned a very different lesson – that Shimamura herself is somewhat distant from her friends, in spite of their generally easy rapport.

Though they genuinely enjoy each other’s company, Shimamura and her friends are more friends of convenience and proximity, the sort of friends you naturally accumulate in high school, but tend to drift from as you grow into your adult self. Shimamura’s friends embody the liminal stasis that she has recognized in herself, while Adachi sits on the other side, drawing Shimamura towards a new potential identity. Shimamura is scared by this process, but still enchanted by Adachi; though Adachi is too insecure to focus on anything outside her own feelings, her presence is forcing Shimamura to grapple with these emergent feelings, and perhaps discover who she truly wants to be.

For now though, I presume they will continue to flail past each other in their hapless, adorable way. Without further ado, let’s dive into another episode of Adachi and Shimamura!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You all ready to enjoy some Adachi and Shimamura? Well, “enjoy” might not be the appropriate word for this show. After all, the bulk of its running time is frequently comprised of Adachi and Shimamura coexisting in uncomfortable silence, while Shimamura reflects on how this relationship might be reshaping her self-image, and Adachi screams GIRL HOT GIRL HOT internally at the highest possible volume.

They make for an interesting pairing; Adachi’s understanding of her emotions is so limited that she’s basically running on feral instincts, while Shimamura is deeply self-reflective, but not so mature that she can actually reach healthy, productive conclusions from her personal reflections. Ultimately, each of them are fascinated by the other, but possibly more afraid of getting hurt than they are enticed by the idea of being loved. It’s precisely the kind of messy, honest emotional disconnect I love to dig into, and it’s been too long regardless since we last checked in with these anxious kids. Let’s dive back into Adachi and Shimamura!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today we’re returning to Adachi and Shimamura, where I believe we last left off with our leads acting like hopeless and hopelessly gay weirdoes. Let me just confirm that…

Yep, confirmed, our very last scene was dominated by Adachi thinking about how loud her bones are while she sat in Shimamura’s lap. The girl has got it bad, and while Shimamura is a bit better at playing it cool, I can’t imagine she’s used to this level of intimacy, either. The two are a delightfully mismatched pair of messes, with Adachi clearly struggling from some deeply ingrained social phobias, while Shimamura casts around aimlessly for a “bright future.” Adachi is already beginning to wonder how much of Shimamura’s fascination with her is genuine, so I’m guessing we’ve got some rough seas approaching. Either way, I’m eager to dive back into this wonderfully character-rich production!

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