Tag Archives: Anime

Winter 2025 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week saw me finishing up Persona 3 Reload, after first attempting and failing to finish the original game back in 2008 or so. I had a fine enough time with it on the whole, though in retrospect, it probably wasn’t a great idea to play this directly after Metaphor: Refantazio. Metaphor demonstrates Atlus’ powers at their current peak, polishing and innovating on Persona’s framework in both a mechanical and narrative sense; in contrast, 3 feels dated compared to its successors, its core loop less embellished with variations, its narrative wandering and poorly structured. Nonetheless, there’s a core appeal to Persona’s make friends->build Pokemon->make more friends->build stronger Pokemon loop that remains one of the most addictive compulsions in game design, and I did appreciate 3’s clarity of thematic focus, even if it was kinda lacking in the human element that made 4 and 5 so special. Also, movies! We ran down a pile of movies this week, so let’s get to those!

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Mezzo Forte – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out another unique artifact of anime history, from a creator with a truly singular career track: Mezzo Forte, the two-episode turn-of-millennium OVA directed by Yasuomi Umetsu.

Umetsu has jumped between production studios frequently throughout his career, serving as animator and character designer for a variety of productions before making his directorial debut with the exceptional “Presence” segment of Robot Carnival. That sequence is Umetsu at his best, demonstrating his distinctive, detailed style of character art alongside his exuberant, almost gaudy approach to color design. Since then, Umetsu has proven himself an exploitation cinema auteur, with his on-hands approach to every aspect of production marking works like Kite and Wizard Barristers as indelibly his. There is a solemnity and playfulness in Umetsu’s work, but these instincts share space with prominent threads of indulgent erotica and chaotic action; it is little surprise that Tarantino loves his work, and even less of one that Tarantino has not been able to win him a cultural reassessment on the scale of Battle Royale.

All of this is to say that Umetsu embodies the distinctive strangeness of anime as a medium, a man wholly dedicated to his grindhouse vision, and whose talent in design, direction, action staging, and animation are so undeniable that his works carry his obsessions into the spotlight. Whether they flatter my genre wheelhouse or not, I am always eager to expand my understanding of anime’s true originals, and Umetsu emphatically qualifies. Let’s see what awaits us in Mezzo Forte!

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Big Windup! – Episode 16

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We report to you now from the first round of the summer tournament, where the top-seeded team and last year’s winners Tosei are facing off against the largely unknown Nishiura, whose roster appears to consist of largely freshmen players. Predictions weren’t calling for much of a competition today, but you know what, I gotta hand it to these Nishiura newcomers – whether it’s Tosei’s star pitcher Takase showing some nerves or whatever you’d call it, the freshmen are really putting up a fight.

We’re now at the top of the second inning, with Nishiura once again mounting a strong offensive in the face of Takase’s pitching. That said, the real story of this game might well be Nishiura pitcher Mihashi Ren, who knocked Nishiura out of the first inning in six pitches flat. Could that simply be beginner’s luck, or are we witnessing the first prelude of a new dynasty? Regardless, it’s turning into an all-out slugfest as both teams grapple for first blood. Let’s get back to it!

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero (Washio Sumi Chapter) – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to a scene of great and senseless tragedy, as we check in on Togo and Nogi in the wake of their partner Gin’s heroic sacrifice. With both of her allies incapacitated and a squadron of vertices approaching the divine tree, Gin did what she’s always done: take the burden entirely on herself, fighting and dying so that the people she loves could be safe. That same selfless instinct that made her such a caring older sister and fixture around town was here ruthlessly exploited, manipulated so that she might become fuel for beings beyond our comprehension.

That’s pretty much how it goes in Yuki Yuna is a Hero. The series has consistently emphasized how personal kindness and a sense of communal responsibility are exploited by our overseers, perverted into jingoistic nationalism and an utter denial of the self. True heroism always reveals itself on the personal or local level, in the actions of Yuna’s hero club, or in the concern Gin extends towards her neighbors and loved ones. But when such generosity of spirit is directed towards god or country, it is instantly corrupted, framed instead as emotional weakness ripe for exploitation. Whether it’s a government, religion, or the eldritch conflation of both that is the divine tree, loyalty to such distant icons is where our inherent goodness goes to die – and today, an extraordinarily decent person was killed just so, in service to a deity that has no conception of morality whatsoever. Let us see how our survivors are faring, as they struggle in service of the centralized, amoral beast at the heart of the modern world.

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Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to hop back aboard the Galaxy Express 999, whose recent cliffhanger has left Tetsuro kidnapped by the mysterious Ryuz. Curiouser still, it appears that Maetel possesses some knowledge of this woman; Ryuz explicitly stated that Maetel was “beyond her grasp,” and though Maetel attempted to dissuade her, she ultimately put up little resistance to Ryuz’s kidnapping of our poor boy.

What all of this means is still a mystery, largely owing to our fragmentary understanding of Maetel herself. It’s clear she is connected with the Galaxy Express’ parent organization, most likely an heir of its manager or creator, and that she is herding Tetsuro towards some ominous secondary objective. The fact that Ryuz couldn’t claim her could point to her political importance, her secretly metal body, or something else entirely; regardless, I am perhaps most intrigued to further explore Ryuz’s time-distorting powers, which offer an interesting counterpoint to the story’s prior thoughts on time. We have mostly focused on the loneliness of eternal life within a metal shell, but the brevity of a human life offers its own sort of terror, particularly given the absurd scale of space travel. So is it more tragic to embrace such a brief flicker of existence, or to be the one left to mourn the passage of those who do? Let’s find out!

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – Episode 9

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to return to the ramblings of Frieren and her companions, as we arrive at the presumed conclusion of our party’s battle with Aura the Guillotine and her duplicitous envoys. This arc has frankly not been Frieren at its best; dubious thematic implications aside, enemies that are simply “born evil” do not result in interesting drama. There is no motivation to tease into there, no grappling with the infinitely complex range of conflicts that can pit multifaceted characters into mortal combat without a clear sense of right and wrong. And what’s more, such enemies do a discredit to the heroes they face, forcing them into the frustrating moral binary of “either I execute these creatures mercilessly or I am simply a naive fool, hoping for a redemption that is beyond their fundamental nature.”

It’s a rough storytelling choice, one entirely lacking in the nuance that has characterized Frieren’s exploration of nostalgia and finding purpose in life. My only consolation is that, in spite of the author directing her demons to explicitly state “we are evil and there’s nothing else to it,” their general actions have clearly demonstrated they actually do have personalities, individual values and passions that define them. Truly “driven by pure malice and nothing else” characters are actually kind of hard to write, being so far from the genuine experience of any human being who has ever lived. Thus Frieren’s insistence that they be exterminated feels frequently undercut by the text, either intentionally or accidentally implying it is not that her world runs according to ‘70s DnD logic, but that she herself has embraced a conveniently simplistic perspective that doesn’t actually account for the world’s complexities. That’s of a piece with Frieren’s overarching personality, and it is the main hope I cling to as we return to the field. Let’s get to it!

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Hugtto! Precure – Episode 48

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we stand on the precipice of eternity, as Hana fights to overcome George’s machinations and restore hope for the future. Having been aided in this battle by not just her Pretty Cure companions, but also the former employees of Criasu Corp, her struggle has embodied the promise of personal reinvention, that an unhappy past not define our future, and that people of all ages are capable of shedding their fetters and seeking what is truly most important. Pupple and her companions, Gelos and her beloved butlers, Traum, Risutol, Bishin – though all once believed their best days were fading memories, all were lead by Hana to see that there is still so much beauty in the world, and so much left to look forward to.

And now, there is only George. A man who appears to have taken all of humanity’s suffering on his back, and who sees the only way to maintain happiness as preserving it in amber, sealing our happy moments in stasis as in a picture, or the paintings he loves so much. George has at times represented the paternalistic misogyny facing women in society, the anonymous cruelty of placing your corporate underlings in brutal competition, or the simpering smile promising escape from destitution through wage slavery. Here at the end, those faces merge into one cold promise, a seemingly compassionate assurance that nothing will ever be better than it is now, so you might as well make the good times last. Through struggle and self-doubt, Hana has refused to give up hope for the future, and I don’t think she’s stopping now. Let’s fight for a brighter tomorrow!

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Trigun Stampede – Episode 5

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to descend to the sand-swept wastes of No Man’s Land, as we check back in on Vash and his companions for another episode of Trigun Stampede. When last we left off, the team had just barely survived a horror-themed outing in the belly of a giant sand worm, where a mysterious, youthful assassin known as Zazie the Beast nearly got the whole group digested. Fortunately, they were aided in their escape by Nicholas D. Wolfwood, a so-called priest wielding a giant gun in the shape of a cross.

Both the worm and its master provided a natural opportunity to expound on Trigun’s moral philosophy, as Vash questioned Wolfwood’s conception of “monstrousness,” as well as his pragmatic view of survival. Vash is a martyr forever seeking his own destruction, seemingly finding it easier to sacrifice himself for others than to defend the worth of his own life. To Wolfwood, such a view is self-defeating and ridiculous; life is obviously its own reward, and clinging to it by whatever means necessary is the only directive worth following, particularly in a world as cutthroat as No Man’s Land.

The two work as well here as in the original Trigun because they are actually quite alike, and are simply coming at a perspective of world-weary humanism from opposing directions – Vash from a refusal to harm others, and Wolfwood from a willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure others survive. Their similarities and differences alike are summed up in their approach to the dead worm – Wolfwood demanding that Meryl eat the beast he has slain, the burden he has taken himself, versus Vash quietly attesting that he too deserves to eat and laugh like anyone.

Furthermore, our stinger revealed that Wolfwood is actually in cahoots with Zazie, a fellow assassin looking to manipulate Vash and his companions. Like the origins of Vash’s nature, the original Trigun only revealed this information at the end, basically after the point it could in any way inform our understanding of his character, so I’m intrigued to see how this new structure will impact the show’s portrayal of his journey. Let’s get to it!

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BanG Dream! Ave Mujica – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to the tortured drama of Ave Mujica, as Sakiko continues to either exorcise or embrace her demons through the novel vector of gothic rock music. Our last episode served as something of a companion piece to MyGO’s first episode, demonstrating the calamitous personal events leading up to CRYCHIC’s dissolution from Sakiko’s perspective, and revealing that it was as much a lifeline for her as for Tomori. Just as Tomori found in CRYCHIC a genuine, non-judgmental (well, Soyo aside) community, Sakiko found a slice of normalcy, as well as a lingering connection to her absent mother.

In the wake of that breakup and Tomori’s subsequent reemergence, I suppose we can forgive Sakiko for getting a little melodramatic. Truthfully, it does seem like Ave Mujica is going to be tonally and narratively distinct from its predecessor; while MyGO reveled in subtlety and visual inference, Ave Mujica is all about oversized dramatic gestures and enormous feelings, seeming more like the Dear Brother to MyGO’s Hyouka. The tone matches the band: theatrical rather than confessional, anthemic to the point of emotional generality rather than specific to the point of intimate individuality. Given all that, I see two potential paths ahead: that this is simply the Kakimoto/Ayana team reveling in a different subgenre, and letting Sakiko’s flair for the dramatic color the entirety of her narrative, or that this is as much of a perspective-oriented trick as MyGO’s third episode, and that Sakiko’s unreliable narration will eventually be complimented or challenged. Regardless, it’s still very fun watching these nightmares in action, so let’s charge onward to the trials of Ave Mujica: Unmasked!

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Record of Lodoss War – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to announce we’re embarking on the first step of a new adventure, as we check out the beloved Record of Lodoss War, a truly distinct artifact of the anime OVA boom. Though it was eventually adapted into a series of fantasy novels by Ryo Mizuno, Lodoss War initially arose as a series of actual play transcripts in the gaming magazine Comptiq, detailing the Dungeons & Dragons adventures shared by a handful of fantasy writers.

As such, Lodoss War is in many ways a product well ahead of its time, a precursor to the podcast-driven resurgence of DnD typified by shows like Dimension 20, adaptations like The Legend of Vox Machina, and even my own ongoing recounting of my first campaign as Dungeon Master. Dungeons & Dragons began as little more than a fantasy-flavored combat simulator, but it has become a flexible canvas for grand acts of myth-making and emotional drama, as different groups of players find their own balance between mechanical rigor and fantastical invention.

All of this makes Lodoss War an interesting cultural harbinger, if nothing else. That said, it’s doubtful this OVA series would be remembered for that alone – instead, it is Record of Lodoss War’s sumptuous art design and iconic characters, including the inescapable elf maiden Deedlit, that have made it such an enduring artifact. Yutaka Izubuchi’s original character designs are lifted into the stratosphere through this production’s strong array of storyboarders and animators, with director Akinori Nagaoka here assisted by such legends as Rintarou on episode boards and Toshiyuki Inoue on key animation, as well as Escaflowne character designer Nobuteru Yuki handling the adapted designs. It’s always a pleasure visiting this beautiful production, and I’m personally fascinated by DnD’s intersection of game design and collaborative storytelling, so let’s not waste a moment longer. The adventure begins!

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