Tag Archives: Anime

Star Driver – Episode 19

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am beyond impatient to get back into Star Driver, and see what fresh calamities are besetting the inhabitants of Southern Cross Isle. After a brief flash of normalcy guiding us into the story’s third act, the last episode saw us again off to the races, as fresh secrets were unveiled and Kate’s ambiguous role in our story came into focus.

As it turns out, Kate has been lying about basically everything to basically everyone. Her friends have little idea of her role within Kiraboshi, while her identity as a shrine maiden is a secret kept even from her Kiraboshi collaborators. And it’s little wonder why – shrine maidens here are not active actors, they are tools, beings kept both metaphorically and even literally in bird cages. It is the wielder of the King’s Pillar who acts, affirming the conservative world order that has caused one after another shrine maiden to flee the island, seeking their own identity outside of the confines of Southern Cross.

In this way too has Kate been an irrepressible liar, lying about her desires even to herself. Though she scorns Wako for holding onto dreams of stardom, her own yearning for that dream is clear in her rigorously practiced karaoke performances. And though she claims to have accepted Wako’s status as Sugata’s betrothed, her nightly visits with the King’s Pillar prove she has not given up on her first and only love. It’s an intriguingly anguished position she’s found herself in, and I’m eager to see what happens as her tangle of deceptions come to light. Let’s dive into Star Driver!

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Fall 2023 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to report that I’ve mostly shaken off the illness of last week, which indeed proved to be an unwanted but altogether mild bout of Covid. I have emerged from sickness with arms swinging, having barreled through a variety of games, films, and shows as I try to cram as many last-minute additions as possible into the year’s variable attractions. With both One Piece Odyssey and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off concluded, my house is now indulging in what has become an unexpected Projekt Red tradition: playing through one of their games while simultaneously munching on the relevant TV adaptation. Considering what a good time we had both watching and playing through The Witcher at once, we’re now both watching and playing through Cyberpunk, and having a very reasonable time of it. I’ll have more to say on those projects soon, but for now, let’s run down a fresh selection of films, shows, and what have you in the Week in Review!

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The Tatami Galaxy – Episode 3

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Returning to The Tatami Galaxy feels a bit like returning home. It was a show I initially watched early on in my post-college return to anime, and even wrote about for reddit back when I was writing for upvotes rather than rent. It, like basically all Yuasa productions, embodies the intersection of animated creativity and thematic inquiry that specifically enthralls me about anime – an intersection frequented entirely by creators who simply cannot suppress their own artistic inquisitiveness, who are working in animation specifically because it offers more fanciful freedom than any other pursuit they could imagine, more ability to capture life as experienced rather than simply as recorded, more potential for bending narrative and art design to unimaginable, transcendent purposes.

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am pleased as punch to be returning to The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You, a show whose first episode proved its clear and compelling candidacy for the “heartwarming harem” subgenre. Though harem anime don’t exactly have the most sterling reputation, the field’s superior entries are actually quite endearing, featuring varied casts of characters who are all having an excellent, intermittently horny time together. Romance doesn’t need to be serious or melodramatic; it can also be energetic and silly, and shows like 100 Girlfriends demonstrate the clear merits of such an approach.

Perhaps most crucially, 100 Girlfriends understands that for a harem to be compelling, the actual nexus of that harem must be as engaging or endearing as their potential paramours. And indeed, Rentaro has proven at least as cute as his first two girlfriends, charting a charming course between “bewildered everyman” and “perfect boyfriend.” Let’s see what madness awaits him next!

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BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am impatient to return to the thunderous drama of MyGO, in the wake of the casual all-timer that was the band’s first live performance. Like MyGO’s third episode, the seventh was a masterclass in focus and perspective, drawing the audience into the band’s precise headspace through its patient evocation of the tension in the green room. And then that performance! Their two songs proved a staggering celebration of how far our heroes have come, with Anon’s diligent practice and Tomori’s courage leading them through a genuinely impressive concert set. And unlike many musical dramas, it never felt like we were switching a flip into confident “performance mode” – these were the characters we’ve come to know on-stage, insecurities and limitations and regrets included.

Of course, some of our bandmates were carrying more regrets than others. This performance was a great victory for most of our group: Anon proved to herself and the others that she can actually keep up with them as a musician, Taki’s anxieties about leadership were put to rest by the success of the final result, and Tomori was able to affirm the validity of this new sunny spot, this Haru Hikage that sounds different, but still feels like home. But for Soyo, this band has never been its own reward. It has been a means to reunite with the members of CRYCHIC, a placeholder bearing stand-ins soon to be replaced by Sakiko and Mutsumi. With the new group’s rendition of Haru Hikage essentially confirming Tomori has replaced Sakiko, and Sakiko acknowledging this statement with a tearful exit, Soyo’s cheerful façade has shattered. Soyo’s out for blood, and I can’t wait to see the fallout; after all, one of my favorite character arcs is “guarded cynic learns their friends still appreciate their true self,” plus Anon’s sure to be delightfully unbearable about Soyo finally showing some earnest feelings. Let’s get to it!

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Fall 2023 – Week 11 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am suffering under the weight of an illness that I’m hoping against hope isn’t COVID, and can only pray you’re all having a much easier time of it this December. Fortunately, I’ve stacked up so many film and series screenings over the past few weeks that our reviews are under no threat of abating; in fact, I’ve actually increased my review buffer substantially, while continuing my march through the year’s most noteworthy animated offerings. This week I finished off Pluto and immediately dove into Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a show which took the inherently inessential nature of a Scott Pilgrim adaptation and turned it into a proud statement of purpose. I’ll have more to say on Scott next week, but for now, let’s run down Pluto and some fresh seasonal offerings in the Week in Review!

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Kaiba – Episode 10

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With Neyro and the Warp she knew as Kaiba tragically reunited, our tenth episode begins just before their first meeting, at the moment their story began. We open with Warp flying high above his planet of swirling canyons and grasping towers, his strange and claustrophobic kingdom. Dirt below and smog above; it is an oddly insular world, in spite of his position on the throne of this transhumanist empire. The more you seek to control your world, the more narrow that world will become; we cannot hope to claim ownership over humanity’s sprawling potential, only limit that potential to the point where it can fit within our grasp. Humanity can only express its true vibrancy unchained; we have seen the brightness of humanity struggling onward in the private margins of this world, but here in the seat of Warp’s power, there is nothing but refuse and resentment.

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Spy x Family – Episode 26

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am tossing and turning in the maelstrom winds of the apartment hunt process, which has understandably got my nerves a-frazzling. As such, I’m feeling hungry for some animated comfort food, and fortunately the second season of Spy x Family has arrived just in time to wrap us all in a collective blanket of familial cheer. Spy x Family’s first season was consistently funny, often surprisingly thrilling, and perpetually brimming with love for its awkward protagonists. Tatsuya Endo has proven to be an inventive sculptor of both spy and family drama, and the combined talents of Cloverworks and Wit Studio have made for a persistently generous animated adaptation. With last season having concluded on the fateful first encounter between Loid and his target Donovan Desmond, I’m eager to see both the continuation of Operation Strix and the Forgers’ further cohesion into something resembling a functional family. Let’s get to it!

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero – Episode 6

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check in on the continuing adventures of Yuki Yuna and her hero club, and satisfy my intense curiosity regarding what exactly we’ll be doing with the rest of the season. You see, the normal procession with magical girls is generally one antagonist an episode, all leading up to an eventual showdown with the big boss somewhere near the end of the production. However, Yuki Yuna has casually flouted this assumed structure, piling the entirety of its remaining antagonists into its fifth episode, and having our heroes claim their grand victory before we’d even reached the season’s halfway point.

This is all quite exciting stuff to me, as you might guess. There’s nothing wrong with reliable narrative templates; sturdy scaffolding can allow artists to hone in on smaller details of presentation, characterization, or whatever else a story prioritizes. However, it is through breaking with convention that you often find new intersections of structure and dramatic impact, while unmooring your audience such that they experience your twists with the intensity of true surprise, no more certain of their destination than your characters. Let’s see what the horizon holds in a fresh episode of Yuki Yuna!

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Horus, Prince of the Sun

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am thrilled to announce we’re returning to the classic films of Toei Doga, and what’s more, we’ll be watching the film that’s generally considered the pinnacle of the era: Isao Takahata’s directorial debut, Horus, Prince of the Sun.

Though even the earliest films of Toei Doga demonstrate the talent of mainstays like Yasuji Mori and Yasuo Otsuka, it was Horus where a new generation of talents really came into their own, including Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Bonded all the closer by the ongoing labor protests, Horus’ team would create a high water mark in animation that simultaneously served as a broadening of animation’s potential. As Miyazaki would describe it, Horus embodied the world of animation shifting from one of farce to “Chishu Ryu’s world,” widening the medium’s dramatic priorities and opening the door to thoughtful, meditative works that went beyond energetic escapism.

So basically, that strain of inquisitive melancholy that so fascinates me in anime was in many ways forged in the production of Horus, owing largely to Isao Takahata’s unique and far-seeing perspective. It’s the same thoughtful approach that would lend such gravity to his later Ghibli films, that would migrate out to inform generations of future animators, that would ring through to the modern era through the works of artists like Naoko Yamada. Otsuka would happily admit that this turning point was the moment anime as a medium stretched beyond his own ambitions, and that he’d rather “let the director direct, and have fun doing my own thing.” Miyazaki’s description of this change was humble as well, as he admitted that “only Yasuji Mori” understood the essence of Horus was the melancholy girl Hilda, not the adventures of Horus himself.

Even today, anime for the most part constrains itself to stories of adolescent adventure, indulgence, and bravado. But for the productions that reach beyond such topics, that struggle to depict ordinary happiness and everyday melancholy, the substance of lives as they are lived – for those stories, Horus was a guiding star, and a triumph of animation by any standard. Let’s get to it!

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