Tag Archives: Anime

Ranking of Kings – Episode 7

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m simply delighted to be returning to Ranking of Kings, where Bojji seems to have at last crossed paths with his would-be mentor. The road to Despa’s doorstep has been long and treacherous, fraught with near-death experiences and bitter betrayals. Through it all, Bojji has retained his strong conviction and gentleness of spirit, and after half a season of being punished for those laudable qualities, I’m more than ready to see him finally win something.

Meanwhile, it seems Daida has truly run out of options, and is now a prisoner in his own kingdom. Having gained too much power too soon, Daida was undone by his own confidence, favoring the words of those who flattered his ego over those who tempered his pride. This is not to say Daida was uniquely ill-suited for the throne; rather, that like all of Ranking of Kings’ characters, he has been sculpted this way by a lifetime of experience, caught between the preferential treatment of his mother and the indifference of his father. Ranking of Kings does not presume to characterize people as inherently good or evil, worthy or unworthy – we are all an accumulation of disparate experiences, all capable of rising to greatness or falling to despair. Let’s see if Bojji’s can begin his own rise from the underworld, as we return to the remarkable Ranking of Kings!

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Spy x Family – Episode 5

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d check back in on Spy x Family and the Forger clan, who most recently endured the terrifying gauntlet of Anya’s school interview. In spite of their flawless disarmament of the school’s pre-interview booby traps, Loid was unable to keep his cool when the faculty began prodding at Anya’s parentage, resulting in a premature exit from the meeting. That catastrophe has in turn prompted some collective reflections among the Forgers, serving as a harsh reminder of their family’s fragility.

Of course, this is the fifth episode of a show called Spy x Family, meaning Loid’s outburst will undoubtedly be interpreted as an affirmation of his family’s suitability for the school of elegance. I’m not worried about Anya, but I am hopeful about this threat to their family unit actually bringing them closer together, as they reflect on how much they’ve come to care about each other. As usual, I’m most eager to see more of Yor’s perspective; Anya and Loid’s relationship has already been grounded in their larger character journeys, while Yor and the nature of her relationship with the others is significantly less defined. Even just a brief reflection like Loid’s thoughts about his lonely childhood would go a great distance to humanize her, but either way, I’m sure there’ll be solid jokes and charming moments aplenty as we continue this preposterous adventure. Let’s get to it!

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Hugtto! Precure – Episode 33

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to be returning to Hugtto! Precure, wherein we most recently witnessed Homare attempting to reconcile her romantic feelings for a goddamn hamster. I’m frankly not sure how any episode could hope to top that one’s lunacy, and to be honest am not entirely discounting the possibility that it was all a fever dream or gas leak hallucination, but we must nonetheless do our best to carry on. Sometimes high schoolers fall in love with hamsters, this is just a thing that happens, and we’re all going to have to deal with it in our own ways.

With Homare x Housepet safely defused, I imagine we’re nearing the climax of Bishin’s villain arc. Bishin has always seemed more desperate for familial validation than truly villainous, so I’m guessing it won’t take too much of a push from our heroes to rehabilitate Harry’s old crewmate. I frankly wouldn’t mind if Bishin joined the team formally, but given we’ve already had one enemy turn Precure, I imagine “goth hamster Precure” is too powerful a concept to exist in this world. Whatever happens, I’m sure we’re in for a delightful time as we return to the world of Hugtto. Let’s get to it!

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The Demon Girl Next Door – Episode 10

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today it seemed like just the right time to check back in on The Demon Girl Next Door, and see how our strange assortment of demons and magical girls are fairing. Last episode offered up some charming bonding moments between Shamiko, Mikan, and Ancestor, as the three of them checked out a zombie movie and worked on mitigating Mikan’s curse. We also got to see some delightful pettiness out of Momo, as she pouted in the most deadpan way possible upon learning that Mikan was hanging out with her friend without her.

Momo’s increasing sense of jealousy over Shamiko is delightful, a soothing tonic for my romance-hungry heart. It’s also nice to see both Ancestor and Shamiko establishing themselves in the overall group dynamic, which has in turn served to further underline the oppressive nature of this whole magical paradigm. Ancestor has clearly been traumatized by centuries of perpetual failure, while Mikan’s curse serves as a tidy metaphor for the demands put upon even the theoretically favored individuals in this system. An “ideal girl” is quiet, demure, and spotless, in contrast with the loud and agency-demanding women who are condemned as demons. For Mikan, even a hint of dramatic emotions is immediately punished with disaster, turning the patriarchal demand that women be quiet and well-behaved into a literal curse upon her. Demon Girl is clearly not finished articulating its grand magical girl metaphor, and I can’t wait to see what insights and goofiness are up next. Let’s get to it!

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Sherlock Hound – Episode 4

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to Sherlock Hound, which most recently obliterated my expectations via its first Hayao Miyazaki-directed episode. Sherlock Hound has been a gripping and visually splendiferous experience from the start, but with Miyazaki and a great number of his future Ghibli associates attached, the show bloomed into film-tier aesthetic brilliance, offering countless sequences of vivid action and character acting.

Nearly all of the episode’s key positions were filled by long-time Miyazaki associates, from animation director Yoshifumi Kondo (Whisper of the Heart) to director of photography Hirokata Takahashi (Castle in the Sky). And of course, Miyazaki’s own storyboards served as an ideal venue for all these artists, bringing Sherlock’s world to life with more energy and cinematographic allure than ever before. In the escapades of Moriarty and his associates, we saw shades of classic Lupin III, as well as Miyazaki’s abiding love of great and clamorous machines. In the gestures of Sherlock’s tiny employer, we glimpsed the carefully observed body language of My Neighbor Totoro’s heroines. Miyazaki is globally renowned for his film work, but through Sherlock Hound we see that he and his team could spin gold even amidst the mercenary conditions of television animation.

Of course, a great work of anime is more than just a list of famous names. Collectively, this team feels perfectly at home in Sherlock Hound’s whimsical reality, elevating the often dry elaboration of Doyle’s stories into rip-roaring adventures. Doyle’s mysteries are here adorned in clackety-clacking machinery and feverish chase scenes, bedecked in all the passions of their adaptors, but still emanating the fundamental narrative pull of his own imagination. It’s a marvelous fusion of talents, and I’ve surely raved about it to the point of tedium by now, so let’s not waste another moment. Onward, into the continuing adventures of Sherlock Hound!

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Star Driver – Episode 7

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to the scene on the ground at Southern Cross Isle, where just moments ago, Sugata unleashed the power of the King’s Pillar. That’s right, it’s time for more Star Driver, and all the glorious action animation/confounding thematic investigation that implies. After five episodes of tentative worldbuilding hints and regular episodic battles, episode six offered a mid-season board flip of tremendous intensity, explaining Sugata’s true nature just before potentially killing him. Just like Wako, Sugata is tethered to this island by the nature of his inheritance – but unlike Wako, he is trapped not by his connection to the shrine gates, but due to the fundamental danger his power represents.

All of these mechanical revelations slot neatly into Star Driver’s ongoing thematic conflict. The shrine maiden conceit embodies a fundamentally conservative perspective on female sexuality and agency, framing women as caged birds whose “purity” must be protected at all costs. The male counterpart to this framing is men defined as insatiable sexual predators, creatures who simply cannot control their urges (thus necessitating the imprisonment of women and downplaying of feminine sexuality). Sugata being framed as “too dangerous to leave the island” completes the circuit of Southern Cross’ gender paradigm, with the threat he poses summed up by the phallic symbol of the King’s Pillar.

So yes, Sugata has waggled his metaphorical penis around and potentially destroyed the island, himself, or both. But it was for a good cause! Let’s see how he and our other thematically imprisoned heroes are faring as we return to Star Driver.

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Eureka Seven – Episode 16

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Hello, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d step back in on Eureka Seven, wherein Renton most recently drove a strange rift between himself and Eureka. After a trip to his uncle’s farm raised old feelings of inadequacy to the surface, Renton rallied back through his declaration that “I am who I am,” asserting his proud separation from his family’s expectations. Having thus embraced his true desires, Renton was able to pilot the Nirvash like never before, deftly dispatching his enemies and rescuing Eureka in one swoop.

Unfortunately, Eureka doesn’t seem to appreciate Renton’s transformation. Her response to his piloting was simply “that’s not like the Nirvash at all,” and since that flight, she has forbidden Renton from even approaching the mech. Fresh off a key emotional revelation, Renton must now figure out why his actions hurt Eureka so, and what exactly he can do about it.

And honestly, I feel for the guy. These last couple episodes have hammered heavily on the “difficulty of true mutual understanding” theme, a concept Eureka Seven has carried on from Evangelion – but crucially, Shinji’s quest for understanding generally centered on his relationship with other recognizably human characters. Misato, Asuka, and even Gendo possessed full and coherent human personalities – in contrast, Rei Ayanami was always more of a ghost, and was never fully understood by her companions. With her blue hair, minimal emotional responses, and supernatural origins, Eureka is clearly modeled on Rei, meaning Renton is being asked to achieve a connection not just between human beings, but likely between different species. Eureka’s actions aren’t just mysterious to insecure teenage boys, they’re mysterious to everyone – and if Eureka Seven plans on pursuing this thread of sincere connection, it will likely have to abandon some of Eureka’s impenetrable mystique.

In the meantime though, I’m guessing Renton will attempt a whole bunch of attention-grabbing antics that only serve to weird Eureka out. That sounds plenty fun to me, so let’s get right to it!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check back in on Araragi’s progress in Zoku Owarimonogatari, wherein he most recently stumbled across an unexpectedly human Kiss-Shot. Aside from that, Zoku’s last episode was mostly consumed by Yotsugi wandering around and repeatedly mocking Araragi, i.e. your classic mid-arc Monogatari nonsense. Also, Nadeko did the Misato Big Gulp, so that was also some essential content right there.

As far as Zoku’s themes are concerned, the most impactful sequence of the episode was undoubtedly Sodachi’s reflection on the nature of mirrors. As she pointed out, mirrors are not perfectly reflective: they only reflect around eighty percent of the light they take in, meaning some portion of what they reflect is always lost in the balance. Beyond their literal meaning, her words can be interpreted in two ways that are both relevant to this story. First, in a “fantasy mechanics” sense, it is likely that this loss of essence is the reason all of mirror-world’s characters seem so diminished, only expressing one partial aspect of the original people they represent. And secondly, in a more philosophy-of-Monogatari sense, her words speak to the impossibility of fully knowing ourselves, as our impressions of our own identities will always be blurred and incomplete.

Nisio Isin is wise enough to understand that the clarion call of Monogatari – “you must come to know and love yourself, for only then can you truly connect with others” – is more of a hope or prayer than a truly achievable goal. It is what is most difficult and also what is most essential; in a world of chaos and disappointment, self-love is the only route to harmony or contentment. This path towards accepting the self has taken many forms over Monogatari’s various adventures, and in Zoku, this directive is further complicated through the admission that our “selves” are also variable, and impossible to draw fully into focus. But all that’s basically why I love Monogatari; it’s smart enough to understand that true self-actualization is likely impossible, yet optimistic enough to still hope for happiness for all its muddled-up heroes. Let’s get back to the action!

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Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 20

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. How’s everyone doing today? For me, the mood is a little restrained due to the currently overcast weather, but that won’t matter soon, as there ain’t no clouds in SPACE! Wait, are there clouds in space? Don’t quote me on that, I don’t actually know anything about science or the natural world. Regardless, we are indeed piercing the firmament and jetting into the vast beyond, as we check out a fresh episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

When last we left off, Marika had almost made a serious mess of things by misplacing her captain ring. In her attempts to carry the weight of both the Bentenmaru and the yacht club on her shoulders, Marika swiftly exhausted herself, leading to dangerously sloppy behavior. Fortunately, her reliable princesses were there to save her, returning her ring while rightfully demanding she let her companions share her burdens. Marika is clearly a powerful space warrior, but even she can’t handle all these responsibilities alone; fortunately, from the yacht club through the Bentenmaru crew through Serenity’s royals and beyond, she’s established a remarkable network of allies to stand beside her.

With inter-act responsibilities resolved, it’s presumably time to embark on Bodacious Space Pirates’ final adventure. I’m eager to see what shenanigans our heroes get up to, so let’s dispense with the preamble, and set out for the stars!

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Spy x Family – Episode 4

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Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d take another look in on the Spy x Family, who recently celebrated their newfound unity with a group outing. After the first episode secured Loid a child and the second gained him a wife, episode three offered our first glimpse at their overall family dynamic, with the madness that is the Forger clan operating in full swing. Museums were visited, thieves were apprehended, and our trio began to resemble a functioning family, more or less.

That thief apprehension was Spy x Family’s most rewarding sequence so far, as all three of the Forgers got to show off their talents in pursuit of a common goal. But with so much deception baked into their relationships, I’m curious to see how often this story will allow them to be on the same page like that. What I’d most like to see is more tending to our cast’s fledgling points of connection – how Loid’s childhood makes him particularly sympathetic to Anya, how Yor’s sacrifices make Loid seem like a kindred spirit, etcetera. Close personal connections are generally built on vulnerability and honesty, and with Spy x Family’s premise almost necessarily forbidding such gestures, I’m extremely curious to see how it actually brings this trio closer. Let’s find out!

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