Tag Archives: Anime

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You – Episode 8

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are checking in on the hundred girlfriends at a moment of crisis, as Kusuri’s well-intentioned yet morally dubious love potions have sent her fellow girlfriends into a kiss-hungry frenzy. With a pack of feral lovers nipping at their heels, Rentaro and Kusuri must now engage in a race against time to return these girls to normal, lest they be trapped forever as amorous animals in human form.

So basically, it’s just another day in the life for Rentaro and company. Well, mostly – Kusuri’s introduction has undeniably raised the overall chaos level of the production, and from all the “yes… soon…”s that I’ve been receiving from friends on Twitter, I imagine things will never be the same. She is a delightful amoral goblin with far too much power at her disposal, and I look forward to seeing what nonsense she inflicts on our innocent polycule next. Let’s get to it!

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Fall 2024 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to finish this dang article and get the heck outside, as we’re apparently experiencing some sort of late-October summer reprise, with temperatures in the 70s even as the leaves fall from the trees. You gotta take what victories you can during our ongoing environmental collapse, but fortunately for you all, this unexpected bounty of perfect weather has not stopped me from huddling inside and watching movies all week. This week I’ve got epic adventures, sordid slashers, and also a gorgeous anime feature by a man who is rocketing up my list of favorite directors. Let’s break ‘em all down!

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Anne of Green Gables – Episode 18

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d take a stroll over to Green Gables, where Anne is currently embroiled in the midst of a great crisis. With Diana’s utterly unreasonable mother still holding the Currant Wine Catastrophe over Anne’s head, our heroine was forced to break a sacred vow, and at last return to school. Though Mr. Phillips and Gilbert remain detested foes, Anne is determined to be strong for her bosom friend’s sake, and has even learned that the imagination-bereft Millie Andrews is actually a pretty nice girl.

So yes, it has all been a maelstrom of torment for our beleaguered young Anne, as she has been sure to tell anyone who will listen. However, the tempests of adolescent emotion are as fickle as they are fierce, and I imagine this particular storm will blow over in time for Christmas. In the meantime, I’ll be happy enjoying Anne’s preposterous editorializing of her profoundly normal problems, as well as the sumptuous realization of Green Gables offered by Takahata and his formidable team. Let’s get to it!

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Galaxy Express 999 – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to continue our journey aboard the Galaxy Express, and see what wonders the cosmos have to offer us. Well, I say that like I’m expecting anything good to happen, when in truth Tetsuro’s journeys have mostly centered on veneers of exotic beauty peeling away to reveal cores of profound tragedy. The abandoned sands of Mars, the superficial freedom of Titan, and even the majestic beauty of one-time train attendant Claire, all vivid dreams that soon proved themselves nightmares of mankind’s eternal, self-destructive striving.

Of course, theme-ravenous cynic that I am, Galaxy Express 999’s broader reflections on society, capitalism, and whatever else Matsumoto can think of has only made the experience all the more rewarding for me. Through its mixture of fantastical vistas and humanity-in-decline parables, Galaxy Express has proven itself a paragon of one of my favorite genres: the post-apocalyptic travelog, typified by stories like Girls’ Last Tour and Kemurikusa. As it turns out, the ruins of mankind’s hubris serve as an ideal venue for ruminations on what is most essential to humanity, what we must hold sacred even when all else has crumbled. Let’s see what wonders await us at the next station!

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Yuri is My Job! – Episode 3

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to Cafe Liebe, and see how things are faring for our hapless kohai Hime. After being conscripted into service as a replacement for her manager Mai, Hime swiftly managed to trip over or smash into basically every convention of their fictional girls’ academy. Though she has some vague understanding of the genre territory being explored, the lingo is still foreign to her; she has mastered a precise script of feigned modern-day courtliness, but her affectation bears only a passing resemblance to the assumed calls and responses of Liebe Girls’ Academy.

Of course, that precise formality of assumed language is exactly why Liebe’s customers find this performance so enticing. Hime is talented at improvising in the manner of a genuine social butterfly, but the genre-born assumptions of Liebe flatter a very different audience, comforting those who, like Kanoko, find the vagaries of spontaneous conversation foreign and intimidating. Scripts provided by fiction allow those who have difficulty expressing themselves organically to connect with others; when the rules are so clearly defined, there is little fear of putting your foot in your mouth. And of course, it’s not like organic conversations don’t follow their own unspoken scripts, as Hime’s initial talents well demonstrate. All human interactions are in part a performance of selfhood, and through Cafe Liebe, Yuri is My Job! is consistently demonstrating the differences and nuances of performing for yourself, for the sake of being understood, and for the approval of an assumed audience. Let’s see how Hime fucks it up this time!

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Sailor Moon and the Pleasures of Adaptation

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The past few weeks have seen me charging through Sailor Moon, which I’ve long considered one of the most egregious outstanding gaps in my anime education. The series pits Usagi Tsukino and her fellow middle schoolers-slash-sailor guardians against a wide array of foes, as they stumble their way through adolescence while also fighting off supernatural beasties on a seemingly daily basis. Though most episodes follow a fairly similar pattern, the show remains consistently heartwarming, and has been a generally rewarding ride – though not, I must admit, for precisely the reasons I expected.

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Spy x Family – Episode 34

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive right into the presumed conclusion of Spy x Family’s action-packed cruise arc, wherein Yor has fended off countless would-be assassins while Loid does his best to be a Perfectly Normal Man. I am proud to say that both have conducted themselves admirably; Yor’s efforts have prevented any harm from coming to her charge, and Loid has (with a little help from Anya) engaged in such profoundly normal activities as miniature golf and wearing everything in the gift shop.

Along the way, Yor has been challenged to find the answer to a fundamental question: why exactly does she fight? Yuri no longer needs her protection, and while she once saw the Forgers as a cover for her actual work, she’s now more committed to their collective life than her original purpose. What she has decided serves as a tidy echo of Loid’s convictions: she must fight to ensure other families enjoy such happiness, using her skills to preserve peace just as Loid fights for all the lonely orphans of war. I’m sure the two would be quite proud of each other, if revealing their secrets wouldn’t immediately put them in mortal opposition – but for now, I’m just happy Yor’s found a meaningful reason to fight, a drive that will hopefully prompt future growth. Let’s see if we can catch the last of the fireworks!

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Yuki Yuna is a Hero (Washio Sumi Chapter) – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. You all ready for some suffering? I had figured saving the entirety of humanity at enormous physical and emotional cost would have earned the girls of Yuki Yuna a reprieve, but apparently the beatings must continue. With more than a little trepidation, today we journey onward into Yuki Yuna is a Hero’s Washio Sumi Chapter!

If anything, we’re now actually worse off than we were before, as this is a story with a known and terrible ending: the tale of Togo’s first run as a hero, wherein she was adopted into a family blessed by the Divine Tree in order to be exploited as a sacrifice to their god. We learned enough from the first season to grasp the broad beats of this narrative, so what I’m most intrigued about is gaining more context regarding the Divine Tree itself, its nature and how it expresses its will.

The idea that humans are simply pawns in wars between overwhelming eldritch identities, and that we’ve furthermore chosen to ally ourselves with one such implacable being in order to cling to survival, is a fascinating conceit for a magical girl drama. Additionally, human resilience in spite of a profoundly broken world is one of my favorite dramatic juxtapositions, embodied even in that “if anyone says there’s no reason to hope, I’ll prove them wrong every single time” line that gave my site its name. Let’s see how our heroes rally against the dying of the light as we return to Yuki Yuna!

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Skip and Loafer – Episode 10

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to settle down to enjoy a cozy new episode of Skip and Loafer, and see how Mitsumi is faring with festival preparations. Our last episode offered one of this production’s most enchanting tone pieces so far, vividly realizing the nostalgic, lackadaisical atmosphere of Mitsumi’s summer vacation. You could practically feel the sun and taste the watermelon as Mitsumi reunited with her old friends, with this gentle romantic comedy demonstrating its command of boarding, pacing, and sound design can compete with the best slice of life productions in the business.

Now that we’ve returned to school, the race is on to prepare for the upcoming school festival. But while Mitsumi is prepping for the trials ahead, Shima is still bound by the past, unable to embrace his high school life in the wake of his prior transgressions. That’s somewhat understandable given he’s literally got an old friend shouting “how dare you embrace high school in the wake of your prior transgressions” right in his ear, so my current hope is that Ririka and Mitsumi actually meet and hash things out, prompting Shima’s childhood friend to perhaps lighten up and embrace forgiveness. Regardless, I’m sure we’re in for some thoughtfully written and altogether charming shenanigans, so let’s not waste any more time hypothesizing. Onward to the festival!

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Uzumaki – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a new production, as we explore the long-awaited adaptation of horror mangaka Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, or “Spiral.” The acclaimed manga centers on the town of Kurouzu-cho, where some sort of spiral-oriented curse is steadily infecting the townsfolk and the landscape around them. In classic Ito fashion, Uzumaki wavers between eerie body horror and high-concept farce, treading the uncertain line dividing horror from comedy, and ultimately building a profound sense of entrapment and dread across its spiral-centered vignettes.

Whether Ito’s work can be translated to effective animation is another question entirely, and one that has been afforded some worrying precedent through prior adaptations like Gyo and the recent Junji Ito Collection. Conveying horror through the inherently affected medium of animation is extremely difficult; horror generally demands a sense of vulnerability, and an audience’s awareness that they are watching lines drawn on a page tends to undercut any aspirations in that direction. It is additionally the inherent wobbling nature of Ito’s linework, as if he’s scratching with the charcoals of a ritual fire, that often affords his stories such profound emotive power. Stack all that with his work’s tendency to strain suspension of disbelief even in its original medium, and you’ve got a mammoth task facing any prospective adaptation.

Fortunately, director Hiroshi Nagahama is an absolute master of tone, and has already proven through both his Mushishi and Flowers of Evil adaptations that he is literally the best horror director working in animation. If anyone can manage it, Nagahama can, and I’m certainly eager to see him try. Let’s get to it!

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