Tag Archives: Anime

Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 4

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to dive back into Wonder Egg Priority, and at last catch up on the ongoing discussions. Wonder Egg Priority is such an aesthetically compelling, intellectually intriguing production that it’s essentially brought anime blogging back to life. kVin has already written multiple essential posts regarding its production, Emily’s consistently illuminating the nuances of its flower language, Steve’s putting in overtime work over at ANN, and even my friends at Isn’t It Electrifying? have been throwing their hats in the ring.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious: Wonder Egg Priority is a critic’s delight, combining Naoko Yamada’s cinematic approach to visual storytelling with a surrealist, thematically driven narrative that juggles sharp-edged topics with ease. It is equally confident conveying the precise emotional tenor of witnessing a classmate being bullied, and also the fantastical disorientation of falling into another world. For those who see anime as a uniquely compelling vehicle for conveying intimate human feelings, Wonder Egg Priority feels like an avatar of our faith in practice.

Just as Flip Flappers illustrated the wild discord of our dreamscapes as a path to knowing ourselves, just as The Eccentric Family used a dash of magical realism to evoke the jubilant freedom of young adulthood, so does Wonder Egg Priority use its fantasy flourishes to convey the overbearing weight of social stigma, self-hatred, and alienation. Its heroines are playing a game they are presumably designed to lose; meanwhile, the steady procession of victims and villains illustrates how all young women are set up for failure, where abusers frequently benefit from institutional support, and victims are taught to blame themselves. Even if the eggs weren’t purchased from a gacha machine, it’d be clear this is a rigged game. All Ai and her friends have is solidarity, but as a group who’ve been selected precisely because they feel they drove others to suicide, can they really learn to trust each other, and love themselves?

Let’s find out.

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 37

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Hello everyone, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. This week I surged ahead on projects and actually improved my buffer, inching myself back towards that “one full month of prepped articles” that I try to maintain. And with my Why It Works articles for the next three weeks in various stages of prepping, I’m feeling exceptionally on top of things at the moment, almost like I’m a genuinely mature adult or something. And as a genuinely mature adult, it is my privilege to spend the rest of today writing about Pokemon, where I’m sure Ash and his friends are already embarking on a new adventure.

Last episode was a barn-burner, as Ash at last faced off against Akalan Queen Olivia, and completed the next stage in his Island Pilgrimage. Considering the last two episodes were both dominated by high-tension battles, I’m expecting we’ll be slowing things down a bit this week, and leaning back towards the show’s slice of life model. Fortunately, Sun and Moon tends to actually be at its best when things slow down, and it can indulge in the plentiful pleasures of the Alolan peninsula. Whatever comes, I’m sure there’ll be charming character moments and beautiful animation cuts aplenty. Let’s dive back into the world of Sun and Moon!

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Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 3

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Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are absolutely continuing our journey through Wonder Egg Priority, as this show kicks all the kinds of ass, and I’m frankly tired of being behind on its weekly discussion. I know, Nick Creamer caring about ongoing anime discussions in the year twenty twenty-one? It’s a shock to me as well, but Wonder Egg Priority is just that kind of show; a story that feels instantly essential, and which provokes the long-slumbering dragons of anime blogging to once more raise their feathered quills, and rise together in praise for a show that’s Genuinely Really Good.

Wonder Egg’s second episode held relatively closely to the model of the first, introducing a new egg girl for Ai to save, and establishing the beginnings of a friendship with fellow egg savior Neiru. We also received a bit more context regarding Ai’s relationship with Koito, as well as the parameters of her egg-saving missions. Given all that, I’m expecting the show to soon disrupt its episodic model, but we might be in for another episode or two of monster-of-the-week missions, if only to integrate the other girls from the show’s OP. Alright, that’s enough speculation from me; let’s dive right back into Wonder Egg Priority!

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Why It Works: The Madness of Hunter x Hunter’s Hero

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Hey everyone! For this week’s Why It Works, I dove back into Hunter x Hunter, that seemingly infinite well of potential storytelling topics. This time, I explored the unique ways the show characterizes its protagonist, and how it manipulates our expectations regarding its genre to essentially conceal Gon’s most frightening qualities. I’ve sorta been going through Hunter x Hunter one arc at a time, highlighting various strengths of the show along the way, and this time I cheated a bit – this is technically the “Greed Island article,” but it’s more about Gon than Greed Island itself. Still, I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it too. Let’s get to it!

The Madness of Hunter x Hunter’s Hero

Wonder Egg Priority – Episode 2

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Hello everyone, and welcome back. Today we’re exploring the second episode of Wonder Egg Priority, 2021’s most intriguing production so far, as Ai Ohto works to save her friend Koito. Of course, it’s questionable whether Koito can truly be “saved” at all; Ai watched her die, and though the mysterious overseer of her current task claims that salvation is possible, we have no reason to trust their words.

But while Ai’s narrative destination is still far from clear, Wonder Egg Priority has been proceeding with absolute confidence so far, making me feel confident in turn about its eventual structure. I’m not a fan of mystery for its own sake, as I feel that generally, mysteries tend to exist apart from what a show is “trying to say,” as a purely narrative hook. On the other hand, when a show’s “mysteries” are baked into the ambiguity of its themes and imagery, I’m a huge fan. Rather than distracting from a show’s thematic and emotional content, mysteries like this actually spur investment into the show’s ideas, while simultaneously aligning the audience with the protagonist’s perspective. This is the grand trick of shows like Madoka or Utena, and I’m delighted to see Wonder Egg Priority pulling it off so well. Without further ado, let’s dive into the second episode!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 36

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IT’S TIME. After braving the forests of Akala in order to take down the island’s Totem Pokemon, Ash has at last earned the right to challenge Olivia, and compete in her Grand Trial. It’s been a solid twenty-five episodes since Ash last fought in a Grand Trial, and since then he’s gained both Iwanko and Nyabby, along with plenty of fighting experience. Sun and Moon never disappoints when it comes to its action setpieces, and given the clear significance of this Grand Trial, I’m expecting some spectacular feats of animation. 

So far Sun and Moon has rarely focused on the tactical interplay of pokemon battles, which makes sense. This isn’t truly an action cartoon, it’s more of an adventure/slice of life production, and thus the stakes of its conflicts tend to focus more on character emotions and personal resolutions than combat supremacy. Characters generally “win” by growing or learning something new – but last episode, Ash’s Totem battle embraced some genuine tactical interplay, leaving me hopeful that this fight will also supplement its visual flare with some crunchy tactics. Either way we’re in for a visual feast, so let’s not waste any more time, and charge forward to the Grand Trial!

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Maquia and the Beauty of Parting

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Tucked away in a remote village, the Iorph tend to their cloth. Known as the “Clan of Partings,” they are creatures of an older world, and live long, long lives compared to the humans that surround them. But the cloth lives longer still – referred to as the “Hibiol,” it is woven with the stories of its people, the trials and triumphs of our lives recorded in shimmering fabric. It can be a lonely existence, hidden away from the world, and the young Maquia feels isolated by her duties. But as her teacher tells her, even if we feel alone, our precious memories exist within the cloth, along with all the people we’ve loved. “They cry with us,” her teacher says, wiping away her student’s tears. This is why the Iorph must protect the Hibiol – through doing so, they protect the past, and ensure their stories endure.

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Why It Works: The Quiet Lessons of Laid-Back Camp

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Laid-Back Camp is friggin’ back, meaning I can once more wax rhapsodic regarding the meditative, life-affirming qualities of the best slice of life anime. That basically covers this article, which digs into the ways Laid-Back Camp’s methodical approach to camping, as well as its general framing of the outside world, essentially works as a form of mindfulness training. Let’s get to it!

The Quiet Lessons of Laid-Back Camp

Jobless Reincarnation – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be checking out… wait, seriously? An isekai? Don’t you folks know how I feel about those? Well, a job’s a job, so I guess today we’re checking out the industry’s latest isekai production: Jobless Reincarnation.

I don’t know anything about Jobless Reincarnation in particular, but I do know that I am flat-out exhausted by the isekai genre, and basically every one of its assumed qualities. There is definitely a strong potential isekai within the template as we know it – a show that genuinely reflects on the alienation of modern society, and interrogates the self-defeating ugliness of using fanatical fandom as an escape from reality. But even the shows that ostensibly do this, like Re:Zero, are still drenched in obnoxious otaku-isms, and simply not written well enough to keep my attention.

Characters in isekai shows speak in fan-aimed cliches, not like human beings, and the worlds they interact with are playpens filled with otaku ephemera, not convincingly realized alternative worlds. They are a warm hug aimed at a very specific set of consumers, which lack either the maturity of perspective or beauty of narrative craft to offer anything to a general audience of art-likers. As someone who has read a lot of actual adult-aimed novels, light novel storytelling is almost never going to impress me; particularly in this field, where novels are frequently written by amateur authors who are taking influence from other amateur authors, and being guided by editors whose notes presumably run the range from “needs more harem archetypes” to “mention her boobs more.” It’s the blind leading the blind while a third guy actively guides them off a cliff, and while the results of this process are understandable, they’re not generally consumable.

So that’s my opinion of isekai anime: a genre with theoretical potential, but no shows I could recommend to art enthusiasts, constructed under economic conditions that may well preclude the creation of any genuinely interesting art. Let’s see what I think of this one!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 35

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! This is my first episodic article written after winter break, so I’m planning on easing back into the rhythm of work with some lighthearted Sun and Moon. When last we left off, Kaki had joined Lana in ascending to a new power level, having rescued his home island’s ceremonial crown, and even scoring himself a powerful Marowak in the bargain. With two of Ash’s companions having essentially conducted their mid-journey evolutions, I’m guessing it’s now time for Mallow or Sophocles to earn a similar boost – or else we could just frolic on Akala for a while, and maybe check out the local beaches. Look, when you format your anime as a perpetual vacation, you end up with a lot of options for showing the audience a good time. Let’s not waste a moment then, and see what awaits us back in Alola!

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