Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been keeping busy by tormenting my players as usual, as they continue their trek through a temple that has swiftly proven itself some sort of cult initiation center, demanding personal revelations and demonstrations of faith and trust fall-adjacent exercises all the while. It’s the sort of concept that demands a party who have total confidence in both their characters and their ability to embody them, making for a nice payoff now that we’re mostly communicating in character voice, rather than above-table strategizing. I basically snuck the whole Nadeko-reassembly arc in as a way to fill out my own player character’s psychology, and am proud to report my players greatly enjoyed reassembling her psyche one fragment of identity at a time. And of course, there was also plenty of movie screening to be had, as I charged through anime and kaiju collections alike. Let’s get to it!
Tag Archives: Dragon Ball Z
Spring 2025 – Week 1 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’re finally reaching some warmer spring days at this point, which means I can finally… well, mostly just stay inside and keep watching movies, while also feeling somewhat more guilty about doing so. I also watched through the entire Fishman Island abridged version that Toei have been airing in place of new One Piece, which left me with mixed feelings; there were certainly places where the original version could use tightening, but also essential moments and crucially paced sequences that were either excised or abridged to a deleterious extreme. Regardless, the viewing prompted me to finally write the Fishman Island thematic essay that I’ve been thinking about for ages, so you can all look forward to that coming sometime soon. In the meantime, let’s break down the week in films!
Winter 2025 – Week 13 in Review
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!
Summer 2023 – Week 7 in Review
Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a hectic week on my end, as me and my housemates have been racing to find a new apartment that’s anywhere close to affordable (and also accommodating of our beloved Eevee). It’s been ten years since any of us checked the rental market, and it turns out the city has spent that time upping its rates to accommodate the average billionaire looking to spend some time off his moon-yacht, leaving scant affordable housing for the rest of us. Nonetheless, we’ve got at least a couple prospects lined up, and have spent the time in between apartment viewings consoling ourselves with the indomitable spirit of Goku and his companions. Yes, Dragon Ball Z Kai has indeed become a fixture of our viewing schedule, and has left me with a few thoughts regarding the father of modern shonen. Let’s get to it!
Why It Works: What Does It Truly Mean to Be “Over 9000?”
I had a whole lot of fun with this week’s Why It Works article, as it fell into one of my favorite categories of criticism: thorough explorations of seemingly trivial cinematic moments. In this case, the inescapable “it’s over 9000” meme from Dragon Ball Z, a meme whose resonance and enduring nature seems to me to be a natural result of how it articulates the dramatic recalibration from the original Dragon Ball to the more self-serious Z. But enough explaining the article, let’s just get to it!
What Does It Truly Mean to Be “Over 9000?”
Why It Works: Let’s Explore the Finer Points of Anime Power-Ups!
I’ve got another fairly breezy Why It Works column for you all this week, though this one certainly plays into a fair number of storytelling and conflict-building fundamentals. When and how characters overcome their previous limitations is actually a pretty important part of shonen narrative design, particularly since audiences have been primed to assume “sweet power-ups” will always be a part of that genre’s narrative bargain. Today let’s highlight a few broader categories of character improvements, as well as what sort of narratives potentially suit them best. Let’s get to it!
Let’s Explore the Finer Points of Anime Power-Ups!
