Spring 2021 – Week 8 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. I’ve got a bit of an oddball collection for you today, driven by my housemate’s tendency to essentially throw darts at the dartboard of our various streaming services. As a result, I watched a couple films that were not on and would likely never approach my radar, along with the requisite pile of One Piece, and at least one genuine classic. I’ve also been watching some actual airing anime, and have so far been thoroughly impressed by ODDTAXI – I just recently wrote up the first episode, and will have another piece coming soon. I’ll be trying to fit in Dynazenon as well over the next few weeks, but for now, let’s run down the week in films and One Piece!

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Spring 2021 – Week 7 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We have got a lot to get through today, and a bunch of it is actually anime-related this time! I finally checked out the Given movie, filled in one of the great remaining gaps in my Gainax knowledge, and even watched Netflix’s Death Note movie – along with which, of course, there was plenty of the usual horror and One Piece. Our One Piece momentum has slowed down just a tad, but we were still able to bound through the Sabaody Archipelago, while leaving more room to return to my crawl through cinema history. We’ve got a lot to break down and I assume you’re supposed to be working or studying right now, so let’s get right to the Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 6 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I ran through a diverse grab bag of films this week, including a few recent features, an old horror classic, and some genuine bullshit. I generally prefer silence when I’m not actively watching something, but one of my housemates is most relaxed when there’s some sort of background noise in the environment, so we tend to compromise with films that categorically could not command our attention: The Meg, G.I. Joe, etcetera. Along with that, I’ve also been surging ahead through One Piece, and have now blown entirely past Thriller Bark. It was a productive week and I’ve got plenty to talk about, so let’s get right to it and dive into the Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 5 in Review

Hello everybody, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve sadly got a pretty quick Week in Review for you all this week, as I didn’t actually get around to too many films. On the other hand, my house did push through a fair amount of anime, even beyond our continuing voyage through One Piece. I’m still keeping up with My Hero Academia, even if it seems like the world at large has moved through several Next Big Things since then, and we also made a final push through the last peaks of Bleach’s adaptation. Shonen series have basically consumed all the time slots I was previously dedicating to exploring western cartoons and prestige dramas, so while I feel a little guilty that The Wire and The Sopranos and whatnot have to wait, I simply cannot imagine I would be having more fun with them than the Straw Hats at the moment. You guys will get your turn, I just gotta see what Luffy does over the next seven hundred episodes first. In the meantime, here are my scattered weekly thoughts!

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Spring 2021 – Week 4 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve once again got an oddball collection of films for you all this week, along with more reflections on my ongoing journey with One Piece. I’ve learned over time that you really have to tune down the amplitude of praise people apply to their favorite properties, as they’re generally speaking from a position of deep emotional attachment, and more expressing that than anything essential to the property itself. Because of that, claims of One Piece being some uniquely spectacular shonen kinda faded into the din of claims that every show is uniquely spectacular – thus, I have been completely blindsided by the fact that One Piece actually is as good as everyone says it is. It’s doing stuff in shonen that I’ve associated with Hunter x Hunter and literally nothing else, and I’ve found myself hooked on it with precisely that same HxH intensity, a need to barrel through episodes like I’m stuffing my face with delicious, narratively nutritious popcorn. But we’ll get to that soon enough – let’s first start off with some films, as we bound through the Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 3 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’ve got a bit of an odd selection for you all this week, as a fair amount of my standard movie-watching time was once again consumed by One Piece. I am loving the heck out of One Piece, but I’m also noticing a problem developing here – given my amount of free time, the show is more or less functionally infinite, so I’ll have to find a better way of managing my watch schedule. Still, having a pile of Chimera Ant-scale arcs in my future is a nice feeling; it’s been some time since I felt this much natural incentive to plow through an anime, so I’m cherishing the feeling, and letting it serve as a reminder that plenty of great shows are still hiding out there. I’ll find you, great shows! Just listen to the sound of my voice, or… no, no, I’ll come to you. Just wait right there!

Anyway, the Week in Review.

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Spring 2021 – Week 2 in Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We ran through a wild grab bag of films this week, touching on fantasy, action, comedy, and even a Musical Filmic Journey that more or less defies characterization. Along with these various films, I actually have been watching a fair amount of anime in my free time, though I haven’t even started with the spring season yet. Instead, I’ve mostly just been gorging myself on One Piece, powering through Skypiea as I work on Monster Hunter Rise, and having an altogether terrific time with it. Did you folks know One Piece is good? Niche property, I know, but probably deserves a second glance. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll dig into that at more length, so let’s dive right into the Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 1 in Review

Hey all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I watched a grab bag of horror movies this week, along with continuing my journey through the Ghibli catalog. I’m frankly getting a little anxious about that Ghibli journey at this point; I now only have one Miyazaki left, two Takahatas, and then a light scattering of their non-royalty productions. That’s not enough movies! Like my dive into Mamoru Oshii, I’m realizing that what initially felt like an intimidating library of canon classics actually comprises just a handful of films, and when I’ve watched them, that’ll be it. Anime is extremely young among art forms; if you’re judging from Tezuka onwards, its birth is actually still within living memory. Fortunately, there are still plenty of other mountains to climb – I certainly need to watch the pre-Ghibli Toei Doga films, I’ve got a bunch of key ‘70s and ‘80s series to examine, etcetera. But it’s an odd feeling to realize a once-imposing slate of historical context is now largely behind me, and when I’m done, there will be no more Miyazaki or Takahata films to enjoy. I guess you can’t really have a journey without a journey’s end.

Anyway, enough of that melancholy nonsense. Let’s break down some films!

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Winter 2021 – Week 12 in Review

Oh my god, have we got some shit to wade through. My house began this week in film with an awful mistake, as I actually joined my housemates for a genuine hate-watch. I’ve on the whole stopped seeking out things that I know are going to be bad; there is infinite great media out there, which is all great in a variety of new and enriching ways, whereas bad media tends to be predictable, familiar, and dull. It doesn’t feel fulfilling to flex on something that’s bad; it’s too easy, and generally I’d rather just enjoy something good. Well, I broke that rule this week, and I duly paid the price for it. Fortunately, the rest of this week’s viewing experiences were much more compelling, so let’s just take the medicine first then, as we plow through another Week in Review!

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Winter 2021 – Week 11 in Review

Hello all, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. I had a fairly light week in extracurricular film studies this time, as my free time was mostly just spent hammering out the last act of Control, and also playing even more Slay the Spire. Look, the game has twenty difficulty levels for four different decks, and is specifically designed to tell me I’m awesome for learning to draft Magic cards in middle school, so me and it will likely remain acquainted for quite some time. In the meantime, I did manage to sneak in my second Dario Argento film, as well as an interesting but flawed recent attraction, and yes, even more Bleach. Without further ado, let’s break ‘em down in the Week in Review!

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