Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week has seen me juggling multiple productions in my race through the year’s outstanding anime, with my apartment diligently munching through both A Hundred Scenes of Awajima and Sparks of Tomorrow. The first has proven an absolutely staggering experience, pairing one of Madhouse’s greatest directors with one of the most wide-ranging and emotionally acute stories of recent years. From its tender illustration of the lies we tell each other to its stark, generation-hopping dramatic scope, Awajima is proving a poignant and insightful drama on all fronts. Meanwhile, in spite of its high-concept premise, Sparks of Tomorrow is falling more in that comic fantasy KyoAni mode of shows like Beyond the Boundary or Phantom World; it’s less ambitious or intelligent than I’d like, but remains visually compelling and generally watchable. I’ll hopefully have both shows tidied up by next week, but for now, let’s run down in the week in film!

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