I was going to open this article with “it’s been a year, huh,” but then looked back and saw that’s exactly how I opened my last Year in Review, which pretty much tells you how things are going. You’d think we might have a handle on this whole global pandemic thing by now, but with my country currently enjoying its greatest surge so far, it looks like we’ll be living with the plague for some time to come. With the external world having compressed itself into a perpetual “now” of shelter-in-place routine, it becomes all the more important for us to handle our own marking of time, through celebrations like the summing up of the year in retrospect. So in that regard, I suppose you should all be thanking me for adding some unique dynamics to your weekly routine. You’re welcome, don’t mention it.
Tag Archives: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Top Ten Anime of 2019
Hello all, and welcome to the end of another year in anime. This has been an undeniably difficult year, both in the world at large, and within our smaller sphere of Japanese animation. The Kyoto Animation arson stole dozens of lives, leaving a studio that embodied all the brightest hopes of this industry in ruins. From its artist training programs to its full-time employment opportunities to its gorgeous and moving productions, Kyoto Animation is a shining star in anime, and I can only find solace in the massive groundswell of support its employees have received, and its leaders’ commitment to maintaining their irreplaceable vision and place in the industry. This has been a year of tragedy, but I pray that we can end it with hope, and seek to right some of these terrible wrongs in the coming months.
This has also been a year of anime, and that’s what I’m actually here to share with you. My tastes have changed to some extent over the last year, but I still tend to value the same basic things in art: rich characters, engaging thematic arguments, inventive, expressive art design, and a sturdy narrative center. Not all of my top ten shows this year embodied all those qualities, and some of them were frankly just a really fun time, but I enjoyed all of them, and I hope you find something to enjoy among them too. I tried to at least check out every show I thought had a chance of making it into this list, but as usual, a couple fell through the cracks – in particular, I still need to catch up on O Maidens in Your Savage Season, burn through Symphogear’s final seasons, and get started on Beastars. Those aside, I at least checked out nearly all of this year’s shows, and have plenty of thoughts to share with you all. Without further ado, here’s Wrong Every Time’s Top Ten Anime of 2019!
Spring 2019 – Week 12 in Review
Anime was good again, folks! After a punishing drought, my seasonal contenders emerged with episodes that were, if not full returns to each of their strengths, at least indicative of their potential. Demon Slayer had one of its most visually astounding episodes yet, with the tight geometric confines and perspective-based conceit of its latest battle allowing ufotable’s team to pull off a truly astonishing spectacle. Carole & Tuesday finally felt like it was regaining some momentum, and gave us our first new song by its leads in three weeks. And JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure continued to center its drama on an extremely no-nonsense talking turtle, a choice which obviously justifies itself. There’s plenty more details to discuss, so let’s dive right into another Week in Review!
Spring 2019 – Week 11 in Review
The spring season just doesn’t seem to be ending that well, unfortunately. Though this week’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was hindered more by the inherent limitations of an exposition-focused episode, both Demon Slayer and Carole & Tuesday felt like they were running out of momentum, and too often lingering on their worst elements. Demon Slayer in particular is definitely hovering in the drop range at this point – the show’s writing is consistently terrible, and the reintroduction of the insufferable Zenitsu made it feel like the show was outright challenging me to keep watching. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m only sticking with the show until the summer provides some new bright-eyed anime children to suffer my inevitable disappointment – but until then, I’ve got plenty of grievances to share with all of you. Let’s break down another resoundingly mediocre week in anime!
Why It Works: Bucciaratti Versus Secco: Breakdown of a Classic JoJo Battle
Today I returned to one of my favorite styles of Why It Works articles, as I went point-by-point through the smart storytelling choices of JoJo’s most recent major battle. There is both an art and a craft to great action storytelling, and I appreciate Araki for consistently demonstrating all the finer points of this unique storytelling form. Let’s get to it!
Bucciaratti Versus Secco: Breakdown of a Classic JoJo Battle
Spring 2019 – Week 9 in Review
Holy hell folks, we’re at the three quarters mark of the season. One of the sad truths of aging is that each week, season, and year somehow passes even faster than the last, but fortunately, at least this week’s cartoons were really excellent. Every single show I’m watching offered a fine episode this time; the combination of Carole & Tuesday having a slightly weaker episode and everything else excelling meant this week was pretty much an even line of solid entertainment from start to finish. They weren’t even the kind of straightforward “well that was competently executed” good that leaves me without much to talk about – they were good in exactly the convoluted, context-dependent ways that make for plenty of meaty critical interrogation. Let’s dive into the spoils then, as we break down another impressive week in anime!
Spring 2019 – Week 8 in Review
There is nothing truly new to report about this week’s anime as a whole, and I’m already two hours late on posting this article anyway, so we’re jumping right into it, folks. Demon Slayer was solid, JoJo was ridiculous, Sarazanmai was repetitive, Carole & Tuesday was transcendent – I think that’s about it for preamble? Yeah, I think we’re basically covered. Starting off with Tanjiro and Nezuko’s shonen shenanigans, let’s run down one more week in anime!
Spring 2019 – Week 7 in Review
As we enter the second half of the season, all of my airing contenders have more or less settled into their default modes, as hope and anticipation solidify into weekly expectations, and rambunctious young stories find their mature footing. Demon Slayer’s episodic strengths and weaknesses have become relatively predictable, while Carole & Tuesday’s consistent genius is now the one goddamn thing I can rely on in this blighted world. Predictability gets a bad rap, but being predictably terrific is a pretty good thing in my mind, so I am all in favor of Carole & Tuesday’s choices. Let’s check in with our young rock stars and all this season’s other heroes, as we plow through another Week in Review!
Spring 2019 – Week 6 in Review
Well shit you guys, the season’s halfway over. Traditionally, this would be the time where instead of offering reflections on this week’s episodes, I rank the overall field of everything I’ve watching. However, once I started cutting down my seasonal watch schedule to only the shows I was genuinely loving, that became a pretty meaningless exercise. I could rank my viewing schedule, but everything I’m watching is something I’d highly recommend, so what would be the point? In light of that, I instead started to simply summarize my overall impressions of each show so far – but as one commenter pointed out, you can already get a pretty clear view of my overall feelings on a show from my weekly commentary. Given all that, today I’ll be offering… an entirely normal installment of the Week in Review! Yes, that’s right folks, we’ll be celebrating the seasonal halfway point by doing exactly what we always do. I can tell your excitement is already at a fever pitch, so I’ll wrap this intro up now, as we dive into one more extremely normal Week in Review!
Spring 2019 – Week 4 in Review
The anime is good, folks. I may have intentionally reduced my seasonal payload to a lean and star-studded roster which is almost categorically incapable of disappointing me, but either way, the anime is good. I think this week’s episode of Carole & Tuesday was actually the show’s best yet, which is really saying something, while Demon Slayer pulled off its most impressive visual feats so far. JoJo maintained its recent string of fantastic episodes, and though Sarazanmai is getting a little repetitive, there was still plenty to appreciate in the main stage debut of its third protagonist. But you’re not here to read summaries of summaries, so let’s get to it. Here’s to one more week in anime!