Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. The warm days of summer are currently ceding to chill winds and autumn leaves, which is normally a time of great existential terror for me, but I’ve frankly been so preoccupied by the day-to-day chaos of life that I can’t really bother to be scared about aging with nothing to show for it. Instead, I’ve been keeping busy with writing projects big and small, from breaking into the deliciously well-written It’s MyGO! to proofreading the last few quests of my DnD campaign. Also, the live action One Piece came out! My expectations were thoroughly muted after the disastrous live action Cowboy Bebop, but positive buzz and my abiding love for the material drew me back, and I’m happy to report that the live action One Piece is nearly as good as a live action One Piece could possibly be. What does that mean? I’m glad you asked!
Tag Archives: Manga
We Are Not Fireworks: A Silent Voice
“I hope I die before I get old.”
– The Who, ‘My Generation’
A Silent Voice begins with an ending, as Shoya Ishida settles his affairs and prepares to end his own life. Saturated in a cold, otherworldly light, he runs through a list of final preparations: give notice at his part-time job, sell off his belongings, close his bank account, repay his familial debts. Trembling, uncertain piano keys offer a murmur of anticipation like slipping off into a dream; bathed in soft focus, he floats like a ghost towards his terminal destination. It is a somber moment, but also an oddly liberating one. After this moment, he will no longer struggle, no longer suffer, no longer labor under the weight of guilt and self-hatred and despair. Stepping up to the edge of the bridge, he prepares to reenact a familiar ritual of his childhood, leaping out into space in a final prayer of escape.
Chainsaw Man and the Nature of Violence
With a final prayer to Aki, Himeno is consumed by her bonded devil, leaving only scraps of clothing to indicate she was ever here at all. That is the ultimate fate of all devil hunters, the fate of anyone who has been conscripted into a machine that sees them as no more than expendable fuel. Himeno allegedly served a grand purpose, but there is no trace of Himeno in the purpose she served. Only those who stood beside her remember her now, knowing and mourning the passionate, unique human being who was compressed into the shape of a devil-aimed bullet. And even that consolation is a fleeting balm; Himeno sacrificed herself to ensure Aki could leave flowers at her grave, but when he is gone, Himeno truly will be as well.
The Honesty of Magic in Witch Hat Atelier
Across its first two volumes, Witch Hat Atelier has articulated a philosophy of magic that’s quite distinct from your usual fantasy adventure, wherein practice, caution, and discretion are lauded as the key prerequisites for becoming a great mage. That is because, as any great craftsman or artist knows, there is no further secret. With careful study and diligent practice, anyone can create marvels that seem like magic to the untrained eye. Magic is no different than carpentry or painting in its method of mastery – the only thing that does separate it from any mundane craft is the profound danger of its misuse, meaning any large-scale act of magic must be initiated with the greatest of caution.
Bloom Into You – Volume 6
Bloom Into You’s sixth volume begins with the curtain about to rise on our play-within-a-comic. After an entire series spent playing the part of her sister, Touko will in this performance be playing the part of someone who rejects that philosophy outright, and chooses to embrace their own fledgling, uncertain identity. It’s simultaneously a gradual step and a terrifying one. On the one hand, she’s only playing the part of the person Yuu wishes she could be, in the context of an established, inauthentic performance. But on the other hand, she will be performing this new self in front of a vast audience, essentially the entire student body that she has sought to “fool” all this time.
Planetes and Ordinary Happiness
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stare up at the stars, secure and certain of your place within their grand design? To not see the cosmos as a sprawling reflection of all the opportunities you’re conceding, all the moments you’re wasting with every second not harnessed to your true purpose? To truly know who and what you are, your current self and your ultimate intended function? In a universe as vast as our own, the idea that each of us has some destiny that we must seek, some specific route that was made for us among the countless potential paths we might tread, feels more like a hopeless lament than a call to action. And yet some truly do seem to have found their calling, treading confidently forward with certainty at their side.
Chainsaw Man and the Cost of Kindness
It feels uniquely Chainsaw Man-appropriate that three volumes in, Denji could look up and see “Kill Denji” plastered as the volume title of the manga that’s literally about him. The kid just can’t catch a break – not from his enemies, and not from his allies either, for whatever that designation is worth. Aki treats him with nothing but contempt, his other coworkers view him with a mixture of fear and loathing, and the woman he believes he is in love with is simply exploiting his obvious, easily manipulated desires. Pretty much the only person who doesn’t hate or desire to manipulate him is Power, which is an undeniably sad place to be.
Bloom Into You – Volume 5
The first word I’d use to describe Bloom Into You’s manga, particularly in contrast with its animated adaptation, is sparse. Panel compositions are often defined by their vast, empty spaces, leaving plenty of room for the characters’ lingering, unspoken thoughts. This is a fine choice for a story like Bloom Into You, a story so preoccupied with the sense of deficiency or emptiness that haunts its two leads. Emptiness is what Touko sees when she considers what the future might bring – a wholly empty sky, the nothingness where her voice trails off, and the blueprint of behavior left by her sister ends.
Witch Hat Atelier: Magic and Its Misuses
The first volume of Witch Hat Atelier was absolutely delightful for all sorts of reasons, ranging from its charming heroine Coco to the ornate illustrations that bring her world to life, imbuing every page and panel with a vitality born of soft line and incidental detail. But what most impressed me about this manga, so much that I in fact centered my first reflection on it, was Atelier’s insistence on treating magic as a practical, practice-oriented craft, rather than some fantastical power that some gain naturally and others could never possess.
Chainsaw Man – Volume Two
The second volume of Chainsaw Man is a good deal like the first: irreverent, incendiary, and too preoccupied with the base necessity of things like food and shelter to concern itself with high-minded heroism. As Denji and Power are drawn further into the machinations of the Public Safety Bureau, they remain emphatically indifferent to its goals, finding more motivation in the prospect of boobs or gum than the pursuit of justice or civil order. And how can you blame them? What has justice or civil order ever done for them, either when they were wild and desperate on the streets, or now as imprisoned agents of the state? If Denji and Power come across like beasts, it is only them reacting to a world that’s already assigned them that designation, a world that wouldn’t accept them even if they played by its stultifying, hypocritical rules.