Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been another productive week on my end, as I’ve reduced my outstanding Current Projects to less than a dozen essays and other features, with my article buffer now encompassing more than a month’s worth of drafts. I’ve matched that productivity with a fair portion of off-the-books anime viewing, as we munched through more of Gundam’s supplementary Universal Century projects, as well as anime films both venerable and vestigial. Having watched so many of the early Toei films, I’m now looking to round out my ‘80s animation education, while also likely taking a break from Gundam to watch some other outstanding series; I haven’t quite decided yet, but Nadia, Mononoke, VOTOMS, and Moribito are all high on my list. Anyway, I’ll catch you all up on that when I get to it, but for now let’s break down my latest animated escapades!
Tag Archives: Mobile Suit Gundam
Winter 2024 – Week 12 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am riding high on the success of our new campaign’s first session, wherein I took on the guise of Tilly The Goblin With Anxiety, and became fast… well, acquaintances at least with my party of a swashbuckler, mad scientist, and Dandelion From The Witcher. Having already completed two campaigns with this group, our confidence in executing in-character drama has never been higher; compared to actually serving as dungeon master, simply staying in character during the session feels totally effortless, and I’m thus looking forward to more directly party-driven drama in the sessions to come. And alongside that, I have of course continued with our regularly scheduled film and anime screenings, munching through some light One Piece adventures while also completing Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. I’m frankly not quite sure where to go at this point in our Gundam journey; I suppose Gundam Unicorn would be the next natural step? Anyway, I’ll figure that out myself, while you all enjoy my latest week in films!
Top Anime of 2023 (And Year in Review)
Another year has come and gone, leaving us undeniably older and presumably wiser, though at this point it’s hard for me to tell if each new year of knowledge outpaces the mental erosion of aging. That phrase “they’ve forgotten more about subject than you’ll ever know” always seemed a bit strange to me – I mean, I’ve forgotten way more stuff than I’ve remembered, and I don’t exactly take that as a point of pride. I’m really good at forgetting stuff! It’s probably what I’m best at! It does not make me a better thinker or critic!
Winter 2023 – Week 8 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a highly productive week on my end, as I surged through the last act of Space Runaway Ideon, and topped off the series with a viewing of its apocalyptic concluding film Be Invoked. That screening served as a fine trail marker for a project that I’d initially assigned myself as research: filling out my understanding of Tomino’s style and the classics of the ‘70s and ‘80s, starting with the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Of course, as anyone who’s actually seen the original Gundam knows, the show is actually thrilling even for modern audiences, and hasn’t really aged poorly in any way beyond the mores and production constraints of its time. And the ways it goes beyond most modern anime, both in its ambition and its maturity, make it no surprise that Gundam has become such an enduring franchise. Anyway, I’ve clearly got Opinions on these shows, so let’s get to it!
Fall 2022 – Week 3 in Review
Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m delighted to announce that this week I actually did the goddamn thing, and checked out around half a dozen of the season’s new airing anime. Gundams, shonen hits, anime-originals; you name it, I watched it (so long as your names coincide with the handful of buzz-heavy productions I actually screened). The fall season is proving to be a historically odd moment in anime production; we’re receiving a wide array of prestige productions, but the industry is in complete crisis mode in terms of staff and scheduling, meaning even some massively hyped productions are already showing cracks. We’ll likely be seeing a variety of production collapses in the weeks to come, but for now, this appears to be one of the most stacked anime seasons in years. Let’s break it down!
Fall 2015 – Week 12 in Review
I don’t tend to enjoy writing negative stuff. If I can make some kind of upbeat game or challenge out of it, like I did when writing about Strike Witches or Dragonar Academy, it can be pretty okay – but when it’s just a grim reporting of disappointment and failure, continuing week after week, that’s just the saddest kind of writing. I like being enthusiastic about stuff, and sharing that enthusiasm with people, and lately it’s been feeling like my week in review posts are just too dang negative. But like all good critics, I’m going to remain confident the problem isn’t with me, it’s with the media. I’m just watching too many bad shows! I’ve got bad shows I’m watching on contract and bad shows I’m watching on faith and mediocre shows I’m watching for their occasional glimmers of greatness. If not for all these bad shows, everything would be fine.
So yeah, I’m looking forward to next season. The only show I’ll really be sad to see go is Owarimonogatari, and that one ended so well that I can’t even complain (plus hey, Kizu’s on its way). Other than that, this shambling collections of rejects and ne’er-do-wells can just shuffle on into the past, and we can embrace a whole new collection of anime hopes and dreams. Plus I’ll be posting my top ten shows of the year about a week from now, and it doesn’t really get more positive than that! This cloud shall pass, but for now, let’s take a somewhat skeptical look back at this week’s shows and RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Week 11 in Review
This week in anime wasn’t the best, I’m sad to say. My reliable favorites were reliable-to-great, but… well, there are only two of those. And everything else kinda let me down. I feel like I’ve more or less set myself up for disappointment this season – instead of accepting that it’s a bad season and relying wholly on backlist shows to get me through, I’ve basically just assumed a handful of shows are permanently in “dud episodes” and keep feeling disappointed when they consistently prove their dud episodes are actually just their normal episodes. It’s no way to live, frankly, and I don’t actually know if next season offers any escape – considering how tentative my excitement is for basically everything on my preview list, it seems pretty likely that Monogatari and Iron-Blooded Orphans will be next season’s best shows, too.
But I don’t mean to depress you. Even if this week’s shows were bad (and even when it comes to what I was reviewing for ANN, they were), that doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff to say about ’em. And hey, not every show tripped on its face – in fact, Owarimonogatari pulled off an episode that I’d probably count among the best of the year. So let’s put on a brave face, assume a stiff upper lip, and contort your muscles in any other way you feel appropriate as we RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Fall 2015 – Week 10 in Review
We’re approaching the end of the season, which at this point means we’re also approaching the end of the year. On a seasonal level, this means shows have really stopped pulling out too many surprises – Perfect Insider and One Punch Man demonstrated some welcome strengths over the last few weeks, but even they seem to be settling into a rhythm for the finales. And on an annual level, this means holy crap it’s time to do all that end-of-the-year nonsense! I’ve more or less settled on my top ten shows of the year, and am working my butt off to manage that list, weekly reviews, actual full show reviews, and regular current project articles for all you lovely people. It’s been an extremely busy week on basically all those fronts; I spent a great deal of last week barreling through way too many episodes of Black Lagoon, and this past weekend I also managed to sneak in the excellent When Marnie Was There. All those and many more attractions in this here week in review! Let’s RUN IT ALL DOWN!
Fall 2015 – Week 9 in Review
This week in anime was really good! Super good, in fact! It wasn’t just held up by one or two shows – almost every show I’m watching (aside from Beautiful Bones, but that doesn’t really count) either held strong or pulled off one of its best episodes, and a bunch of these episodes even demonstrated strengths their shows hadn’t previously exhibited. The Perfect Insider was full of strong character moments, Owarimonogatari returned to the beautiful art designs of arcs long past, and One Punch Man succeeded not just as an animation showcase, but as an emotional drama. I’ve got all sorts of good things to say about these episodes, so let’s get right to it and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Fall 2015 – Week 8 in Review
It’s Wednesday again, which means time once more for the ol’ week in anime! And this week in anime was… well, it was a week in anime. Not really all that much to report, frankly – pretty much everything maintained a fairly even keel, acting more or less in the ways you’d expect them to act. The biggest outlier this time was The Perfect Insider, in that it was both very good and good in ways that defied standard expectations, but everything else existed within its expected parameters. That said, there’s still plenty of finer details to sift through, and I actually watched a fair amount of non-weekly anime this week, so don’t worry, I’ll make today’s tour worth your while. So pull up a comfortable chair and let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN.