Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Somehow a new year is upon us, and I hope you’re all doing your best to reckon with that fact in whichever way renders it least existentially terrifying. Personally, I’ve been far too busy to stand aghast at the march of time – the last week has seen me racing to catch up on all the past year’s finest productions, and hopefully pull together a quasi-timely Year in Review. But don’t worry about that diminishing your usual Week in Review spoils; I’m sitting on a healthy buffer of film reflections at the moment, and have hand-picked a group of reflections that range from the conclusion of our Naruto filmography project to Ted Raimi getting his face caved in. Let’s ring in the year’s first Week in Review!
Tag Archives: Naruto
Fall 2022 – Week 2 in Review
Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Look, I know last time that I mentioned I’d be watching some seasonal anime, and that is still absolutely going to happen, but today I nonetheless must admit I only bear gifts of movie reviews. But hey, some of those movies are anime! That still counts, right? We’ve got some Takahata, we’ve got some apocryphal Naruto adventures, and we’ve got the usual scattering of live-action productions, this time including a double feature of “what if fate was kind of an asshole” films. I’ll demand my housemates screen the requisite quantities of chainsaw men and mercurian witches shortly, but in the meantime, please enjoy this peace offering of random film thoughts. Let’s get to it!
Summer 2022 – Week 13 in Review
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are sadly reaching that point in the anime season where we can no longer even pretend it’s still summer, as the season’s shows air their final episodes and we wait for the onset of the fall deluge. Fortunately, as someone who has already escaped from the seasonal viewing grind, I have ascended to a point where time has no meaning beyond the steady shift of the sun’s gaze and the encroaching winds of winter. As long as it’s still warm out it’s still summer to me, and I’m going to enjoy it for as long as this blighted New England landscape lets me. As for the week in media, my usual film selections were once again complimented by a touch of animated razzle-dazzle, as we continued our Naruto investigations by sampling its first feature film. Let’s see what treasures await as we run down the latest Week in Review!
Why It Works: Let’s Explore the Finer Points of Anime Power-Ups!
I’ve got another fairly breezy Why It Works column for you all this week, though this one certainly plays into a fair number of storytelling and conflict-building fundamentals. When and how characters overcome their previous limitations is actually a pretty important part of shonen narrative design, particularly since audiences have been primed to assume “sweet power-ups” will always be a part of that genre’s narrative bargain. Today let’s highlight a few broader categories of character improvements, as well as what sort of narratives potentially suit them best. Let’s get to it!
Let’s Explore the Finer Points of Anime Power-Ups!
The Best Anime Next Steps
There are a lot of anime out there! Literally thousands, with over a hundred more being released every year. There are new hits every season, and old favorites that have slowly lost their topical sheen. Given all those shows, it can be understandably hard to pick what to watch next – anime, like every other medium, is full of stuff that will disappoint you, and everyone’s tastes are different.
My own tastes in particular are a little weird – I like arthouse stuff and intimate character studies and occasional cathartic message-focused shows. But fortunately, there is indeed such a thing as “normal” taste in anime, or at least the most common preferences shared by fans outside of Japan. And today, I’m hoping to help that audience – or more specifically, hopefully, You.