Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with great trepidation that we are returning to Yuki Yuna is a Hero’s Washio Sumi Chapter, after three straight episodes that have been a delightful mix of group bonding and tactically grounded Vertex takedowns. If this were any other show, I’d at this point expect this is the tone we should assume going forward, and simply enjoy the charming vignettes shared by Togo, Gin, and Nogi. But this is goddamn Yuki Yuna, and what’s more, we know precisely the fate awaiting these girls down the line.
As such, Washio Sumi has instead been an exercise in ruthless dramatic irony, inviting us to learn and care about these heroes with full knowledge their journey will end in disaster. This unique perspective has played naturally into the sense of doomed cyclical inevitability represented by the Divine Tree system; it’s as if we’re watching Madoka Magica play out from Homura’s shoulder, certain this path will end in disaster, hoping against reason that catastrophe might be avoided. The original Yuki Yuna played like a senseless tragedy; this plays like a premeditated crime, a long con perpetrated against the most passionate and self-sacrificing among us. If Yuki Yuna is hoping to raise our hackles against the systemic abuse of the young facilitated by jingoism and organized religion, it is certainly succeeding. Good luck out there, girls!