Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to Yuki Yuna is a Hero, after an episode that saw the other shoe plummeting to earth and leaving a devastating crater in its wake. As it turns out, the Taisha knew all along that our young heroes would be forced to fight again, that they would acquire lasting, debilitating injuries from this hero labor, and that they would eventually be reduced to utter dependency, as one after another of their limbs or senses were sacrificed as offerings to the Divine Tree. There are no old soldiers in this system; only used-up figures of worship, deified for sacrifices they never knew they were making.

As horrible as this is for our girls on the ground, it’s nonetheless a fascinating thematic turn, tethering Yuki Yuna’s magical girl and martial elements together through their common thread: how both young women and old soldiers are misused by society, ostensibly venerated but often materially denied and despised. Like so many other eager young patriots, these girls’ innocent love of their home has been turned against them, exploited for the sake of a system that consumes lives and produces martyrs, all to ensure the next wave of victims is properly motivated. It’s a rich and deliciously cynical turn, and I’m eager to see how our team responds to these shocking reveals. Let’s get to it!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m hearing the rumble of storm clouds on the horizon, as the peaceful days of the Hero Club’s summer vacation are swiftly coming to an end. In spite of having defeated the twelve vertexes and sustained a variety of lingering injuries in the process, Yuna and her friends are being called to battle once more, facing both an uncertain threat and an increasingly suspicious alleged benefactor. Though their tour of duty was explicitly framed as a clear and finite quest, it seems a hero’s duties are never truly ended – or at least, that our Taisha is far less certain of this venture’s scope than Fuu and the others expected.

This is all great fun for me, of course, as wandering into uncertain structural territory means Yuki Yuna’s thematic intent is now certain to reveal itself. For the first half of this season, Yuki Yuna presented a reasonably executed but generally familiar narrative, focusing on the magical girl genre’s common themes of finding community and developing self-confidence through adolescence. However, the show was always seasoned with an uncommon dash of fatalism – a quiet implication that its heroes were less “destined warriors” than “conscripted soldiers,” forced into mortal peril yet considered expendable by their distant overseers. Fuu’s bargain to protect her family, Karin’s maniacal focus on combat, Tougou’s fear of being called a “traitor” – all of these lingering peculiarities seem to at last be resolving themselves, and I’m eager to see where the show ultimately lands. Let’s get to it!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today seemed like a perfect opportunity to hop back into the drama of Yuki Yuna is a Hero, where we’re currently all scanning the skies and waiting for some kind of celestial second shoe to drop. Having allegedly defeated their enemies and completed their duties as heroes in the fifth episode, the gang are now suffering under mysterious injuries and uncertain expectations, their tight-knit community the only shield against whatever comes next. Though their overseers claim their symptoms will subside, there’s no real indication their contacts even know what’s going on – or if they do, they’re content to keep such secrets from their troops on the ground.

Personally, I couldn’t be more pleased by this intriguing turn of fortunes. The idea of moving on past the standard magical girl paradigm, of accomplishing your grand task and attempting to reintegrate into normal life, seems like a novel and compelling way to explore the true motivations guiding our young heroes. Additionally, their treatment as veterans who’ve been abandoned by their country feels like a natural thematic expansion of Yuki Yuna’s interrogation of genre assumptions, placing our girls within a long and storied tradition of post-war dramas. Let’s see how they’re faring in a fresh episode of Yuki Yuna!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check in on the continuing adventures of Yuki Yuna and her hero club, and satisfy my intense curiosity regarding what exactly we’ll be doing with the rest of the season. You see, the normal procession with magical girls is generally one antagonist an episode, all leading up to an eventual showdown with the big boss somewhere near the end of the production. However, Yuki Yuna has casually flouted this assumed structure, piling the entirety of its remaining antagonists into its fifth episode, and having our heroes claim their grand victory before we’d even reached the season’s halfway point.

This is all quite exciting stuff to me, as you might guess. There’s nothing wrong with reliable narrative templates; sturdy scaffolding can allow artists to hone in on smaller details of presentation, characterization, or whatever else a story prioritizes. However, it is through breaking with convention that you often find new intersections of structure and dramatic impact, while unmooring your audience such that they experience your twists with the intensity of true surprise, no more certain of their destination than your characters. Let’s see what the horizon holds in a fresh episode of Yuki Yuna!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today it seems like we’re past due for a check-in on Yuki Yuna and her brave companions in the Hero Club, as they continue to fend off all who would do harm to the Divine Tree. In spite of lacking any high-tension battle scenes, Yuki Yuna’s last episode was undoubtedly my favorite so far, as its exploration of Fu and Itsuki’s unequal yet cherished bond felt thoughtful and convincingly true-to-life, grounding the generalities of the show’s genre structure in the specificities of one family’s circumstances. Believing in the distinct humanity of a show’s characters is what elevates sterile narrative beats into emotionally resonant drama, and episode four did a fine job of convincingly articulating that humanity.

Getting all this personal context was well appreciated, but judging by episode four’s dramatic stinger, the time for singing lessons and cat-ferrying assignments is now behind us. As expected, the death of the sisters’ parents was revealed to be linked to the vertexes, meaning Fu has ultimately dragged her classmates into a mission of personal revenge. Between that, her existing issues with leadership, and the ominous flipping of Itsuki’s death card, I expect some troubled times ahead for our young heroes. Let’s get to it!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thinking it’s about time to check back in on the continuing trials of Yuki Yuna, as the Hero Club celebrates their recent domestication of transfer student-slash-Divine Tree guardian Karin Miyoshi. In spite of her efforts to live a life of spartan dedication to her martial duties, Karin was unable to resist the charms of her new companions, and was last seen sharing in the celebration of her recent birthday. I’m sorry Karin, but this show’s slice of life predilections are at least as significant as its action ones, thus there’s simply no way you’re avoiding a lot of snacks and club meetings.

With Karin now integrated into the overall group dynamic, I suspect we’ll be turning back to matters of Divine Tree defense, and am curious to see what new wrinkles this narrative phase might provide. Outside of the understandable tension provided by Fu unilaterally conscripting her friends into a deadly supernatural battle, our cast have so far been largely unchallenged and on the same page regarding their current circumstances, so I suspect complications will be arriving soon. Let’s see what Uezu has in store for our heroes as the battle for the Divine Tree continues!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’d like to check back in on Yuki Yuna and her continuing heroic escapades, with the team having just secured a victory against three simultaneous invaders. Yuki Yuna’s second episode answered some questions and raised others, affirming and expanding on its internal mythology while leaving the mechanisms and larger motivations of this conflict conspicuously vague. This ambiguity stands in contrast to the show’s highly specific sense of place: as one of my readers helpfully explained, Yuki Yuna is specifically grounded in the city of Kan’onji, on Shikoku Island.

Aside from overt reveals, last episode’s emphasis on Fu and Togo reconnecting, as well as the gamified resolutions of its final battles, made it clear that explicating personal bonds and illustrating strategically grounded conflicts are also among the show’s top priorities. I’m a little wary of the show’s emphasis on “national defense” (no Togo, high schoolers are not deserters if fighting monsters seems outside their comfort zone), but we’ll have to see if that’s an ongoing thread or just a few odd turns of phrase. We’ve got Vertices to bash, so let’s get to it!

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check back in on the trials of Yuki Yuna and her companions, who most recently found themselves trapped in some kind of time-stopped void arena, squaring off with a faceless monster from god knows what dimension. It was an unexpected turn to be sure, but Yuna was not about to let this chance for heroism go to waste, and seemed to swiftly master the fundamentals of magical girl combat.

All of this was pretty classic magical girl premiere material, with perhaps the only note of distinction being how much time the episode spent on Yuna’s mundane life before revealing its trick. That’s not really a bad thing; given the constraints of twenty minute episodes and the need to conclude with some kind of genuine hook, it’s no surprise that first episodes tend to follow certain structural formulas. It’s only with that hook established that we can truly see what Yuki Yuna is all about – are we going to prioritize personal character journeys, is there some sort of theme or metaphor being illustrated through this world’s approach to magic, or are we just here for Symphogear-style spectacle? With the first battle behind us and explanations clearly in order, let’s find out what truly drives Yuki Yuna is a Hero!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m pleased to announce we’ll be embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of Yuki Yuna is a Hero. To be honest, I don’t know all that much about this series, save its place within the industry’s overall development of genre trends.

Yuki Yuna was one of a number of “dark magical girl” dramas that followed the breakout success of Madoka Magica, typified by shows like Day Break Illusion and Magical Girl Raising Project. Most of these shows landed with little impact, in a heartening rebuke of their producers’ assumption that talent and passion are less important than following genre trends, but Yuki Yuna has flowered into a broad and successful franchise. There’ve been Yuki Yuna light novels, manga, visual novels, and even smartphone games, and I get the feeling that if its American release hadn’t been produced by the hideously overpriced and utterly shelf-averse PonyCan imprint, it might have been a commercial hit here as well.

So yeah, I actually know a fair amount about Yuki Yuna’s commercial circumstances, but almost nothing about its narrative. And as anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the magical girl genre knows, darkness and grief have always stood alongside its aspirational themes, making the optimism its heroes struggle to embody all the more meaningful. Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Ojamajo Doremi, Pretty Cure – I’ve bawled my eyes out to a variety of magical girl dramas, and hope to find many more with the power to yank at my heart. Let’s see how Yuki Yuna fares!

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