Back to Riverscuomo's Profile Riverscuomo's Profile

I still mourn Wonder Egg Priority.

It's my opinion that even if a project fails on the whole, there can be elements of it deserving of praise, and WEP is chock full of wonderful, worthy things. Every little thing about it from a design standpoint is excellent. And I maintain that the first episode of WEP is the best first episode of any anime (outside of, maybe, Cowboy Bebop), a perfect pitch for a perfect show that never came to be.

It crashed and burned so bad. An absolute trainwreck. Trainwreck is a really apt metaphor, now that I think about it, because you really ... get the sense by the middle of the series that the tracks are being laid just inches ahead of the train, barely keeping pace as it careens in random directions, desperate to avoid a crash.

Here's the gist: about halfway through the series, it becomes apparent that no one knew where the story was going when production began, including, apparently, the lead writer. Character arcs fall apart, promising plot threads are abandoned, and to compensate, entirely new characters and ideas are introduced very late in the game to try and tie up what is left of a broken story. It's upsetting and silly.

My sincere, no bullshit advice for anyone interested in Wonder Egg Priority would be this: watch the first 5 or 6 episodes and stop. Imagine the rest from there. Whatever you are imagining is better than what follows.

Wonder Egg Priority was an anime made by people with incredible taste, incredible talent, and absolutely no foresight. It's your coolest but least responsible friend taking you for a daytrip that starts well but ends in a lockup.

With allllll of that said, I still hold out hope that others in the industry will mine Wonder Egg Priority for its best ideas and most audacious choices. Buried inside this mess are genuine treasures, things worth emulating. So much of it is gorgeous, and it would be a real shame if all the good bits got tossed out with the bad.

A genuinely novel take on the romcom, and a good one. I'm not sure how many chapters this can go on for before the central gimmick gives way to a more traditional formula, but I'd like to imagine a future (40 or 50 chapters down the line) where most of the train is invested in their romance.

It's easy to imagine the ending now: the boy finally confessing to the girl, the girl reciprocating, and an entire train of strangers jumps up in celebration. If we can keep this up without things going stale or getting convoluted, it'll be so much fun.

Excited to see ... what comes next.

This is a very good romance/SoL that doesn't follow the common trends present in the genre the past few years.

The characters are well written and believable. This includes the male MC, who has a distinct personality and appearance that separates him from the pack of self-inserts and quite-studious types that often appear in these manga. Both main characters have lives and goals that involve more than just their relationship to one another, but the romantic aspect is still the driving force. It's a delicate balance that I think Ojiro mostly gets right.

The story is minimal. It's a true slice of life, in that there ... are very few standout events or dramatic turns. It unfolds at a calm, steady pace, makes for a lovely read before bed.

Ojiro is a rising star in the genre for a reason. She's writing Seinen romance manga that seem to exist in their own, private realm, full of landscape shots and silent interactions. Her art is unique and expressive. Her women are more interesting and attractive than those written by male contemporaries, and her men are too. She hasn't written her masterpiece yet (jury's still out on "Insomnia"), but I'm sure she'll write one.

Point is this:
Read Ojiro Makoto! Read Ojiro Makoto! Read Ojiro Makoto!