This review is literally stream of consciousness but if it makes more sense than whatever the hell this conclusion was supposed to be, I'll count it as a win.
Also. THIS IS NOT SPOILER FREE.
I'm going to have to go into WEP as a whole to discuss the special, one because they're incredibly connected, and two, if I didn't there'd be nothing to talk about here as essentially nothing of plot or purpose happened in the special to begin with.
Yeah.
So.
Wonder Egg Priority at its foundation was spectacular. Our MC has lost her best and only friend to suicide and is introduced to a fantastical world that boasts the impossible: fight here and you can bring your friend back. From a fantasy standpoint, you're already interested. It's the dark magical girl tale that people have been searching for since Madoka. The animation thrived, the fight scenes were amazing, the soundtrack BANGED, the characters were lovable, etc.
Then there were the real life aspects that drew you in as well. Life as a teenaged girl is complicated. There are dangers at every turn and here we navigated multiple stories of the horrors young girls are often exposed to: sexual abuse, grooming from male teachers, victim-blaming, fanatical idol worship that manifests in deadly ways, struggling with identity, self-harm, etc. And almost every single one of these topics were treated with dignity in a way we don't often see in media. It wasn't shock value. It was actual exploration of trauma dealt with kindly and with the empathy it deserved. I absolutely loved seeing it.
WEP combined fantasy and reality into an incredibly compelling plot and with just enough mystery to keep it going. What happened between Koito and Mr. Sawaki? Why did she kill herself? Was she groomed? Was it misplaced jealousy? What about these other girls? Who are they? What drew them here? What brought them all together? And what is this world? How is this possible? What does it mean?
That's all we needed. That's all that was necessary.
But instead, around the halfway point, they gave us........everything and nothing. They kept adding to the plot, questions weren't being answered in a satisfactory way, trauma was suddenly thrown at us for the sake of trauma, and the origin story we were searching for only left us with more questions. At around episode 10 I realized that there was no way they were going to be able to wrap this up into something even remotely coherent. And I was right.
Which leads us to the special.
What we wanted them to do:
any type of resolution to the original plot line
What we got:
I could go on but I honestly don’t know what else to say other than that I’m so disappointed, my head is actually spinning. How could they do that to Koito after all of this? Why did Neiru’s story have to go this way? Why destroy the friend group after dumping even more tragedy on them? How on earth are we supposed to be satisfied with this? Was this purposefully left open-ended? Will there be more?
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a show’s potential collapse like this. The first half was a 10/10, whatever the hell happened next dropped this to a 2, maybe 4 for how strong it was before it all fell apart. The only thing consistent was the stunning animation and lovely ost.
And like, upon looking around I’ve heard that the studio was completely overwhelmed, censorship kicked a bunch of the plot’s ass, people were hospitalized to keep up with production, etc, and……it seems that once again this sad and unfortunate product of a toxic workplace. Naturally, the animators/storyboarders have my sympathy, and will always have my sympathy. They absolutely do not deserve this.
But I also feel consumers still have a right to express disappointment, so this is me judging what we were given, not the innocents involved.
Who do we get to properly blame for this? Capitalism???
Anyway, when I think about what this could have been, all I am is sad.
I’ll just end this here.
I don’t know what else to say.
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