A review in three parts.

Part One: Broken Promises

Someone once described good storytelling to me as a relationship between Promise and Payoff. Narratives constantly make promises to the audience. When a story hints something will happen, that becomes a promise. Audiences love to see payoff to promises. The same person also said that if you don't payoff a promise with what's promised, you should instead give them something better. There's more depth to this theory, involving subversion, denial, making the audience wait, but that's not relevant to this review.

As the title of this section indicates, Wonder Egg Priority fails to deliver on many of its promises. This is why I find the show disappointing. Here is a short list of major promises I believe were broken. We'll dive more in depth later.

Promise: Explore themes of suicide in a deep and engaging way.

I believe this promise was broken.

Promise: Characters will fight to get back someone they lost.

I believe this promise was broken.

Promise: Explore the backstories and relationships of a compelling cast in a compelling way

I belived this promise was broken.

I'll leave it at that for now. You can probably think of some more if you feel similar to me about this show.

It's worth noting that the creators of this show may not have been meaning to make these promises. However, they still did. Some promises are explicit, like how One Punch Man promises you Saitama can defeat a villian in a single blow, or how Re Zero: Starting Life In Another World promises the main character will start life in another world. Most promises are not explicit. They're subtle. They happen when you can see a payoff coming based on the events which are presented to you. Most of this show's promises happen in the first few episodes.

The first two episodes spend a lot of time on Koito, Ai's dead best friend and Suicide Girl Goal. We're lead to believe that we'll be spending a lot of time exploring these kinds of relationships. Instead, Koito, her relationship with Sawaki-sensei, and everything else about her character is essentially ignored until near the end of the season. Each of the other three protagonists has a Koito-equivalent, and each of these is developed even less than Koito, to the point where two of them are basically not explored at all.

This leads me to suicide. Very few shows feel comfortable dealing with suicide, in and out of Japan. Suicide is a deeply emotional topic, and one which is difficult to appropriately approach. In my opinion, it requires both a serious amount of respect for the subject matter, but not so much respect that you refuse to approach any of the complexities of the issue. I'm aware that sentance doesn't really mean anything without significant extrapolation on the reader's part.

I am very down for suicide anime. Especially if it's got women in it. A show about adolescents girls killing themselves, if handled properly, is something with the potential to be excellent. If handled properly. I could go in depth about how W.E.P. seems at first to handle it with respect, but ultimately doesn't, but I don't need a particurally deep argument to prove the way they handle suicide is terrible.

This is because there is not a single character in the show who kills themselves. All of them were somehow manipulated by an evil AI who somehow amplifies the desire for adolescent women to end their existence, because she's jealous her daddy dared love a woman who wasn't her and then locked her in a basement for being a murderer. This is a subversion of my expectation that we'll explore suicide and suicidal ideation in a deep manner, because there aren't any characters in this show who killed themselves. When I began to guess they were lacking agency in their suicides around episode 7, I started to enjoy the show a lot less. When it was revealed this was the case, my feelings cemented.

if you don't fulfill a promise, you replace it with something better. I do not believe what we got instead was better.

Part Two: Structure

The show has twelve episodes. The first four episodes are character introductions. Each episode is focused on a single character, and introduces them to the cast. These episodes are all very good, and set up a promising future for the show. I only wish they were worse, so I could have dropped the show instead of becoming invested.

The fifth episode is a focus episode for their group dynamic, and is also very good.

The sixth episode is an introduction for their pets, which only exist for a single narrative purpose which we may touch on later, as well as a chance to expand the character dynamic between Sawaki, Ai, and Ai's mom. It's also good.

The seventh episode is a focus episode for Rika. This is probably my favorite episode of the show. It managed to take Rika's mental health seriously, and have a powerful sad tone.

Up until this episode, the show could have been excellent. I had noticed a few things beginning to slip, but nothing major enough to sink the entire show.

The next episode is a recap episode. Recap episodes are worse than hitler. Ask yourself, who is the recap episode for? This show has had seven episodes so far. The character dynamics don't need to be recapped. The only people this episode is for is the studio, who is using it to save time and money. I said this was a 13 episode show, but I guess it's only 12.

Episode nine is another focus episode, this time for Neiru. This is not quite as good as Rika's focus episode, but still pretty good. However, it also begins to spell the beginning of the end, as we begin to introduce more and more lore and backstory, all of which undermines the show.

In episode ten, Acca and Ura-Acca are about to Lore Dump the shit out of the Retroactive Suicide Prevention Hot Girl Squad but instead they go do a focus episode for Momoe. Momoe deserves the focus episode, and the focus episode is good, but what's not good is how jarring it is that they do this instead of listening to Acca and Ura-Acca, despite the R.S.P.H.G.S. hearing them say they were responsible for all the suicides moments before (at least from the viewer's perspective.

Fuck episode 11. Why do so many shows go to shit after trying to do this episode? Is it because evangelion did one well, and they're imitating evangelion? I'd guess yes. This episode is a loredump and a flashback. It's explained to the audience how genius scientists Acca and Ura-Acca created a sentient AI daughter for fun, and how that daughter then decided to kill Acca's new wife out of jealousy. Kinda fucked up the robot you programed to act like the ideal daughter ends up loving you romantically.

Ura/Acca (I forget which and refuse to google) then throws the AI into a hole in their basement. From inside basement hole, the AI uploads to the internet and somehow magically enhances the likelihood Japanese adolescent girls kill themselves, and maybe also mind controls them, for the explicit purpose of getting the daughter of Acca's late wife to kill herself. Ura-Acca kills the AI but I guess she uploaded to the net.

Meanwhile back in episode 10 but also now in 12, the girls have begun "clearing the game" which results in one of the AI's weird construct things killing their pet animal (which only existed for this purpose narratively). After this happens, each of the girls is psychologically damaged, and begins to drift apart from the group. We don't see what happens to Neiru yet, but Ai meets herself from another world and then beats imaginary Sawaki, and revives Koito, with her own alternate self taking the fall instead of chameleon pet dude. The show ends, jarringly, with nothing really resolved, and it remaining unclear if the saved girls actually come back.

The special, which I have dubbed episode 13, is half a recap. This is now worse than two Hitlers. The second half is essentially the 13th episode they couldn't fit in due to having a recap episode earlier. In it, its revealed that Neiru has been an AI the whole time. This is Shyamalan level people. I'm so furious my writing voice has become entirely informal. The show ends with every character dynamic unresolved, the four dead people back (but not), and AI Neiru missing.

I know this is part two, but we're going back to promise and payoff for a bit. We were promised we'd get back the R.S.P.H.G.S.' four friends, or at least there was a chance. However, when we get them back, they A) don't remember the R.S.P.H.G.S. and B) are actually just them from a parallel world. Even ignoring questions like "what happened to the world they came from" this is still incredibly stupid. Paying a price for what you sought is pretty standard narrative fare, but A) having to fight would have been enough, and B) they paid the price to not get them in ANY meaningful way.

It's possible the ends are all so loose to facilitate a second season (one I likely won't watch), but if this is supposed to be a satisfying ending, it missed every mark. I was just left feeling nothing. Not empty, just nothing. 8-ish good episodes of setup washed down a drain.

This is for two reasons.

1) The show replaced character development with lore bullshit.

This will be the topic of part 3

2) The show didn't leave itself enough time for character development

Let's examine the show's formula to see why.

Most episodes function as follows. There is an A plot, taking place in the real world, relating to character dynamics, and a B plot, taking place in The Egg Dimension where one (or in one situation two) of the girls meets a girl who killed themselves in the past (or another dimension), and has to save them from both a hoard of monsters (called in the translation I watched Seeno Evils and Haters), as well as a boss monster which is a person who drove that girl to suicide.

These stories are usually told parallel to one another despite them not happening at the same time. The A plots are usually strong, but I take some issues with the B plots. The A plots tend to progress forward, but the B plots are largely formulaic and stagnant. While some of them reveal character traits or work in concert with the A plot to establish a tone, they take up entirely too much screen time for how little they contribute to the story. They also feel very repetitive.

When working with formulaic structures, you're really banking on the unique elements of each episode to pull you through. In this case it's a Monster of the Week and a Tragic Stranger of the Week. The monster of the week is sometimes compelling, but dragged down by poor design. Episode 12 also reveals that these aren't accurate representations of the people they represent, but rather one dimensional version of those characters created by the girls who killed themselves, but the implications of this are never explored.

The dead girls are tragic strangers, which are what sell shows formulaic shows like Cowboy Bebop. However, a few things hold them back. One, many are one dimensional. Two, the tragedy of them is understated. Three, the moment when they disappear after being saved (we never learn what their fate is) never quite lands for me.

You could take about half of these segments out, or make each one half as long. Or simply pack in twice the narrative content. If you did this, you'd have more time to spend with characters, and you could actually explore the backstories of the Main Four Dead Girls. We did not get this.

Part Three: Nobody gives a shit about your parallel reality bullshit

Hopefully you can begin to see the point I've been approaching in a roundabout way. The show has good setup. The beginning of the show is interesting and engaging. Then, about half way through, they begin hinting at Lore Things. In the penultimate episode of the original twelve, we finally receive that lore dump, and it recontextualized everything.

In the new context, there are no longer real suicides. The characters who killed themselves all had reduced character agency. This isn't the only bad change. Suddenly, instead of fighting to save her friend, Ai is some kind of Eros Warrior being honed to destroy Thanatos, the Freudian appeal of death.

As we continue to learn more, things get worse. It was never possible to bring anybody back, only to snag copies from a parallel world. The person who was your friend is still dead, you just dragged in a new version of them. My headcanon is that this process destroys their original timeline, killing trillions of people. Neiru was an AI the whole time. This is never really hinted at, at least not meaningfully. The consequences of this are Ai getting mad and ignoring her calls (I don't really get why, it doesn't seem like what her character would do), and Neiru disappearing to go become friends with mass murder AI girl.

We never learn if they were actually saving the Egg Women, or setting their souls free, or whatever else. The strongest element of this show, the R.S.P.H.G.S.' friendship, is arbitrarily left in tatters. The characters were suddenly thrown against an insurmountable challenge, paid a fake price, and received a fake reward.

What would I do different? Instead of subverting every setup and giving us something worse than promised, simply give strong payoffs to your existing strong setups. No sudden loredump of AI women who control suicide, instead, focus on your strong characters, with strong motivations. Explore the tragedy of suicide more. Threads like Ai never really speaking to Koito about her issues could be further explored. You could explore the backstories of the barely touched Main Four Dead Girls. In the end, have them fight some kind of final boss, have them pay a less fake price, then give them what was promised.

Of course you can subvert it more than this, twist it more than this, make it a little less vanilla. Find more interesting ways of doing things. But the attempt at doing this was an absolute dumpster fire, so they instead should have played it safe. Walk before you run. It's not wrong to give the audience what you told them you were going to give them.

One More Part: I Rate You

This review has been brought to you largely unfiltered, unedited, unplanned, and unrefined. I had considered writing a review in a few different structures while watching the show, and when I finished it, I was immediately inspired to write one, and immediately did in a single sitting. I didn't take much time to process. The wounds of disappointment are still fresh, getting between me and a professional writing voice. There's a million things I wanted to touch on but didn't. Each part of this review could easily be four, five times the length that it is. It could also be more focused and a quarter as long. You didn't get the short version because I wanted to write something honest and impulsive. You didn't get the long version because I know I'm lucky if a single person reads this through, and without editing or revision (or talent) the chances anyone would read the Extended Edition Egg Show Review is near zero.

Wonder Egg Priority is a disappointing show. Like most disappointing shows, it's only disappointing because it displayed the potential to be great. I'm well aware nobody who reads this will ever write an anime, but maybe some of you will write something. If you do, consider why WEP is disappointing, and avoid making the same mistakes.

I'm giving this show a 7.4. It started as an 8.6 with the potential to go way up, but blundered its way down below my recommendation threshold. After TPN season 2 and this, I'm a little mad at Cloverworks.

A Note On Scoring:
I score on the IGN scale, wherein 7 is the lowest score known to man. This is because if it was worse than that I'd just drop it. Anything on my list below there I watched when I was too young to distinguish good from bad. As another point of reference, my recommendation threshold is 8.4. On some people's lists, 7.6 would be high, but on mine it is quite low.

Edit:
As time goes on, and I watch more shows, and think about what I've watched more, I tend to shift shows around a little bit. I'm now confident about moving Wonder Egg Priority down to a 6/10. I was too heavily favoring the strong, early parts of my show. Below a certain point on my list, there aren't a ton of shows which exist as points of reference, so scoring isn't as precise as the shows with higher scores, but I'm pretty comfortable putting WEP at this point right now. Again, for some, 6/10 would mean "pretty good, not great, worth watching", but to me it's an absolutely dumpster tier score.