This has to be the only anime that has ever had to make me watch it twice to get a complete understanding of it... nothing has ever done that until now.
But first of all, I'd like to start this review off with a positive note to this series. This series started off with a BANG, a tremendous one at that which combines surreal and abstract ideas that work really well when transitioning from the real world to the "Egg world". With some brilliant fight scenes and battles as well as some good twists and turns scattered throughout, Wonder Egg was honestly shaping out to be one of the best anime of the Winter season. Hell, people were calling it the anime of the year and the year had just started then.
However... all of these good flashy fights and interesting ideas that Wonder Egg pushed around left me and many others questioning... how was this going to tie up loose ends? We got a good introduction to the characters and their progress in the Egg world, but by the time we got to Episode 8 or 9, we were questioning how this then 12 episode anime was going to wrap up and it seemed to be skewed in this weird direction where it was building up to something huge, but my question was then how were they going to do that in 3-4 episodes?
On my first watch... I had no idea what to make of the last third of Wonder Egg, Episodes 9 and 10 went as normal to me with nothing really sticking out. But at the end of Episode 10 and throughout Episode 11, I was left with more questions than answers with Episode 12 doing nothing to help whatsoever, seemed like it was introducing new ideas with not enough room to flow or time to simmer. I was disappointed by this so-called ending and as such, on my first watch, I gave this anime a 4 to begin with. But I kept thinking that I was missing something in Wonder Egg, as though I had missed out on one important detail that sort of brought the last third of Wonder Egg together.
So I decided to wait 3 months until the Special episode that was then announced to rewatch the entirety of what I had just watched in that one season to see if I had missed any details and while I was at it, watch the Special episode to see if that tied loose ends. And needless to say, the second watch did actually help because I had found out that Episode 9 actually had given us details as to what would follow suit through Kotobuki, one of Neiru’s friends who was researching death. And it was then when I realised what the real problem with Wonder Egg was. Wonder Egg Priority sets itself up pretty nicely in the first two-thirds of the anime, giving us the introductions to the four main girls we have here;
Ai Ohto, a girl with different coloured eyes who misses out on school because of her friend Koito’s death.
Neiru Aonuma, the more enigmatic one of the bunch who is trying to get over receiving a scar from her sister but is trying to revive her only for her own sake.
Rika Kawai, an ex-junior idol trying to get over the grief of losing one of her biggest fans, her emotions don’t necessarily ring true to grief but she’s masking it over her ego just like with all her problems.
And Momoe Sawaki, who is trying their best to appear as a girl in society while others pointing out their masculine features, a transgender person and the anime presents this pretty well.
All 4 of these girls have been through their fair share of struggles and the anime in the first two-thirds was actually treating their struggles and hardships and them being together as a group with tackling the Egg world as a sort of therapy to better grasp or let go of what it holding them back, every star was aligned. The only premise in the plot that this anime had was that the girls needed to save their friend, sister, fan or loved one by taking on the Egg world, defeating the Wonder Killer, Seeno Evils, and Haters to free their Egg victim that was in the Wonder Egg from their trauma.
So yeah, the first two-thirds of what the anime has to deliver is much of the same somewhat but I very much enjoyed the battles and aspects of surrealism they decided to take for the Egg world for the first 7 episodes. The pacing was pretty nice all things considered and the characters, while not all too deep are charming and cute. But then Episode 8 comes out of nowhere with a recap for some reason which kills the momentum of the pacing and tells us what we already know from the previous 7 episodes. I mean, I suppose it’s good as a sort of refresher after those 7 episodes but I wouldn’t really understand why a recap would even be in a 12 episode anime in the first place.
And then there was a mixed last third which tries to introduce a new part of the plot with newer elements and features to try and tie everything together and build up to the greater evil at work, but ultimately ends up confusing and baffling most of the viewers as this part of the series is the one with the most amount of information and it’s jam-packed and condensed into 5 episodes so it really makes it hard to piece everything together either way and also the part where the story tries to deviate from the original 7 episodes and almost crashes and burns because of it. It’s what I’d consider to be too much to take in and here where I think the pacing goes a bit too fast as well which doesn’t really help with taking in the information that’s necessary for this part of the story.
Essentially, Episode 9 explains that there is the existence of parallel worlds, goes into a discussion about a group known as the Japan Plati of which Acca and Ura-Acca were and still are a part of due to Neiru’s secretary being in contact with both of them as well as the hint of a new character simply known as the “temptation of death” or Thanatos as referred to by the Accas to begin with. And our first encounter with this “temptation'' comes in Episode 10 in the form of Hyphen and later Dot in Episode 11, weird amalgamations of humans and insects that impose pure fear into the minds and hearts of Rika and Momoe. They are what you would call the “minions'' of Thanatos, which in Episode 11, we now find out that the Accas were responsible for.
Frill was a girl that the Accas decided to treat as a normal human child to make them forget that Frill was actually an AI. Ultimately, things went out of control as the attention that was once on Frill was now directed onto Acca’s new wife and child, so Frill disposes of both characters by murdering them in cold blood. By outside means or by a lone hairdryer being thrown into a tub. She would haunt the Accas up until Ura-Acca attempts to dispose of Frill himself? To no avail, it seems as she had now found herself with Dot, Hyphen, and “Kirara long name” in the Egg world and she now has control of the parallel worlds to tempt the girls there to their death? Do you hear how unorthodox this whole plot point sounds in comparison to the rest of the anime up until now?
You could argue that this was the real plot all along and what we were really building up to, but Frill had only just been mentioned in Episode 9 and introduced in Episode 11… quick reminder that this anime is only 13 episodes, meaning that if Frill really was the big bad and contributes to the real meat and bones of the plot, where was she or rather why wasn’t she referred to earlier in the anime to make for a much more satisfying reveal? Again, 7 episodes were made to introduce and get us used to our main characters with Episode 8 being the refresher, and the two before Episode 11 build up to her introduction by bringing in these new ideas.
Essentially, what this means for Wonder Egg was that the whole plot in and of itself was too ambitious to be in 12 episodes. Don’t get me wrong, it showed a lot of promise in what it could do in the first two-thirds with a solid foundation, neat characters, great premise, all the pieces were in their places. However, with the addition of everything that had been shown in the second half, what this boils down to is that Wonder Egg Priority was heading into a direction and build up to the main reason why they’re even in the Egg worlds (aside from what we thought was saving their friends) that was far too big for the staff to handle and as a result, the “once” 12 episode project was something that the writer bit off more than they could chew with and thus it had to be scaled down immensely, leaving us with a scuffed and subpar last third of the anime.
Episode 12 as a whole was… an OK episode, standard stuff for the most part except for the fact that almost nothing about any of the parallel world stuff gets explained, it just… exists I guess. It was hinted at, sure, but nothing was explained about how the Accas could utilise it. I guess including an explanation would bore the viewers but I don’t care about that excuse because I just wanted to have things be explained and not left cryptic for us to either find ourselves or to not be questioned at all, but whatever I guess. I was also still a bit unsure about Mr. Sawaki's true intentions in that episode. Were they from the parallel Sawaki explicitly or from both Sawakis? I would have wanted to lean towards the latter because of Sawaki’s behaviour towards Ai and Koito, but then the Special episode came out… and really screwed things up.
First of all, this is where the parallel worlds thing really comes into full play as the trials in the Egg world have now led to the revival of Koito, Rika’s fan and Momoe’s crush… but the problem is that saving them comes at the cost of replacing them with a parallel world version of those friends that don’t have any memory of the gang which… comes as a bit of gut-punch considering everything the gang had to do to “resurrect” them and feels like they changed the plot here for the sake of making things convenient rather than cohesive and welded together well. That’s not really a gripe I have with this special though, they are these three things in particular;
These 3 points are the main reasons why I feel Wonder Egg’s Special episode really didn’t sit right with me. Honestly, the anime was better off ending at 12 because there it would at least have a less painful way to wrap things up. But now, I feel as though this story is now so open-ended that it’s opening up to the possibility of a cour 2, and honestly, I feel as though this anime has already done enough. The question is though, if they do happen to continue this and I’m sort of scared as to how... would they be able to tie up the loose ends from the first season in the second or will they still leave things as broken and messy in terms of the story as they have and just end up making things worse for it?
Enough with the speculation though, I will briefly say that the OP for Wonder Egg is actually beautiful to listen to. The ED is nice, bouncy, and melodic which tbh, doesn’t fit with the endings of some episodes which makes it sound kind of odd. The tone shift is honestly that drastic between the end of Episode 10 and 11 and the ED. The OST in and of itself is not too bad either, it’s there at least. I wouldn’t see myself listening to it but it’s nice. And the art direction is spectacular, it’s a shame though how the art staff worked half to death on it though because that just makes enjoying what I see all the more worse tbh. The art is really good but I don’t like to think about the artists and their crunch.
In conclusion… honestly, don’t get it twisted, I want to like this anime but the problems with it are enough to make me uninterested in ever touching it again. Wonder Egg Priority had so much potential as an anime with a neat concept, pleasant characters, and solid theming but carried with it too much ambition, crunched and hospitalised staff thanks to Aniplex and Cloverworks and writing that had hit a corner way too fast, introduced ideas that were unorthodox in the realm of the already established plot and never had time to simmer and settle in thanks to only 5 episodes being left with too much time being focused on the foundation of the plot.
As a result, Wonder Egg Priority (episodes 1 to 12 specifically) gets a low 6 because I felt as though even though the last third of the story really does hinder the rest of the anime greatly, I still enjoyed what was there of the first two thirds. The Special episode however gets a high 3 mainly because I really do not see a reason for this special even being here except for maybe wrapping up one or two things that the story may have missed out on in 12 but not remedying anything else it either created itself or what the anime had failed on. I felt frustrated with how this anime was handled as a whole too after Episode 9 and the Special being half recap, half scuffed ending further amplified my frustration, thus the 3 for the Special. It had no business being there whatsoever.
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