By the 4th episode you realize that 1. There was no woman or mental health professional in the writing room or consulted whatsoever. 2. Animation quality is a hell of a show carrier.
Thank you. My main problem with the show is how it feels as if it's just mocking mental illness. They are so indirect about it and as you said in this video, it just addresses it as "teenage girls that can't be helped." The constant praise of ANY anime that has any character that has any sign of mental illness is baffling. Nine times out of ten mental illness in anime is something romantic or produced in a "too deep for you to understand" way, when the reality of mental illness isn't deep in the slightest and I wish that anime, and specifically wep, would just show mental illness in a realistic, upfront way without coating it in romance, sexism, magic, or some stupid deeper meaning bullshit.
From what you said, it seems like shows try to keep pushing the idea that mental illness (in movies they make all these special effects if you have it) is more dramatized for the audience to generally get. That said tons of movies handle it more delicately. I guess this show as the youtube said was going for more drama for drama sake and its deep because I "get it" type of thing. Not bad per say, many loved it at first and the mystery would have kept many going as its unique think the first ep is first chapter of a manga and it would be an instant hit and the next eps would make popular chapters...but yeah it needed time to cook and a delicate level of hey I think I need help with this topic and ill spread this over 24 eps and add a level of less crazy animation and more just giving the characters talking sections where they hang out idk lol
I’m glad someone who speaks Japanese and understands the cultural context made a video talking about this show. I thought I was just being emotionally unintelligent for not understanding the character drama but if the conflicts aren’t well-established and the storyboarding is just fake deep artsy stuff that doesn’t properly match the writing and the dialogue is weird and robotic even in Japanese then it’s no wonder the whole thing was this incomprehensible mess I still don’t fully understand the whole conflict with the teacher and it’s been two years
I feel like if they'd had just more time and tried to do less maybe they could've made this work. Like, the first season of fucking 13 Reasons Why doesn't try to tackle as many ~issues~ as this show and it's twice as long! Also they should've left everything as vaguely supernatural. I didn't need to know the Accas' backstories or get some dumb scifi explanation for everything, not every plot element needs an explanation like that, especially in a show like this that's obviously trying to be all deep and symbolic and shit! And like, I was nervous when they revealed Neiru is a 14 year old CEO, but when they revealed she's actually the like eugenics baby of Mensa members or some shit? Like, what the fuck is this shit??? Ai and Rika and Momoe have like, at least halfway relatable problems but Neiru may as well be a fucking space alien!!!
I'm glad you bring up 13 Reasons Why because I was thinking WEP is pretty similar to that show in that they both prioritize shocking emotional drama, although WEP is a little better at arguing against suicide (but not by much). And yeah I was laughing at their portrayal of the Mensa-eqsue org, it's so funny the writers think a group of high-IQ people are all amazing scientists when in the real world its nothing more than a big social club lol
Omggg idk why this doesn’t have more views!! This is an amazing review and really helped me because while watching and after finishing the show I was like… it’s not BAD but it just wasn’t hitting like everyone said it was 💀 the pretty art style, character design, and magical girl esque nature of the show fooled me so hard 😭
whats so heartbreaking for me is how cool and interesting the concept of the show is. as someone whos hyperfixation has been the psychology, weaponry, and magic systems in magical girl shows for years at this point i got disappointed time and time again with WEP and its characterizations and writing. i kept waiting for anti-feminist dialogue to be revisited and debunked but it never happened
Imo WEP is one of the many examples of what I call “Looks over Content”. Though I appreciate the effort the studio has put into making the show visually appealing, I was pretty disappointed by how the story turned out and ended. This series and its concept honestly had a lot of potential and I wish they at least lessened the topics to focus on or made the show longer to accommodate its said plot points. Overall, it saddens me that Wonder Egg would’ve been a classic if it wasn’t for its story’s flaws :(
I LOVE THIS REVIEW I WAS SO SHOCKED TO SEE HOW MANY VIEWS THIS GOT. This seems like a video that would have at least 500k views. You covered everything so well and i agree with every single point. I can tell you put a lot of thinking and effort into this and it came out wonderfully. So disappointed it did not get attention.
I love this review. It articulates everything I'm feeling about the show as I'm watching it. I was going crazy encountering all the praise for WEP. I literally tweeted the following before watching this review: "#WonderEggPriority is pretty but plagued by mediocre and uneven writing that leans heavily on melodrama & sensitive subject matter to create an illusion of depth. The plot is basically a combo of Madoka Magica, Persona 5, and Gantz, but it's not as interesting as it sounds." EDIT: And you're a Venture Bros fan. That's what I call good taste!
I agree with a lot of your points, I was highly disappointed by the show for how hyped up it was. the biggest punch in the gut for me was Momoe, now I do understand that gnc people in real life might get mistaken for being gay, and that’s annoying, but when we are writing characters and constructing the worlds around them, the writers are in control. as a lesbian myself I was just, completely puzzled by Momoe and her struggle, and also this idea that lesbians will just flock around any tomboyish girl available, regardless of how the girl feels about it. they are fighting the assumption that all gnc people are gay, but also in some way portraying lesbians in this cliche yuri manga-esque way. Momoe was not opposed to femininity, so I struggled to understand why this plot was even introduced for her, it was convoluted and it left me frustrated, because we don’t have proper representation for butch/tomboy lesbians in anime in order for writers to subversive the trope of tomboy = lesbian, maybe I would’ve been more receptive if we had an abundance of representation for lesbians (and healthy ones at that). I don’t intend to sound harsh but I care more about the experiences of gay people than a straight who gets mistaken for one, maybe because we are saturated with straight characters and straight romance in the media meanwhile I am begging for crumbs over here and getting gay-baited.
She is such a frustrating character! The way she thinks of herself, the way the world sees her, and the visual information the audience gets from the anime all conflict with each other. A *pretty* anime girl who wears a *masculine uniform* who is *popular with girls* and often *acts like a nice boy* in front of them ACTUALLY *wants to be seen as a straight girl*, but she doesn't have real external forces making her dress and act tomboyish sooooo???? If her story was supposed to be about struggling with people imposing expectations on her, actually being trans or gay would have been so much more powerful (and made more sense).
I think that was the case for her. I think she was likely either a lesbian or bisexual. But, the things didn't really turn out well for her and just wanted people to see her for who or what she really is. I mean, with all that's been going on, why would she just still do things that were oppose to her supposed nature?
I agree with you on multiple points Momoe had absolutely NO reason to dress and perceive her way to others as she did and they could have gone more in depth with that. And because of that potential situation I'm gonna have to call you out on "Caring more about gay problems than straight" I know you didn't mean any harm and despite being straight I kinda agree, but still It feels like you wouldn't care if there would be a situation where Momo had parents and others pressuring her to wear certain things and act as certain way cause how she looked And no matter what you say issues like that exists. Parents pushing their kids to pretend they're trans or make them drags to get attention or because they're unstable and wanted the opposite sex for their kid Regardless it's been portrayed before in the form of Nagisa shiota. Though his mom is more toxic almost everyone around him pushes him to wear feminine clothes It's horrible cause he doesn't want that and because it's not a story about someone WANTING to transition than it gets swept under the rug and nobody talks about it His mother forces him to cross dress. Because she wanted a girl and is horrible and toxic and others girls want make him wear girl clothes for NO reason other than he looks cute. And people make jokes about it. Using it as something to figure out the sex of him in anime games. That should have been the same case for momoe accept reverted * Phew * so sorry about how long this was but I needed to make this hope you understand
@@bombaybombay2793 I am talking about homophobia, and how I felt about Momoe as a lesbian. you are free to talk about trans issues but I don't know why you did it in a reply to me.
As a transmasc person her gender struggles were completely unrelatable to me. If she's afab and really that desperate to be seen as femme just...dress a little more femme?
I didn’t like that they passed suicide off as a teenage girl thing, especially as boys are more likely to commit suicide. They didn’t explore mental illness properly. Also the story of the main character Ai’s friend was WEIRD. Why not just make it a point about grooming instead of it being someone who had a crush
Wait I’m confused by your first sentence. It’s been a while since I watched the anime so maybe I’m wrong with this but didn’t seem like WEP was trying to make suicide a teenage girl thing…? It seemed more like they were just focusing on teenage girls experiences on suicide, not that it was making suicide seem to be an issue only teenage girls face. This not pointing out how I believe one of the characters in the eggs was a trans guy.
Women are more prone to suicidal ideation and certain mental illnesses. Women even attempt suicide at around the same rate but men pick more deadly methods. This show isn't very good but there's no harm in focusing on teen girl's mental health, the character are majority female I mean.
You can focus on teen girls mental health without lying about there not being mental health struggles within any other demographic, which the show was practically doing @@pokokor6121
I watched it whole and I was really confused at the ending and picked on certain unpleasantnesses at certain parts and I really felt bad for Rika on the episode where she tried to do self harm. That was one of the parts that touched my heart. The anime felt too rushed and there is not much explanation for anything.
on your point about the girls friendship. I agree the interactions the girls have are kinda redundant but I feel the points you made really have to do with their trauma. they all have problems and the way they interact with each other are the outcomes of their past. this show rlly had potential. it bums me out that it ended up like this
I agree that it had a lot of potential! To some extent, I think the anime knew to show a messy friend group made out of traumatized girls. That said, I feel like the messiness is inconsequential. They seem to like each other just fine UNTIL someone accuses another about their personal issues. Then they argue, make up (either with a quick "sorry" or brushing it off), and go into the next episode as BFFs again. They don't learn anything from the fight. I would have loved it if someone blew up at Rika at the end of the series because they finally got sick and tired of her rudeness lmao.
@@nil-nilgiree-7965 I agree with you heavily. But once you said they were BFF'S literally after arguing that got me realising a great deal of friendships (Female in particular)has this exact toxic gimmick Where they just shove their issues away and pretend to be friends I think that toxicity could have been dwelled into more
Good on you to call Nojima Shinji out, too many people discussing WEP tend to lump him in the same bag as the animators, ie "visionary artists who took a chance and suffered from the messy production", missing that the way WEP is written is more is MO than his pen being rushed.
I think episode 3 and 4 beautifully captures the conflicting nature of the show. A lot is set up, but when it comes to how things are paid off, not much in between seems all that relevant. This is especially made obvious when it integrates a subplot that overall has nothing to do with the climax of the actual conflict and that is only there to contextualize the later events. Basically, a lot is proposed, but not fully dealt with.
I watched all your videos and really enjoy your point of view and the way you make videos, esp the newest one. I'm glad I found you, keep up the great work!
On the topic of suicide-themed magical girl media, have you ever read Suicide Girl by Nakayama Atsushi? It's similar to WEP in the sense that suicide in the story is treated as a "supernatural" thing, but I feel like it has a step up compared to WEP because the supernatural part of suicide is intrinsically linked to the main character's goals. The manga unfortunately has the typical sleaze of a lot of other manga like the sexualisation of teenage girls but Suicide Girl is unabashedly corny (positively) and the friendship between the main characters is a driving force for the story.
I was just thinking of that Manga! I feel like it handled it's issues better in the 10 chapters I read because it not only said that people's suicides were because of supernatural forces, but also acknowledged that it's not just magical beings that can push someone over the edge but also things going on in society itself as a starter, the supernatural creatures only fed off of their decisions to really make sure the people die
I was just thinking of that Manga! I feel like it handled it's issues better in the 10 chapters I read because it not only said that people's suicides were because of supernatural forces, but also acknowledged that it's not just magical beings that can push someone over the edge but also things going on in society itself as a starter, the supernatural creatures only fed off of their decisions to really make sure the people die
I did a review on this a while ago, but I definitely agree with your take on it, especially after time has passed. I do feel it had many interesting concepts, but never spent enough time fleshing anything out for it to land. Overall, the inconsistencies dragged the series down which is a shame because in a different scenario this might have been amazing. But Cloverworks was working on multiple shows and things just didn't work out that way.
I've watched the show and while I could feel its "troubled production" smell from the way the story was being directed (and some delays on some episodes iirc), haven't realised that it actually had a fundamental problem. Great vid!
The first episodes were fantastic. Then it fell apart more each episode. Such a shame, it *could* have been so much, I thought this was the general sentiment about this show held by the majority of people? I remember watching it as it came out and like everyone I talked to fell in love with the first 5 episodes and after that ehh yeah... Also the reviews on myanimewatchlist show a stark difference between the start and end
This show lacks Ma... People need time to process things... this show just keeps on forcing new and weird twists and turns even before people get a grip of what is going on... But I must say somehow I was captivated by it...as you have said ,the animation style and musical score must be the reason...moreover the anime is in many ways unique ... that's why I kept expecting that it would be good... Even now I hope they would connect the dots , without making it more heterogeneous and bizarre...it has a good scope still...
I was also in denial, until they went into the mannequins' backstory. Wonder Egg Priority had potential, but I honestly don't think any of the characters or their back-stories were very well thought-out. If anything, the "twist" about the art teacher NOT being a creepy groomer, despite showing all the signs, is potentially very dangerous messaging, when it could have been exactly what the show needed: an honest, empathetic account of what that kind of abuse can look like, and how it can lead to self-harm... but no. That's just one example of the show bringing up big emotions, but resolving them really clumsily. The final product has impactful scenes, especially because of the art (and later, teenage girls having to kill their own pets for.. reasons), but the more you think about what's being presented on-screen, the less any of those images (or the plot, itself) has to say. Speaking from experience, almost everything it said about being a depressed teenaged girl was offensively-misguided or gross. I *really* wanted to like it, too 🥺!
I found your channel from your relatively recent host video so finding out your first video was dressing down this mess of a show was weirdly cathartic!
I haven't watched the show and I'm planning to, but I have a question: The main protag being bullied for being super rare due to her heterochromia sounds like a cliche tragic background story for angsty fanfic mary sues.........Is she one...???
A mary sue that's clearly there to get the attention of her love interest is more interesting than Ai, cuz at least they have a clear desire. Ai's there just to tell the audience what wishy-washy teenage sadness they should be feeling without a clear desire or reason of her own :/
Glad to see someone else point of the flaws of this anime so well. The cute, saturated, lighthearted artstyle did not match with the darker themes it was trying to represent; Characters were randomly overdramatic at times, it was cringe; No proper character development; This whole magical eggs with fantasy dreams later mixed with evil AI didn't even match, it was messy and stupid; Rika was fine tbh;
Agree with your thoughts but to me Mamoe is clearly written as a trans girl and yes its not outright stated, but her struggles, the Japanese terminology she uses and the fact that one of her episodes centres around a trans boy( t4t for win, she even wears a trans pride jacket in it :] ) is there for a reason. Mamoe as just a tomboyish girl that people sometimes mistake for a boy, falls so flat and offers no clever commentary, and I do think we can give at least that to the writers, not everything has to be spelled out, like its all there in the text.
Not making her explicitly trans was a massive cop out by the creators. Zombie Land Saga did it, so it's not exactly unprecedented. For a show that's so frank about it's subject matter they would have 100% just come out and said it if that was their intent.
So I was and kinda still Ann a fan of Wonder Egg Priority. I really liked the characters and their relationships with each other. It was the defining thing I enjoyed about it. But I also do agree with you. The plot is pretty messy and how it ultimately dealt with the problems was messy. And the non ending it had was oof. But I still love the representation. The reason why I think I take to it is cause it was something never really seen in anime. Anime can be so regressive at times and it was nice to have a show that was trying for progressive values even if it flopped. And the dub is wonderful
I remember being really interested in this show when it came out and did end up watching the whole thing, but... i could feel myself struggling SO HARD to like it after maybe the halfway point or so. Seems to treat mental illness and exploitation of teenage girls as more or less a plot device or something to be dismissed because it's "just how things are", which is like, the opposite of what attracted me to the series in the first place. Honestly a shame, and with what I've heard about production behind-the-scenes since its been finished, an avoidable shame at that.
found this months later but thank you so much for this vid, up until the disaster ending this anime got so much praise w ppl recommending it to me left n right for the trans rep without explaining anything abt it (or giving warnings abt what actually happens to the trans character) i dropped it early on but the more i heard abt it the worse it got
Holy cow. You literally expressed like 99.8 of my problem with this anime as well. Even as a person that enjoys anime about characters suffering, I feel like it can feel tactless at times. Heck, I even find it much more edgy for my taste even as someone that enjoyed Magical Girl Site. I wished the anime was better because I do like edgy and depressing shows. Despite liking edgy stuff. Other edgy Magical Girl shows still have sign of hope like Magical Girl Raising Project or Yuki Yuna.
Thank you for making this video! This does a succint job explaining why and how Wonder Egg lost its priorities. I love this show, but it's largely due to the promises it set up in the first 2 episodes and what it *could have been*, rather than what it eventually became. I agree that Nojima is one of the weakest links in the show's production and his tendency to use melodrama tropes as a crutch really bogged the show down in its later half. And the Frill plotline... yeah, they really went sunny side up. I heard that they didn't even have a plot outlined when the show started production and the writer(s) were just making things up as they went along, which explains why the plot got so scrambled
im glad i wasnt the only one who noticed how mediocre the writing was. at first i was blinded by the reviews by other people praising the show and later dropped it because i just couldnt be bothered continuing, then later i realised just how bland it was. the cast was actually boring and not an accurate portrayal of what 14 year old girls would act like, i mean other girls could have a variety of perspectives on whether it was accurate or not but my biggest gripe is with how bland their relationship dynamics with each other are and i've never had a friend group be that boring lmao
I do appreciate show like this exist, it is different compare to most of modern anime, despite the relationships or story or not that much intertwined together. Have you watch Sonny boy? would like to heard your opinion on the series, if not I do recommend it.
I haven’t finished this video, but I do have to say I’m confused by and disagree entirely with your opinion on Shinji’s past work being pulled by sponsors = bad. Actually a lot of the best work and art creates controversy, and the sponsors that pulled out from the show about the orphans were AFAIK adoption agencies who would have never sponsored anything that exposed and / or put them in a bad light. I’m thinking of making a video series about these kinds of shows - now that I have seen THREE made in the last year (egg and two others), their criticisms and their strengths. All in all I have to say I think these shows (like WEP) deserves a space, and despite being problematic in some parts, do more good than harm and raise a dialogue about young girls in society.
I admit the way I phrased that was reductive, I don't believe sponsors pulling is proof that a show is bad. The orphan show is an odd case though; a well-known adoption agency called for the show to get canceled, and eventually, all 8 sponsors pulled out. Putting aside the ethics of companies having sway over what's on TV, if it wasn't for the fact that that show was already completely filmed, featured child super-star Ashia Mana, and Nippon TV feeling indebted to Shinji for his past success, that show should have been canceled, simply because it no longer made money. My gripe with WEP is less about it being a messy story about teen girls, it's that it's a story about modern teen girls and suicide _written by a guy close to 60 with gender-essentialist values and a track record of bleak, tear-jerker soap operas._ I don't like Mari Okada's shows much either, but I mention her at the end because I trust that her writing comes from a place of personal empathy for teens (based on her own anxiety-filled teen days), rather than just exploiting their suffering for cheap melodrama. I want dialogue about young girls too! Just not from this guy lol
@@nil-nilgiree-7965 Sorry for the late reply. Yeah, I definitely give the show some extra good faith from my side, because I know a lot of the people who worked on it (notably the director and art designers) had their hearts in on trying to tell an honest story with what they were given. There was a specific pledge of terms that Wakabayashi (director) wanted to create the show on, which was basically about wanting to represent these characters’ stories like they had happened to a close friend, “because someone has had this happen and we can learn from them”. There’s an interview for one of the art directors which is this young woman in her 20s, she mentioned they had even interviewed lots of middle school and high school aged teenagers in preparation. She notably was the one who did the designs for episode 10 including research on the trans community and put a lot of work and thought into it. She designed a full closet for Rika just to get a sense of her character better .. but this is getting irrelevant lol. I don’t really care about Shinji Nojima, but I do think a lot of the more random elements of the show (the evil scientists and robot girl causing suicide) were probably the result of him going “my first anime… I have to make sure it’s weird and crazy like anime is” and losing track a bit of the human element. I think his heart was in the right place, but like you said as a 60 year old man who has written TV dramas from the nineties something was bound to break especially working with all these green young animators and producers. Apparently there were significant rumours of a major clash from someone on the inside, but I don’t know how true this is. Seems likely.
As someone who loves the show and relates to Ai I mostly agree The show literally cannot take so many plots and it not getting a season 2 was clear from episode 8. I don't necessarily think Ai is boring because I see myself in her, I also have a faint memory that apparently Ai's heterechromia isn't the reason she was bullied..? Tho I might be wrong. I still love the show but I really don't like how they handled mist stuff For Momoe, I think she's just.. a tomboy who's slowly getting out of her "not like other girls tomboy" phase. I've been there, it kind of makes you uncomfortable being feminine even if you want to. I also noticed that she was seen as a guy even when she was feminine and only Haruka saw her as a girl, so she started becoming more tomboyish, probably because she thought it fit her better. Most of her egg girls were sa'd, maybe she thought "hey Imma use my looks to give them a feeling that there are men who care about them!". But ofc we don't know BECAUSE WEP WRITING SUCKS- I also don't like this whole "they all liked Sawaki" thing. Like it was so messy I couldn't tell if Ai liked him or not! I think it's completely useless. Biggest spit in the face was Koito's mystery. I was wondering "why did she die?" Because all options seemed too obvious. And than the show goes "she threatened her teacher cause she liked him slipped and fell" THAT'S NOT EVEN SUICIDE WHY WAS AI ABLE TO RESSURECT HER??-
This show could only be saved by retconning the last 5 episode and going on a different route, such a shame because I actually loved WEP during its release, but looking back at It I'm Just more disappointed than anything. But I have to say that the First 7 episodes, despite some minor flaws, are stilo truly beautiful to me
SAY IT LOUDER FOR ALL THE CIS/HET MEN SIMPING 4 THIS SH*T IN THE BACK! This anime is VERY VERY BAD. the only redeeming qualities are the score and visuals, the dialogue was crummy and stale (kind of like what older men think young girls talk about). They also managed to talk about every struggle under the sun and "resolve" them in the worst possible way. it was ALWAYS bad, not just bad until the final episodes.
Why cishet men tho? I do agree with you on the fact that when adults try to portray how us teenagers (im 17) act, talk, and are interested in, it seems kinda cringe, stereotypical, outdated and unrealistic. In high school movies at least
Cringe comment. Anyway, I see LGBT people praising/talking about this more than “cis” people. Plus I hate this anime a lot and the video explained my exact thought about it.
I completely disagree, calling it a mess is a bit too far, well the "Special" wonder egg was trash, but the other wonder egg wasn't, also I kinda don't blame yt about not giving this enough views bc it's just incorrect, but it's your opinion ig.
![BAKUMAN and Women's Place in Shonen Manga [CC]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qeCytenPbG4/mqdefault.jpg)
![BAKUMAN and Women's Place in Shonen Manga [CC]](/img/tr.png)
wonder egg priority is like queerbating but for mental health issues
This is such a good way to describe it lmao
And also actual queerbaiting
By the 4th episode you realize that
1. There was no woman or mental health professional in the writing room or consulted whatsoever.
2. Animation quality is a hell of a show carrier.
Everyone says the first 8 episodes of this show are just so good but you can really see the cracks in the beginning to put it nicely lol
When a man is as obsessed with stories of child abuse as Nojima is, it makes me really side-eye them.
Thank you.
My main problem with the show is how it feels as if it's just mocking mental illness. They are so indirect about it and as you said in this video, it just addresses it as "teenage girls that can't be helped."
The constant praise of ANY anime that has any character that has any sign of mental illness is baffling. Nine times out of ten mental illness in anime is something romantic or produced in a "too deep for you to understand" way, when the reality of mental illness isn't deep in the slightest and I wish that anime, and specifically wep, would just show mental illness in a realistic, upfront way without coating it in romance, sexism, magic, or some stupid deeper meaning bullshit.
From what you said, it seems like shows try to keep pushing the idea that mental illness (in movies they make all these special effects if you have it) is more dramatized for the audience to generally get. That said tons of movies handle it more delicately. I guess this show as the youtube said was going for more drama for drama sake and its deep because I "get it" type of thing. Not bad per say, many loved it at first and the mystery would have kept many going as its unique think the first ep is first chapter of a manga and it would be an instant hit and the next eps would make popular chapters...but yeah it needed time to cook and a delicate level of hey I think I need help with this topic and ill spread this over 24 eps and add a level of less crazy animation and more just giving the characters talking sections where they hang out idk lol
It sucks all the interesting concepts resulted in "Girls do be emotional sometimes."
I’m glad someone who speaks Japanese and understands the cultural context made a video talking about this show. I thought I was just being emotionally unintelligent for not understanding the character drama but if the conflicts aren’t well-established and the storyboarding is just fake deep artsy stuff that doesn’t properly match the writing and the dialogue is weird and robotic even in Japanese then it’s no wonder the whole thing was this incomprehensible mess
I still don’t fully understand the whole conflict with the teacher and it’s been two years
Started a channel just to shit on Wonder Egg Priority. I respect it.
I feel like if they'd had just more time and tried to do less maybe they could've made this work. Like, the first season of fucking 13 Reasons Why doesn't try to tackle as many ~issues~ as this show and it's twice as long! Also they should've left everything as vaguely supernatural. I didn't need to know the Accas' backstories or get some dumb scifi explanation for everything, not every plot element needs an explanation like that, especially in a show like this that's obviously trying to be all deep and symbolic and shit! And like, I was nervous when they revealed Neiru is a 14 year old CEO, but when they revealed she's actually the like eugenics baby of Mensa members or some shit? Like, what the fuck is this shit??? Ai and Rika and Momoe have like, at least halfway relatable problems but Neiru may as well be a fucking space alien!!!
I'm glad you bring up 13 Reasons Why because I was thinking WEP is pretty similar to that show in that they both prioritize shocking emotional drama, although WEP is a little better at arguing against suicide (but not by much). And yeah I was laughing at their portrayal of the Mensa-eqsue org, it's so funny the writers think a group of high-IQ people are all amazing scientists when in the real world its nothing more than a big social club lol
You know... when I joked that they might as well have made Neiru a space alien... I didn't think they'd actually basically do that!!!
Omggg idk why this doesn’t have more views!! This is an amazing review and really helped me because while watching and after finishing the show I was like… it’s not BAD but it just wasn’t hitting like everyone said it was 💀 the pretty art style, character design, and magical girl esque nature of the show fooled me so hard 😭
Same goes for me :(
whats so heartbreaking for me is how cool and interesting the concept of the show is. as someone whos hyperfixation has been the psychology, weaponry, and magic systems in magical girl shows for years at this point i got disappointed time and time again with WEP and its characterizations and writing. i kept waiting for anti-feminist dialogue to be revisited and debunked but it never happened
Imo WEP is one of the many examples of what I call “Looks over Content”. Though I appreciate the effort the studio has put into making the show visually appealing, I was pretty disappointed by how the story turned out and ended. This series and its concept honestly had a lot of potential and I wish they at least lessened the topics to focus on or made the show longer to accommodate its said plot points. Overall, it saddens me that Wonder Egg would’ve been a classic if it wasn’t for its story’s flaws :(
I LOVE THIS REVIEW I WAS SO SHOCKED TO SEE HOW MANY VIEWS THIS GOT. This seems like a video that would have at least 500k views. You covered everything so well and i agree with every single point. I can tell you put a lot of thinking and effort into this and it came out wonderfully. So disappointed it did not get attention.
I love this review. It articulates everything I'm feeling about the show as I'm watching it. I was going crazy encountering all the praise for WEP. I literally tweeted the following before watching this review: "#WonderEggPriority is pretty but plagued by mediocre and uneven writing that leans heavily on melodrama & sensitive subject matter to create an illusion of depth. The plot is basically a combo of Madoka Magica, Persona 5, and Gantz, but it's not as interesting as it sounds." EDIT: And you're a Venture Bros fan. That's what I call good taste!
I agree with a lot of your points, I was highly disappointed by the show for how hyped up it was. the biggest punch in the gut for me was Momoe, now I do understand that gnc people in real life might get mistaken for being gay, and that’s annoying, but when we are writing characters and constructing the worlds around them, the writers are in control. as a lesbian myself I was just, completely puzzled by Momoe and her struggle, and also this idea that lesbians will just flock around any tomboyish girl available, regardless of how the girl feels about it. they are fighting the assumption that all gnc people are gay, but also in some way portraying lesbians in this cliche yuri manga-esque way. Momoe was not opposed to femininity, so I struggled to understand why this plot was even introduced for her, it was convoluted and it left me frustrated, because we don’t have proper representation for butch/tomboy lesbians in anime in order for writers to subversive the trope of tomboy = lesbian, maybe I would’ve been more receptive if we had an abundance of representation for lesbians (and healthy ones at that). I don’t intend to sound harsh but I care more about the experiences of gay people than a straight who gets mistaken for one, maybe because we are saturated with straight characters and straight romance in the media meanwhile I am begging for crumbs over here and getting gay-baited.
She is such a frustrating character! The way she thinks of herself, the way the world sees her, and the visual information the audience gets from the anime all conflict with each other. A *pretty* anime girl who wears a *masculine uniform* who is *popular with girls* and often *acts like a nice boy* in front of them ACTUALLY *wants to be seen as a straight girl*, but she doesn't have real external forces making her dress and act tomboyish sooooo???? If her story was supposed to be about struggling with people imposing expectations on her, actually being trans or gay would have been so much more powerful (and made more sense).
I think that was the case for her. I think she was likely either a lesbian or bisexual. But, the things didn't really turn out well for her and just wanted people to see her for who or what she really is. I mean, with all that's been going on, why would she just still do things that were oppose to her supposed nature?
I agree with you on multiple points Momoe had absolutely NO reason to dress and perceive her way to others as she did and they could have gone more in depth with that.
And because of that potential situation I'm gonna have to call you out on "Caring more about gay problems than straight" I know you didn't mean any harm and despite being straight I kinda agree, but still
It feels like you wouldn't care if there would be a situation where Momo had parents and others pressuring her to wear certain things and act as certain way cause how she looked
And no matter what you say issues like that exists.
Parents pushing their kids to pretend they're trans or make them drags to get attention or because they're unstable and wanted the opposite sex for their kid
Regardless it's been portrayed before in the form of Nagisa shiota. Though his mom is more toxic almost everyone around him pushes him to wear feminine clothes
It's horrible cause he doesn't want that and because it's not a story about someone WANTING to transition than it gets swept under the rug and nobody talks about it
His mother forces him to cross dress. Because she wanted a girl and is horrible and toxic and others girls want make him wear girl clothes for NO reason other than he looks cute.
And people make jokes about it. Using it as something to figure out the sex of him in anime games.
That should have been the same case for momoe accept reverted
* Phew * so sorry about how long this was but I needed to make this hope you understand
@@bombaybombay2793 I am talking about homophobia, and how I felt about Momoe as a lesbian. you are free to talk about trans issues but I don't know why you did it in a reply to me.
As a transmasc person her gender struggles were completely unrelatable to me. If she's afab and really that desperate to be seen as femme just...dress a little more femme?
I didn’t like that they passed suicide off as a teenage girl thing, especially as boys are more likely to commit suicide.
They didn’t explore mental illness properly.
Also the story of the main character Ai’s friend was WEIRD. Why not just make it a point about grooming instead of it being someone who had a crush
Wait I’m confused by your first sentence. It’s been a while since I watched the anime so maybe I’m wrong with this but didn’t seem like WEP was trying to make suicide a teenage girl thing…? It seemed more like they were just focusing on teenage girls experiences on suicide, not that it was making suicide seem to be an issue only teenage girls face. This not pointing out how I believe one of the characters in the eggs was a trans guy.
Women are more prone to suicidal ideation and certain mental illnesses. Women even attempt suicide at around the same rate but men pick more deadly methods. This show isn't very good but there's no harm in focusing on teen girl's mental health, the character are majority female I mean.
You can focus on teen girls mental health without lying about there not being mental health struggles within any other demographic, which the show was practically doing @@pokokor6121
YOU GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I watched it whole and I was really confused at the ending and picked on certain unpleasantnesses at certain parts and I really felt bad for Rika on the episode where she tried to do self harm. That was one of the parts that touched my heart. The anime felt too rushed and there is not much explanation for anything.
Thirteen reasons why but moe
on your point about the girls friendship. I agree the interactions the girls have are kinda redundant but I feel the points you made really have to do with their trauma. they all have problems and the way they interact with each other are the outcomes of their past. this show rlly had potential. it bums me out that it ended up like this
I agree that it had a lot of potential! To some extent, I think the anime knew to show a messy friend group made out of traumatized girls. That said, I feel like the messiness is inconsequential. They seem to like each other just fine UNTIL someone accuses another about their personal issues. Then they argue, make up (either with a quick "sorry" or brushing it off), and go into the next episode as BFFs again. They don't learn anything from the fight. I would have loved it if someone blew up at Rika at the end of the series because they finally got sick and tired of her rudeness lmao.
@@nil-nilgiree-7965 I agree with you heavily. But once you said they were BFF'S literally after arguing that got me realising a great deal of friendships (Female in particular)has this exact toxic gimmick
Where they just shove their issues away and pretend to be friends
I think that toxicity could have been dwelled into more
Good on you to call Nojima Shinji out, too many people discussing WEP tend to lump him in the same bag as the animators, ie "visionary artists who took a chance and suffered from the messy production", missing that the way WEP is written is more is MO than his pen being rushed.
I think episode 3 and 4 beautifully captures the conflicting nature of the show. A lot is set up, but when it comes to how things are paid off, not much in between seems all that relevant. This is especially made obvious when it integrates a subplot that overall has nothing to do with the climax of the actual conflict and that is only there to contextualize the later events. Basically, a lot is proposed, but not fully dealt with.
I watched all your videos and really enjoy your point of view and the way you make videos, esp the newest one. I'm glad I found you, keep up the great work!
On the topic of suicide-themed magical girl media, have you ever read Suicide Girl by Nakayama Atsushi? It's similar to WEP in the sense that suicide in the story is treated as a "supernatural" thing, but I feel like it has a step up compared to WEP because the supernatural part of suicide is intrinsically linked to the main character's goals.
The manga unfortunately has the typical sleaze of a lot of other manga like the sexualisation of teenage girls but Suicide Girl is unabashedly corny (positively) and the friendship between the main characters is a driving force for the story.
I was just thinking of that Manga! I feel like it handled it's issues better in the 10 chapters I read because it not only said that people's suicides were because of supernatural forces, but also acknowledged that it's not just magical beings that can push someone over the edge but also things going on in society itself as a starter, the supernatural creatures only fed off of their decisions to really make sure the people die
I was just thinking of that Manga! I feel like it handled it's issues better in the 10 chapters I read because it not only said that people's suicides were because of supernatural forces, but also acknowledged that it's not just magical beings that can push someone over the edge but also things going on in society itself as a starter, the supernatural creatures only fed off of their decisions to really make sure the people die
I keep hearing wep as "war emergency power"
I did a review on this a while ago, but I definitely agree with your take on it, especially after time has passed. I do feel it had many interesting concepts, but never spent enough time fleshing anything out for it to land. Overall, the inconsistencies dragged the series down which is a shame because in a different scenario this might have been amazing. But Cloverworks was working on multiple shows and things just didn't work out that way.
I've watched the show and while I could feel its "troubled production" smell from the way the story was being directed (and some delays on some episodes iirc), haven't realised that it actually had a fundamental problem. Great vid!
Too many ideas for this show to handle tbh
The first episodes were fantastic. Then it fell apart more each episode. Such a shame, it *could* have been so much, I thought this was the general sentiment about this show held by the majority of people? I remember watching it as it came out and like everyone I talked to fell in love with the first 5 episodes and after that ehh yeah... Also the reviews on myanimewatchlist show a stark difference between the start and end
This show lacks Ma...
People need time to process things... this show just keeps on forcing new and weird twists and turns even before people get a grip of what is going on...
But I must say somehow I was captivated by it...as you have said ,the animation style and musical score must be the reason...moreover the anime is in many ways unique ... that's why I kept expecting that it would be good...
Even now I hope they would connect the dots , without making it more heterogeneous and bizarre...it has a good scope still...
I was also in denial, until they went into the mannequins' backstory. Wonder Egg Priority had potential, but I honestly don't think any of the characters or their back-stories were very well thought-out.
If anything, the "twist" about the art teacher NOT being a creepy groomer, despite showing all the signs, is potentially very dangerous messaging, when it could have been exactly what the show needed: an honest, empathetic account of what that kind of abuse can look like, and how it can lead to self-harm... but no. That's just one example of the show bringing up big emotions, but resolving them really clumsily.
The final product has impactful scenes, especially because of the art (and later, teenage girls having to kill their own pets for.. reasons), but the more you think about what's being presented on-screen, the less any of those images (or the plot, itself) has to say. Speaking from experience, almost everything it said about being a depressed teenaged girl was offensively-misguided or gross. I *really* wanted to like it, too 🥺!
I found your channel from your relatively recent host video so finding out your first video was dressing down this mess of a show was weirdly cathartic!
I literally just found out about this series and you've givdn such a great run down of it! Also, love how you ended the video.
this was a rly good video! also i genuinely wanted the ending about the old video game to be its own video lol
I haven't watched the show and I'm planning to, but I have a question: The main protag being bullied for being super rare due to her heterochromia sounds like a cliche tragic background story for angsty fanfic mary sues.........Is she one...???
A mary sue that's clearly there to get the attention of her love interest is more interesting than Ai, cuz at least they have a clear desire. Ai's there just to tell the audience what wishy-washy teenage sadness they should be feeling without a clear desire or reason of her own :/
Glad to see someone else point of the flaws of this anime so well.
The cute, saturated, lighthearted artstyle did not match with the darker themes it was trying to represent;
Characters were randomly overdramatic at times, it was cringe;
No proper character development;
This whole magical eggs with fantasy dreams later mixed with evil AI didn't even match, it was messy and stupid;
Rika was fine tbh;
this deserves more views
Agree with your thoughts but to me Mamoe is clearly written as a trans girl and yes its not outright stated, but her struggles, the Japanese terminology she uses and the fact that one of her episodes centres around a trans boy( t4t for win, she even wears a trans pride jacket in it :] ) is there for a reason. Mamoe as just a tomboyish girl that people sometimes mistake for a boy, falls so flat and offers no clever commentary, and I do think we can give at least that to the writers, not everything has to be spelled out, like its all there in the text.
Not making her explicitly trans was a massive cop out by the creators. Zombie Land Saga did it, so it's not exactly unprecedented. For a show that's so frank about it's subject matter they would have 100% just come out and said it if that was their intent.
So I was and kinda still Ann a fan of Wonder Egg Priority. I really liked the characters and their relationships with each other. It was the defining thing I enjoyed about it. But I also do agree with you. The plot is pretty messy and how it ultimately dealt with the problems was messy. And the non ending it had was oof. But I still love the representation. The reason why I think I take to it is cause it was something never really seen in anime. Anime can be so regressive at times and it was nice to have a show that was trying for progressive values even if it flopped. And the dub is wonderful
Every reviewer reviewing this show positively did so in the first half. After that everyone was all on board watching the trainwreck crash hahaha
tysm for talking about this
WAIT I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THE BANDAI CONSOLE GAME-
I remember being really interested in this show when it came out and did end up watching the whole thing, but... i could feel myself struggling SO HARD to like it after maybe the halfway point or so. Seems to treat mental illness and exploitation of teenage girls as more or less a plot device or something to be dismissed because it's "just how things are", which is like, the opposite of what attracted me to the series in the first place. Honestly a shame, and with what I've heard about production behind-the-scenes since its been finished, an avoidable shame at that.
You are defenitly one of the smartest perons on this site!!
Volume drops off to basically nothing at the end btw
found this months later but thank you so much for this vid, up until the disaster ending this anime got so much praise w ppl recommending it to me left n right for the trans rep without explaining anything abt it (or giving warnings abt what actually happens to the trans character)
i dropped it early on but the more i heard abt it the worse it got
Bruh just recommending the show for the trans rep? Unless the story was actually about a trans person, that's a very minor reason lol
Holy cow. You literally expressed like 99.8 of my problem with this anime as well. Even as a person that enjoys anime about characters suffering, I feel like it can feel tactless at times. Heck, I even find it much more edgy for my taste even as someone that enjoyed Magical Girl Site. I wished the anime was better because I do like edgy and depressing shows. Despite liking edgy stuff. Other edgy Magical Girl shows still have sign of hope like Magical Girl Raising Project or Yuki Yuna.
How is it even possible for a show to be more edgy than Magical Girl Site? (at least without being rightfully universally hated upon release)
This can't be your only video. I won't allow it!!!
"No, I do not care about episode 13." Thank God.
Thank you for making this video! This does a succint job explaining why and how Wonder Egg lost its priorities. I love this show, but it's largely due to the promises it set up in the first 2 episodes and what it *could have been*, rather than what it eventually became. I agree that Nojima is one of the weakest links in the show's production and his tendency to use melodrama tropes as a crutch really bogged the show down in its later half. And the Frill plotline... yeah, they really went sunny side up. I heard that they didn't even have a plot outlined when the show started production and the writer(s) were just making things up as they went along, which explains why the plot got so scrambled
Great points
im glad i wasnt the only one who noticed how mediocre the writing was. at first i was blinded by the reviews by other people praising the show and later dropped it because i just couldnt be bothered continuing, then later i realised just how bland it was. the cast was actually boring and not an accurate portrayal of what 14 year old girls would act like, i mean other girls could have a variety of perspectives on whether it was accurate or not but my biggest gripe is with how bland their relationship dynamics with each other are and i've never had a friend group be that boring lmao
I do appreciate show like this exist, it is different compare to most of modern anime, despite the relationships or story or not that much intertwined together.
Have you watch Sonny boy? would like to heard your opinion on the series, if not I do recommend it.
This explains so much. thankyou.
that catchphrases are fun
that's all i wanted to say
Can u make more videos please
Wh- what just happened?
Why did the video end that way? I’m confused.
Ruthless...still an 8 though
The show is pretty meh, honestly, i already knew it wouldn't be that great since no one ever talked about it
Well, I am so interesting on this, but I don't speak english at all (I'm learning)
jaja, tremendo tercermundo 😂😭
Que bruto, póngale 0
I haven’t finished this video, but I do have to say I’m confused by and disagree entirely with your opinion on Shinji’s past work being pulled by sponsors = bad. Actually a lot of the best work and art creates controversy, and the sponsors that pulled out from the show about the orphans were AFAIK adoption agencies who would have never sponsored anything that exposed and / or put them in a bad light.
I’m thinking of making a video series about these kinds of shows - now that I have seen THREE made in the last year (egg and two others), their criticisms and their strengths. All in all I have to say I think these shows (like WEP) deserves a space, and despite being problematic in some parts, do more good than harm and raise a dialogue about young girls in society.
I admit the way I phrased that was reductive, I don't believe sponsors pulling is proof that a show is bad. The orphan show is an odd case though; a well-known adoption agency called for the show to get canceled, and eventually, all 8 sponsors pulled out. Putting aside the ethics of companies having sway over what's on TV, if it wasn't for the fact that that show was already completely filmed, featured child super-star Ashia Mana, and Nippon TV feeling indebted to Shinji for his past success, that show should have been canceled, simply because it no longer made money.
My gripe with WEP is less about it being a messy story about teen girls, it's that it's a story about modern teen girls and suicide _written by a guy close to 60 with gender-essentialist values and a track record of bleak, tear-jerker soap operas._ I don't like Mari Okada's shows much either, but I mention her at the end because I trust that her writing comes from a place of personal empathy for teens (based on her own anxiety-filled teen days), rather than just exploiting their suffering for cheap melodrama. I want dialogue about young girls too! Just not from this guy lol
@@nil-nilgiree-7965 Sorry for the late reply. Yeah, I definitely give the show some extra good faith from my side, because I know a lot of the people who worked on it (notably the director and art designers) had their hearts in on trying to tell an honest story with what they were given. There was a specific pledge of terms that Wakabayashi (director) wanted to create the show on, which was basically about wanting to represent these characters’ stories like they had happened to a close friend, “because someone has had this happen and we can learn from them”. There’s an interview for one of the art directors which is this young woman in her 20s, she mentioned they had even interviewed lots of middle school and high school aged teenagers in preparation. She notably was the one who did the designs for episode 10 including research on the trans community and put a lot of work and thought into it. She designed a full closet for Rika just to get a sense of her character better .. but this is getting irrelevant lol.
I don’t really care about Shinji Nojima, but I do think a lot of the more random elements of the show (the evil scientists and robot girl causing suicide) were probably the result of him going “my first anime… I have to make sure it’s weird and crazy like anime is” and losing track a bit of the human element. I think his heart was in the right place, but like you said as a 60 year old man who has written TV dramas from the nineties something was bound to break especially working with all these green young animators and producers. Apparently there were significant rumours of a major clash from someone on the inside, but I don’t know how true this is. Seems likely.
As someone who loves the show and relates to Ai I mostly agree
The show literally cannot take so many plots and it not getting a season 2 was clear from episode 8.
I don't necessarily think Ai is boring because I see myself in her, I also have a faint memory that apparently Ai's heterechromia isn't the reason she was bullied..? Tho I might be wrong.
I still love the show but I really don't like how they handled mist stuff
For Momoe, I think she's just.. a tomboy who's slowly getting out of her "not like other girls tomboy" phase. I've been there, it kind of makes you uncomfortable being feminine even if you want to. I also noticed that she was seen as a guy even when she was feminine and only Haruka saw her as a girl, so she started becoming more tomboyish, probably because she thought it fit her better. Most of her egg girls were sa'd, maybe she thought "hey Imma use my looks to give them a feeling that there are men who care about them!". But ofc we don't know BECAUSE WEP WRITING SUCKS-
I also don't like this whole "they all liked Sawaki" thing. Like it was so messy I couldn't tell if Ai liked him or not! I think it's completely useless.
Biggest spit in the face was Koito's mystery. I was wondering "why did she die?" Because all options seemed too obvious.
And than the show goes "she threatened her teacher cause she liked him slipped and fell"
THAT'S NOT EVEN SUICIDE WHY WAS AI ABLE TO RESSURECT HER??-
This show could only be saved by retconning the last 5 episode and going on a different route, such a shame because I actually loved WEP during its release, but looking back at It I'm Just more disappointed than anything. But I have to say that the First 7 episodes, despite some minor flaws, are stilo truly beautiful to me
Wep is one of the better animes buts my opinion. I get your response on the anime
Liked and commented with the first line of dialogue 🤙🏾
I feel so seen, lol. The comments section is great too. "Let's go, girls" 😘💕
SAY IT LOUDER FOR ALL THE CIS/HET MEN SIMPING 4 THIS SH*T IN THE BACK! This anime is VERY VERY BAD. the only redeeming qualities are the score and visuals, the dialogue was crummy and stale (kind of like what older men think young girls talk about). They also managed to talk about every struggle under the sun and "resolve" them in the worst possible way. it was ALWAYS bad, not just bad until the final episodes.
Why cishet men tho?
I do agree with you on the fact that when adults try to portray how us teenagers (im 17) act, talk, and are interested in, it seems kinda cringe, stereotypical, outdated and unrealistic. In high school movies at least
I dont think WEP is *that* bad and would call it shit
Cringe comment. Anyway, I see LGBT people praising/talking about this more than “cis” people. Plus I hate this anime a lot and the video explained my exact thought about it.
people only like it cuz its queer 😭
This show was simply not good.
Momoe being a terf would be so based.
show so bad terfs like it
I completely disagree, calling it a mess is a bit too far, well the "Special" wonder egg was trash, but the other wonder egg wasn't, also I kinda don't blame yt about not giving this enough views bc it's just incorrect, but it's your opinion ig.