Wonder Egg Priority

Genre(s): Drama, Psychological Horror, Fantasy, Magical Girl

Age-Appropriateness: 15+ (Profanity, Violence, themes of abuse (all kinds), self-harm, suicide, dysphoria, trauma)

Platforms: Crunchyroll, Funimation

Episodes: 13 (One is a recap, one is a 45 min. OVA with a recap, so 12 unique)

TheAwersome Rating: 8.3 / 10 (A heavy hitter with some fumbles)

Premise: Following the suicide of her best and only friend, Koito Nagase, Ai Ohto is left grappling with her new reality. With nothing left to live for, she follows the instructions of a mysterious entity and gets roped into purchasing an egg, or specifically, a Wonder Egg.  Upon breaking the egg in a world that materializes during her sleep, Ai is tasked with saving people from the adversities that come their way. In doing so, she believes that she has moved one step closer to saving her best friend. With this dangerous yet tempting opportunity in the palms of her hands, Ai enters a place where she must recognize the relationship between other people’s demons and her own. As past trauma, unforgettable regrets, and innate fears hatch in the bizarre world of Wonder Egg Priority, she discovers the different inner struggles tormenting humankind and rescues them from their worst fears.

TheAwersome’s Thoughts: This goes along DDLC and Madoka in the category of “I cussed to myself, was physically shaking, probably will never be the same, and I think that’s for the best.” It’s a trippy ride with stellar animation, and strong, deep, interesting characters. There’s a lot of poetic symbolism and exploration of methods to deal with trauma as well as patterns exhibited by the perpetrators of said trauma. Then it absolutely faceplants the landing. It felt like drinking an exquisite Turkish coffee but not being told that all the grounds were still in the cup and I downed them anyway.

TLDR: A beautiful, raw, rattling ride for 70% of the way with a disappointing finish.

There are truly very few pieces of media that I feel take an appropriately weighty approach to real human trauma without either abusing it for shock factor or feeling like a pandering awareness campaign geared toward middle schoolers. This one does quite an excellent job, though, so props to that. It’s definitely not a walk in the park, so gird up your loins before taking this one on.

Without going into too much detail about the fumbled landing, I will say it follows a similar pattern in many otherwise stellar anime of “explain way too much about the premise and foundation of this world by having a few episodes of narrative exposition in the final few episodes.” This serves to not only detach our connection to the main story but taking a few episodes to hear rather than experience a completely separate story, in my mind, makes for a poor climax. Especially if it derails the direction the story is going. I’m not saying stories shouldn’t have twists, but especially if you take great pains to explain away all the mysteries, there shouldn’t still be that same number of new unresolved stories or loose ends.  A good twist is one where you look back on a second watching and can say “Ahhh now I can see the hints and clues for this” as opposed to a deus ex machina that shifts focus, especially if it doesn’t actually resolve anything.

That all being said, the first 9 or 10 episodes are still definitely worth your time. While leaving with some frustrations (the final episode OVA is probably best left unwatched if you don’t want to leave with more unanswered questions) that will probably bar this from entering the anime all-time immortalized hall of fame (like Madoka), it brings enough in the good category to be worth checking out If you need something heavy.

You’ll Likely Enjoy This if You Enjoyed:

• The emotional weight and trippy aesthetics of Puella Magi Madoka Magica
• The “Alice in Wonderland” vibe of Flip Flappers
• Deep psychological exploration of Evangelion