Wonder Egg Priority (Analysis) - Sometimes it Should be a Mystery!

Have you ever found yourself watching an intriguing mystery and then they try to explain things and it completely destroys the thing that made it enjoyable in the first place? Yeah, that’s happened to me before too!

Wonder Egg Priority (Analysis) – Sometimes it Should be a Mystery!

I’m a huge zombie fan and I find that the ones that I enjoy the most are not the ones that try to explain where the zombies came from or how to resolve the issue. Too often it ends up as a nonsensical attempt to create scientific or supernatural reasons and frankly, neither ends up being satisfactory. We just want to accept that there are zombies or some other insert monster and enjoy the carnage. After all, the story is not about the zombies, but how the characters deal with the situation they find themselves in.

In Wonder Egg Priority, we saw the girls dealing with a bizarre world where they could fight against these monsters called Wonder Killers who were responsible for the suicide of the girls they are trying to save. It was bizarre and wonderful all at the same time. Then, we learnt that each of these girls fighting had lost someone close to them to suicide and this might be a chance to bring them back. They just had to keep fighting.

Wonder Egg Priority Episode 1 Ai Ooto Wonder

That premise alone was fascinating and allowed us the chance to follow these four girls as they came to terms with the loss of their friends and/or family members. We saw them face these fears head-on and grow as a result. We saw them develop new friendships and work through their problems. Ultimately, it was like a supernatural self-help group and it was compelling viewing. I loved seeing them grow more confident and discover who they really were.

For the longest time, I was certain that this was the point of the story. I even believed that they would never revive their lost friends because that wasn’t what this was about. I thought that eventually, they would stop fighting and allow their friends to go. They would be able to move on with their own lives with their newfound confidence and friendships. I was fully on board and assumed that the negative reaction to the ending was because there wasn’t a resolution. Sadly, that was not to be.

Wonder Egg Priority Episode 7 Neiru Aonuma Ai Ooto Rika Kawai and Momoe Sawaki Lunch

As we neared the end of the season, we jumped into a flashback for Acca and Ura-Acca. We learnt that they were people who successfully transferred their consciousness into these artificial bodies. They created an AI and gave it a real body only for it to become jealous and unstable. They tried to blame her for suicides which is why they set up the Wonder Eggs in the hopes of creating warriors to fight back against Thanatos (the god of death). None of this makes any sense.

They took a compelling story about four teenage girls coping with trauma and made it about a bunch of pseudo-scientific nonsense. Before that point, I didn’t really care where the eggs came from or who Acca and Ura-Acca were. None of it mattered. What mattered was the character development of Ai Ooto and her friends. That was the story. That was the situation these characters were dealing with. That was why I watched the entire season in two days. Not to find out how it was happening or even why.

Wonder Egg Priority Episode 11 Acca and Ura Acca create Frill

There are stories where we need explanations. Sometimes, we need to know what is going on, however, that’s not always the case. In all the time, I’ve been analysing and reviewing anime and manga, the one thing that has stood out to me is the importance of characters. If the characters are done well, it doesn’t matter what they do. We will follow them into battle or to meet up with friends. We just want to see how their story develops. How they change and grow is more important than trying to explain everything.

Often it comes down to what you promise at the beginning of the story. In a detective story, there is usually a crime and we are told that the detective will attempt to solve it. Therefore, we will usually require an explanation of how and why the crime happened. Sometimes, we’ll find out who did it, but not always. In Wonder Egg Priority, the focus was on Ai and how she dealt with the loss of her friend. She was given a chance to save her, but it was always about Ai and not Koito.