As a self-proclaimed professional psychological anime critic, I looked forward to watching Wonder Egg Priority, especially after the flop that was The Promised Neverland Season 2.

And you know what, Wonder Egg Priority was wonderful. An anime that explores the suicide of a friend due to a common love interest? Sign me the heck up!

Special Edition Broadcast | Source: Anitredz

Story

Because of how much I respect good psychological anime, I’m going to be as subtle about this as possible: get an egg, save a suicidal person, rinse and repeat, save your own target.

That’s the innocent-looking synopsis of the anime; sounds straightforward, right? If you’ve never watched a psychological anime before, you’d close the tab and tell me that I should go and rethink my life. However, have you considered this: has anyone who have successfully executed a suicide ever wished to come back? What even driven them to suicide in the first place?

All self-aware species would have some kind of regrets at the end of their mortal life - but those who choose to commit suicide abandon even that, selecting an absolute option to end their suffering (and potentially, some other person’s suffering as well) to solve the problem once and for all.

If you did successfully save someone who have completed a suicide, would the person thank you from their bottom of their hearts, or hold you in contempt for as long as they continue breathing?

Wonder Egg Priority centers around four characters who wishes to save a female target from a completed suicide that they were affectionate with; the characters have a diverse set of characteristics that are sometimes directly contradictory, which makes their interactions engaging to watch. Combined with the unique scenario and unusual characters in the form of Acca and Ura-Acca, alongside the anime’s genre pairing with ‘Fantasy’, the entire story is unpredictable and keeps viewers on the edge of their seats as middle-schoolers navigate their way through grasping the concept of suicide.

“The temptation of death” is something that “smells sweet” - this is a direct reference to how people refer death as “the sweet release of death”. If death is a way for a person to escape all of their problems, then saying that the temptation of death “smells sweet” logically follows - if one were to reach this stage of their life, it then naturally follows that that individual would have a better time being dead than continue living their life.

Smug Ai & Rika | Source: Atelier Emily

Some concepts, such as the “Seeno Evil”, who only targets the Wonder Egg girl and “Haters”, who only targets the main characters, are deeply intertwined with symbolism. “Seeno Evil” comes from the phrase “see no evil”; ignoring the causes of suicide is a form of evil on its own. “Haters”, which are derived from “Seeno Evil”, is a form of evil berating the one who protects those who are victims of suicide. Translated to the real world, those who protect the ones who are bullied are treated worse than those who are bullied.

Audiovisuals

Apparently, each flower shown in Wonder Egg priority had some meaning; according to Atelier Emily, orange lilies mean hate, hydrangeas mean thank you, and so on. This should be enough for you to infer that I think highly of the visuals of Wonder Egg priority.

The soundtrack used is mostly soft and atmospheric music, as I would expect from an anime of this nature.

When combining both the audio and visuals, it gives Wonder Egg priority a complex yet complementary set of stimuli for viewers, which connects the viewers closer to the story than ever possible. While not at the level of Shield Hero or Made In Abyss, the audiovisuals does a decent job at conveying the emotions and scope of the scenes to the viewer.

Conclusion

Wonder Egg Priority saved the psychological genre for Winter 2021. For a while, there was a drought in anime like that: the very thing that made me fall in love with psychological anime in the first place is how well the medium can portray human moral dilemmas better than any other medium can, because it is animated, allowing sequences to fall outside the boundaries of human comprehension. Give Wonder Egg Priority a watch ; I’m quite sure you’ll like it.

Happy Coding

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