REVIEW: ‘Wonder Egg Priority,’ Episode 13 – “My Priority”

CONTENT WARNING: Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 contains imagery of a completed suicide,  suicidality

Wonder Egg Priority was a Spring 2021 anime that ended in April… or so fans thought. Once news of a final, 13th episode spread around the world, viewers who had been charmed by this series since the premiere got set to wait. The question is, is Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 worth a nearly three-month wait? Well, let’s find out in episode 13, “My Priority.”

It’s important to know that Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 is a double-length episode. This means instead of the typical twenty-four-minute episode, it’s a hefty forty-three, which leaves a lot of room to cram in the plot. However… initially, Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 recaps the series thus far, making this the second recap episode in the cour. I suppose that’s important, considering the fact that it’s been months since episode 12. And, to some degree, it helps get viewers back up to speed with the Egg Quartet and all that’s happened, though the recap is largely from Ai’s perspective.

Post-OP, which is still incredibly beautiful, we’re still in recap mode with the girls. In fact, this takes up a fair amount of episode 13, which is… unexpected. After all, episode 12 left a lot of loose threads. I get the feeling that I speak for most viewers in wanting to get back to The Plot and see how things are going to resolve. With so much left on the proverbial table, you’d expect the production team to have streamlined this finale more. And yet… it isn’t. 

However, once the recap winds down about halfway into Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13, we’re dropped back into the world of the Egg Quartet. In many ways, it feels incredible to be back with these wonderful girls. Yet during my watch of the back half of this episode, I couldn’t shake a ghoulish wrongness that seems the permeate the episode. Unfortunately, this gut feeling proves true. Doubly so as episode 13 reaches its climax.

Worse, Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 recontextualizes a lot of the setup from the earlier episodes. In doing so, it utterly demolishes the show’s message by essentially retconning a lot of what made Wonder Egg Priority so unique as a female-driven story. It takes the genuine horror that teenage girls are subjected to and tosses it out the window for a go-nowhere series of resolutions that will most likely solidify Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 as being on par with The Promised Neverland Season 2’s finale.

Taken all together, the events of Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 make it feel like the series “deserves” a second cour. Though honestly, I’m not so sure I’d be watching it. All of my good faith for the series is burnt out. It’s a shame, too, because as of the writing of this article, this is the only content for the series. In many ways, I’m thankful there is fanfiction. Perhaps the fans of this series will ultimately write the stories that we want to see: healing stories featuring these girls moving through their trauma, instead of… whatever this episode is.

During my watch, I found myself intensely frustrated with the plot of this series and how the writers and production studio chose to resolve things. What started off as a sincere, messy (in a good way) look at suicidality, depression, and being a teenage girl has turned into… this. And truth be told, I didn’t like it. I found myself wanting my time back as the credits rolled. Or rather, I found myself wanting a different end that didn’t feel so slapdash and unsatisfying.

It doesn’t help that this episode is one of the weakest in terms of animation. It’s frequently off-model, with slight mistakes that keep Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 from shining as brightly as its predecessors. It’s a shame because this episode was supposed to be the absolutely final episode. But I can’t blame the overworked—and most likely underpaid—animation team; rather, those higher up in production shoulder the blame, or at least should shoulder the blame. I’m sure the proverbial buck will be passed.

In the end, this episode is… complicated, and not necessarily in a good way. As an anime-first, original narrative, it has an utterly weak resolution. As a series whose sole source material is the anime, its ending is devastatingly bad. It leaves much to be desired and solidly knocks Wonder Egg Priority off my personal Top “insert number here” list for 2021. It’s a shame too, because ultimately, Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13, and the series overall, will be remembered for this finale. It won’t be remembered for how it approached being a trans teen, self-harm, and depression, nor how it attempted to look at suicide and suicidality. Instead, this finale will leave a horrible mark, marring weeks of story in one fell swoop.

Worse, it does wrong by all of the young girls in this series by retconning an abuser into an “actually good guy” teacher. This choice is the most glaring, most offensive decision Wonder Egg Priority could have possibly made. It hurts because this series seemed deeply invested in the harm done to young girls. Reducing the actions of a teacher to being more of a “misunderstanding” instead of the abuse that’s been hinted at and circled around for weeks feels utterly disgusting. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and it makes me wonder what Wonder Egg Priority was angling for in the first place. That’s all a huge ding against Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 and the series as a whole.

It’s hard to believe that fans waited two months for this special episode. Harder still to think that this is the final word on this series. Wonder Egg Priority Episode 13 is ultimately a tragedy with very little to redeem it outside of a few heartfelt moments that will make you briefly smile before scowling all over again. It’s an exhausting forty-three minutes that feels like sequel bait for a series I never want to see again. And unfortunately, that’s how I will forever remember my last time engaging with this story.

Wonder Egg Priority is streaming now on Funimation.