Scum's Wish Reviews
A.k.a The Show Where Almost Everyone Is a Manipulative Snake™
This show does not aim to be likable, nor do the characters aim to be likable for the sake of their audience. This show aims to portray emotions as it is: the good, the bad, and the nasty. Personally, the need to even criticize this show feels unnecessary, because the purpose of this show is to carry raw human emotions, and human emotions by itself is subjective and is interpreted differently by every individual.
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS but no major ones.
(Trigger warning: I advise against watching this anime if you have had experiences with emotional and/or sexual abuse.)
Before going through my post, I suggest you first read through this review for episode one by Anime Feminist ; Amelia Cook managed to put down everything I feel in words better than I ever can.
Scum's Wish is not a show for everyone. People who are in healthy, fruitful relationships might not be able to understand the reasoning behind the actions of these characters. For example, the hero and the heroine, who are both in love with someone else, have come to an agreement to become friends with benefits as a form of replacement for their loved ones. They allowed each other to use them to their fullest advantage and imagines their respective loved ones during sex. In spite of this, the hero and the heroine do not share a toxic relationship; it is the circumstances which led them to this arrangement that was toxic.
Scum's Wish shows how blinding and lonely unrequited love can be, and the extent to which love can affect someone. However, even through the shroud, the characters admitted to being able to see the harsh truth of their love never being reciprocated. All the characters were not dense, and their realization is incredibly realistic, but they continued doing the things which emotionally harm them despite accepting the truth. Scum's Wish portrays the painful reality of how love can make someone so desperate to the point where they will take whatever they can have, even if it is an illusion or temporary in nature. Scum's Wish shows how friendships can stem from the oddest of places and common interests, and how different friendships have different dynamics.
► What This Anime is About ◄
1. How everything comes in full circle. Manipulation of one person leads to the exploitation of another, and halfway through the anime, everyone was just using each other.
2. How people use empty sex as an outlet to fill up the void within them, and how this method is both repairing and damaging at the same time.
3. Shows that even someone who is kind in nature (Ecchan) can have the tendency to guilt trip and emotionally manipulate someone into staying with her.
4. The ugly side of human emotions. For instance, Mugi is helpless against Akane's seduction and Mugi wants her precisely because she was unobtainable. He loved her more when she was a weak, cunning, and manipulative woman. He loved her in hopes that he could be the one to change her, and one may argue that this is the wrong way to love someone in the first place.
► Things I Liked About This Anime ◄
1. No anime I have watched so far has been able to lay down the rawest and most complex of emotions the way Scum's Wish did.
2. I thought Scum's Wish did a decent job at switching perspectives every few minutes and yet being able to prevent it from being messy.
3. Painfully realistic when showing the thought process of people. Most of the characters have asshole thoughts, and all of them already realized things they pretended not to.
4. Experimentation with sexuality; a good representation of LGBT which is actually proper and not for fan-service.
5. Wholesome and complex characters, AND THE GIRLS AREN'T MOE MOE. They are unique individuals with distinctive thought processes, and have separate personal reasons for the things they do.
6. The characters in Scum's Wish have great character developments, most of which resolved their own issues independently. Some might fuck up more, and some might take longer than the rest, but the change still happens. This show is about each individual resolving their most personal internal conflicts, and how all of them are distinctly different from each other.
This show does not aim to be likable, nor do the characters aim to be likable for the sake of their audience. This show aims to portray emotions as it is: the good, the bad, and the nasty. Personally, the need to even criticize this show feels unnecessary, because the purpose of this show is to carry raw human emotions, and human emotions by itself is subjective and is interpreted differently by every individual.
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS but no major ones.
(Trigger warning: I advise against watching this anime if you have had experiences with emotional and/or sexual abuse.)
***
Before going through my post, I suggest you first read through this review for episode one by Anime Feminist ; Amelia Cook managed to put down everything I feel in words better than I ever can.
Scum's Wish is not a show for everyone. People who are in healthy, fruitful relationships might not be able to understand the reasoning behind the actions of these characters. For example, the hero and the heroine, who are both in love with someone else, have come to an agreement to become friends with benefits as a form of replacement for their loved ones. They allowed each other to use them to their fullest advantage and imagines their respective loved ones during sex. In spite of this, the hero and the heroine do not share a toxic relationship; it is the circumstances which led them to this arrangement that was toxic.
Scum's Wish shows how blinding and lonely unrequited love can be, and the extent to which love can affect someone. However, even through the shroud, the characters admitted to being able to see the harsh truth of their love never being reciprocated. All the characters were not dense, and their realization is incredibly realistic, but they continued doing the things which emotionally harm them despite accepting the truth. Scum's Wish portrays the painful reality of how love can make someone so desperate to the point where they will take whatever they can have, even if it is an illusion or temporary in nature. Scum's Wish shows how friendships can stem from the oddest of places and common interests, and how different friendships have different dynamics.
***
► What This Anime is About ◄
1. How everything comes in full circle. Manipulation of one person leads to the exploitation of another, and halfway through the anime, everyone was just using each other.
2. How people use empty sex as an outlet to fill up the void within them, and how this method is both repairing and damaging at the same time.
3. Shows that even someone who is kind in nature (Ecchan) can have the tendency to guilt trip and emotionally manipulate someone into staying with her.
4. The ugly side of human emotions. For instance, Mugi is helpless against Akane's seduction and Mugi wants her precisely because she was unobtainable. He loved her more when she was a weak, cunning, and manipulative woman. He loved her in hopes that he could be the one to change her, and one may argue that this is the wrong way to love someone in the first place.
► Things I Liked About This Anime ◄
1. No anime I have watched so far has been able to lay down the rawest and most complex of emotions the way Scum's Wish did.
2. I thought Scum's Wish did a decent job at switching perspectives every few minutes and yet being able to prevent it from being messy.
3. Painfully realistic when showing the thought process of people. Most of the characters have asshole thoughts, and all of them already realized things they pretended not to.
4. Experimentation with sexuality; a good representation of LGBT which is actually proper and not for fan-service.
5. Wholesome and complex characters, AND THE GIRLS AREN'T MOE MOE. They are unique individuals with distinctive thought processes, and have separate personal reasons for the things they do.
6. The characters in Scum's Wish have great character developments, most of which resolved their own issues independently. Some might fuck up more, and some might take longer than the rest, but the change still happens. This show is about each individual resolving their most personal internal conflicts, and how all of them are distinctly different from each other.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
People
who know me personally would know that I find it difficult to finish
watching most animes, but I did for Scum's Wish. The ending is honestly
satisfying and the best you can hope for, simply because the characters
chose what was best for them, even though it was not what
they wanted most. Another character (I would give names but I want to be
as spoiler-free as possible) found empowerment within herself in the
absence of her loved one, and it's honestly such a beautiful thing. The
show ended with the beginning of their new lives, one with more
acceptance and maturity and understanding of themselves.
Overall rating:7.8
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