Scum’s Wish: First Impressions

How many of you have had one-sided love or unrequited love for someone? Just me? Okay fuck you guys. Well what if I told you that there is a story about two people who ultimately get together because the ones they love do not reciprocate or look at them in that way? Yes, I know. I am going to talk about a slice of life anime. Don’t all leave at the same time! This is actually a very heavy and interesting story. Please stay awhile and listen.

Scum’s Wish or Kuzu no Honkai is about a two highschoolers that everyone looks at in school as a perfect couple. If only they knew the sad truth. They have both fallen for other people that they cannot be with. Hanabi Yasuraoka is in love with her childhood friend and teacher that she calls her older brother. Mugi Awaya is in love with his tutor from middle school and admires her from a distance. Hanabi’s love interest is falling for Mugi’s love interest. I know what you are thinking. What the fuck. Bear with me, there’s more. Hanabi and Mugi decide to use each other as substitutes for the people they love and imagine they are with them. Supporting one another through loneliness and sorrow when they see the two they love together.

Still with me? Cool. Now we all know that slice of life is not for everyone but there are some great things about this show that make it worth a shot. Firstly, I want talk about the concept of the story itself. The idea that these two students are right off the bat kissing and holding hands and all the relationship stuff is huge. Sexuality is often used for fanservice in other anime while Scum’s Wish uses it as a theme. We don’t usually see this so early in a story such as this. In slice of life anime, it usually takes a pretty big chunk of the season for shit to get real. If you were watching a shonen for example, they attempt to hook you in the first two episodes. I would think this is mostly because shonen is aimed at young men with rather short attention spans.

The animation is very different than what I am used to seeing. The framing and the line art feel as if it was dragged straight from the manga series. Panel by panel. There are often scenes that take a moment to focus on someone’s facial expression by tearing a part of the scene away to center on their face. You will ultimately walk away from an episode feeling as if you just watched an animated manga chapter. Maybe interactive manga. I don’t know but it is very refreshing.

The score or OST if you will, brings in some emotional reinforcement. If you are not feeling it just by watching the anime and listening to voice actors, the music will get you. If not you are probably like Rokutsu, dead inside. The music started to remind me of another anime I watched in Fall 2014, Your lie in April or Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. No I don’t mean that you will be serenaded by pianos and violins but it was the only anime to get me to feel the main characters point of view just from sound alone.

Overall Scum’s wish is a very heavy story. Not for everyone but definitely worth checking out. If you are a legal anime watcher such as myself you can find this anime on Amazon every Thursday. Yes, Amazon. I have no idea how this is on Amazon. Crunchyroll has the manga rights! Oh well. Please check out the rest of our anime and game reviews and post a comment down below to let us know what you think!