Have their wishes come true? Scum’s Wish Review

The story of unrequited love and heartbreak comes to a close, but was it an ending they wished? The web of love is most accurately described as that, a web. All nodes within this web are fully explored and given some form of conclusion regardless of happiness. Props to studio Lerche, creators of a handful of other small hits, for creating one of the best adaptations I’ve watched. Some spoilers ahead so if you wanna watch this without getting the ending spoiled feel free to come back later.

The standoff of the century with the prize dividing the two.

Before we get into the story, I’d like to talk about the visuals. The shows animation feels as if you’re basically watching the manga panels come to life. Some scenes cut together multiple frames to show different perspectives of the same scene like Kanai-sensei and Akane having a good chat while Hanabi glares from outside the classroom. Other scenes split the scene to emphasize the emotions happening. Adding on to all this, the colors are amazing and the details in the eyes and even the extra strands of hair all stand out when they mean to stand out. The emotions in the faces are just as easy to read which definitely helps showing what the characters are feeling without them needing to explain anything.

The separation conveys the distance the two have despite being so close.

@blackandyellowog posted his first impression at the start of the season and mentioned it is about two high schoolers, boy was he wrong. It’s about two students who get together because they their feelings are not reciprocated by the teachers they have a crush on. And the teacher Hanabi likes, Kanai-sensei, also likes the teacher Mugi likes, Akane, who then likes the attention men giver her and the jealousy drawn out by women around her. Moreover, Mugi’s childhood friend Moka genuinely loves Mugi but he sees her as more of an innocent little sister he wants to protect. Hanabi’s best friend, Ecchan, also comes out of the closet and declares she’s in lesbians with Hanabi. I haven’t seen a love web in an anime this complex since Nagi no Asukara.

VS

Good luck following all that

With this messy web of love, have any of them found happiness? Kanai and Akane have found a bit of happiness, they are engaged at the end of the series.  Moka and Ecchan both got rejected by their unrequited love, but came to terms with it in the end. Ecchan is still shown as Hanabi’s closest friend so that could be considered a happy end. Mugi and Hanabi, after months of not seeing each other, ran into each other slacking off in the store room. They both admitted they were glad to have met each other but ultimately went their separate ways despite having some lingering, barely noticeable feelings for each other.

Was this a good show? I say yes. The characters were interesting and dynamic all the way through. The heartbreak and all the challenges the characters faced all made an impact. The soundtrack and visuals all helped in delivering the tense atmosphere of the drama. Would I recommend this to everyone? Probably not, only the big fans of drama and romance plots would enjoy this. I personally give it a solid 8 out of 10, but that’s slightly biased because I read the manga as it was available on Crunchyroll and found the anime managed to deliver even better than the manga did.