Scum‘s wish is a story that immediately sucked me in when I first watched it. The premise, the characters, the music and the visuals. It was a lovestory that I‘ve never seen with this kind of concept and after finishing it I was confident that I was certainly not the only person who loved this show but I was surprised when I saw just how much this story splits their viewers into either hating it or loving it. In this review I will break down the characters, why I love it so much and why I think that more people should watch Scum‘s wish.

Spoiler warning!

Summary:

Scum‘s wish revolves around two highschool students named Hanabi and Mugi. Hanabi being helplessly in love with „Oni-chan“, her neighbour from childhood days who now became her teacher and Mugi who was deeply in love with his „Sensei“, his tutor from middleschool who also became a teacher at his school. With both having to bear an unrequited love they decide to start a fake relationship where they both satisfy their emotional emptiness by pretending that the other one is „Oni-chan“ and „Sensei“.

Characters:

Let‘s start with Hanabi. Hanabi Yasuraoka is the main protagonist of Scum‘s wish and the person we get the closest with as a viewer. Hanabi is a rather quiet girl in school. She is never particularly excited or loud around her classmates and she doesn‘t seem to have many friends. Despite her not being openly popular she is still quite popular among the boys thanks to her cute appearance and easy going personality. She‘s been holding a deep crush for her neighbour and playmate since childhood days. In front of him her behaviour changes quite drastically. She becomes very cheerful and wants to seem like a reliable and hardworking person. Their relationship could be described as „pure“ since she wants nothing but „Oni-chan‘s“ affection. Sadly for her, Oni-chan only sees her as a little sister.

Moving on to her relationship with Mugi. It really can only be described as a huge mess. They both agreed to start a relationship of convenience where they both act like the other person is „Oni-chan“ and „Sensei“ with the condition to not fall in love with the other person and if one of the two gets to be in a relationship with the person they like their relationship would be terminated immediately. A relationship of this kind can never end well and thus they hurt each other but in the end they can‘t stop craving this pain trying to fill the void left by someone else. In the beginning they are both often hanging out casually with the other person. There was nothing to hide since they both already revealed their most inner desire. As a viewer it can‘t be helped but to fear one thing and over time this fear came true. One fell in love. It is no wonder with such an intimate relationship, added that they spend so much time with each other. But falling in love is no option, it was a relationship of convenience, thus they grew distant. The familiar atmosphere could no longer be brought back and once again there was nothing left but pain.

Her relationship with her best friend Sanae is also very important. Sanae is someone very dear to Hanabi. Her only friend so to say but it was enough for her. She could be herself around Sanae and they both enjoy each others company a lot. The only problem is that Sanae was deeply in love with Hanabi. Revealing her feelings at last Sanae pleads Hanabi to use Sanae instead of Mugi as a replacement for „Oni-chan“. Hanabi gave it a try, not because she was confident that this could help her but rather because she couldn‘t bear to turn down her best friend's feelings knowing she would hurt her feelings. Unfortunately, she was unable to see Sanae as her crush and painfully had to break Sanae‘s heart. Sanae accepts the rejection, knowing that she could no longer inconvenience her best friend with her selfish feelings. Hanabi feels deeply hurt by the pain she had to inflict on her dear friend. This showed the viewer very clearly that Hanabi could only see Mugi as her „Oni-chan“ which made it even harder for her.

Lastly it is very necessary to mention her relationship with „Sensei“ or Akane because it is closely tied to Hanabi having a drastic character change. Essentially she sees Akane as the target of her hate, jealousy and the reason behind her misfortune because her „Oni-chan“ was taken away by Akane. What started out as pure hate and jealousy ended in an almost obsessive need to copy Akane because Hanabi believed if she could just beat Akane as a woman she would certainly be noticed by Oni-chan. Akane fuels every ugly trait of Hanabi making her feeling like she needs to prove her worth by seducing men. It brings out the side of Hanabi that she desperately wants to hide which is essentially her selfishness. By using other people she realizes just how desperate she became and what a despicable person she turned into which makes her finally realize that this is not the person she wanted to be. Akane was the catalyst for her to become the worst of herself yet she was also the wake up call to let her realize that this is not what she wanted.

Next I want to discuss Mugi Awaya, our second protagonist. Mugi is a rather laid-back guy. We never see him being very agitated and nothing really affects him a lot. In a sense he and Hanabi are very similar. He initiated their relationship of convenience but really he is actually the guy that goes along with things. He was in love with Akane for a very long time and despite knowing what an ugly personality Akane actually has he doesn‘t care because „he loves her“. Mugi goes on several dates with Akane though she calls those „accidental meetings“ or just „casual meetings between a teacher and a student“. He mentions multiple times that he wants to be the person that changes Akane believing that if she would just let him he could do it. This is one aspect that shows how even the cold Mugi can be blinded by love in a very childish manner. Towards the end of the show when Akane did change it is revealed that Mugi actually wasn‘t happy with her change. We finally get to see his true side. A side of him that loves the broken and selfish Akane. Someone who couldn‘t bear to see the person he loves being able to go on without him. His feelings burst in the end and he screams from a distance towards her how he will never forget her and that he will treasure her forever in his heart. This is the only moment in the series where we get the closest to his real feelings. It isn‘t pretty, it‘s extremely selfish but somewhere as a viewer we can understand, though just a tiny bit, of not wanting to see the person we love so dearly being able to live without us.

Lastly I want to talk about Akane Minagawa. In the end I found her character the most interesting. Yes, she was the reason for everyone‘s misery and she is a horrible person but I do believe that she shows us what a person looks like if they just decided to act in their most selfish way possible. Because essentially Akane was nothing but a broken girl who is no one without someone giving her selfworth. She is unable to give herself selfworth resulting in her clinging to one role after another. A tutor, a teacher, a lover, the person making you miserable. Her insecurities hiding behind this horrible person really shows how bad it can be if someone is unable to love themself. She feels disconnected to everyone and everything resulting in her constantly wanting to overstep boundaries. She doesn't understand why someone would be sad if she cheated on that person because she never felt it herself. She is someone who is the truest to her real self yet she is the one who understands the least about herself. Someone like her cannot understand people's pain and their suffering which is clearly shown in her behaviour. I pity Akane. I won‘t forgive her for all the pain she inflicted but I do feel sorry for her.

Now that I‘ve broken down all the important characters as much as I could the way I saw them I want to tell what I‘ve learned from this seemingly pointless story with nothing but pain around every corner and characters that couldn‘t act worse.

Personal opinion:

Scum‘s wish tells the ugly side of a lovestory. How often do we see the lovely journey of a romance story, though with struggles but in the end it somehow works out? Despite seeing it so often it is not the only kind of love story. I‘m sure many would find it pointless to watch the journey of a lovestory with a bad ending because „it‘s just another relationship that didn‘t work out“ but Scum‘s wish made it their goal to exactly tell this story and it is definitely not unnecessary to tell it. Those 12 episodes were nothing but a huge mess but I could understand every single one of these characters because they show us the most honest side of a human being. The way most of us were raised was that we were always told to not inconvenience other people and to be the best person we can be everyday but I‘m sure everyone felt pure hatred once in their life for someone else, in this case because your love interest was taken away, and we just accept that we should be happy for these people because we cannot put our own selfish happiness before someone else‘s but deep down we all know it‘s bullshit. Who doesn‘t want to be happy? Who really thinks that someone else deserves happiness more than themself? Everyone is selfish and we constantly need to suppress this ugly side of us and I believe that Scum‘s wish told us a perfect story showing us the consequences of people letting their selfishness get the best of themselves. I‘m not saying that it was a masterpiece, some aspects were really exaggerated and I understand that people might not enjoy it because all of them were assholes at some point of the story but it was an honest story. It displayed real feelings and it felt raw. An aweful, unsophisticated story about two dumb teenagers being helplessly in love and I did learn some important things from this show. I will always hold this story dear and I hope more people will give this a go because it certainly did have an impact on me.