Kuzu no Honkai ("Scum's Wish") had interesting premises. As the title suggests, this series wanted to explore the mean, sick, selfish side of love. To portray an unidolized and more mature view on this subject, the author decided to focus on teenage highschool students. Wait, that must be a mistake... but no, unfortunately it is not. And here lies the first issue I have with this show.

The protagonists are teenagers - and even those that are adults don't really behave as such. Japanese viewers seem to really like highschool settings, to the point they do not realize it isn't necessarily the right one for every plot. Although some teenagers are certainly capable of mature feelings, whoever watched this series will probably agree it would have been more believable with adult protagonists. One of the main point of the plot is that most characters cannot let go of their long-lasting feelings towards someone who doesn't love them back. If you consider that the protagonists are 16 years old at the start of the story, said long lasting love probably arose when they were very young. It sounds a little weird for them to obsessively hold on to such an immature love, losing their mental health over it, instead of exploring the world and meeting new people like any adolescent would do. And even though one character could be an exception, exactly four behave this way. Isn't that a bit too many? Exploring love from different angles would have been so much more interesting than repeating the same pattern over and over again.

Sex was another part of the show I didn't quite digest. It was refreshing to see an anime that does not shy away from it, and viewers can surely appreciate that it was not portrayed in an overly ecchi manner, but was it really necessary to dwell on it so much? At some point the title of the anime could as well have been switched to "Who's Fucking?" since the main event of each episode was who would be with whom. However, I must give credit to this series for showing sex as an important part of love and life. One reason Kuzu no Honkai was so appreciated is probably because sex in anime is either glossed over or depicted in an extremely silly way. Thus, the viewer is usually deprived of this important part of a couple's story. I hope more romance series will try to incorporate sex in their narratives, perhaps overcoming Kuzu no Honkai's weaknesses and rectifying its shortcomings.

Talking about the characters, I have mixed feelings. The main protagonists, namely Hanabi and Mugi, felt quite real and original. I loved Mugi's tormented relationship with women, which resulted in his love towards his wicked professor. I would have really liked Hanabi's personality, had it been more coherent. I'm not referring to her being both kind and selfish, as I actually found that pretty realistic and fascinating. What I'm talking about is her looking like a completely different person when she is with her friend Sanae. Some of her choices seemed very weird to me, too. However, all in all I think she is a good character. The sadness and loneliness she transmits to the viewer feel very tangible, and I liked that.

The male and female professors... well, that is another matter interely. Obviously the biggest problem is Akane-sensei. She would have been perfect as an evil boss in a shounen. But here? Honestly, she is completely hilarious. Her lack of empathy and guilt, together with her hostility towards people, are worthy of the worst antisocial personality. Since everybody else has a somewhat balanced characterization, her overstated deviance looks very out of place. And her career as a professor is what sounds least believable of it all. The series tries to give it some credibility by telling us she really likes to teach... but it just doesn't work. "Show, don't tell" is one of my favourite techniques. Unfortunately, what Kuzu no Honkai is telling us about Akane-sensei and what it shows are two different things. And now on to Kanai-sensei, our male teacher. As the anime often states, he saw his mother in Akane-sensei... and subconsciously followed Freud's teachings (as a Psychology student that really made me giggle). He is a dull, uninteresting, clichéd "good boy", and although his characterization would have been perfect for a shiba inu, it is no good for a highschool professor. The only moment I felt somewhat close to him was when he stepped on his own glasses.

The other characters are pretty good and, exception made for our two professors, everyone had its fair share of character growth, which was not bad.

So far we have talked about the intricated love ~~triangle~~ ~~square~~ complicated polygon among a bunch of 3deep5u adolescents and some questionable professors. But what about the technical sector? The soundtrack didn't strike me as remarkable, but it was always fitting and some tracks were pretty emotional. I loved the opening and ending of the series; the ending in particular was very creative (although there definitely was some vagina in the background??). The adaptation of the manga art was well done and the characters look pretty, even if similar. What I really had problems with was the direction, or to be more precise some of its choices. Apparently the director wanted this anime to look like a manga, and he kept inserting scenes inside of frames and squares like they were manga panels (picture above). On occasions the old scene was kept as a blurred background, while on others it was splitted into two sections (picture below). Inserting rectangles inside the screen created huge blank areas and made everything feel very asymmetric. As you can probably guess, it just did not work well. Given the result was hard to follow and weird to look at, I can't see the reason for this artistic choice. Exception made for this, direction, art and sounds are all pretty good.

Since we have come to the end of the review, let's sum it up. Kuzu no Honkai succeeded in portraying the inconvenient side of love. In doing so it was at times emotional and realistic, at times excessive and not very belieavable. The protagonists are well done, other important characters are not. The same goes for the artistic part: Kuzu no Honkai was pleasant to look at and to listen to, but the direction messed up badly in some scenes and made them look straight out of Windows Movie Maker. All in all, if you like romance, drama, love polygons and are okay with some feels, you might enjoy this short series. If you would like to watch a similar series but done better, I suggest: White Album 2 (by the same director), Aku no Hana, Paradise Kiss or Natsuyuki Rendezvous. All these series show love from a realistic, mature and sometimes sad perspective.