Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Scum's Wish
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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After JesuOtaku's reply I will successfully rest my case on this matter.
While I accept his view of the "in-story" situation (I will post my rebuttal below), the fact is that if the sexes were reversed, the "in-story" justification would go out the window. Dare I bring up the shitstorm to end all shitstorms that was "Cross Ange," were everything was correct "in-story" and Zac was accusing anyone watching the show of degeneracy. Now for the rebuttal, Ecchan is a classic sexual predator (now, she does not see herself that way, see my previous posts on the appropriate pathology), but her actions do not lie. The first assault was classic "date rape" type stuff: "Oh baby, I am so sorry I did that to you, but I love you so much and you are so hot, I couldn't help myself" (and Hanabi is the perfect victim due to her issues, as I said before, replace Ecchan with Mugi or Leftover-kun and there would be no difference). The second assault was the writer lazily affirming Ecchan's predatory nature. What she did in the library does not happen in real life, it is hentai short-hand for an abusive character to display their dominance. That Hanabi just "took it" is again the writer lazily making character points (as I stated above the writer is really lazy with the whole Ecchan-Hanabi relationship). NB: To BSP, I listed the most blatant example above of the double standard, but your example does not apply since this whole "enlightened" critique of anime is only about five years old, while SP! is over a decade old, a time when we understood that anime were Japanese cartoons and due to their culture were horribly sexist and racist and that was the price of admission (or the reason for admission for some people). |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Based on what I have seen in the show, I believe the following things to be true:
1) Hanabi does not want Ecchan to be physically intimate with her. The only reason she is not making this more emphatically clear to Ecchan herself is that she is afraid of losing Ecchan's friendship. 2) Ecchan understands the above. In fact, she has, in an interior monologue, stated it openly. Therefore, Hanabi is not giving true consent for Ecchan's actions. Unless you consider not clearly and forcefully registering your non-consent to be a form of consent, which I do not. |
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Dr.N0
Posts: 149 |
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Valhern
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I really don't buy the double standard analysis.
For one part, it does sound logical that we should judge character's actions regardless of their sex and gender...but does society even work that way? The power dynamic between gender is not something that just because it's fiction does not exist. Sometimes we see the usual power dynamic broken, and it's interesting precisely because it has a correlation with our perception of reality (if we do believe such dynamics are to be criticized). Making my point more clear, if Akane or Ecchan were guys, I would still be interested in their character, except that some things would feel to me as "Yeah, of course they do that". The fact that they are women interests me more because they're playing roles that surprise me and make me more invested in them. I would be harsher on them because I know that manipulation is way more normalized for guys, whereas for girls is (at least from what I've watched and read, anyway) unexplored territory. So while I don't really condone their actions and I think they're hurting and hurting themselves, I'm metatextually more invested, especially with Akane. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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I'm not saying Ecchan's behavior isn't scummy and completely not justifiable. It is both of those things. I'm only saying that it's a more complex situation than "she's a rapist, burn the rapist!" This is especially because for many people, because of the nature of the crime and how it's been attached to this big dark untouchable idea of "RAPIST" or "normal person," the idea of flipping some kind of switch to "is this rape or not-rape" on a character's actions makes it easy for people to immediately cast a character as "irredeemable" in stories that are more interested in exploring how sexual crime is not committed by black and white inhuman villains. (This same conversation came up during the reviews of Maria the Virgin Witch, so I'll link its relevant review addressing this issue here.)
More importantly, whether you consider Ecchan's behavior rape or not, I'm not interested in demonizing her for it because the show is not trying to excuse her behavior. (Side note: Minagawa is absolutely a statutory rapist, but I don't see y'all freaking out at me for not calling that out and trying to humanize her instead.) The "double standards" you're citing for other shows that have rapey male leads in them aren't double standards, because what most critics are calling out isn't "the fact that dubious consent or outright assault exists in this show," it's the framing of that sexual assault as wrong-but-"unintentionally"-sexy-to-the-audience or even somehow justified. (Both are true in the case of Cross Ange. It tries to use rape for horrific effect, but it takes pleasure in sexually objectifying the women's bodies during assault, and even using rape as a "serves you right" manuever against characters who "deserve it." That's inexcusable.) Even if you see Ecchan's actions as sexual assault, which I don't personally, but I totally see room for that interpretation, the show is framing her attempts at seduction as selfish and terrible, not sexy, and we're meant to feel bad for Hanabi and sympathize with Ecchan's feelings but not justify her actions. So it's a completely different scenario. Anyway, since this topic seems to matter so much to some posters here at least, I'll talk in more detail about Ecchan's emotional and sexual coercion and what's so wrong with it beyond the lightswitch of "rape" or "not rape" in the next review, or whenever it next comes up in the show. |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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OK, you like it so it is complex, you don't like it so it is objectifying. I am fine with that, I personally don't see a need to excuse my tastes, but to each his own.
Except she is in Japan and therefore she may not be. Unless they have changed their laws since 2012, there is a disconnect between age of marriage (F16, M18) and age of sexual consent (depends on prefecture and some don't have any) which would render her ephebophilia legal.
I weep for this generation that fails to see the objectification of fingers slowly moving up milky white thighs toward unimaginable marvels or the panting gaze of the object of your desire lying beneath you. To quote Malcolm McDowell in response to Sir John Gielgud waxing poetic about their work in Caligula "John, you know this is porn, right?" A more apropos example, "Lesbian Bear Storm" might be all "meaningful" and "deep", but it is still wank material. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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Yes, Scum's Wish is definitely classified as "an erotic series"; the magazine it runs in even refers to it as such.
It's funny that it wasn't until episode 05 that I began to feel it through watching Mugi and Hanabi but then they were suddenly ALL over each other on the roof, much more than before and I was like ".....man, someone turned up the heat in here!"  A lot of the erotic scenes are no doubt, supposed to make the viewer squirm uncomfortably...but I don't feel that was one of them. Watching Ecchan with Hanabi always makes me feel squeamish, like I shouldn't be watching it. I also can't tell you how relieved I was when Hanabi changed her mind about sex with the new guy in the latest episode....even MORE so when he responded like he actually respected her instead of forcing himself on her.
That could have been so ugly. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18186 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I could show you many examples which can easily be found on the Internet which show how gloriously unreasonable the bolded statement is. As for the whole debate about social sciences, it's easy to forget that, unlike regular science or Mathematics, they all deal in generalizations rather than absolutes. While even those generalizations can sometimes be wrong because they aren't based on sound methodology and/or aren't accounting for certain (not always predictable) factors, that doesn't by any stretch mean that they are valueless. For instance, as a career teacher I have seen the psychological studies about cognitive development born out over and over and over again, to the point that I don't feel they are given enough weight in school and course design. But I also fully understand and accept that those cognitive development models are only baselines rather than all-encompassing. As for this series, I'm utterly fascinated by it in a rubbernecking sense. This whole series so far has been an emotional train wreck in slow-motion, one filled with characters who are great because they're awful and/or emotionally broken people. I find it wonderfully ironic that the healthiest person here - Takuya - is the person who would probably be regarded as the scummiest in just about any other scenario. As much as I've liked watching Hanabi trying to navigate her way through her situation, though, I do agree that it's time to shift the focus for a while. I also do agree that this episode got a bit heavy-handed with Ecchan. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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@ Key - just to be clear, my skepticism is more directed at studies that make claims about sociological attitudes as opposed to, say, a topic like cognitive development. The latter is obviously far more suitable for true scientific observation, testing and experimentation as opposed to empirically attempting to measure "happiness" among people with differing attitudes about the number of sexual partners they have.
Pun intended? 
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Yttrbio
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Episode 7:
I was really on board with this show when we were wandering the dilapidated halls inside the heads of teenagers whose behavior at least registered as human. As things get abstract, it gets a lot harder to keep interest in this show. My teenage sex life wasn't particularly complex, damaging, or dramatic. If you were to assign a genre to it, it would fall under "comedy." So I'm not going to offer these characters much sympathy by default. As long as the show kept us in the head of someone like Hanabi, whose thoughts were basically recognizable as those of a person, I could get invested in the show. I could see why she was struggling because the struggles came from thoughts that made sense to have (not logical sense, but emotional sense), even if I never experienced them. But now that I'm supposed to be taking these characters' struggles as a given, to be merely illustrated with metaphors and examples, I feel like I'm sitting in the same boring lecture hall I was stuck in for Yurikuma Arashi, as a professor pontificates in a foreign language I'm completely unmotivated to translate. |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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I thought they were going to amp up the drama with Moca, but I like the direction they took it. I think it gave her more depth than her earlier appearances hinted at.
Overall, I agree with Jacob's review. The only negative remark I can make is that I no longer see any of these characters as realistic, the personalities, the interactions, and the situations fit the narrative too well to be valid in real life. BUT the treatment of the characters is still top notch, full of respect and humanity. As I thought about it, they started reminding me of comic-relief side characters from rom-com and harem shows that finally got a break: "OK 'long suffering childhood friend' now you get a life outside of pining for MC-kun", "Hey, 'psycho man-eater,' you now get a personality and your tits don't have to be as big as your head", and "'Emo boy' now you get to be a lead and we find out the source of your tortured soul." |
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Valhern
Posts: 916 |
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Hey, I think this show really picked up from the down that was previous episode. It felt much less clumsy in the events, I really liked most of the direction, I now actually like Moca and sympathize with her, so that's a big plus for me.
Not nearly as good as the first five episodes, but still a better shape than last week. Especially in the tone, I was so glad the first minutes are very light hearted, and that there are moments in which I still can feel slightly at ease, that is certainly appreciated. By the way, my favorite part of this was when Moca is rambling about prince and princess and stuff but then she gets to this real cold and hard question "Can I be happy?", that was like a wake-up call. If after all the pantomime about being a princess and crap like that she isn't happy, then what the hell.
I would say that this heavily applies for episode 6 but not entirely for this one. The only moment I felt that we became way too abstract for the character was when Hanabi is seeing this couple and almost writing a Facebook post on how love sucks, but at the same time she dials back a little and says "When did I become such a woman?" So like, the dialogue is still a bit weird, but it's also recognized by herself. On the other hand, I think Moca fit that idea of somewhat abstract thoughts much better. She does behave (as a facade, but she still does) like a more stereotypical character, she really seems to have put a lot of thought into this, she's almost a self-aware chuunibyou, and I can see her making up all of this theatrical stuff for her thoughts, it certainly feels way more unique than Hanabi's, which seem a little clumsy and shoehorn things that the direction alone can tell you without words. When she does use her words more correctly is at night, when she says "I don't even have any friends", it's kinda corny, but feels more real than "Oh, darkness is creeping up on me". |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Lol, I didn't even have one.....but I am heavily invested in this series. Maybe because I eat up character studies like this....but it's also so well-directed and acted. I am never ever ever bored when I watch (or read) this.....not even for a second. Something about it is insanely engaging.....and this is coming from someone who far prefers that chaste Disney-like romance where ugly feelings like lust and depression are non-existent but the love is pure, fluffy, and ever-lasting. ........just like what Moca dreamed of. 
Speaking of Moca, does anyone now find her childish appearance sort of ironic? Cause she just accepts Mugi is her impossible dream after their failed intimacy and she just moves on with her life like a big girl instead of wallowing in misery like the others. 
Her angel wings may also symbolize how she is the purest of the four female characters....or they are there to look cute and I'm reading too much into it but for a series that loves symbolism so much, I don't think I'm too far off the mark..... |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Eh, I'm getting tired of all the inner narration. This is starting to feel like a story that is being told to me as opposed to something I'm experiencing as it happens. Plus, every character is totally on point in understanding what their problem is. Very unrealistic, imo.
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Valhern
Posts: 916 |
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The fact that it is ironic is part of her character, she herself says that the whole idea of princess and prince is just a facade she made up.
Depends. Kanai doesn't really think or know he has a problem, hell, he's happy that he got laid. Akane acknowledges that she is doing bad stuff but she doesn't see any problem in it, rather, it's her way of life. I don't think Mugi has had enough of an episode for himself, and either way, he seems to be pretty off the mark if he believes that he took the innocence away of the older girl. So far, only Ecchan, Hanabi and Moca are aware or self-aware of their dilemmas, yet, the only one we've seen that (at least, so far) acts to resolve on it rather than indulging themselves is Moca. I don't find unrealistic that people know what their problem is yet prefer to mantain their status quo because of fear or any other reason. In fact, I think it's the case for most people who fail to find answers to their problem or evade them. |
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