Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Scum's Wish
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zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
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@ Lifesongoa - Bravo! Very well stated! I was thinking along the same lines, but your analysis got a bit deeper. Well done!
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Lifesongsoa
Posts: 34 |
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Thanks!
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ReddRamzus
Posts: 1 |
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A lot of people are saying that Mugi is attempting to "save" Akane, but by doing what exactly? She clearly doesn't want love and affection, so how can you actually help a person like that? Mugi having sex with her would only aggravate her issues right?
And any road, in episode 5 I believe, before Mugi and Hanabi attempt to have actual sex, Mugi says something along the lines, "Because she's [Hanabi] pretty, it makes me want to ruin her, but I only think like that because I'm a man..." Um, what?? Is he saying that it's only natural that men like to break pretty girls? If that is what he's saying, then why would he want to "ruin" Hanabi, who hasn't done anything to him (using him as a replacement is moot since he's doing the same thing to her), but want to "save" Akane who is toying with him? I wish we could have more of Mugi's perspective because I'm confused as to what he actually wants and what will happen to him after all is said and done. Last edited by ReddRamzus on Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:32 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Lifesongsoa
Posts: 34 |
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Mugi's plan went down with the grace of a gorilla attempting to ice skate for the first time. Mugi wanted to save Akane, but he wasn't trying to save her for the sake of their relationship. He knew that he was in love with the broken Akane. He wanted to be the one to change her in order to save himself. I think he wanted to be the one the demonstrate for her that she has intrinsic value even as a terrible broken person.
Mugi's hook on Akane was the one time she let her guard down in front of him and admitted that she has hope for the future that she places in what essentially boils down to human potential. He saw a positive aspect of her core personality and wanted to let her know that he saw it. As for why Akane and not Hanabi? 1. Hormones. He was completely infatuated with Akane and had been for a long time. Remember that his original plan was to use Akane to propel himself forward in his relationship with Hanabi. At the end of the day his better sense lost to biology. His plans which were probably perfect in his head didn't play out that way. Mugi is conflicted because his desires lead him to dark places. He genuinely came to feel admiration for Akane, but he couldn't bring himself to act like her. We saw that at the end of his date with Moka. He wanted to do to her what Akane does to men. He couldn't go through with it. Hanabi is something similar although he started to see her in a new way before their teacher confession pact I think. The honesty between the two of them created something he hadn't expected. I can also explain why someone like Akane would be easier for Mugi to use than Hanabi is. Akane's standards are screwed up. She even admits to herself that she screws them up on purpose.(I'd like to argue that she has a positive motivation for her terrible behavior, but that is a case I'm not prepared to make right at the moment.) Mugi didn't need to feel bad about acting out his fantasy on her for her sake, although ultimately he still did. As infatuated with Akane as Mugi was he never did have the capacity(I'm tempted to us the word courage and hope that won't be misunderstood as a positive...) to play hard ball with other people's emotions the way she does. He had the desire and maybe even the understanding of how Akane works, but couldn't bring himself to act like her. Ultimately? Mugi is probably just a lot more sensitive to what other people think of him than Akane is. Even if you got rid of their age difference he wouldn't be able to compete I think. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23883 |
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Episode 12 (Finale)
And so we are done. As I expected, I am left with a sense of dissatisfaction, although I have rated the show Good, so I by no means despised it. It had things to admire and I can confidently say I'll remember it for a good long time to come when so many other shows that irritated me less have faded into oblivion. On the more trivial end of things, I often felt I was reading a manga 1.5 as opposed to a reputedly animated show. This was very much a conscious creative decision on the show's part to use panel framing, for example, but I can't say it worked gangbusters for me. More substantively, I was left unsatisfied with some of the resolutions. For example, Akane did not perish slowly and horribly in a fire. I consider this one of the great missed opportunities in popular culture. Instead, this sociopath who vibes on playing sick emotional games with high school students, miraculously changes thanks to the oblivious and 100% no strings attached "love" of Nurami "You Remind Me of my Mommy" Kanai. I only wish the show had lasted long enough for us to see Akane boff the entire male contingent of all his classes. Year after year. Frankly, I felt I had already seen the Ecchan-Hanabi wrap-up a few episodes ago. I didn't need more, especially more that included Ecchan cock-blocking a dude showing interest in Hanabi. I can live with the resolution between Hanabi and Mugi. What I'm not so down with is how limp the Mugi-Hanabi through line was for a large chunk of the show. In the early going, I assumed we were watching a scenario about two people who had made a cynical contract with each other and would eventually have a day of reckoning after playing with that particular fire. Which we sort of got in the most understated and pallid way possible. Fireworks after Mugi left Hanabi twisting in the wind on the night of their mutual confessions? Apparently not. I am enough of a sap to admit that I secretly wanted Mugi and Hanabi to get together in the end. The resolution we were given is more mature and pyschologically correct than my shoujo yearnings, so I don't ding the show for it. Mostly, my dissatisfaction was because Akane expressed no remorse about her shit-heel behaviour (and I refer here to her delight in sticking it Hanabi as opposed to her promiscuity) and paid no price for it. This is what left a vaguely curdled sensation in my justice-loving gut. (I know Lifesongoa will make a convincing argument that Akane's approaching Hanabi to give her a rose from the bouquet represents an act of contrition on Akane's part to which I say, fie! FIE, I TELL YOU!!!  )
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11429 |
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Well, it might've been, if not for her parting shot. 
And I don't know about not paying a price. She did end up married to Kanai after all. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Pfffft. The woman who's greatest fear is being bored marries the most boring guy in the world, if that isn't divine retribution, i don't know what is... 
I liked the ending, a shoujo happy ending wouldn't have fit this show and this was actually more touching. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23883 |
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@ Gina Szanboti & Merida - valid points on the observation that being married to that clueless knob constitutes punishment enough. Ah, who am I kidding? I still want the fire.
Last edited by Blood- on Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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Episode 12
I was relatively satisfied with the end, mostly because it did not give everybody some happy Shojo ending. It was my fear that it would turn into that and by holding back some it was a little more realistic for me. I'm glad that Hanabi and Mugi are not together at the end and I too thought the show might go down that route. Two people with a history of unhealthy decisions do not necessarily make one mature healthy individual much less two. Also, I had no problem with Ecchan doing some cock-blocking for Hanabi's sake. As she said Hanabi still wanted her space, which shows Hanabi is still growing and trying to figure things out. I think Hanabi was my favorite character because she struggled, made mistakes, survived them and tried to learn from them. I have hope for Hanabi's future, because she seems a little more self aware than the others. The show also had a common theme in manga and anime of relying and connecting to others. It was through everyone's connections that they could move forward a little bit. For me this was the best show of the season out of everything because there were some genuine emotions and situations I could relate to from when my friends and I were kids. Not everyone had similar experiences so I can see how the show did not connect with some viewers. So I devoured the show until Akane's episode. It jumped the shark a bit for me there. Unlike Blood- I don't need to see Akane burn. Akane's been a pretty terrible person for a long time and I think at one point it was Mugi who said that it was a miracle that she hadn't been stabbed yet. One of the problems is that the show doesn't really deal with the consequences of Akane's behaviors and actions. Somehow her having sex with her students got handwaved by the show and some of her defenders. There's no consequences, no response from her victims which didn't work for me. Ok, Akane not being stabbed by a jealous man or broken hearted girl? Fine, but other people might have done things to each other or themselves because of how Akane acted. A girl cutting herself, her ex or maybe even jumping off a building? All plausible scenarios because Akane didn't just steal men from other women, she went for maximum damage by inflicting direct emotional pain with her gloating. Let's not forget that some of Mugi's problems stemmed from having sex at an early age, so how many young people has Akane screwed up that we haven't seen? What are the effects of Akane's behavior on others and how does she deal with that. Honestly, she seems emotionally incapable of feeling anything about that. She obviously had no ethical or moral qualms of having sex with her students. I think that people can change, but its not how its often portrayed in manga or hollywood movies. Few people can change with the flip of a coin, for most its hard work and often they suffer setbacks. Sometimes it involves coming to terms with past actions, which I'm not seeing here. I could go on and on, but I think I've ranted enough. I will say in a twist passive Kanai is marrying sexual predator Akane. I've seen a fair amount of manga (some of it shojo) were the girl gets together with an overly aggressive or down right rapey guy. I find it amusing to see it get inverted here. I'm on the fence about giving this a good or very good (B to B+ for me). |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2341 |
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I haven't got much to say about the finale that hasn't already been said.
Maybe my only yet unsaid bit is that I would have enjoyed seeing Mugi and Hanabi get together; they both come off as imperfect but reasonable people struggling to learn about love, and while that's no guarantee of success, it's a far better couples resume than any other pairing in Kuzu. But it's hard to see how that could have been handled well, as the show hasn't really addressed Mugi losing himself in Akane again and standing Hanabi up. That's a pretty substantial emotional betrayal and probably deserves more than an episode to 'resolve.' So I'm OK with this not happening in this episode, given the groundwork wasn't lain in prior epsiodes. Like others, I am disappointed with how the show avoided handling Akane and the consequences of her behavior. A better show could have shown us Kanai and Akane working through the emotional horror she wrought on immature young people while developing their own relationship. Instead Kuzu doesn't seem to have had much to say about this at all, except that if you emotionally manipulate high schoolers with sex sometimes they'll call you a slut and you'll get married. And, of course, I continue to be disappointed by its handling of Kanai, but that didn't change at all with the finale. Again, I think a better show could have gradually built up how very unusual Kanai's attitudes about sex and intimacy are, and could have made me buy into him as a real person. I think proper build-up would have made the payoff of realizing that he was the sole person uniquely suited to be Akane's partner, despite their obvious differences, deeply satisfying rather than feeling like a hastily-written, Procrustean solution to a narrative problem. As is he just looks to me like a cardboard cut-out of a real person, filling in a relatively shallow hole carved out for him by the story's author. Still, I enjoyed Kuzu on the whole. It had a fair bit to offer, particularly in Mugi and Hanabi's believably awkward, confused relationship-non-relationship. I'd probably give it a B or so: like its characters, flawed but decent. Last edited by NeverConvex on Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:00 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5450 Location: Iscandar |
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I am not sure if episode 12 provides adequate closure, but I really liked the last episode. At the end of it I felt sad and wanted to cry, but I also felt that I had watched something beautiful. I did not like Scum's Wish enough to want to buy it on disc, but I am glad that thought provoking shows like this one keep being made.
My grade for the whole series is a strong B+ |
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Lifesongsoa
Posts: 34 |
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I don't have much to add on the final episode. I feel like I should, but I think I've probably already said it. I feel like the story more or less resolved with episode 11 and 12 was just a send off to give us closure if we missed how any of the themes played out.
I did like the implication with Moca that finding something you can make a part of your identity that isn't sex is a good idea. It was already stated, but I think she got better closure than Hanabi or Mugi. She is already ahead of them in the moving on game. I'm cool with leaving the story off with hope for the future. I feel Mugi wasn't really resolved, but we already knew Hanabi had grown during the series, I guess I can accept that Mugi supposedly got the same growth, though for once I feel like we where told something that the narrative didn't entirely support. I can buy it as Hanabi's understanding of what happened. I'm going to miss this anime. I don't expect I'll see a love story that hits home like this again any time soon. |
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#Verso.Sciolto
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Black Cat snuggles White Cat. "No Cat No Life". Sometimes, all you need is the right shirt.
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kinghumanity
Posts: 365 |
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Life lesson to you, all you socially awkward anime watchers:
You, too, can get that hot sl*tty girl to change her ways and settle down with you, as long as you're the biggest mumbling, meek, self-loathing omega male who's willing to let her cuck you in exchange for the privilege of worshipping the ground she walks on! She will realize the error of her ways and discover your Nice Guy (TM) charm in no time! Seriously, what a trainwreck of a show. 4/10, only because of Yokoyama Masaru's music. And Moca is cute. |
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Dandylion
Posts: 68 |
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How does It compare to the manga ??? Is It Faithful or it deviates from the source material ??? Is It a complete adaptation (adapted from beginning to end) ??? Does It skip/cut some parts of the Story ???
Please no spoilers, I still have to watch/read It !!! |
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