Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we return to the clusterfuck of emotional torment that is Scum’s Wish, as Hana returns from an alleged “heartbreak trip” designed to help her get over her feelings for her teacher, now that she finally mustered up the courage for her doomed confession. Of course, this is Hana we’re talking about, so that grieving process was here combined with a fresh set of entreaties towards her long-suffering friend Ecchan, who she refused to either let in completely or break cleanly away from. As such, both of them remain stuck in a painful limbo, with Hana promising to “wait until Ecchan is ready” to draw closer, ensuring neither of them can properly move on.
That’s how it tends to go in this lovelorn production. And frankly, speaking of “love” in the context of Scum’s Wish seems inappropriate; for if any of these characters are in love with anything, it is more likely their own egos than their various would-be paramours. Hana loves the feeling of being wanted and cared for, the feeling of possessing another, and the sweet anguish of lacking either; her feelings towards her peers are superficial, but her feelings about those feelings are rich and nourishing, enough to sustain an entire inner universe of imagined intimacy.
To this utterly misguided heroine, seemingly starved for love but in truth starved for perspective, our last episode offered an unexpected guide: her onetime rival Moka, who urged her to take a minute and smell the flowers (or savor the Danish, as the case may be). Hana’s feelings of romantic longing are all-consuming specifically because she has let them consume her, because there is nothing in her life but this desire to be wanted. Hana needs to learn who she actually is on her own, what Hana herself enjoys and cares about, beyond how such interests might affect her relationship with her various would-be soulmates. Let’s find out if Hana can Get A Life as we return to Scum’s Wish!
Episode 10
“Fragile and Empty.” A title that neatly describes most of this show’s characters. They are fragile precisely because they are empty – because they lack the certainty and confidence of identity that would allow them to weather these romantic storms, knowing that regardless of what some or another potential lover thinks of them, they are still a fully realized person with their own connections, passions, and sources of pride. Hana believes she is nothing if she is not being actively loved by the right person, and the healthy response to that is not to cling to that love, but to work on making herself a full person even in its absence
Meanwhile, Akane’s busy toying with Mugi, demanding he refer to her only as “Sensei” as they shack up at her apartment. Akane remains a genuine terror, and in that way basically the only member of the cast who’s actually doing what they want without restrictions. But Akane genuinely draws satisfaction from hopeless worship and suffering – Hana’s merely a tourist in this space, still hoping for a real, lasting love
Mugi’s passion is as fleeting as the moment itself, and afterwards he can only despise himself. Ah, romance
We actually cut to Akane’s reflections after the opening, with her revealing that her first time was in high school, “not too early, not too late”
The imagery here is clearly designed to evoke the alleged “loss of purity” involved in first intercourse. Akane is in a pure white dress, like she herself is a stainless sheet, and in her arms she bears bright red flowers, symbolizing the blood of piercing the hymen. The fact that she herself imagines her first intercourse this way seems to imply she buys into the patriarchal assumption that women are “stained” once they are no longer virgins, perhaps further implying that it was acceptance of these gendered restrictions that ultimately led her to embrace the identity of a “fallen woman,” an intentionally malicious seductress
Akane reveals that even the first time she had sex, she was actually playing up her innocence in order to flatter her partner, and finding joy in his excitement
“I want to take all of their jealousy. And pile it up so I can line them up, look at them, play with them, stomp on them.” I love how every time we learn more of Akane’s perspective, it’s just further renditions on “yes, I am that bitch”
“Why? Because that’s all I know about myself.” Of course, Akane herself is also empty
“Am I boring?” she asks Mugi, and then internally scolds herself for sounding like she was whining. All she cares about is her presentation towards her targets, but beneath that, she knows that she is boring, just a mirage designed to flatter foolish, simple men. Her facade is simplistic and her true self is underdeveloped – if she wants to escape herself, she needs to start associating with people who aren’t simply lured by her affectation, but actually want to interact with the harsher person underneath
“Your extreme selfishness turns me on.” And not like Mugi! His infatuation is disastrous for both of you
Mugi attempts to propose a date next week, which Akane takes offense at – he’s getting too presumptuous, acting like he actually has a place in her heart. Thus she stomps on his feelings by deliberately saying “that’s Mr. Kanai’s day”
“This is all I know. It’s the only way I know to keep standing.” Delighting in the specific power she has, keeping everyone, including herself, at arm’s length
Mugi’s later thoughts at school reflect his growing sense of emasculation; he feels like a girl in a pop song, wondering hopelessly about the meaning behind a kiss. Not terribly surprising, considering Akane is not only driving their relationship entirely, but also framing it in terms of him being the dependent, the helpless student to her controlling teacher
And thus he attempts to reassert some control, cornering Akane and demanding she not go on a date with Kanai
“Did you imagine what it was like? How was it?” Akane immediately spins his attempt to establish some normalcy in their relationship in the most twisted possible way, turning his desire for exclusivity into a new kind of fetish play
“Are you mad?” Akane sums up her personality in three words
And Mugi realizes why he can never beat her – because he doesn’t want to be hated by the one he loves, whereas she accepts hate as easily as love. In contrast with Akane’s own fantasy of a white dress and red flowers, Mugi sees her in full red, not carrying but embodying temptation
“She doesn’t turn anyone away, but doesn’t chase after those who leave.” This is how Akane retains power and selfhood in spite of being hollow – she takes pride in her mastery of these empty unions, and her indifference to their outcome. So long as you don’t care, nothing can hurt you
“Isn’t that really lonely?” Yep. She has perfected a useless, self-destructive art
We then jump to Kanai’s aquarium date with Akane
Akane is unsurprisingly bored at the aquarium, and wonders why they haven’t just gone back to a hotel yet. She continues to prove her emptiness, her lack of any identity beyond her need to prove she can claim and dominate these men
What’s worse is, Kanai doesn’t even appreciate her for that. She can at least toy with Mugi, who knows her true nature, but Kanai is a true believer
“There have been others like him. Guys who wanted to sleep with me, but didn’t make a move. But him…” Yep, Kanai actually wants to enjoy this trip to the aquarium – it’s not some sort of feint or act of cowardice, he’s just a genuinely normal, nice guy
Even though she slept with him, he just continues to propose mundane dates, making it seem like she is the one pursuing him. And considering a one-sided power dynamic is all she actually wants from any relationship, this whole situation is simply infuriating
She thus decides she’s officially over this fling
She’s about to break up with him when another ex walks by, and mocks her for having “yet another” boyfriend. She fantasizes about clocking him, but acknowledges that “that’s not in my character.” I feel like you’d be a lot happier if you embraced your actual instincts, Akane – this anger is probably the first genuine emotion you’ve felt all episode
She instead seizes on this ex’s words as a gateway to a breakup, saying everything he said was true, and that “I don’t think I’ll live up to your expectations”
“It’s probably because I was born a slut.” Kanai’s words echo the finality of her mental self-image as an inherently “fallen woman”
“The jealousy I stir up in women, I honestly love even more.” We’ve noticed
But of course, no one in this story can do anything productive for themselves or anyone else, so Kanai chases after her and states that “it’s fine to be that way. You can stay the way you are.”
At a certain point, dramatic revelation hits a consistency of execution where the unexpected becomes the expected, because you know the story’s writers will simply swerve towards whatever creates the most drama. This is basically the Soap Opera Line where drama becomes melodrama, and stories about human beings become stories about conflict for its own sake. Scum’s Wish passed that line a long, long time ago
“I was the one who couldn’t let go of him.” She’s had partners who know what she is and tolerate it, but none who’ve actually accepted it
“You will never get the words you want to hear the most from the person you want to hear them from the most. That’s what I think.” That’s because you have an experience bank of precisely two intimate relationships, with both of them technically being fake, Mugi
Considering Moka’s faith in him, he again resolves to change his nature
And he thus confesses his insecurities to Akane, which prompts her to actually agree to a date. Akane’s greatest weakness seems to be her tendency to get swept along with the passions of her targets – with both Kanai and Mugi, she swiftly agrees once they dazzle her with sincerity
And Done
Well, everything’s still a mess, but at least Hana didn’t do anything wrong this time. She didn’t really have time to, frankly, what with Akane lording over these proceedings with increasingly flagging confidence. I’m frankly a little disappointed to learn she’s so easily swayed by the simplistic entreaties of characters like Kanai and Mugi; I figured her mentality was well beyond the adolescent crushes of her partners, but it turns out she’s just as fragile as they are, possessing a similarly paper-thin cynicism to the attitude we’ve often witnessed from Hana herself. Given a firm declaration of support from someone who knows the truth about her, she’ll basically agree to anything – a clear indication both of the fragility of her ego, and also the unfortunate “everyone shares the same immature worldview” that generally undercuts Scum’s Wish’s attempts at emotional profundity. Still, we all know what we’re watching at this point – the only question is, what preposterous wrench will be thrown into the works next?
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