[Anime B-Side] Scum’s Wish - "This Is Gonna Hurt" - Sixx: A.M.

I have a typed, 2500-word draft of a review for this series that I may cut down and still submit at a later point, but I decided to make a "B-Side" post instead. A B-Side is defined as the back side of a vinyl record or cassette tape where musicians would frequently store bonus singles or samplings of tracks that weren't a part of the original album (Source - Urban Dictionary, first entry). As someone who listens to a large variety of music and associates tracks with emotions and concepts related to my own real life, I felt that this would be fitting, especially when my first non-review here was about Anime openings and endings that I absolutely love. These posts will be titled using the title of a song and artist that performed it and a link to the official music video to set the mood and tone of the post. These will be primarily for controversial, triggering and / or deeply personal topics that I don't expect to do very well but feel the need to share regardless. Welcome to my first B-Side.

Source

In 2017, I was in a relationship of convenience with a woman that eventually lived with me. Neither one of us were in a mentally and emotionally healthy place when we started, but we did have a good time for parts of it and a shared goal of not being alone just like the main couple in Scum's Wish. In Episodes 4 through 6, a relationship began that reminded me of the worst aspects of my own. Abuse, manipulation and sexual assault in real life rarely get representation in any form of media in such a brutally personal and honest way. I think these kinds of shows are important, regardless of any discomfort they may cause some audiences.

The main actors in this performance will be three of the six main characters. All six played a part in what lead to the events of these episodes, but I'm mostly focusing on those three for time and to prevent spoiling the entire story for new viewers. Please note that this was my personal interpretation on using the English dubbed release; I did rewatch these episodes before writing this but most of my opinions remained the same from the first watch. I will also be briefly spoiling parts of the first half of the plot to set the stage; the context of the events gets future explanation and all three of these teenagers do get fleshed out quite a bit, but I won't be using much of that for this post in hopes that you will seek out the series and watch it. I do recommend watching this in its entirety at least one time.

The Actors (all shown in the previous image)

• Mugi Awaya - the tall blonde teenage boy looking off into the distance, gripping Hanabi's hand with his back turned away and form half hidden from the camera
• Hanabi Yasuraoka - the dark haired, somewhat pale teenage girl with wide open eyes staring at the camera, openly showing her entire being
• Sanae Ebato - the red headed teenage girl looking over her shoulder while walking away from Hanabi, ashamed to be her real self

The Shared Inciting Incidents for These Episodes

In Episode 1, Mugi and Hanabi met for the first time and discovered that they both were in love with teachers at their High School. Those teachers were their older "siblings" (no blood relation; the two main characters in the back of the thumbnail) but neither felt they could have or confess their feelings to either. They instead made a pact to depend on each other for their needs and to use each other as a replacement for their true "loves."

Sanae - From Best Friend to Sexual Abuser

When Sanae and Hanabi met, they were both in late middle school and about to take their high school entrance exams. They were riding a train and Sanae found herself being groped by the man behind her. Hanabi noticed it and like a knight in shining armor, she rescued the troubled princess. It was love at first sight and a realization of being a completely gay young woman. They immediately were inseparable.

Back to the modern day: Hanabi had never had a boyfriend before or shown true interest in dating anyone other than Narumi (her teacher). There was something questionable about her immediate change of heart when she became Mugi's "girlfriend." Much like anyone that truly cared about another person, Sanae began to investigate and get to the bottom of their scheme. Stalking and eavesdropping were involved but I felt the intention was mostly pure (at this point).

Confrontation followed shortly and Hanabi realized how much she hurt Sanae by not spending enough time with her. A sleepover was in order with both girls talking openly about their lives and having a bit of intimacy that was shown to be very normal for their relationship. The topic of who they loved set sparks in Sanae's heart as Episode 3 ended with Hanabi pinned to her bed, crying and in shock, as Sanae kissed and confessed to her. Understandably, they needed time apart while Hanabi worked on processing her feelings. It was implied that she had never looked at Sanae that way before and had no point of reference for the feelings she currently had that were forced upon her.

The next time they met (in the latter half of Episode 4), Hanabi and Mugi were at odds and had been mostly detached from each other. Hanabi was lonely and wanted to become like Akane, the female main character in the back, in order to get Narumi to finally look at her as a woman. In a bout of desperation and to save their friendship, Hanabi decided to let go and allow Sanae to have her way with her as a coping mechanism for her intense pain. I feel that the contrast between Hanabi's thoughts versus Sanae's thoughts was a wonderful storytelling mechanic but didn't make their sexual encounter any less uncomfortable for me.

Hanabi apologized for not understanding or noticing Sanae's true feelings. Sanae immediately decided to take advantage of her friend's mental distress and their history to force a sexual encounter while being begged to stop. Even though it's finally allowed, the music played and dialogue made it feel very much like a rape scene. The music was very foreboding and creepy and Sanae's words of "encouragement" to finish it, left me feeling disgusted. Afterwards, Hanabi's thoughts about using up her passion on Sanae and her ecstatic grin after the montage still didn't bode well for me. It wasn't until the dialog with her childhood self while in the rain that it was made clear how truly unwilling Hanabi was in allowing this to happen, despite not knowing it at the moment.

What made it worse for me was the pursuit and pressure from Sanae to continue it along with the victim shaming and dialogue used to guilt trip Hanabi into allowing it to continue. In one of the next scenes, Hanabi immediately requested they don't spend any alone time together because this was wrong for her. There was no respect or care in Sanae's responses; she was obsessed and I was concerned that she would become a classic Anime Yandere.

There is one particular scene that I want to bring up in relation to my own experience with the kind of relationship on display between these two. At first, the scene was jarring with how it was edited and cut but upon thinking about the director's intent and the implications, my own discomfort with it was elevated further. Hanabi, Sanae and another one of their classmates were in a study session in the library. Sanae began to grope Hanabi even though she was adamant about stopping and requested they don't do it there in public.

There was an immediate cut to Hanabi in the nurse's office, bedridden with a fever after Sanae had carried her there. When Sanae straddled Hanabi and attempted to have sex with her in that moment, it brought up one of the worst experiences I had in my own previous relationship. I was sick for three days from a tooth infection after shattering a molar several weeks prior, barely able to get out of bed and growing weak from the pain caused from eating. My ex took care of me by making me soup and hot tea after taking some time off from work. It wasn't until after our relationship ended and I had completely cut ties with her that I had remembered a specific event from that time.

She began to punch where my infection was while simultaneously laughing at every point of contact. It was something that I had asked about but was told to not worry about enough that it just stopped being on my mind. Until I saw this chain of events in Scum's Wish, I had willingly forgotten that event. Remembering that particular event in itself was not a bad thing; it's just that this chain of events was so well realized and within my own real-life experiences that I felt that their relationship could have gone that way (and maybe did off-screen).

Conclusion

I was originally going to dissect the sex scene between Mugi and Hanabi for how uncomfortable it initially made me feel but upon rewatch for this post, I realized that most of my discomfort was coming off the back of the events I brought up in this post. My impressions of their sex scene drastically changed once I had the full scope of the story and rewatched it, so I will leave that up for your discovery. If you enjoy seeing content like this, feel free to comment below, reblog and vote on it. Thank you for your time, and I hope to do more A and B-Sides in the future when I'm not writing reviews, and when I find stories that I find to be personally cathartic.

Important Info

• Adapted from a manga written and illustrated by Mengo Yokoyari
• Studio: Lerche
• Genres: Seinen, Psychological Character Drama, Love Polygon
• Seasons/Episodes: Winter 2017; 12 Episodes (Complete)
• Where to Stream: HiDIVE
• Recommended Similar Content: Love and Lies(for the similar way it made me feel in terms of the representation of the characters and thematic ponderings; see my previous review); Welcome to the NHK (for how broken, flawed and self-destructive the main character was but also how fully-realized and earned their journey's end came)