Kuzu no Honkai, or Scum’s Wish, revolves around a few high school students and teachers, specifically Hanabi and Mugi, who have mostly one-sided crushes and some of who are more than just a bit dysfunctional. I recommended this anime and thought it would be fitting if I also reviewed my pick.
[youtube https://youtu.be/iNBoRqmKJtM]
Studio: Lerche
Genres: Drama, Ecchi, Psychological, Romance, School, Seinen, Unrequited Love, Yuri
Rating: R+ (minor nudity)
Based on eponymous manga by Mengo Yokoyari.
Started airing: 13th of January 2017
Number of episodes: 12
Episode duration: 22 minutes
Kuzu no Honkai, also known as Scum’s Wish, follows the perfect couple, or in this case these two who appear to be the perfect couple. Hanabi Yasuroaka and Mugi Awaya are really only together because they can’t be with the people they’re in love with. Hanabi is in love with a young teacher, who’s been a friend of her family for years. Mugi is in love with a young female teacher who used to be his home tutor. The young couple try to distract each other from their one sided crushes, but will they remain one sided?
Rating: 60/100
Kuzu no Honkai is definitely an anime with a large amount of drama, ecchi, romance and mainly unrequited love. For these reasons, if you’re into these themes, I recommend you watch this anime. One of the biggest assets to this anime, in my opinion, is it’s ending which wasn’t very open and didn’t leave me feeling saddened, as dramatic anime often do.
Ecchi, Drama and Romance are well represented in this anime, as it mainly revolves around the characters’ sexual desires. Get ready for some pretty pornographic kissing scenes, with a lot of tongue! You’ll get your fill of unrequited love and drama when watching this anime, as the characters face a lot of challenges in their quest to find, or rather gain, love.
Curious what else is nice, or not so nice, about this anime? Keep reading!
The story
While the series is a bit predictable in the amount of drama within the storyline, the things that happen are very surprising at times. People don’t turn out to be who you think they’d be and there’s even some Yuri introduced into the series through one of the characters. There is a lot of psychological drama in the series as the characters often struggle with their own actions or thoughts.
Each episode focusses around one of the characters, or maybe it’d be more appropriate to say one of the scums. While there are two main characters, Hanabi and Mugi, the series shows you a lot of the other characters as well.
While the genre Unrequited Love does apply to this series, I would be more tempted to call it obsession, as Kuzu no Honkai is filled with stalker type characters who seem to stop at nothing to get together with the one person they want to be with. There is a lot of heartbreak and selfishness in this series and its characters even seem delusion at times.
The characters
Hanabi Yasuroaka is an inexperienced virgin who has had a crush on her neighbour, Narumi Kanai who is also her homeroom teacher, since she was very young. She lives with her mother and has one friend, also her best friend, Ecchan or Sanae Ebato. While Hanabi is inexperienced in love she is very obsessed with her next door neighbour and is hoping to become his girlfriend. Her love for him has been unrequited so far, but that doesn’t discourage her, even when he develops a crush for someone else.
Mugi Awaya is a boy who has had a bit more experience, at least sexually, than Hanabi. He’s in love with a teacher as well, Akane Minagawa, who used to be his tutor. He has been in love with her for a long time and knows her quite well. Mugi also has a childhood friend, Noriko Kamomebata, who lives near him and has a crush on him.
Mugi and Hanabi quickly become friends, once they realise they both have one-sided crushes on a teacher. Their friendship turns into more and they agree to keep each other company, all the while pretending to be with the person they want to be with. The people surrounding them also have their own crushes, which makes the whole situation even more complicated than it already is.
There is a lot of insight into the beginning of Hanabi and Mugi’s relationship, in the form of flashbacks. Aside from this there’s also a lot of flashbacks and information on the background of the individual characters in this series, which paints a clear picture of who they are and how they see things.
Kuzu no Honkai shows quite a few disturbed characters, with some twisted personalities, even from unexpected sources. Their thinking and actions are often elaborated on, which makes it easier to sympathise with the characters.
The animation
The studio of this anime, Lerche, is known for Ansatsu Kyoushitsu, Carnival Phantasm and Gakkougurashi!, among others. The studio has produced more than 30 anime, OVA, specials and movies. A lot of them within the action genre.
The drawing style of Kuzu no Honkai looks a lot like the manga’s style, but is a bit more detailed. It’s not my favourite or most preferred drawing style when it comes to how the characters were drawn, but the colourful and detailed backgrounds were nice to see. When it comes to the emotions felt by the characters, it was portrayed well by the animation and their body language.
Something that stands out is the use of panels, like you’d see in a manga, which pop up every now and then. It gives the anime a manga feeling, which is appropriate since it’s based on a manga.
The intro & outro
‘Uso no Hibana (嘘の火花)’ by 96neko is the intro song of Kuzu no Honkai. The images shown with it are colourful and pretty, they give you a good idea what the story is about and the lyrics fit really well. The Drama and Romance genres are well represented in both the song and the images.
The outro reminded me of a kaleidoscope, as the images deformed in a very similar way. The style of the outro is very different from the intro, it is very sketchy. The song, ‘Heikousen (平行線)’ by Sayuri, is nice but is a little fast paced for the pace at which the images are shown and deformed.
