Monday Manga: Scum’s Wish

Rating Summary

Art: 3 – Above Average

Story: 3 – Nothing exciting

Dialogue and Development: 3 – meh

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 –  It was just okay, but I was halfway through when I decided I hated it. But I finished it and hated it more.

*Contains Minor Spoilers* Tentacle writes about events of the manga. Don’t want spoilers, stop reading.

Plot: High school student Hanabi Yasuraoka has been in love with her older childhood friend who is now her homeroom teacher Narumi Kanai. But from the look in Narumi’s eyes when he sees the new music teacher Akane Minagawa, Hanabi realizes that he is in love with Akane and not her. Hanabi meets Mugi Awaya, another student who is in love with Akane, who was his tutor when he was in middle school. Hanabi and Mugi make a pact and begin a fake relationship to satisfy each other’s loneliness from their respective unrequited loves, both sexually and emotionally. They agree to not fall in love with each other and end the relationship if their love is returned from the people they are in love with. – Wikipedia

Hate it.

A triangle of unrequited love without so much of a an inkling of caring for this series. There is growth and forgiveness and  it is not for me. It’s all about bad choices and partially dealing with those consequences.

The main character Hanabi is your self-loathing kind of highschool girl that does have a rough time. She is at one point a starry-eyed girl that is in love with her older tutor, now teacher. Her best friend Sanae is in love with her, and Hanabi at some point might feel the same. . . wait a second.

Let me just stop before I go on a long rant and try to sum up weird stuff.

Hanabi + Mugi = get into a relationship for appearances and to cure their loneliness. They both “love” other characters and the story follows them in the seeking of those. At some point they both secretly admit to the audience that they do in fact in up liking each other in some form or another. I could really careless about Mugi.

Hanabi + Narumi = Narumi is Hanabi’s childhood friend and becomes her teacher. Hanabi just seems to be looking for that father figure. It was a childhood crush that I am glad didn’t transpire.

Mugi + Akane = Akane is a new music teacher at the school and has a penchant for living only to seduce. Akane likes the thrill of seduction and the audience gets of taste of how she cures her loneliness.  Ah Mugi is a highschool kid that bangs that hot teacher. Meh.

Akane + Narumi = You see what they did here? I’m gonna leave it at that. You might feel sorry for Narumi when he confronts Akane and says (summary), ” I know you sleep around, but as long as you come home to me I can handle it. Don’t tell me anything, just come home to me, I love you.” Ack! Emotionally taxing.

Hanabi + Sanae = Sanae is in love with Hanabi. Hanabi kind feels the same, but is more on the friend level. They stop being friends as Sanae needs some space after being rejected. Near the end of the series they become friends again. And they should be.  A+ to this plot.

Side plots involve Sanae’s cousin who has feelings for her. We learn of Mugi’s first sex partner, Mei who rushed him into doing the deed. Neither of these stories fill a void, but I guess there is some background to character development for you.

Did I mention: Hated it!

Everyone at some point gets their emo moment of “Oh look at me. I’m dead in side”. Everyone is in this manga. The over arching theme is loneliness and how these people get over it. Or how they mope about it and bring others emotionally down. There is reconciliation between many of the characters, but I just couldn’t care any more. I was done halfway through. I felt sorry for no one in this book, except for Sanae.

The story was a little longer than it should have been. Everyone seems to turn out okay in the end. Hanabi makes the realization that she should be happy with herself and improve upon that.

I guess the only way to tie up this review is to grab Hanabi by the shoulders and look her dead in the eye and say: “Love yourself girl. You don’t need no man to know you are worthy. ”

Tentacle out.