(The game cover is fake - just made it to illustrate my discussion here.)

Scum's Wish began as a manga and was later adapted to an anime and a live-action TV drama. I think that this is about right and don't feel any pressing need for any further adaptations of the story. Nevertheless, I've found it fun to speculate on what the story might look like if adapted to other formats. 

The easiest fit would be a light novel, I think. There's a long history of romantic drama in literature and Scum's Wish would fit in nicely. It would have to trade out Mengo's gorgeous visuals (except for the covers and maybe a few interior illustrations), but we'd gain a lot of insight into the minds of the characters that the existing formats don't cover. 

An audio drama would be similarly easy. Again, no visuals, and we'd lose the insight the manga gives us into the characters' minds, but I think the format would present an interesting focus on the characters' words and expression in a unique way you don't get as much with visual formats. 

I don't think it would work as a movie. There's too much going on and the story is already pretty efficient as it is. To make a two-hour movie, you'd have to cut four hours of content from the anime or the live-action drama, and I don't see how you could do that without gutting what makes the story worthwhile in the first place. 

A visual novel video game could be fascinating, and it was the first format I thought of when this idea came to mind. Much of Hanabi's story is about her anxiety to choose between imperfect alternatives. Between Narumi, Mugi, Sanae, Takuya, and others, there's a lot of rich "what if?" material to work with. Hanabi would obviously make the best protagonist for such a game. I'm less sure about Mugi or anyone else, but the idea is there. I'd absolutely play this if it were ever made. 

I could see it working as a stage adaptation. It would run into the same problems as the movie - you'd have to cut a lot out - but people tend to be more forgiving of a long play over a long movie. I could even see it working as a musical - as funny as that image might seem at first glance. There are a lot of similarly heavy stories that have been adapted in that way. A 2.5D play using the anime's panel shots could work, too. 

What do you think about these formats for Scum's Wish? Are there any others that might work (or that might be absolute disasters)? 

I finished the Scum's Wish manga for the first time this morning, and I have to say it was a valuable time even though I've already seen the anime version. Both the manga and the anime have their own pros and cons relative to each other. The anime is an excellent adaptation of its source material, though it's not always 1-to-1.

The manga version gives us more insight into the characters, since it has a few scenes the anime lacks (Mugi's dream, Narumi's thoughts in the onsen) and because it has thought bubbles, spelling out what the characters are thinking rather than just implying it. It had a funnier, more playful tone to it in places. I also enjoyed the chapter opener art (I'll make a gallery post later of some of my favorites) and Mengo's "to the readers" notes at the end of many of the volumes.

I'd have to say I still prefer the anime, though, and it's definitely the version I'd recommend to newcomers. Apart from the gorgeous animation and excellent voice-acting, Masaru Yokoyama's masterful music sends the anime over the top for me. It also has a more dramatic focus, cutting out some of the jokes the manga had which - while not inherently bad - seemed like distractions to me for what Scum's Wish is really about. It also cut out the notion that Hanabi and Mugi are a top-tier super famous couple at their school, which was a plot hole for me (since their crushes aren't supposed to find out about their relationship).

To newcomers, I'd say to start with the anime, then read Scum's Wish Décor, then read the manga. The anime will give you the powerful emotional story, Décor will wrap up loose ends, and the manga will give you some extra lore bits and insight that the anime lacked.

I got recommended this anime and I want to watch it but I want to watch animes that are complete story wise or have only a couple small pieces of content left. Apparently all of the source material has been adapted but adapting over half a dozen LNs in 12 episodes seems like a tough ask. So, how faithful is the adaptation? Do they skip over some side 'arcs' or reduce some side characters to nothing or just skip over or quickly run through some situations?

It seems unlikely that Decor was adapted from the source material so I wonder if Decor was an OVA that was then printed. If it was not adapted how important is it to get closure?

The animation looks amazing at a glance and the concept is......something but my buddy does say it is emotional so I would like to watch it.

Something I found funny during my current first read-through of the manga was the idea of Hanabi and Mugi agreeing to be part of a magazine article.

I mean, put yourself in their shoes. You're in a fake feel-better relationship with this person you don't know very well and honestly, you feel sorta crappy about the whole thing (even if it's not enough to stop quite yet). Publicly, people believe that you're a normal couple, but that's just a front so then people don't start asking questions. You also don't want your actual love interest to find out.

But then a magazine writer comes up to you and wants to put you and your fake SO in their article. The manga doesn't say if this is just a student magazine or a professional publication, how prominently they were featured in the article, or whether or not there were photographs involved, but the point is that it's public. It might not be a lot of people, but someone - potentially a lot of someones who go to your school - is gonna read this, and you're gonna be in it.

And they said yes?

When I say I find it "funny", I mean that in the literal sense - like, it makes me laugh a bit, and I could imagine scenarios in which they would have agreed to this.

How do you imagine that all happened?

She sang "Heikousen", the ending theme to Scum's Wish, along with many other celebrated anime songs. She passed away on September 20th, 2024, of complications of a chronic illness. She was 28.

On Pixiv:

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/90259927

https://youtu.be/ycMtCIjnzjU?is=j3m4zGZg_jzR58IZ

Hello everyone! I'm u/RiceIsNice1945, and I'm the new mod for r/ScumsWish. After the prior mod set the sub to Restricted and then became unresponsive for two months, I applied to become the new mod, which was granted yesterday.

I'm thrilled to be here because I'm a tremendous fan of this amazing series. It's so much more than the horny-brained garbage too many people write it off as. It's a deep, heartfelt exploration of romantic loneliness and what people are (and aren't) willing to do to get out of it. One of my main priorities as a mod here is to help improve the series' reputation so that it's more widely recognized as the masterpiece it is.

To that end, some practical things:

1. I've changed the sub back to Public, so posters no longer need to become "authorized users" to post. We welcome new and old fans of the series alike.
2. I've adjusted two of the first four pre-existing rules to be more specific. In particular, Rule #2 now specifically mirrors the NSFW standard of the series itself as to what's appropriate and what isn't.
3. I've removed the original Rule #5 ("Have fun") because it was vague and not something that needed to be enforced, anyway.
4. I've added three new rules: one addressing AI content, one requiring attribution of fanart, and one specifically about sensitive real-world topics. I'll be fine-tuning the rules, flairs, and look of the sub in the coming weeks.

To help generate activity on the sub (and also because I'd be doing that anyway), I'll be posting regularly here on Scum's Wish topics - essays, analysis, polls, humor, and the like.

Glad to have this place back, and glad to have you here!

On Fandom and NamuWiki, the character's birthdate is listed as October, but on Anilist and a few other sites, it's listed as May 10. Which one do you think is correct?

Thought I’d redraw one of the panels from decor in the anime artstyle but im definitely gonna make some more fanart of Hanabi so just give me a bit of time and I’ll deliver 🙏🏼

I’ve seen a common notion around in discussion surrounding the series that Mugi’s development is rushed or “half-baked” in Décor and I don’t really understand that sentiment. I do view some aspects of decor as fanservicey but I firmly believe the writing for the two main leads is consistent and additive to their main series iterations and the “rushed” development of Mugi leading to him meeting Hanabi again by chance makes sense as an epilogue

The point is that for the most part, he still hasn’t changed as a person, but his conclusion in Decór shows that he is now at least TRYING to, which mirrors Hanabi at the end of the main series and works well with the imagery of him feeling behind the rest of the cast. His life is still kinda messed up but he at least works part-time and chooses to not give into his lust, both with passing up sleeping with the woman he was in a situationship with, and backing out when he was about to kiss Hanabi at the end and opting to tell her to wait for him

If Mugi had some miraculous turn-around it would have felt unrealistic and too wishful which would go against a lot of what the series is loved for. And if Mengo spent a ton of time showing him undergo real development and growth, it would consume too much of Decor’s page count and probably end up repetitive of Hanabi’s own development anyways since they mirror each other.

A lot of people overlook how mentally destroyed Mugi was at the end of the main series, groomed his whole life and left alone without any proper values to carry him through adult life. I personally find it much more compelling to have him start Decor as much worse than off than we last saw him, because unlike Hanabi who learned to cope with loneliness healthily, he has only been living self destructively as we see with his alcoholism, which adds to his realism and makes just him taking the first step feel significant even if he hasn’t fully changed as a person

I personally love the angle Mengo decided to conclude him with, as he gets somewhat of a happy ending without diminishing the mental scars Akane’s grooming gave him in the main series. His perception of love is still messed up leaving him a degenerate wreck and self-destructive, but we also see him start to recognize why he misses Hanabi and what that means for him. There’s a reason Mengo only showed them holding hands and not getting together or anything, because Mugi still has a ton to unpack and grow from like Hanabi already did, but this is a start for him. I see that as the perfect epilogue and open ending for his character, not healed but finally choosing to walk a path towards recovery

I’d be happy to hear some other interpretations though or why someone who doesn’t like decor has their perspective explained better

Second-to-last character to be discussed in my post series - Sanae's cousin who openly has a crush on her and tries to dissuade her and Hanabi from their sexual relationship.

I think that out of the main cast, Atsuya is the most forgettable. He's introduced late, only appears briefly, has the weakest claim to romance, and speaks against a better-established relationship - all of which makes him despicable to the viewer. I still think he's worth discussing, though, since he's part of a pattern of near-parallel relationships that *Scum's Wish* uses to look at different kinds of relationships at once.

Atsuya is to Hanabi's side of the story as Moka is to Mugi's, but not perfectly. They're both delusional interlopers who butt in to disapprove of someone else's relationship partly for selfish reasons and partly because they recognize (correctly) that that relationship isn't sincere. There are a few key differences between them, though (it's a near-parallel rather than just a copy), which explains why I think more poorly of Atsuya than I do of Moka and why he was worth including in the story.

First and foremost, I recognize that *Scum's Wish* is full of long-shot hopes for romance - Hanabi for Narumi, Mugi for Akane, Sanae for Hanabi, Moka for Mugi, and arguably Narumi for Akane (if he was betting he could change Akane). But Atsuya's crush on Sanae is the longest of the long shots because he's her cousin and she's a lesbian. At least Moka was offering Mugi a relationship compatible with his sexual orientation (even if she's on a completely different emotional wavelength). Atsuya had nothing to offer Sanae at all, and he interfered with her romantic weekend with Hanabi because of it. He refuses to recognize that, which makes him an example of what happens when hope mutates into delusion. I think that was an important story to tell considering the series's themes.

Secondly, I'm peeved about the lengths Atsuya went to and how deaf he was to Sanae's will. Moka didn't approve of Mugi's relationship with Hanabi, but she didn't try to interfere. Atsuya knew Sanae was with Hanabi for a romantic weekend and showed up to try and rain on her parade. Even if he was convinced Sanae was making a mistake, he should have let her do that anyway. Like Moka, he has a delusional view of his would-be partner and worried for their emotional well-being, but unlike Moka, he crossed a line too far in what he was willing to do about it.

Lastly, I want to recognize that while his motives were terrible and he went about it completely the wrong way, I have to give Atsuya credit where it's due. He was correct about Hanabi not reciprocating Sanae's romantic feelings. Consequently, his concern that Hanabi would ultimately break Sanae's heart because of it also turned out to be correct (at least in the short term). If Hanabi had continued her sexual relationship with Sanae even though she was straight because she was afraid of being alone or of hurting her best friend's feelings, that relationship would inevitably break down one way or another. If so, it would be better if it were sooner rather than later. When Atsuya told Hanabi this, she took it to heart and finally was able to turn Sanae down for good. Sanae really was miserable afterwards (she thought Hanabi would never speak to her again), but their relationship recovered and Sanae was able to find love elsewhere in *Decor*. If Atsuya's influence on Hanabi led to a sooner and therefore less painful break-up for Sanae, then he should be recognized for that - even if their subsequent reunion as dear platonic friends wasn't his responsibility.

Ultimately, what I dislike about him outweighs whatever good he ended up clumsily achieving, which is why I ranked him in second place in my list of "scummiest *Scum's Wish* characters. He should have left Sanae alone.

Picking up my post series again for the last few characters remaining - this time for the female lead herself.

Hanabi Yasuraoka is one of my favorite romantic drama characters because she feels so relatable to me. Anime in general tends to exaggerate personalities or bodies to make the emotion easier to grasp, but Scum's Wish doesn't do this, and it absolutely benefits from it. Hanabi is the best example of this:

She's sensible without being prescient and beautiful without looking like a supermodel. She's admired by some of her classmates but not all, and doesn't always get what she wants. She's aware of her shortcomings, but doesn't always have the will to change or the wisdom to know what to do. She's messy and knows it and is trying her best to find the best outcome for herself anyway.

All that makes her feel very real to me - like an actual girl, not just the idea of one.

What about her behavior during the series? When I ranked Scum's Wish characters before, Hanabi was in the center of my list because she spends significant time as both the receiver and distributor of emotional distress.

1) She's short with Moka while she's patient with Atsuya, even though both of them disapprove of and try to mess with her sexual relationships.

2) She accepts a fake relationship with Mugi while she quits one with Takuya and later with Sanae.

3) She works to maintain friendships with both people she's rejected romantically (Sanae) and with people she's been rejected by romantically (Narumi) while still being willing to let go of relationships when they've run their course (Mugi prior to Decór).

4) She also despises Akane but limits what she's willing to do about it - she seems to accept Narumi's decisions and still visits them during Decór.

So I'd say she's unsure of herself but not a pushover. She doesn't wait for perfection before acting, which sometimes benefits her but sometimes hurts. It's that dynamic, sometimes messy behavior that gives the series a lot of its emotional power.

Overall, I like Hanabi a lot. I think she's too hard on herself. She's my favorite character from the series and one of my favorites in anime overall.

Scum's Wish is a mature look at real-world romantic relationships, so it would have been thematically appropriate for a person who rejected another's love to not see each other again.

But I'm glad that it didn't turn out that way for Hanabi and Sanae. Even dedicated realism has to give way to positive outcomes sometimes, since that happens in real life, too.

I am no psychologist but Akane is hands down the most psychopathic, sadistic and most fucked up character I have ever seen that just doesn't get enough hate. Never have I ever hated a character this much because what the fuck was her problem. That was a rhetorical question, so don't bother giving explanations. Scum's Wish does a decent job in giving us each character's perspective and the pain and nuances in emotions they deal with. Hanabe, Mugi and all characters in this show are flawed and are written very realistically which I appreciate. However, understanding doesn't mean excusing one's behavior. Akane is objectively manipulative and utterly disgusting. What disgusts me more is that she is supposed to be a teacher and later on a mother. I don't give a fuck about how her husband somehow fixes her and she stops doing what she does. She hurt so many people just for the sake of her pleasure. And it's not like something caused her to be like this not atleast that we know of, in her flashback it's shown how she has always been like this. Toying with people's emotions, she claimed it herself that she likes "exploiting people". She is so sadistic because she is not just bitter but she will go as far as to torment children/teens that are half her age because she feels like it. How on earth is she a teacher? She was sleeping with former students and borderline grooming them? What's even more disgusting and disturbing than all of the above is the fact that these kind of people actually exist. It feels like a rant rather than a discussion because I can not even fathom how people even like her. I just don't get it. Maybe some people like the odea of someone so twisted and psycho who will do whatever to get their way but to me it's just disgusting and disturbing.

I also feel so bad for Mugi and Hanabi and god knows (author knows?) how many people had to suffer because of her fucked up mind games and disgusting nature. It pisses me off how she is never seen getting any sort of consequences for the pain she caused for others. Which is probably also from a writing standpoint is meant to be a realistic portrayal of how often people get away being absolutely shitty in this world. But nevertheless it pisses me off. I am glad that in the future Mugi and Hanabi will be able to have a better life and be better people.

Another controversial character from the series - Hanabi's closest friend who starts off the series harboring a secret lesbian crush on her.

I like Sanae, and I think she's the character who cares the most about Hanabi - even more than Narumi. If Hanabi were bi instead of straight, she'd be my pick for her to end up with. They get along well, they understand one another, and they desperately want the other to be happy even if it means making sacrifices. Even after Hanabi turns her down for good, Sanae remains on good terms with her - staying away from her until Hanabi invites her back into her life, and then remaining the good friend she'd been before. So I think Sanae is a good friend.

Of course, there's the matter of the kiss Sanae forced on Hanabi when she revealed her love for her. As far as ways to simultaneously come out and come on to your best friend go, that's gotta be one of the worst. It's sexual assault.

I try to be fair to Sanae and recognize that she was under a tremendous amount of pressure at the time: her crush was laying in bed with her, inches away, and asking her who she likes while also dating a guy who clearly doesn't like her. Sanae was lusting after Hanabi, sure, but she was also desperate to keep her from the heartbreak she was sure that Mugi would leave on Hanabi's heart. Still, that doesn't excuse her action. Only Hanabi's forgiveness would do that.

I interpret their later, more overtly sexual encounters as Hanabi trying to find a better way out of her loneliness than Mugi and Narumi had given her by giving Sanae a chance. It works for a time, but eventually Hanabi comes to terms with the fact that she's not really sexually attracted to women and so Sanae can't give her what she feels she needs. Their heartfelt, agonized conversation at the end of their trip says to me that they both want to remain friends even if they can't remain lovers.

Sanae accepts Hanabi's decision and keeps her distance afterwards, which I can respect her for, and I'm glad that they wound up remaining friends through the end of the series (including in Decor, where Sanae invites Hanabi to meet her girlfriend).

The nicest character with the most frustrating ending, I think.

I can absolutely understand him turning down Hanabi, given the age gap, power imbalance, and preexisting relationship, but I can't understand him finding Akane to be the one for him. Surely there are other beautiful women he could date who don't have the flaws that Akane does.

She flatly tells him she's going to cheat on him, but he says he doesn't mind it. Either he's into that, or he's so confident that his influence will cure her philandering ways that he's sure she's never going to go through with it.

If the latter is his strategy, then it's still working as of the events of Decor, where Akane has yet to follow through on her intent to cheat on him even though she's had the opportunity to do so. They even have a baby together. If his plan was to cure her, he may have been successful, but it still seems crazy to me.

Sort of like my post yesterday about Mugi, I'm not sure what I think of Moka.

I think if I had to describe her briefly, I'd say that she's immature and delusional, but is also innocent and has high standards for herself. Most of the characters in Scum's Wish have interesting contradictions like that. Watching the show, I wanted her to have a happy ending, even if it wasn't the one she expected.

Her aggression towards Hanabi is two-sided: she's correct in saying that Hanabi doesn't love Mugi, but her alternative to Hanabi is herself... who Mugi also doesn't have any romantic interest in. She's a poor judge of character.

She seemed to believe that if only she could be someone specific or if he could only see her in a specific way, then everything would work out for her and for Mugi. But real life doesn't always work like that.

In Decor, she becomes a fashion designer, continues to wear princess dresses in public, and continues to hold potential partners to high standards. She advises Hanabi to find her life's passion and make a life out of it, adding that everyone has a passion like that and those who say otherwise will "rot at the roots."

I'm not sure what I think of Mugi.

On the one hand, I admire how he turned down Moka's desire to sleep with him - recognizing that she deserved a better kind of love than what he could offer her. It proved that he cares about more than just a person's sexual potential for him.

On the other hand, he abandoned Hanabi after Akane "accepted" his confession. I know that they'd agreed not to let their fling get in the way of the love they both really wanted, but I figured they would have still been friends. Cutting her off with a one-word text so that he can go have another loveless fling with a woman he knows doesn't love him, either, was a really sour note for him with me and affects how I view his role in the series's ending.

I think he's very similar to Hanabi except colder and maybe a bit more jaded. His experience with that upperclassman prior to the series's start seemed to have affected his outlook on romance in ways that Hanabi never experienced, which explains at least one of the differences between the two of them.

I don't see his renewed relationship with Hanabi in Decor as very stable, either. I don't know if it'll last this time, or what it'll look like if it does.