Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving back into the thorny drama of Scum’s Wish, a show whose second episode was kind enough to answer basically all my complaints about its premiere. After the show’s first episode presented the world as conceived by Hana’s melodramatic mindscape, the second was quick to puncture her bubble, complicating the situation with the introduction of Moca and Ecchan. With a strong social irritant like Moca in the mix, Hana and Mugi are both revealing new facets of their personalities, becoming more convincingly realized with their every argument.
Meanwhile, Ecchan seems like an emotional disaster area in her own right, and is blitzkrieging her way into the drama lips-first. Hana hasn’t demonstrated romantic feelings for anyone but Kanai, but given her feelings for Kanai are a childish sort of puppy-love in the first place, it’s hard to say where her story will turn. Both Hana and Mugi are reveling in adolescent fantasies of idealized, “destined” romances, and both of them are in for some hard lessons as they develop into their young adult selves.
When we’re young, we treat every romantic event and feeling as iconic and significant, because we benefit from the rush of novelty and the absence of experience. Currently, each of our leads believe their crushes are the only choices for them, because they have been the only choices up until now. But with other suitors intruding on both of them, the insubstantiality of “destiny” will make itself known soon enough. The question then becomes, with so much of their identity wrapped up in their infatuations, who are Hana and Mugi when you set those feelings aside? I’m eager to see our leads grapple with these questions, so let’s get right to the action!