Romance is about love and love is about respect, happiness and trust. This is what we are lead to believe by the countless depictions of it in the media, not just anime. Love is meant to triumph and propel the MCs to forever-after.
Or, love is poisonous and treacherous and it consumes everyone and everything that touches it. It will lead to heart-break, betrayal, even death. This is the counter to the above, which is also plenty explored by said media.
But what if it isn't all that dramatic. What if love is just a facet of our psyche that makes us do things, stupid things, things we will cherish or regret, things that will strain our relationships or make them stronger? Very rarely we see love portrayed in this grey zone, as a spectrum composed of many accompanying feelings that drive our interactions with others. Just like sex doesn't have to be all butterflies and fulfillment, or rape and resentment, love doesn't have to adhere to this dichotomy of either complete happiness or utter disappointment.
This is what Kuzu No Honkai (Scum's Wish) is about. It explores the grey area of love. The place in our hearts no one likes to talk about. The moments when we confuse love with lust or friendship, when we use love as a bargaining chip, when we weaponize love to hurt others, when we cling on to lost love while trying to satisfy our present needs. It is a shameful, hurtful side of love, but a side that exists and that too many of us had to struggle with at some point in our lives.
Beyond that, Kuzu No Honkai explores the relationship between love and sex and how the two are so inherently intertwined. The saucy moments in the anime are the moments when the biggest plot twists and turns take place, and the anime treats those moments with respect and dignity, showing us the real side of sex and exploration of one's own sexuality. It's not always pretty or glamorous, but so isn't sex in real life. It too can be awkward, unwanted, or even hurtful or used as a weapon. It's the side of adult life that is rarely spoken about, but it is what most adults experience, or come across, at some point in their life.
Kuzu No Honkai treats all of those uncomfortable depictions of humanity's most precious subjects respectfully and in a believable way. Every time something happens we get a glimpse into the character's psyche - their motivations, reasons, hopes and regrets. We also see the fallout of all the hurt and shame the characters inflict on themselves and others. But it also shows us that this fallout is not the end of the world. Broken feelings do heal and we do become wiser and stronger because of the things we experience, and subject others to.
For this reason, this anime is a true masterpiece and a ground-breaking work that sits in a genre of its own. There truly isn't another work of anime that explores those subjects with such care and respect.
Couple that with some of the best animation I've seen in recent years and one of the best anime soundtracks ever, and you have yourself a clear-cut winner.
So the next time you see an anime described as "romance", ask yourself this: what is romance? What does it entail? How would you know if, and how, your own emotional baggage does not influence the way you feel about others? And if you happen to be in love, what would that mean to you? How far would you go to prove it, and how would you know if that feeling is requited or even real? And if it isn't, what would you do then?
And if you're going through struggles like that in your own life, be it on the dealing or the receiving end, just know that you are not alone. We're all "scum" deep inside, and we all have our own wish.
