pearlesscucumber

I couldn't remember a story that has impacted me the way Scumbag System has in the last few years. In many ways, the story hits really close to home because they deal thematically with many issues that I've been grappling with for a huge portion of my life: 1) On Predestination: the central premise of the novel is really about a person who finds himself transmigrated into the main antagonist role of the story and hence, has to find SOME way to change his life path in order to avoid a horrific death. One of the major themes that the story raises is the concept ofpredestination, ie is it even possible to change one's fate, especially when it's literally written out explicitly for you? There is also the presence of an omniscient System that doles out punishments and severe consequences for appearing too OOC, out of character and this severely limits what the character can behave. The antagonist can only circumvent his fate by making decisions that's already circumscribed by a higher power and it raises the larger question: how much agency do we have over our destiny? Is it possible to change your fate, especially when the System is stacked against your favour, and there are limits to how much you can change? 2) The Impact of Everyday Kindness: In Scum Villain, we see how small, random acts of kindness can have a culminative, butterfly effect that does not just influence other people's lives for the better; it also changes the course of destiny for everyone around you. Due to the transmigrated antagonist's acts of kindness, secondary characters who were supposed to die found themselves alive and played a crucial role in the antagonist's own survival. Side female characters who were supposed to be harem members in the original plotline for the protagonist grew to have backbones, distinct and independent personalities that extend beyond just being a romantic/sexual interest. The protagonist became gay. Kindness can make people gay. 3) On Egotism and Knowing Better: this really hits close to home. One of the biggest problems that the transmigrated antagonist displayed is that as someone who knew the entire plot of the original story, he assumes he knows the characterisation of each character and their motivations. In the first half of the story: he makes very accurate assumptions about how each character behaves but the main tragedy and the root of all the dysfunction that happens in the second half of the novel was because he makes many assumptions about the protagonist that's eventually revealed to be untrue. Because he thinks he knows better, he talks to the protagonist as though he is the central authority, without ever considering the feelings of the protagonist, or how his decisions may trigger feelings of trauma and neglect. Because he thinks he can predict what is going to happen, he treats every character as chess pieces without realising that they are 3-dimensional characters and so, very often do not act in accordance to what the original plot was. The main tragedy of the entire story, which the antagonist realised to immense guilt and regret at the end of the novel, is that by trying to prevent the protagonist from becoming evil, he was so focused on his plan to change the plotline, and he was so sure in his assumptions of who the characters were, that he embarked in a series of actions that misunderstood and mischaracterised the protagonist in traumatic ways that reproduced the cycle of neglect and abuse which he's trying so hard to avoid. Ultimately, he was responsible for protagonist's path to darkness because his egotism in thinking that he knew better blinds him to the ways in which he's actually hurting the person he loved the most. Yes, the relationship is extremely dysfunctional, but through that relationship, it brought out some very important messages about how easy it can be to hurt other people, and how a presumption that you know best can screw people up, especially when the other person is that emotionally reliant on you. The tragedy lies in the fact that he realised this too late.

Adampk

Its a very ironical series. Basically it starts through mocking generic Chinese harem novel through protagonist point of view. So I thought it was going to do something unique. But later on, to my regret I found out the part they were mocking was not towards poorly done generic story but mock was going towards the harem genre. So the series itself turned out to be a poorly written generic Chinese Yaoi series baited as a harem series. But still its decent enough for atleast one time watch. Story- (5/10) Story is about protagonist transmigrated into a Chinese harem fantasy story as its antagonist and He isbasically trying to prevent his death flags from happening in that story. Premise would have sound interesting if I had not watched anime with same story premise before. Yes, I know of two anime which has same story outline (1 chinese - There's a Pit in My Senior Martial Brother's Brain and 1 japanese - My Next Life as a Villainess). Atleast execution of story is not so bad, but still its generic. Art - (6/10) Compared to other chinese anime, the CGI is better than average. Though don't expect too much. Sound - (6/10) It is more or less like every chinese anime. OP was average. Character - (4/10) Other than protagonist and his disciple (who is actually the instoryworld protagonist), every other character is bad. Maybe it is purposefully done like that to show that Chinese harem story is trash, but still that makes this story less enjoyable. Especially all the female character except for one were worst that rubbish. Even that one female character is only slightly better. Though Protagonist and his disciple dynamics were good Enjoyment - (5/10) It was somewhat enjoyable, Atleast not boring enough to drop it. One things I expected from a Chinese anime is to have good action. While action was present, I was not very good even from Chinese anime. There was one scene which particularly annoyed me was a fight between 2 female character. Instead of fight, that turned out to be some sort of weird dance where basically another character is explaining it as some sort of hyper movement fight which eyes cant see. Yes, it basically a joke towards action in chinese harem series. Overall - (6/10) Even for a yaoi series, there are better Chinese anime out there than this one. But if u can look past the mocking nature where it ironically fell flat and it baited nature, then its not a bad series to watch either