

Presumably, the audience is meant to hate him as an obstacle to a love predicated on molestation (bleurgh), but he’s rendered so loathsome by successive episodes that he comes across as the writers trying too hard. The same conditional sympathy is lacking from other characters though Hotaru, guilty as she is of unwanted sexual advances, has at least some limited backstory and depth to her, her steely-haired boyfriend soon proves himself a thoroughly unlikeable antagonist character with no real redeeming features. She’s not entirely unsympathetic, but it’s sometimes difficult to know whether her ‘MC-denseness’ (to paraphrase the prevalent anime trope) is supposed to be read as psychological depth, or just shaky writing. Though her inability (or unwillingness) to process the motive between Hotaru’s actions, and her lack of a satisfactory rebuff, can be put down to surprise and denial, there are still many instances where her inner monologues fail to suspend disbelief. On the other hand, Creators in Pack clearly don’t have the finesse or artistic talent at their disposal in order to pull this off.Yuma is one problem.

Like Scum’s Wish, it is easy to dislike the main characters for their actions, but difficult to write them off- they are bad people in a bad romance, if it can even be called romance. Though Hotaru’s behaviour is often strange, predatory and crosses the line into sexual assault, much of the series is steeped in an assumedly purposeful tone of uneasiness as her feelings towards Yuma, and Yuma’s towards her, are increasingly muddied, the audience is forced to deal with issues such as sexual blackmail and a yearning for physical closeness that, though not to be condoned, are at least thought-provoking. When Hotaru starts to initiate a series of inappropriate sexual advances towards Yuma, it becomes apparent that neither her long-term relationship with Fujiwara, nor Yuma’s with her boyfriend, are infallible.As someone who watched and, for the most part, enjoyed Scum’s Wish, another 2017 series by Lerche, I can see what this one was going for. Made by Creators in Pack, the same studio who brought you 2016’s Bloodivores (one of the worst anime series I’ve ever seen), this short-form dark romance stars Yuma and Hotaru, two girls in heterosexual romantic relationships. A lot of its (unfortunately many) flaws lie more in the sometimes woeful execution. For as maligned as it is, Netsuzou Trap actually has potential on an nth level.
