Doing what he can to survive in a place like this, Scam finds himself being the big man but facing crueler circumstances as events play out.
What They Say:
Scam thinks he knows why Anchan is locked up and calls him a murderer in front of the other boys. As the young prisoners deal with the confusing accusation, flames erupt in the library and the fire alarm goes off.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Life in the juvenile corrections facility is bad enough on its own with the way the guards are and prison life in general, but when you have the people you’re stuck with taking you down a few notches more it’s even harder. Friends are made in facilities like this that can last a lifetime, but sometimes it’s easier to make enemies. With the pressures all around and the drab feeling of life being crushed out of you, you can find respite in taking others down.
And for some of them, the not knowing of what others are in there for is an easy exploit to work with. Even more so for this group that has found themselves tossed into the same cell as Sakuragi without knowing what it is that he’s guilty of. Scam, in particular, seems to take pleasure in getting Sakuragi in trouble and sows some seeds of dissent among the group, even causing Cabbage to question whether the food Sakuragi is offering him can be had. Through word of mouth, Scam accuses him directly of being a murderer, something that sets Sakuragi off but not to the point of really going violent on Scam. It is enough to get the guard to take him into a private room though so he can beat the crap out of him. But even like this, there’s something to Sakuragi that scares the guard with the way he looks at him, even after all this time.
The background we get on Scam certainly is something that you can imagine many kids having lived through after surviving the war. Starving and with no options, life is going to be difficult and you eke it out any way you can and use whatever you can to get by. It explains a fair bit about how he’s using Sakuragi in order to get a bit ahead or at least save his own next in a less than welcome situation. At the same time, as strong as it made him in a way, it’s made him weak as well and he’s easily manipulated in a situation like this where a guard who has all the power is able pit the prisoners against each other. Scam is certainly under his thumb and feels like he has no choices, but it’s definitely a strong difference to how Sakuragi handles the guard.
In Summary:
The psychological breakdown that Scam is going through in this episode puts him in a really bad place but it also puts his cellmates in extreme danger when a fire rips through part of the facility. Scam’s desire to cover his own ass is pretty strong here as he tries to use others to survive, but he learns quickly that he’s the one that’s pretty low on the totem pole in the group because of what he’s done. Everything is happening in a terrible way, but it’s becoming enough to truly solidify the bond between the others and turn them into young men who will survive anything if they stand strong together. This series really does a great job of looking at troubled youths that are growing up in some of the harshest of circumstances yet trying to find a way to survive without losing themselves at the same time.
Originally Streamed By: Funimation
