Kaguya-Sama: Love is War
At this point I’ve fully accepted that I’m purely writing these to myself and maybe my girlfriend if she gets time to read them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it when I have the urge to! If I’ve learned anything from the years of doing this, it’s that the best way to express my sincerest feelings towards great anything is to write about it! There are so many posts I’ve halfway done because I just want to talk about stuff, but I eventually decide that I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. But this time I don’t care! I haven’t laughed, cried, or felt my heart beat out of my chest this much in what feels like years. If it wasn’t clear by now (why would it be?), the secret is out: I’m an absolute fanatic for rom-com anime, there’s something about it that just makes me so happy and connected to the characters. Angel probably thinks to some extent that I’m a crazy person when there’s such incredible anime like Attack on Titan and Demon Slayer to name a few and the one I’ve been so absolutely in love with is about two high school kids trying to make the other confess their feelings, because as we all know, the first to confess “loses.”
Kaguya-Sama: Love is War is an example of an artform at its absolute peak. To name a few things it excels at: storytelling, character development, and art design. And that’s just barely scratching the surface! Anyways, anyways, let me focus myself back on what this show is, and why I just love it so much. As you probably read above, Love is War is the story of two highschool students who come from entirely different backgrounds: one the daughter of a wealthy family (Kaguya Shinomiya), the other born into nothing who worked his way to the top of the school (Miyuki Shirogane); who are absolutely in love with each other but, for their own reasons you begin to discover throughout the show, refuse to be the first to admit said feelings. Given that, Kaguya and Miyuki wage “war,” with their outlandish and ridiculously over the top, but wonderfully hilarious attempts to make the other confess first.
In the midst of this ever-expanding war though, there’s more characters to this story than just our two main leads. As Miyuki and Kaguya are retrospectively the President and Vice President of the Shuuchin Academy student council, there’s a few other major characters with their own stories as well! Arguably the third lead is Chika Fujiwara, a somewhat airheaded best friend to Kaguya and Miyuki (who I will move forward naming as President, because that’s pretty much entirely what he’s called throughout the show) that provides a large portion of the comic relief, and at times, receives unintentional hatred from Kaguya for her simple nature that is often misinterpreted as flirtation. In addition, there’s Yu Ishigami and Miko Iino, mortal enemies with a massive disdain for one another, but also happened to be extremely supportive of each other when they need to be. And finally, there’s Ai Hayasaka, Kaguya’s maid and also a student at Shuuchin Academy who plays her own twisted role in the war for love.
While the majority of the stories and “battles” lean heavily into Kaguya and President’s endless battle to make each other confess, the rest of the cast also gets their fair share of standout moments and episodes specifically focused on their development, which helps the world feel more alive and not filled with one note characters purely there for the leads’ story. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention perhaps the unexpected MVP of the show, the narrator! Throughout every episode, the narrator plays an excellent role in adding to the overall humor, but also acting as a sort of commentator to what could be considered each “battle” like that of games in a professional sports season, as every one of them ends with a winner or loser (or sometimes everyone loses!).
On the whole, what makes Love is War so excellent is how it manages to have this incredible balance in serious emotional storybeats meant to push things forward, and allowing its characters (who are yes, highschool students!) to just have fun, and make this world feel just so much more lived in. Speaking of fun, this show has quite it’s fair share of hilarious bits that had me crying laughing at the TV screen. Some of the plots thought up by President and Kaguya are just so absolutely crazy and convoluted that you can’t help but smile at what is unfolding on screen. For me, that’s one of the biggest pieces as to why this show is just so amazing, it’s totally willing to forgo believability for the sake of incredible moments that somehow manage to be outright hilarious, but also incredibly significant in the overall story of these characters. Even on a smaller scale, Love is War’s dedication to having references to other shows and movies in the anime format and beyond adds another layer of interactivity begging for the viewer to keep their eyes glued to the screen at all times.
As of this point, there’s been three seasons of Love is War, so its hard to talk about this show without diving into developments from each season, but it’s worth mentioning how with each new season of this anime, the ante just continues to go up and the craziness just keeps getting ratcheted up more and more, making it that much better even episode by episode. Granted it feels like a cop-out in some sense to say this, I feel like this first three seasons of the show feels like what forms together as one incredible story that develops beautifully, giving each and every character the chance to grow and develop, while making sure we never forget the main task at hand: the confession. The relationship between our two leads grows beautifully throughout the three seasons, you can just see how they act differently as time goes on. For me, President and Kaguya’s story is the epitome of what the rom-com medium can be as an overall story, and for anime as a whole this show just feels like it’s a reflection of how beautiful the artform can be.
As I wrap up this clearly rapidly put together reflection on Love is War that I hope eventually convinces just ONE person to go and take some time out of their day to watch this wonderful show, I think it’s worth mentioning the experience I had as a relatively new fan of anime had watching Love is War. Angel specifically wanted to be there with me for each and every episode, having already seen this show, she knew that I would absolutely love it. It allowed me to reflect on my own youth and the ridiculousness of how overly complicated I, or better yet, we thought our lives were at the time. Love is War provided me some of the most wonderful memories I have had watching anime, and just with Angel as a whole. I can only hope that with the upcoming continuation film and the rumored continuation of the anime, we get to have even more wonderful moments together watching this remarkably beautiful achievement of an anime.
