Kaguya-Sama: Love is War / Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai - Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunōsen

Love is War is a brilliant, witty, funny, romcom anime and one of the best shows from the Winter 2019 anime season. I loved the anime so much I went and read all 13 volumes of the manga. The writing is razor sharp with big laugh out loud moments that often poke fun at common tropes found in manga and anime. The characters are more than just two dimensional platforms that throw out humorous lines. There’s genuine fondness for everyone and as the story progresses, the layers behind each person is unpeeled to reveal their (often sad) backstory. This show is more than just a teenage romcom, Love is War encapsulates all the awkwardness, pressures and pains of growing up and finding a voice in the world.

Kaguya and Shirogame - will they ever just bloody tell each other how they feel???

Love is War is a romcom between two high school students who plot against each other in order to make the other confess their love for them. The synopsis sounds totally weird to my Western trained ears but by now I’ve watched enough anime to understand that in Japan, it is polite etiquette to confess ones love formally to a love interest before going out for a date. The two main protagonists here (Kaguya Shinomiya, the girl and Miyuki Shirogame, the boy) are elite level students at a very prestigious private school. They both fancy each other like crazy but can't let the other one know about their feelings (for fear of appearing to be the subordinate one in the relationship...again, weird, but hey, it's anime).

Fujiwara and her oddball character traits is always entertaining

Some observations. 
This is a show seen through the eyes of teenagers. The world seems strangely devoid of older adults. The few adults that do appear are dysfunctional, strange or creepy, like the Headmaster, Kaguya’s father and the President’s father. Adult females barely make a presence – Kaguya’s mother is never mentioned, Shirogame’s mother walked out on the family at an early age for some undisclosed reason and Hayasaki’s mother is only mentioned as a workaholic who never sees her daughter (she pop up just the once in the manga). Therefore the only role models and mentors available are these older students who themselves are struggling to deal with emotional issues. If you add into the factor the usual reservations and hesitancy to open up one's emotions to another (especially so in polite upper-class society) then it ensures many episodes where misunderstandings often occur.

The manga editions feature 'fun' and cheeky if slightly baiting cover art.

The anime is by and large faithful to the printed manga (season 1 broadly covers chapters 1 to 45) except several chapters are omitted and some shuffling of story order occurs. I guess there are strict time constraints with the anime version plus rejigging some content makes it flow better. I think it's perfectly fine to just watch the anime and wait for each season to come out, but reading the manga is equally enjoyable (if not better) as it offers more content.

Kaguya was brought up so sheltered she barely knows anything outside of her academic prowess. Many lol scenes show her trying to deal with fairly common knowledge stuff, like smartphones, Twitter and life in general. Watching her character grow and develop is one of the rewards of the show.

Another odd thing you'll notice watching the anime is that the first few episodes are each divided into smaller chapters. However as the season rolls on, each episode becomes longer with less mini-chapters. It's worth sticking around for the after credit extras too. This help fill in some gaps.

One of the hidden gems of the manga (not the anime as of yet) is the slow development of Yu Ishigami - the EMO style loser who is always moping around and treated like the loser he always thinks he is. the manga explores his character in later chapters and his subsequent awakening is a joyous sight to behold!

The manga pokes fun at common tropes. For example there is one chapter dedicated to fan service - how many mangas will try ttitillatete its largely male readers by depicting its female characters in scantily clad clothing or compromising positions for no apparent reason. The story then proceeds to do exactly this with its own characters.

There were so many laugh out loud moments for me. I particularly liked the scenes where Shirogame's Presidential mask is easily uncovered when he attempts to do anything outside of his narrow comfort zone, like try to sing or rap. It's not that he's bad at these things, but that he's so utterly unaware of how awful he is that makes for some funny scenes, notably featuring his always helpful assistant secretary Fujiwara.

Hayazaka is a popular fan favourite. She adopts a number of diverse personalities in a bid to save her boss Kaguya from trouble.

The whole story made me both sad and happy. The manga so far runs across 13 huge volumes (around 200 pages per volume) with 133 chapters in total. That’s a very long time to build up to a romantic climax. It made me sad because they waste so much precious time playing silly mind games when they could have had that time being together. But then again, these mind games, or love war as the title suggests, are what makes for an entertaining and rewarding show.

I hope they make more anime seasons of Love is War. I can also see there's no immediate end to the manga story. I wonder where their journey will go to next?



Kaguya-Sama: Love is War the translated manga is on Comixology.
The official subtitled anime season 1 is show on Crunchyroll (free with adverts). It is supposed to be on Funimation Now but I can't see it there (UK).
Official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kaguya.sama.love.is.war/
Official website: https://kaguyasama-anime.com
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