How Cute…Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War First Impressions

Hey there friends and readers, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything out there and I just wanted to say that I’m back here with a great topic. Kaguya-Sama is something I was thrown into much in the same way I was thrown Komi-San. That is to say I saw an interesting meme about it and was fascinated why everyone was freaking out about some sadistic looking chick saying “How Cute.”  While I have been planning on writing something up to describe my love of the show (I read and caught up in about a weekend of effort and am now waiting week to week) life got in the way. Right now I’m in a great (not good, great) mood so I figured take a crack at the new season with this fun and hilarious show.

Right off the bat, we are given insight into the premise of the show and one of the draws that pulled me so fast. The narration explains that in love, whoever confesses first effectively loses and it is this high level mind game that our protagonists play. This is the story of student council Vice-President Kaguya Shinomiya and her dealing with the romantic feelings she has for President Miyuki Shirogane as they carry out their duties at Shuchiin Academy. During this time, many a people think the two of them are in a relationship, and being the most affluent students and smartest there respectively, it seems like a match made in heaven.

In fact, the two of them do have feelings for one another but would never admit it for the fear of this power shift and their own pride. While dismissing rumors akin to the above, they both secretly plan on how to get the other to confess. This goes beyond normal tsundere but expands into a whole new tier of tsundere, a tsupertsundere if you will. Ok I’m sorry for the pun, but after another half year passes nothing has happened between the two and they find themselves no longer passively thinking “It’s not like I like you or anything…baka!” and then actively planning “I WILL MAKE THE OTHER CONFESS THEIR LOVE FOR ME!” After slipping and inviting Kaguya to a romantic movie before realizing it’s theme, Shirogane goes into the first of many mental exercises to figure out how to twist things so that Kaguya confesses to him first.

While I’m not exactly happy how they translated her line, I was nevertheless ecstatic about seeing how they animated and voiced this first interaction that would shape the entire show. They did very well, with Kaguya’s VA conveying the fact that this entire occurrence with the ticket to a romantic film was her plan was an amazing bit of voice acting, capped by an amazing tune over it and I was freaking out and loving how well they did this and captured the feel of the manga. Most importantly however, they show off “Subject F” or Secretary Chika Fujiwara, who in all honestly represents the chaotic Deus Ex Machina that typically wrecks their well laid plans over the course of the show in the most innocent way possible.

Every chapter ends with a fun synopsis explaining the outcome of the chapter and usually offers some sort of hilarious insight into the chapter’s conclusion. I’m enjoying the fact that they are going with the style I was hoping for which was to jam about 3-4 chapters worth of content into each episode. The next sections go to show just how insane these two are and how silly and entertaining it is to watch these two play their games against one another. It also shows that the power play mind games are based around things other than romantic confessions, with Kaguya trying to get a bite of Shirogane’s lunch. This in turn moves to Kaguya being hateful and resentful towards Fujiwara who had a bite of his lunch and Shirogane mistakenly thinking this was Kaguya looking down on him for being poor and simple.

This episode did a fantastic job of showing off our initial cast and even sneak peaks at future characters who get their own spin offs. With the amount of content and the style they’re taking in showing said content I’m optimistic that they will be able to pump out more great episodes to come in this season and hopefully more. I know I love this show, and I can only hope you do too or at least are willing to try out the show, as it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for almost a year now.