Kaguya wants to be confessed to

It feels inevitable to bring up “Death Note” when describing “Kaguya-Sama: Love is War”, so let me just do it right away - this is a parody of romantic comedies where neither of the two main characters wants to admit they’re into each other, so instead they get into a ridiculous battle of minds trying to get the other to fess up, indeed resembling those L and Kira had.

I have to say that this premise actually didn’t really sell me on the show, and its first two episodes haven’t helped. They both started with an announcer explaining the situation and commenting on everything that goes insides those characters heads, something I find to be plain and boring more often than not. Moreover much of the visual presentation was meant to represent inner workings of their minds, but it felt rather reserved and uninspired. I think it’s pretty clear that the goal here was to find humor in over-explaining everything to make simple things ridiculous and over-the-top, but the problem is that they haven’t pushed the envelope quite enough and instead of feeling like a parody, it was more like a genuine attempt at making these situations seem more interesting than they are. Everything felt too long, every sequence overstayed its welcome. Overall I just didn’t find the show particularly funny or inventive, and was about to give up on it.

That changed when I saw the incredible dance sequence used as the ending for episode 3. Something about using cutesy anime style while rotoscoping over a real-life model resulted in a completely captivating piece of animation that took the community by storm. Of course a lot of credit goes to the song and choreography, but I think in the end it’s the stylistic choice and execution by key animator Naoya Nakayama that made this one-off ending into something special. Thanks to it I decided to give the show a second chance and after going back in I found a lot more to enjoy. The anime hits some serious highs during many of its scenes - the one where characters discuss wearing cat ears, when they read a poll about one’s first time, or when male lead Miyuki Shirogane learns to play volleyball are just a few examples of situations and dialogues that had me laughing. A lot of appeal lies in character animation, particularly with drastic changes in style used to draw absolutely fantastic faces. Moreover the show had great timing of cuts, and also knew when to hold on a particular shot to make the most out of it. But most credit goes to voice acting, with Aoi Koga in particular doing an absolutely fantastic job presenting a great range of voices suitable for the kind of manic character Kaguya Shinomiya is, from her usual scorn, the embarrassment hiding underneath, all sorts of noises brought by emotional reactions and finally her mad voice used during a particular squabble she has with the male lead that I kept revisiting just to hear her lines.

One aspect that grew on me was how the initial premise was grounded in reality - as we learn more about the two characters, we see why they ended up the way they are and how this whole situation came to be. The initial premise states that power dynamics in couples always favor the person that was the receiver of the confession, so people who realize it such as Kaguya and Miyuki will never admit their feelings first, as that would be worse than not having a relationship at all. In case of Shinomiya, we see that this mindset was likely caused by her sheltered upbringing in a cold business-oriented family that taught her to treat people like tools and think of relationships as a game. On the other hand Shirogane is among the few people in this school who aren’t part of a wealthy, influential family, but got to the top purely by his academic achievements, which leaves him with an inferiority complex, making him determined to never look uncool or silly. Thus his greatest fear is to have someone like Shinomiya look at him from above and find his efforts “cute” or “adorable” and he goes out of his way to prevent it at all cost. Throw in the fact that both of them are going through puberty, which results in irrational behaviour and unexplained feelings, and suddenly the events of the story seem entirely plausible, even down to their convoluted thought processes with upside-down priorities and stretched reasoning. Of course in the end it is a romantic comedy so it does fall into some of the genres trappings, and I can’t say that I really enjoyed the show’s finale all that much. But some of the funnier and weirder scenes have me going back to it even now. In the end the premise didn’t grow on me and I think the show can get really boring in its lows, and it doesn’t help that its first two episodes were probably the worst. But the highs are what I’ll remember going forward. There’s really nothing more I can ask of a comedy than a bunch of great faces and voice lines.