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Kaguya-sama: Love is War (TV) (all seasons).


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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 7:28 am Reply with quote


Season 1 - Kaguya-sama: Love is War (TV)
Season 2 - Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2 (TV)
Season 3 - Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic- (TV)

Genres: comedy, drama, romance
Themes: school, strategy, tsundere

Plot Summary: Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are two geniuses who stand atop their prestigious academy’s student council, making them the elite among elite. But it’s lonely at the top and each has fallen for the other. There’s just one huge problem standing in the way of lovey-dovey bliss—they’re both too prideful to be the first to confess their romantic feelings and thus become the “loser” in the competition of love.

S1-2: Crunchyroll, FUNimation
S3: Apr. 8, 2022 (Fridays; Crunchyroll)
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:34 am Reply with quote
Episode 1

Really cool OP song. I like style mostly with the main characters in it. The guns, cards, etc is also pretty distinctive.

We are introduced to Kaguya and Shirogane from the start as the school admires them. Main selling point for me so far is the witty conversation and character interaction. Kaguya and Shirogane brings out the best from this. Very happy to see Chika show up this episode too! She's absolutely adorable.

The mind games, humor, hell..even the music. Wonderful start. HOW CUTE!
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Spastic Minnow
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Joined: 02 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:14 am Reply with quote
The comedy is good, if a little too reliant on the narrator (and lets face it, all narrated love comedies pale in comparison to Norio Wakamoto narrating Hayate), but something does threaten to hurt it if they don't start working on it.

So far, they're pretty horrible people. Petty egotistical narcissists. If they don't start revealing some positive traits the only pleasure will be in seeing them suffer and ultimately fail.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 2:30 am Reply with quote
I have been kind of wondering if at this point they would be pretty terrible for each other. Their competitive nature with each other does not seem very healthy for a relationship if they would treat every singly interaction as a game of war.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:25 pm Reply with quote
Episode 3

Damn, they just made a joke that he could it with his sister, Chika do it with her dog, and Kaguya did it with a newborn nephew. Of course Kaguya thought it was about kisses, but still pretty tough with the idea of what she realizes she said

The ED for the episode was pretty interesting, Chiaki dancing via I guess from rotoscope, which looked quite seamless for fluid movement and her model. Mixed with just the vocals alone, with how good this looked, it feels kind of crazy if they are planning something like changing the ED each time, with this being a one episode things. Practically a shame.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:51 am Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:

The ED for the episode was pretty interesting, Chiaki dancing via I guess from rotoscope, which looked quite seamless for fluid movement and her model. Mixed with just the vocals alone, with how good this looked, it feels kind of crazy if they are planning something like changing the ED each time, with this being a one episode things. Practically a shame.


That was a pretty amazing bit of work, too inspired to be a single use ending but also banal and incidental so it doesn't have any meaning to it... the girl's doing a ritual dance prior to releasing a bug outside, a lot of work for little payoff...

It's got layers of meaning to it, from the leads in the show to the medium of animation itself.

I love the show but it is weird that I'm not fond of Kagura's persona when she gets round eyes, her "cutey" face? Black hair with red eyes, she kind of reminds me of a black widow spider so whenever she goes against her natural "Warning, stay back!" look narrow eyes give her, she doesn't seem as interesting to me.
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 1:52 am Reply with quote
Episode 4

Okay, I had been mostly okay with this, but not completely sold like I have seen other people have, but I think that I have really come around at this point. The cosplay (cat ears), the banned word game, texting, and French speaking. I enjoyed them all. At this point I can also say my favourite character in the show is most certainly Fujiwara Chika, all I needed was to see her 'rap', and I don't think she can be beat. The humour that he purposely tried to give her a phase she would not say "check it out", and then she starts acting in the way that it seems inevitable that she is actually going to say it, thinking it will give her an advantage. Then funny Chika seeing herself as beating the other two. I guess tricking Kaguya into thinking that she feels isolated and insecure, or at least Shirogane.

And although I am pretty sure all the French was gibberish, it was funny in how they built up the French student to have a razor sharp tongue that could verbally rip someone apart and Shirogane could not understand thing. With the principal totally shocked that he could stand his ground.
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:23 pm Reply with quote
Episode 9

I think my favourite part of this episode was how Chika, the cute girl who is just plane nice, got caught cheating on the gambles, with a marked deck and rotating cards for memory. She is totally chaos for both of their plans, and can come across as silly evil or something, so it was funny when she was called out on playing dirty. They mentioned she is part of a tabletop games club, so I wonder if skills at cheating are actually a part of activities.
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:00 am Reply with quote
Ishigami showing his nastiness again when he was really pounding on Chika how shameful getting caught cheating is.

DuskyPredator wrote:
She is totally chaos for both of their plans, and can come across as silly evil or something


Yeah, she is so vital to a lot of this show's humor.
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:32 pm Reply with quote
Episode 12, the end.

I laughed so hard when Ishigami got "shot down". And I have no idea what's going on inside Fujiwara's head. Did she really think they were drawing symbols on the floor? Very Happy

Man, I loved this show so much. The comedy, the cutesy, pure and innocent romance, the characters, everything. And it had really good animation for a pure romcom show. I shall bestow upon it the prestigious Excellent rating because this is now one of my favourite romcoms of all time. I can say it with 100% certainty that this'll be on my top 5 for the whole year.

P.S. I wish they had used the cool ending theme from episode 3 more than once.
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 31, 2019 2:27 am Reply with quote
Maybe would have hoped some progress in a way, they specifically said things just got back to normal at the end, Shirogane thinking that he just got embarrassed. They pretty much both said that their summer was a bust.

I liked the show more than I thought that I would, where I thought it was going to be a bit too mean of these two being hostile to each other. But the best segments made it a sort of fact that it looks like they are both just really shy about liking the other. I would put it among some of the other recent school anime that managed to kind of really interest me, regardless of how right the characters are, like Chio's Schol Road and Asobi Asobase, managing to actually be really funny with the right circumstances.

I also having to make it clear that it was Chika who especially made the show, the simple fact that she could make any already crazy situation go off the rails, that Chika could practically steal any scene. My favourite parts in the show somehow involved her craziness. And the show was probably one of the funniest current shows.

I give a rating of Very good (8/10), don't miss it.
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 5:33 am Reply with quote
Season 2, Episode 12 (finale)

I would also rate the second season as Very good (8/10), maybe nothing crazy new brought to the formulae, but I think that it was still a consistently good show. Again might have liked to have a more substantive change, but it did also feel like Kaguya opened up more, this episode had a particular good element to Kaguya having been really hurt by losing her, and boosted up high after getting even more pictures from everyone else. That was good.

I am also very fond of the Ishigami plotline that just worked through in the show, where Ishigami purposefully put himself out of his comfort zone to be part of cheer squad, and he appeared to have some change from it. Also learning about Ishigami, explaining why he is ostracised and why the student council actually trusts him, even though I think do think it is not entirely the best to have that sort of self sacrifice thing to protect the unknowing party from knowing her boyfriend was a creep.

And we also have Iino, the new member of the council that I might have liked if she was brought in faster over the semi-antagonistic element she had. Although I do like how Miyuki did end up facing her head on so that she would not just be a mockery but be able to stand up for herself in front of her peers. It also felt like the start of hints that Ishigami was more than the aloof antisocial person that he might have appeared before, that he actually empathises with her. I am kind of interested to see how her story might progress along with Ishigami, compared to our main characters being stuck in a never ending battle.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 7:05 am Reply with quote
Well, DP, you've saved me the time and effort of having to write very much as i pretty much agree with what you said except I only rate this Good as opposed to Very Good. The central premise is hilarious, but it's also a trap. It means there can never really be much development between the two lead characters because if there was, the show would be over. It's like the ancient sitcom Gillian's Island: every episode is about trying to leave the island, but you can't ever leave the island because then the show is over.I

I also felt that Fujiwara wasn't as much of a presence this season as last, which saddens me. No doubt the introduction of Iino and a greater focus on Ishigami cut into her screen time, which is fine, but left me a little bit hungry for more of her.
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:57 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
I also felt that Fujiwara wasn't as much of a presence this season as last, which saddens me. No doubt the introduction of Iino and a greater focus on Ishigami cut into her screen time, which is fine, but left me a little bit hungry for more of her.


Less Chika is sad, I can mostly only think of another helping Miyuki plot, her possible turn to join Iino side, Iino being seen as a toy to her, and the quick bit about her and her clubmates doing an RPG around the school using a dice. Not really anything like the dirty politician and total cheater that really made the first season for me with her.

Oh, my favourite segment had to be the one where Kaguya thought she had some sort of heart defect, and her maid was totally cringing from embarrassment about Kaguya's crush life being discussed in a super professional setting. Was just funny seeing the person always composed being unable to take the situation.
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:43 pm Reply with quote
I would have liked to have seen more Kaguya-maid interaction, too. Those two together are comedy gold.
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