Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is devoted to the chaos of courtship, not to tidy idealism. What sets the series and its feature-length follow-up apart is the fascination with the aftermath, and the acknowledgment that romance isn’t neatly wrapped up when two people confess their feelings for each other. Many rom-coms, animated or otherwise, would probably be content to call things there, and maybe cut to the wedding. The opening credits read like a final highlight reel, a greatest-hits montage of moments from the show, scored to a crooning original song from series mainstay Masayuki Suzuki, who has provided love songs for every season opening so far.Īfter three seasons of tsundere subterfuge and will-they-won’t-they near misses, the two finally kiss in a climatic moment of romantic drama.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War - The First Kiss That Never Ends (a subtitle length Asakasa has poked fun at in his manga) is a culmination of the first part of their story, though it’s far from the end. But like any teenager, these two have areas where they have no confidence or experience, and their relationship is about as far out into uncharted territory as they’ve ever been.
Both are at the top of their class, at the top of the school. Miyuki and Kaguya’s elaborate schemes and battles of the mind, all designed to get the other to confess their love first, are simply a way of avoiding the pain of rejection and preserving their pride. The show, adapted from the equally beloved manga by Aka Asakasa, quickly removes the veneer surrounding this sentiment. The show eventually resolves that plot - but now a full-length feature, The First Kiss That Never Ends, takes them on to the next skirmish in their long romantic battle. Across three seasons of scheming, Miyuki Shirogane and Kaguya Shinomiya, president and vice president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchiin Academy, move from phony aloofness to more open intimacy as they realize the self-defeating nature of their game: Each wants to make the other confess their crush first. It’s a statement meant to reflect the teenage protagonists’ warped views on romance. “Love is war! The person who falls in love loses!” a narrator yells in the first episode of the hit anime series Kaguya-sama: Love Is War.
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