Tag: Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic-

Posted on in anime, Anime Orbit Weekly, Misc. Anime

Ranking Every 2022 Anime I Actually Finished from Worst to Best – Part 3

“Ranking Every Anime” is a yearly, multi-part column where I rank every single anime I finished from a given year, from the very worst to the absolute best. Expect spoilers for all anime covered.

In some ways, this is the hardest part of the list to write. The stuff I liked pretty much without reservation, but which I still felt didn’t quite make the very top. But honestly, what else is there to say? At this point, you all know what you’re in for. Let’s get to the “solidly good to great” part of the list.

#17. The Case Study of Vanitas: Part 2

Remember 2022 as a banner year for the anime vampire. Two of the three shows on this list that involve them come primarily from the same hand, Tomoyuki Itamura, yet, they couldn’t be more different. 

The Case Study of Vanitas, which entered its second season back in January, is fundamentally a dark fantasy series. It’s tinged with romance, drama, and sly humor, but everything is filtered through the church glass that composes its specific brand of vampiric fantasia. 

Of course, the actual reason, so far as I can gather, that most people like Vanitas, is its shameless sensuality. Yes, this is probably the only thing on the list I’m going to outright praise for being horny, even as it ranks higher on the Problematic-o-Meter than most things I watch. Do you like men? Women? Both? Vanitas has a character or six for you to mercilessly simp for, and I do consider that something of a positive, if done in a way that makes emotional sense, as it does here. The vast reservoirs of easily-flustered bisexuals in the world are an untapped resource, some might say.

But on top of that, Vanitas’ second season also has a pretty compelling actual plot, featuring closed-off secluded worlds of snow, haunted by a twisted take on the already-spooky tale of the Beast of Gevaudan. The series’ gothic sensibility serves it well, here, as the sweetness that lightened up much of the first season turns decidedly sickly. (And even so, there’s still quite a lot of steaminess in the second season. Seriously, if you’re into that kind of thing you owe it to yourself to watch this.)

#16. ESTAB LIFE: Great Escape

If there’s a unifying thread for the anime of 2022, it might just be that a lot of them were really fucking weird. Novelty of premise is pretty easy to come by in anime, a medium that, moreso than many others, is pretty unashamed of its inherently pulp nature and will often race to the bottom to come up with the most bizarre thing possible to get more eyeballs on a project. Even so, Estab Life stands out for strangeness not just of premise but of execution. How many anime this year were both all-CG affairs and had an episode about the Penguin Stasi? As far as I know, Estab Life is the only one.

Sporting some strange mix of the traveler story genre, a droll-as-hell sense of humor, and decent action anime fundamentals, Estab Life surely stands out as one of the year’s most singular offerings, revolving as it does around a group of “extractors” whose job is to spirit away those unhappy with their lot in a bizarro future dystopia to one of the many other future dystopias—a collection of them now makes up what was once Japan. Even the stylistics and actual narrative aside, there simply aren’t too many anime with transgender yakuza magical girls and giant Facebook Like thumbs in them. But maybe you’re the sort who prioritizes character writing, in which case, I would point you to the fact that resident slime girl Martese is a curiously-compelling lesbian slime girl tomboy, team lead Equa is a quietly commanding presence, and even many of the show’s one-off characters are pretty interesting.

Estab Life is certainly not perfect (I am not huge on how Feres, my favorite of the main trio, is the one with by a fair shake the least amount of character development), but it’s compellingly weird and worth a watch. Incredibly, this strange little train hasn’t stopped rolling. We’re allegedly waiting on a mobile game, as well as a film with the tentative title Revenger’s Road. See you again soon, extractors?

#15. Do It Yourself!!

If the adage holds true that to build a city, one must start with a brick, surely the same is true for homes and the furniture that decorates them.

Thus, very broadly, is the premise of Do It Yourself!!, a gentle iyashikei—one of a few this year—about do-it-yourself crafts, mostly woodworking. The series is packed with enough goofy-pun character names that it might give you the impression that this is a slapstick of some sort. (The lead is named Yua Serufu, and her okay-they-don’t-say-they’re-in-love-but-they-pretty-obviously-are-at-least-crushing-on-each-other crush is a girl named Suride “Purin”, who attends a techy academy where she learns how to….3D print things. Goodness.) 

There is an element of that; Serufu herself is pretty dang clumsy, and her pratfalls are treated as amusing slipups more often than not, but DIY!!’s real core is about how making things for yourself is irreplaceable, not just as a skill but as a passion. It’d be easy for the show to swerve from there into a rote “technology bad” message, but it never really even approaches doing so, and there are even a few scenes that showcase synthesis of cutting-edge technology and traditional crafts.

Indeed, the focus is on that spirit of craftsmanship itself, apropos from another visual treat from the studio Pine Jam, whose strong central staff seem to have developed a habit of putting out a show that simply looks amazing about once a year. (Whether that show is any good otherwise is another question, see Gleipnir near the bottom of the 2020 list.) This is apropos too for the year that brought machine art to the public sphere of discourse. It’s a topic that is probably not going away any time soon, but DIY neatly sidesteps any similar question with its own answer; isn’t there plenty of joy to be found in the process of creation itself?

#14. My Master Has No Tail

Is Rakugo having a bit of a moment? Probably not, but My Master Has No Tail airing in the same year that brought us the unexpected Jump hit Akane-banashi made me think. The two aren’t really terribly similar, but they share a key piece of subject matter in the traditional Japanese comedic storytelling art.

Our protagonist, Mameda, is a tanuki infatuated with the art form, since inspiring strong emotions via telling tales is a form of “tricking” people. But what begins as a fairly straightforward comedy / niche interest manga reveals itself to have a beating heart focused on Mameda’s own place in the world, and that of other beings like herself. (Her master Bunko is a kitsune, for example.) In the process, it places not just specifically these stories but, in a broader way, all popular stories, in a specific cultural context. Specific episodes deal with the process of passing artistic traditions on from master to pupil, and with Japan’s transitional Taisho period as a time when old things—both old ways and creatures like Bunko and Mameda themselves—are being lost to the tide of modernism. In this sense, there’s a surprising edge of slight melancholy to My Master Has No Tail.

Even so, this is primarily a comedy, and it’s a pretty good one. Both the rakugo itself and Mameda’s own antics are a light brand of amusing that never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome, even with the series’ absolute dumbest jokes. (One of the character’s nicknames being “Butt”, anyone?)

#13. Princess Connect! Re:Dive Season 2

It often comes across as a backhanded compliment to say that an anime’s best trait is that it just looks really good. It feels like you’re implying a deficiency in some other area. But if that’s ever the case, it certainly isn’t so for the second season of Princess Connect! Re:Dive, which thundered back after a year’s absence way back in Winter to blow basically every other isekai anime that aired this year out of the water. (It’s the last example of the genre you’ll find on this list, in fact.)

That said; this doesn’t mean that the story isn’t also worthwhile—it’s actually quite interesting, a novel take on the genre that manages to make it feel meaningful and substantive again in a year that was absolutely swamped with mediocre isekai. But, of course, the visuals and the writing go hand in hand. Princess Connect’s sideways spin on the genre means nothing without its phenomenal visuals; in particular, the fight scenes give a real weight to its fantasy heroics in the series’ latter half. What you have with Princess Connect is the Proper Noun Machine Gun on full autofire; the series builds on so many classic tropes, both from isekai and from fantasy adventure in general, that it risks drowning in them. But that never happens, it just builds and builds and builds, until its final stretch lights up into a blazing, spectacular show of fireworks. More than anything, this one is a treat for the chuunis out there. All spectacle, but pure killer, a whirling show of pyrotechnics that is never less than a total blast.

#12. Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2

The dream lives on! While its younger sister Superstar floundered in the season that followed, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club made a strong return this year. Its second season wasn’t the blow-the-doors-open affair that its first was back in 2020, but the anime’s personable sense of purehearted sincerity remained even as it dipped into ever so slightly more dramatic territory. Old characters paired up into duos while new ones took the spotlight as solo stars, in a turn that somehow managed to do what Superstar failed to despite the higher character count overall. Most notably, two equally-fun polar opposites; the queen diva / secret idol otaku Lanzhu, and the introverted Shioriko, who has to be convinced to not prematurely give up on her fledgling dream of being an idol. Smaller character arcs like “Nana” finally giving up the facade and revealing to the whole school that yes, she is Setsuna, provide a nice cherry on the sundae, tinged with a slight bitterness not rooted in the series itself, but in the news that her voice actor won’t be returning to the role. If she had to leave, this was a good note to end on.

Nijigasaki’s remains a world where anyone can be an idol. There’s a kind of beauty in that, and the show’s strength comes from playing it very well. Even still, 2022 was home to more than one legitimately great idol anime, and I hope you do like idols and other girls who make music, because these aren’t the last ones on the list by a long shot. But first, something a little more….violent.

#11. Akiba Maid War

Is it a yakuza series? A deeply ridiculous comedy? Why not both? In a year of anime making the most out of completely absurd premises, Akiba Maid War might’ve gotten the most blood from its particular stone. On the surface there’s not anything terribly special about something deciding to subvert the old moe’ tropes by making the girls that embody them engage in mob war violence, and if that’s all AMW were doing it would be way farther back on the list. 

On top of that, this is also another entry that feels unstuck in time. People don’t really remember this whole trend anymore, but there was a wave of these anti-moe comedies around the turn of the new millennium, where much of the joke was simply that the characters enacting the absurd hyper-violence were cute girls. Most of them weren’t really particularly funny and have accordingly lost their charge now that the thing they were parodying is simply the norm. Fortunately, because Maid War clearly loves all of its influences, it manages to paradoxically pull off being that kind of slapstick-with-firearms comedy, a fairly played-straight yakuza series, and even sometimes genuinely cute, all without really even breaking a sweat. 

The sheer amount of small touches in this thing helps, too. My favorite example being the fact that most of the one-off maid characters who (spoiler alert, here) tend to get killed at the end of their episode are voiced by famous seiyuu. The crowning example being Aya motherfucking Hirano in the show’s penultimate arc. You don’t get anime that are this singularly their own thing super often. Despite its fairly obvious influences, and the several other interestingly retro anime that aired this year, Akiba Maid War stood in 2022 as an army of one, and accordingly, and this might just be the most underrated anime on the whole list.

#10. Waccha Primagi

The language barrier does strange things to relative popularity between Japan and the anglosphere. For the most part, the anime that are popular over there are popular over here, and vice versa. But there are exceptions, and kids’ shows are a wealth of them. Pretty Cure is the most obvious example, but one of that series’ main competitors, the Pretty Series—no relation—is up there, too. Waccha Primagi, like the other anime in the series before it, is ostensibly a promotional tool for an arcade game. Does this matter at all when evaluating the series? I’d say not really. I’ve never even seen the game in action, but despite that, I love this anime to pieces.

It’s fair to ask why. The fact of the matter is that Waccha Primagi is not the most polished anime on this list by any means, and its nature as a promotional tool means that it can at times feel repetitive. But there is really just something about it. The strange magic-filled world it conjures, where humanity and the animal “magic users” live in parallel to each other but come together to put on magical “waccha” idol concerts? That’s step one. Step two is the sheer amount of heart this thing has; its characters are candy-colored archetypes, but most pop with a rare amount of personality, be they the smug Miyuki, the anxiety-riddled gamer / idol otaku (yes, another one!) Lemon, the sporty Hina, or the princely Amane. Even Matsuri, the comparatively ‘generic’ lead, has an important role to play both as the audience proxy and as the lead for her partner, Myamu, yet another of the show’s most endearing characters.

But a broader picture than all that is Primagi’s actual plot. Waccha Primagi goes to some truly buck-wild places over its four cour runtime. Individual episodes contain straight-up gay confessions, simmering tensions between the human and magic-user worlds that threaten to erupt into full-on war at any moment, light satire of reality TV, a big bad who’s an entertainment and social media mogul, and carefully studied pastiches of the ancient “Class-S” genre of yuri, something with which its young target audience is wholly unlikely to be familiar. By its final stretch, one hardly bats an eye when Jennifer, the local Beyonce analogue, ascends to vengeful Sun God-hood to try to free her girlfriend from a magic diamond prison. And yet, the last two episodes strip all of that back away in an instant, and are hearteningly sincere instead. Waccha Primagi truly can do it all.

There were better anime in 2022, perhaps, but none hit higher above its weight class.

Well, alright, that’s a lie. One did. But we’ll get to that.

In the meantime, in spite of all of its strengths—and more than one kickass OP—Waccha Primagi was still not quite the best idol anime of 2022 either, as we’ll get to. Like I said, it’s been a hell of a year for the genre.

#9. Kaguya-sama Love is War! -Ultra Romantic-

Shot through the heart, and who else could be to blame? Love is War! makes a swing for personal notability by being the only anime to rank in the top ten both of this year’s list and of the one I did back in 2020. Why? Because it’s never stopped being just really fucking good. 

The mind games that gave the series its title finally die down here in the last act of the first half of the series (the second, which goes in some pretty out-there directions, has already gotten off the ground via a theatrical film that we probably won’t get over here in the US for a while). But the show itself doesn’t really slow down for even a second. If anything, the third season is defined even more strongly by fun, stylish visual work, with all of its old tricks acquiring a heart motif that serves as the central symbol of the school festival arc. (In terms of filtering a fairly conventional story through delightfully out-there visual work, it really only had one competitor this year. We’ll get to that.)

And of course, capping it all off, is that scene. Spoiler alert, but not really, right? A first kiss raised to such ridiculous, whirlwind heights of idealized romance that it could get just about anybody’s heart pounding. In Kaguya‘s case, it was enough that it called for a really fucking funny Gundam homage. (Mute that video, just as a heads’ up.) Truly, the character there—Karen, a minor character in Kaguya-sama proper but the lead of one of its spinoffs—is all of us. The real question is what Kaguya and Shirogane are going to do now, with the entire direction of their lives solidly changed?

We’ll find out before too long, I’m sure. The first kiss never ends, you know.

#8. Call of The Night

If The Case Study of Vanitas was a little too gothic for you, and My Dress-Up Darling’s particular brand of steaminess didn’t really get you going, maybe this particular ode to nocturnality, originally from the pen of Dagashi Kashi author Kotoyama, would be up your alley, as an interesting and unexpected midpoint between the two.

In Call of The Night, we have a romance that doubles as an apply-as-you-please metaphor for the outsiders of society. Normal people do not walk around their city in the middle of the night and get entangled with vampires. This is your first clue that CoTN protagonist Kou Yamori is not, in fact, a normal person. What kind of “not normal” is a sort of grand, moving-target metaphor that resists any single easy interpretation; I’ve seen him described as neurodivergent, as a closeted queer person, and as several other things beside. The fact of the matter is that, as a living symbol, he’s all of these and none of these. His relationship with Nana is certainly charged, but charged how is kind of an open question until the series’ final act, where it turns on its head and reveals that, more than anything else, this is a simple “you and me against the world” sort of tale. The kind I’m a sucker for. The fact that it all takes place almost entirely at night—daylight is a rare intrusion reserved for flashbacks and a tiny handful of other moments—makes it look amazing. This is certainly the most visually impressive series LIDEN FILMS have ever made, and wouldn’t you know it, much of that is on director Tomoyuki Itamura, who not only also did The Case Study of Vanitas a number of spots back, but in years past has done an absolute ton of work on the storied Monogatari series. The guy loves his horny vampires; I can only respect the hustle.

And hey, Call of The Night is probably also the year’s only anime to make compelling use of Japanese hip-hop for its soundtrack, Teppen’s OP theme notwithstanding.

#7. Birdie Wing -Golf Girls Story-

SolidQuentin was a prophet, because Birdie Wing -Golf Girls Story- is some hitherto-unknown kind of genius. 2022 was stuffed with anime that leaned heavily on sheer WTF factor; Estab Life, Akiba Maid War, etc. None could swing as much iron as Birdie Wing. More than anything, the golf girls’ story just doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, which in a lesser anime could be a weakness, but here, it makes the show’s many disparate elements—illegal underground golf tournaments with morphing golf courses, characters who want to be good at golf with an enthusiasm that would put the average shonen protagonist to shame, a huge amount of rich girl/working class girl yuri subtext between its two leads, an incongruous fixation on referencing Gundam—feel whole. Birdie Wing feels like a dimension-hopper from a timeline where “irony” as a concept was just never invented. Every single thing it does is completely sincere; it knows it’s funny, but it’s not a joke. It’s camp, in its purest form.

And truly, the only real point of reference for things that feel like this is stuff like Symphogear. The main difference is that by downsizing that genre’s enormously campy energy to be about something as deeply trivial as golf, Birdie Wing makes the argument that maybe everything is this trivial, and maybe we deserve to have huge feelings about it anyway! Maybe our world isn’t so different from one where people play ludicrously high-stakes golf games with lives and pride alike on the line!

Every time I’ve written about Birdie Birdie, I’ve brought up “Nightjar“, its utterly insane choice for an ED, which carries a full-throated, big-hearted sincerity that, juxtaposed with a show that were even the tiniest smidgen more self-aware, would scan as a deliberate joke. But no, that is the beauty of Birdie Wing; this shit is as serious as your life, do not make any mistake. The only reason Birdie Wing isn’t even higher on the list is that it’s not finished yet. Season 2 airs in Spring, are you ready to tee off again? I, personally, cannot fucking wait. If it hits as many holes-in-one as the first season did, there is a very real chance that it will top the list next year. That’s not a threat; it’s a promise.

#6. BOCCHI THE ROCK!

Here it is, the hardest cut from the Top 5. I did not labor over a single decision on this list more than whether to include this in the Top 5 or put it down here as the “highest honorable mention.” Fun fact; by the time you read this, I have swapped it with the show at #5, by my own count, four times. This was a hard decision. Not the last of those on the list, but probably the one I’ve thought about the most.

In general, there were a solid handful of really fucking good music anime in 2022, let’s just lay that on the table. We’ve already seen a couple, and this isn’t the last one we’ll see on this list, but BOCCHI THE ROCK! might be the most unexpectedly successful. Not in purely commercial terms—although it did well in that regard, too—but in terms of setting up an artistic vision and then following through expertly. Few anime this year not only had this much style but used it to such compelling ends; it might actually beat out the third season of Love is War! on that front. No mean feat, considering how easily that anime turns its own medium into putty in its hands, too.

I will be honest, BOCCHI placing this high on the list is something of an act of course-correction, as well. I liked BOCCHI throughout more or less its entire run, but I really only started appreciating what it was trying to do—and thus, really loving it—pretty late, episode 9 or 10 or so. By that point, the Fall 2022 season was on its way out and I felt that I hadn’t even remotely given the show its well-earned due. But if Kessoku Band are a fill-in act, they’re a pretty damn amazing one, so don’t make the mistake of assuming I don’t love them or that this is a pity award, nothing could be farther from the truth.

BOCCHI THE ROCK!’s main point is to watch the title character, Hitori, alias Bocchi, herself grow as a person. She begins as an anxious wreck in the vague shape of an internet-famous guitarist and, by the end of the season, she’s still that, but she has not just a band but friends now. The thing is, if BOCCHI had simply adapted its manga straight, we would not be talking about it very much at all. Instead, BOCCHI THE ROCK’s real strength comes from the utterly absurd stylistic tricks it pulls out to pave the road along Hitori’s emotional journey.

Essentially, BOCCHI THE ROCK is unafraid to treat its characters as props. It’ll stick them on popsicle sticks and wave them around like this is His & Her Circumstances. It’ll render Hitori in chunky 3D and hurl her at a wall of gray blocks. It’ll turn her into a slug because sometimes when you’re this wracked by anxiety you really do just feel like a slug. It’ll have her slip out the bounds of her character outline like Jimmy from Ed Edd N Eddy just so she can look how a panic attack feels. Incredibly, at no point does it feel like BOCCHI is mocking Hitori herself. This is a relatable, we’ve-all-been-there sort of humor, one for the true otaku. This emotional power chord resonated with so many people that BOCCHI eventually overtook even long-anticipated shonen manga adaptation Chainsaw Man on MyAnimeList, in a come-from-behind victory for the socially anxious everywhere. (It doesn’t beat that series out on this list. But what is my blog compared to the will of the people, really?)

At the end of it all, you realize that Hitori is nothing more than an ordinary teenage girl; nerdy, talented but incredibly anxious, in serious need of a shoulder to lean on. And the series’ biggest trick is the ability to roll all that wild craziness into a gentle push on her back; before you know it, she’s shredding onstage. They grow up so fast.

I stressed a lot over that BOCCHI cut in particular. Hopefully the cult of the box of oranges won’t be too upset.

Tomorrow; the best of the best, the top 5 proper.

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Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 12

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Heart to Heart! — Let your burning love reach everyone!

– Hoshin Culture Festival Motto

How do you open the two-part finale to your long-running love story? How about your heroine turning to stone and shattering? That’s the visual that Kaguya-sama: Love is War! opens on as its third season draws to a close; girl to granite to rubble. Why? Because Miyuki Shirogane is going to Stanford, and Kaguya Shinomiya knows she can’t stop him. And moreover, knows she shouldn’t.

It’s a visual metaphor, obviously; Kaguya-sama has loved those since it started and it certainly isn’t going to stop using them now. But, the literalization of the sentence “she was shattered by the revelation” gives you a pretty good notion of what we’re all in for here. If Love is War, this is the conflict’s turning point, where the generals and foot soldiers alike earn their medals.

Spare a thought for Hayasaka, who has been mostly-unwillingly playing both roles for ages now, and is who Kaguya goes to for comfort and advice as her carefully-laid plans for a full year of dating fall to pieces. Shirogane isn’t just going to Stanford, he’s graduating a year early to account for cross-Pacific grade differences. For us, it’s an elaboration as to why he’s been acting like time is running out, if it weren’t already obvious. For Kaguya, it’s a sledgehammer to the face. Love is a battlefield, and she’s been ambushed.

Hayasaka, again in her role as a beleaguered advisor, needles her mistress. If the day has to be today, then the confession of feelings—that old Japanese pop media trope so ingrained into the anime landscape that it’s practically part of the scenery—has to be perfect. Kaguya tries different phrasings, Hayasaka shoots almost all of them down. It’s amusing, yes. Kaguya-sama fully empties its bag of visual tricks here; starting with cheerleader-based how-to-confess diagrams and references to the ancient “yukkuri shitte ne” meme.

But the real emotional heft obviously comes when Kaguya-sama reigns it back in. As Hayasaka and Kaguya talk, the room is bathed in a scarlet sunset, and the core point the maid makes is simple; there aren’t any easy outs. Kaguya just has to tell the president how she feels about him somehow. There can be nothing else.

There is just one problem; in order to confess to the president, Kaguya has to find him, first.

In the meantime, theirs is not the only story freefalling through youthful confusion. As she searches high and low for Shirogane, Kaguya catches sight of Ishigami and Tsubame, which serves as a crossfade over to their side of the cultural festival.

Ishigami remains as oblivious-self-conscious as ever, paranoid about coming across as a “creep” for having a command of flower symbology while at the same time being still wholly unaware that what he intended as a simple kind gesture has been taken by Tsubame—and indeed the whole student body—as a declaration of romantic love. Here, Tsubame begs his patience, but because he doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, things get muddled; intentions swept off the ground in the December breeze, and the half-punchline that is Ishigami’s continued unawareness can only do so much to pop the winter evening ambiance. Unintentionally, Ishigami gives Tsubame until March, when the cherry tree they’re standing under blooms, to truly answer his feelings. The gymnast is surprised by his mental fortitude, and the whole sequence is funny, but also very sweet in its own way.

It’s only after the two part that Ishigami gets some sense of what he may have actually done. A festival play recounts the legend that gives the culture festival its heart motif, and our boy comes within striking distance of figuring out that giving hearts out is an implied romantic gesture. Still, the second Tsubame herself takes stage in the play, all rational thought goes out the window for Ishigami, and he promptly stops thinking about it.

But, even if things between them don’t work out, one gets the sense they’ll both be fine in their own way.

Back at our main story, though, Kaguya is lost in her own little world as she prepares to light the culture festival bonfire via flaming arrow. She manages an impressively skippy internal monologue the entire time, as We Want to Talk About Kaguya! leads Karen and Erika cameo off to the side of the scene.

I wonder if Aoi Koga gets paid by the word.

Karen will write a doujin about this later.

But the bonfire-lighting itself is swept aside as the mysterious “phantom thief Arsene” makes his presence known; the papier-mâché dragon jewel is gone, and the thief’s calling cards float in the air en-masse as a shadowy silhouette cuts a looming figure against the night sky.

Of course, no one but us knows that Shirogane is behind all this just yet. Notably, Fujiwara tasks herself with solving the mystery, only for her grandiloquent proclamations of her own genius to dissolve into a puddle as it becomes obvious that most of the ‘clues’ she’s found are either her own inventions or deliberately planted to throw her off. This is Kaguya’s puzzle to solve, and there’s only one actual hint.

Karen, in what is to my recollection her single most substantial contribution to Kaguya-sama‘s story, points out that the small calling cards are made of flame-resistant paper. This sets Kaguya’s own mental wheels a-turning, because that kind of care and preparedness reminds her of a certain someone, and it does not take long for the rest of the game to click into place.

And to give us all just the slightest airbrake of comedy before rocketing into its last half hour, Kaguya-sama then pulls out the one-two punch of “Kaguya dropped the plastic heart she was going to give Shirogane” and “Kaguya does not know how coffee machines work.”

Very good, Miss Shinomiya.

Shirogane, meanwhile, is starting to get flustered. The usual pattern of his where he does something extremely teenager only to cringe himself half to death the following day beginning to kick in as the second day of the culture festival ends. The narrator puts it best; the final battle of this war of love is to be a fistfight.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War!‘s season finale is a fucking hurricane of romantic imagery.

Shirogane’s plan is grandiose, ridiculous, ostentatious, and the sort of thing that only a heartsick teenage boy could dream up. It leans hard on narrative convenience—the strings he’d have to pull make no real sense, and the post-hoc explanations given here don’t really either—and hard on pre-built character sympathy. If someone did this kind of thing in real life and you read about it in the news, they’d be a horrible creep and you’d hate them. This is a “proposing on the Jumbotron” gesture blown up to ridiculous fantasy proportions.

But that of course is part of the beauty of fiction. Kaguya and Shirogane love each other very much; we know this, and have known this. It’s been obvious to everyone, including much of the show’s own cast, for, at this point, real-world years. Anything that moves the needle at all is good. But this? This is insanity. Beautiful, wonderful, romantic insanity. If love is a sickness, Shirogane’s case is terminal.

He uses some mechanical doohickey to pop a massive balloon, sending scores of heart balloons out into the air above the festival, held aloft by the heat from the bonfire, the December night breeze, and the fact that anime is the highest form of art. Shirogane’s winding internal monologue about how he really wants Kaguya to confess first because he needs to feel equal to her only half makes sense, but that doesn’t really matter. None of the obvious little holes in Shirogane’s plan really matter. Do you see how hard Kaguya’s blushing? I got contact flutters from watching this. Frankly, I’m a little envious.

It would be one thing if it stopped there, but it does not.

This isn’t usually what one means when they say “popping the question,” but it certainly feels comparable.

Really stop for a second and think about what he’s asking there. Think about these two characters and their respective situations, think about the enormity of what he’s asking her to do. Even on its own, studying abroad is a huge undertaking. Studying abroad at Stanford University is quite another level beyond that. Doing so in Kaguya’s specific situation is yet another step beyond that. This is an absurd ask. Kaguya says as much.

She says yes anyway. An implicit fuck-it-all to her own upbringing and, really, her entire life up to this point. She doesn’t even really hesitate. She’s giddy, if anything.

They kiss. Obviously, they kiss. On top of a clocktower, hearts surrounding them in the air.

Elsewhere on the festival grounds, Hayasaka blushes like crazy once she realizes what’s going on, and Miko Iino, alone on patrol, is the only one not present at the bonfire. Ishigami brings her a recording—and a plastic heart trinket, for the lost and found—a much more subtly sweet moment that contrasts nicely with the star-scraping, wild gesture that Shirogane’s just pulled off. Could there be something between those two someday? I don’t think it’s impossible. (It will certainly be funny if Ishigami, the character that Kaguya-sama‘s least pleasant fans attach themselves to out of a misunderstanding of his character, ends up having to choose between two women who are into him, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

And just like that, the festival switches off like a lightswitch, and we cut to the morning after. There is a postscript of sorts here; it’s very funny, and sweet in its own way, featuring a rare appearance from Kaguya’s childish “Kaguya-chan” personality. But with all I’ve said here, recapping that bit as well would feel a little pointless. It made me cackle out loud at one point, so you can consider that an endorsement.

It’s a valid question to ask; where, if anywhere, does Kaguya-sama: Love is War! go from here?

Well, not long after the episode aired in Japan, we got an answer of sorts. Whether that’s another season being announced, an OVA, a film, no one really knows yet. But Kaguya and Shirogane’s story doesn’t end here, and that’s the important part. I will spoil nothing, but there is much of the manga left to cover, so I am very curious as to what’s being planned. Kaguya-sama will appear here on Magic Planet Anime again, that much is almost a certainty.

But for now, the romantic rollercoaster ride has come to an end. Until next time, Kaguya fans.

Results for Today’s Battle: Mutual Victory

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 11

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

We knew this day would come. There’s been a fire burning in Miyuki Shirogane’s heart since we first learned that he’d be transferring abroad for college, probably since before then. Hourglasses wait for no one, and Miyuki and Kaguya’s dynamic has shifted fairly drastically since the first season, or really even, the earlier parts of this season.

Episode 11 is, top to bottom, filled with the actions of a man who knows he’s running out of time, and running out of time fast. We learn at the very end of this episode that the transfer to Stanford is not some far-off thing, he’s been accepted. And will be skipping his last year of high school. Shooting for the moon is no longer an option; it’s a necessity.

But as much as this episode does to pour the powder in and light the fuse, the long-awaited confessionary gun does not fire just yet. That’s for next week’s episode, a double-length finale. This week, there’s a lot of tension, a lot of buildup, and, thankfully, still quite a lot of jokes. A ton of great visual tricks here, too, most of which I don’t have the space to discuss individually.

We begin with what I’m fairly sure is a deliberate throwback to the back-and-forth antics of season one. Kaguya visits a balloon tying table, which ‘just so happens’ to be staffed by Shirogane. Obviously, she wants him to make her a balloon heart, but in her own mind she still can’t just say that, leading to her giving out an increasingly ridiculous list of things that the balloon can’t be, culminating with her arguing that flowers are animals. (It’s complicated.)

Notably, in this and a few other nods to the first season’s structure, Kaguya and Shirogane’s roles are reversed. It is now Kaguya who is at a distinct “disadvantage” when it comes to playing these little games. Notice, for instance, how things turn when she finally gets her heart balloon, and finds out that you don’t pay for them with money like you do any of the other designs.

Whoops!

Flustered, she slaps far too much money down and flees. It’s funny, but it does also show that Kaguya and Shirogane are really no longer even doing the same thing. When they both thought they had all the time in the world to work this out, the stakes were relatively low. Now that Shirogane, at least, knows that that’s not the case, he has much less to lose. (Arguably, he never had anything to lose in the first place other than perhaps a misplaced sense of pride, but you know how teenagers are.)

Eventually, Kaguya encounters Tsubame, who is having a tough time figuring out how to respond to Ishigami’s unintentional confession. Specifically, figuring out how to turn him down. She’s used to turning down playboy types who think they’re entitled to her, but Ishigami’s confession was (from her point of view, see last episode’s recap for how this whole mixup happened), sincere and straightforward, and that’s not something she knows how to deal with.

It’s not even, really, that she doesn’t like Ishigami. She just doesn’t know him very well, and is concerned that being in a serious relationship would damage other areas of her life.

Kaguya, always with a minor in villainy, initially assumes that the person she’s talking about must be someone else—and thus one of Ishigami’s rivals—and in the process she very nearly convinces Tsubame to shut him down in perhaps the worst way possible.

Thankfully things eventually clear themselves up. Kaguya and Tsubame eventually find themselves spying on Chika, who deals with the out-of-the-blue confession that she gets by challenging her would-be beaux to a quiz and then spouting koans at him.

There’s also a short scene where Iino very nearly gets sweet-talked by a pair of random incidental characters. Girl really needs to be more careful (thankfully Ishigami is there to bonk her on the head).

The remainder of the episode sees Kaguya run into Shirogane again. He promptly invites her to walk around the festival, and once again, Kaguya does not entirely know how to deal with Shirogane’s suddenly much more blunt personality. When she asks him if people won’t get the idea that they’re on a date, to which he promptly responds….

….again, he knows he’s running short on time. All of this is fairly interesting in that outside of the context of Kaguya-sama as a series itself, it wouldn’t be that notable. But within that context, knowing what we do about both of these people, Shirogane’s sudden comparative boldness is pretty striking.

This includes, for example, taking her to a fortune telling booth manned by a girl known for asking questions that border on the lascivious. Meet Yume Atenbo (Ai Kakuma). She’s what some sorts of people, a long time ago, would’ve called a one-scene wonder. She gets in, does her thing, and gets out. She’s kind of amazing, an opinion I definitely don’t hold in part because she’s dressed up as a witch and my Twitter account is called “Jane the Anime Witch.”

She needles the two to the point of, frankly, harassment. (As always, romcoms are not a good place to get your notions of proper romance or just behavior in general from, kids.) But she does also drop this particularly interesting bombshell in between all the quips about how Kaguya will make a great wife.

Is she just messing with them? Is she playing cupid? Does she have actual supernatural insight somehow? Who knows, but no matter the method, she is actually right, as we’ll come to see. She also compares Kaguya to pure water; someone whose very nature changes depending on who she surrounds herself with. (I would argue this is true of all people to some extent, but that it’s truer of Kaguya than most would not necessarily be wrong.)

The both of them flustered (but definitely happy), Kaguya and Shirogane spend much of the remaining day together, after a hilarious sequence where the two narrowly avoid having their date ruined by random interference from their friends. (My favorite of these involves Iino, who is hungry, and gets abruptly drafted into a soba-eating contest out of nowhere before she can even talk to the two of them.)

Near the end of the episode, Kaguya has this absolutely adorable thought.

The only thing putting a damper on this happy ending is what I mentioned back up there in the very first paragraph. Shirogane needs to talk about something serious, and it’s not what Kaguya would’ve wanted to hear.

Can they make it work out somehow? Will Shirogane actually find the nerve to confess his love? Will the mysterious phantom thief stealing up all the heart balloons ever be caught? (Yeah, that whole plot runs throughout the background of this episode, too. It’s why Chika’s in her Love Detective uniform up in the banner.) All of these questions and more will be answered next week in the finale. See you then, Love is War fans!

Bonus Hayasaka Screencap, which I have been shamefully forgetting to do: Here’s Hayasaka giving a full-on idol performance during the school festival.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 10

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

This week; festival stuff, beginning with the haunted house that was teased at the end of last week’s episode. Even in just this opening scene, we get a lot of interesting xx. Kaguya and her cousin Maki alike prove to be cowardly within the haunted house proper, and when we flash back to how all the spooky 3D sound (yes, 3D sound) was recorded in the first place—by subjecting Miko to it—and we get maybe the only Love is War! segment that might cause untoward awakenings in certain viewers. Seriously, if you showed some of these stills to someone out of context they would very much get the wrong idea.

Thankfully I’d never do that to my loyal readers.

More to the point, back in the present, Miko catches a couple making out in the haunted house and as a result the attraction gets separated into two lines; one for boys, one for girls. By coincidence, this also ruins Ishigami’s initial plan for getting an ideal opening to confess his feelings to Tsubame, so he has to do something else instead.

On the spur of the moment, while visiting a class cafe, he wins a gigantic heart-shaped cookie for her, with the intent that doing so would just be a nice gesture. Dramatic irony ahoy, he is unaware of the whole “eternal love” urban legend, singled out by the narrator as one of about 10% of students who doesn’t know about it. This leaves Tsubame a blushing, mess, and, flustered, she runs off screaming that she needs time to think about his inadvertent confession.

And friends, let me tell you, I am someone who is pretty sensitive to second-hand embarrassment. Ishigami accidentally(!!) confessing to his massive crush on Tsubame in front of her own class, a good 20 or 30 people, did not just make my skin crawl, it made my spine shuffle around like a deck of cards. I could feel my teeth conspiratorially whispering “get a load of this guy” to each other. My hair stood on end and metamorphed, Bayonetta style, into that one meme of girls at a college party looking awkwardly at the camera. The cringe is real, and it is inside of Ishigami. I have not felt this bad for the guy in quite some time.

Later in the episode, Shirogane and Chika wonder aloud about Ishigami’s chances. Shirogane is hopeful, admittedly because if Ishigami isn’t successful, it might ruin his ability to pull off his own forthcoming confession. Chika, meanwhile, says Ishigami “doesn’t have a prayer.” Comedic rudeness aside, she does think pretty hard on Ishigami’s chances, despite her initial assessment, including grading him on “points” and trying to put herself in Tsubame’s shoes a bit. This facet of Chika has always been pretty interesting to me. What she’s doing here—treating romance between two people as an object of amusement or for study—is fairly representative of someone with a para-romantic personality. If she’s seriously interested in any crush or anything of the sort of her own, we don’t hear about it here, and I’m pretty confident we never will. (This does have the unfortunate effect of sidelining Chika any time the anime starts focusing more heavily on its dramatic side.)

My armchair psychoanalyzing of Chika aside, she indicates that thinking on it more, she actually does think Ishigami has a chance, and it is always nice to see her being genuine.

Elsewhere, we’re reintroduced to Moeha, who you may or may not remember as Chika’s younger sister. She’s also basically Chika But Sadistic, although that angle of her personality is toned back here, since this segment focuses on her newfound crush on Shirogane.

Yes, Shirogane now has another girl who thinks his dead-eyed sleep deprived stare is the sexiest thing in Japan. There’s even a great moment where Kaguya, who is initially very hostile upon finding out about this, has a “could this be one of my people?” sort of reaction as the two gush about that very feature of his.

Before that, it’s Chika who tries to sabotage the relationship, by demonstrating how terrible Shirogane is at various things. She picks a pretty random task—juggling—and sets him to do it, assuming he’ll be as awful at that as he was at singing, rapping, playing volleyball, and however many other things. Naturally, because of the laws of comedy, he’s actually pretty fantastic at juggling. And the three or four other things Chika tries to have him do.

That particular segment ends with this, a casual reminder that Moeha has a particularly warped personality. But hey, at least she’s funny about it.

Post-credits, we find out that someone’s stolen all the heart-shaped balloons at the festival! Truly, an unprecedented crime! The heist of the century! Who could our culprit be?

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 9

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

The culture festival is underway, and with it, Kaguya-sama: Love is War! drops the most lavishly-directed episode of its third season so far, with a dizzying array of style cuts and other interesting visual tricks. Despite that, we’re mostly going to be talking about the actual plot of the episode; three separate plotlines progress here, and I suspect that it wouldn’t be wrong to consider this the first part of a four-part finale. There’s a lot of ground to cover here (and for me personally, it’s already rather late in the day, whoops!), so let’s get started.

We actually begin with a flashback. An interesting choice, and one that establishes that the next few episodes are going to cut this plotline—set a year prior to where the series is at now—with the show’s present day. Here, we meet a far more bitter and burned-out Shirogane than the one we’re used to. One who hasn’t yet met the girl he’ll eventually devote so much of his time to, and one who is understandably fed up with Shuchiin Academy’s student body of rich kids, future heirs and heiresses, and so on. He isn’t wrong to feel this way, something I don’t think the show quite gives enough attention. But it is clearly hurting him emotionally, and he needs something to bring him out of that slump.

It’s here that we’re introduced to Shuchiin Academy’s previous Student Council President, an androgynous fellow that the anime gives a stylish purple undershade to his otherwise plain black cropped hair.

The former Council President is a mysterious guy, and we don’t really get the full picture behind him here. What’s important though is that he wants to recruit Shirogane to the Student Council. Why? Well, he describes Shuchiin Academy as a walled garden (true) and thinks that having someone who can look at the wider world with a “level gaze” would be an advantage. He probably isn’t wrong, there must be a reason, after all, that Shirogane eventually succeeds him. (In spite of the prejudice against “outsiders”, ie. people who didn’t come to Shuchiin directly from its associated elementary school, that we’re informed of here.) Shirogane is understandably skeptical, a skepticism expressed by an interesting visual detail; Shirogane idly picks at the decoration on the expensive ceramic the President serves him tea in when the two have their little meeting.

Before Shirogane’s even agrees to being recruited, the President has him help clean out a mucky pond on school grounds, and Shirogane understandably wonders if he isn’t just being taken advantage of. He doesn’t have time to wonder for long, though, as a genuine near-tragedy strikes as one of the girls cleaning out the pond falls in. Apparently the water is deep enough that drowning is a real risk, and everyone present wrings hands over what to do as the girl thrashes in the water. Everybody except, of course, a passing-by Kaguya, who leaps into the water without a moment’s hesitation and rescues the girl handily.

And so, Shirogane falls for Kaguya.

Kaguya-sama leans on the shadowless technique for emotional moments so often that it’s practically an internal cliche for the series. And yet, I love it every time.

Not because of her status or looks, but because of her decisive and bold nature. That may seem strange to us, the audience, given that we know Kaguya as much for her flustered pull faces, her hilarious but self-defeating exercises in denying that she has a crush on the Shirogane, etc. But the fact remains that this is the Kaguya that Shirogane first fell for; the sort of person who’d leap to rescue someone else without a second thought. And it makes sense, in a way. To step into the show’s narrator’s shoes for a moment; people are often attracted to those who possess characteristics they themselves lack. Shirogane seeing Kaguya as someone more driven and strong-minded than himself and eventually striving to meet her on that level makes perfect internal sense.

There is some interesting immediate aftermath here. Shirogane chastises himself for being indecisive and makes a mental comment to himself that it “doesn’t matter” if one was born rich or gifted, what matters is the ability to take action when it’s necessary. I’d argue this little aside is the one thing in the scene that doesn’t really work. One of Aka Akasaka‘s few notable weaknesses as a writer is an implicit conservative streak1 in some of the basic assumptions his work is built on. Here, he seems to have neglected that those born into comfort or otherwise advantaged have much more ability to learn the skills to become “decisive” in the first place. Shirogane, as a working-class student from a poor family who has nonetheless accomplished quite a lot from sheer drive, would be well aware of this.

Nearby, Kaguya tries to brush her own heroism off. Hayasaka praises her, but Kaguya claims it was just the obvious thing to do; the girl she saved is the daughter of a newspaper mogul, and being able to call in that favor someday might be important. It’s not impossible that Kaguya is telling the truth here and she really was acting out of, essentially, selfishness, but to me it seems more like the sort of mental gymnastics we’d eventually come to know her for. We could, if we wanted to be uncharitable, read her last comment here—to the effect of, “no one really does anything for anyone else without wanting something in return”—as the writer’s own beliefs. But to me, it seems more plausible that she’s again just denying her own feelings. Akasaka does seem to keenly understand how growing up in the sort of environment Kaguya did can mess with you.

All that in a flashback, which contrasts heavily with the Kaguya we see when the show returns to present.

A Kaguya who is wearing a Taisho-period traditional Japanese woman’s costume as part of her class’s cosplay cafe, yes.

Shout out to Mocksune Miku in the back, there.

This segment, which primarily focuses on Kaguya’s misadventures in said cosplay cafe, is probably the least “important” of the three here. But it does feature the return of the Ramen Guys, an advantage that cannot be so easily discounted. It also features Hayasaka “cosplaying” as a maid; ie., her normal, actual self.

And they interact, too, of course. The Ramen Guys insult Kaguya’s coffee pouring technique while complimenting Hayasaka’s (in one of the show’s oddest visual gags to date, they’re drawn as though badly greenscreened onto a backdrop depicting a galaxy. I think this may be a spoof of old educational programming, but I don’t know enough on the subject to comment.)

Ratio.

Kaguya counters that she can pour an expert cup of tea, at least, and is promptly taken up on her offer. All this causes Kaguya to miss interacting with Shirogane, which was her entire hope in working for the cafe in the first place.

But, one of the Ramen Guys (yes, I will keep capitalizing that) notes that Kaguya’s tea is so good that clearly she’s been perfecting it for a single specific person. He notes this very loudly, while Shirogane is relatively nearby, to Kaguya’s immense embarrassment.

As they depart, the taller of the two Ramen Guys wishes Kaguya well in her love story. He even briefly meets Shirogane, noting that he is “the one.” (Of course, Shirogane has no idea what he’s talking about.)

Kaguya, meanwhile, notes that she’d really like to get a bit of lead up if she’s going to confess her feelings to Shirogane at any point during the festival. Similar thoughts, meanwhile, are had by someone else.

Shirogane’s segment is the briefest of the three here, but it’s also the punchiest, and the only one in which a substantial development occurs. Before that, though, he gets to pal around with Maki, who spends these couple minutes just being a complete bummer in a very funny way.

But she also offers some genuine advice; suggesting that Ishigami ask Tsubame, who’s apparently into scary stuff, to the rather intense Haunted House one of the classes is putting on. (There’s an amusing, but also kind of sad, “I lead others to a treasure I cannot possess” sort of dynamic going on with Maki the Matchmaker here.)

There are some more shenanigans crammed in here, including a deeply awkward scene in which Maki’s former crush and his girlfriend show up. (Ishigami mentions that the latter gives him “sinister” vibes. I’m not sure if this is a callback to that whole business from early in the season where she thought her boyfriend was cheating on her, or some sort of foreshadowing. Given the bizarre visual style shift that accompanies the immediately preceding scene—that’s it in the header image—I think it might be the latter? But it’s hard to say.)

But in the end, Ishigami actually does ask Tsubame to the haunted house. Not without effort and not without some awkwardness, but hey! He did it! And she even agrees to go with him! (Whether she’s aware of his intentions or not is an entirely different subject, of course.)

Look at him, he’s like a happy puppy.

We don’t see that haunted house date here. (Although what little we do see of the haunted house looks pretty cool, and is shot like a found-footage horror film.) The episode ends on what’s essentially a cliffhanger.

So, until next week, Kaguya fans.

1: I here mean the term only in a general sense. I do not know the details of eg. Akasaka’s voting record, etc. Nor, frankly, do I wish to.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 8

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

I’ll level with you, dear readers. (And hopefully do so without belaboring the point.) My life has been very hectic lately and I do not know how consistent my Let’s Watch columns will be in the coming weeks. But! I want to still write them when I have enough time and energy to get them together, especially when they’re about important episodes. And this week’s episode of Love is War! is very important. (Arguably, from this point forward, they all are.) It’s also just pretty damn good, but that’s par for the course with Kaguya-sama.

We’ll be pretty much skipping the first segment this week, which is a funny-sweet little vignette about Shirogane’s terrible fashion sense. It’s cute, but it’s not hugely important to the rest of the episode.

Instead, the latter two segments of the episode form a fairly distinct whole. Throughout, we must keep in mind one central fact.

Yes, the heart. Symbol of romance throughout the world, it plays a key symbolic role in both the in-universe Hoshin Culture Festival and this arc of the series itself. We learn why in the second segment of the episode, where Tsubame happily explains the frankly rather grim legend that the festival draws its iconography from, in which a sick princess is cured by a prospective lover sacrificing his own life in order to give her his heart to make a poultice.

Still, in Kaguya‘s world, as in ours, a story’s meaning can change over time. In-universe, Kaguya speculates that the legend might’ve emerged as a way for a ruler to validate her own rule, to which Tsubame lightheartedly calls her quite the realist. Her tune changes, of course, when Tsubame also explains that giving someone a heart-shaped object at the festival is said to ensure eternal love. She gives the example of her own brother, who recently married someone he first met at the festival. By this, Kaguya is swayed.

Almost immediately, she begins to puzzle out how to slip Shirogane a heart-shaped object, something with a heart pattern on it, anything that would both “count” for the legend but also not give her away. She ponders some truly silly stuff, here.

These are the usual Love is War shenanigans, until, suddenly, they aren’t.

Kaguya reflects here and is able to actually admit to herself for the first time that, yeah, she does actually have a thing for Shirogane. More importantly, she’s able to admit it to Hayasaka, who is shocked at her actually owning up to her own feelings for once. She wonders what exactly she’s afraid of; she knows Shirogane likes her, after all, so really this should be a simple thing. Eventually, she flatly rejects the very premise of the series itself as she mulls over some of Hayasaka’s advice.

But years of being trained to bury one’s feelings are not so easily undone, so she does not make a move here. Not yet, and not now.

She does hear about someone else’s moves, though. Ishigami is planning to ask Tsubame to the festival, even if the much-mythologized “love confession” comes a bit later, the truth of the matter is that Ishigami very much realizes that Tsubame’s graduation marks a deadline for any hope of his telling her how he feels. Kaguya is up against a similar time limit, although she doesn’t yet know that. (Ishigami has also only just learned that Tsubame is even single, which is a whole small subplot in of itself that’s tied up here.)

Average 11th grader realizing they might get to hold a girl’s hand.

The scene here is wonderful, and I maintain that Kaguya and Ishigami’s friendship is actually one of the best parts of Love is War full stop. Even if Ishigami is rejected, he will have gotten his feelings out. No more regrets for our favorite gamer boy.

And perhaps that lights a fire in Kaguya as well. But we’ll have to wait for next week to learn more.

Until then.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 7

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Today we hit perhaps the densest episode so far of Kaguya-sama: Love is War!‘s third season. -Ultra Romantic- has not been shy about plot thickets before this point, so that’s saying something, but we’re introduced to three new characters and two new plotlines here. That’s a lot to take in all at once; enough so that this episode actually has four segments instead of the usual three. (If you wanted to split hairs, you could say the last two are more like two parts of the same segment.)

We open with a pair of familiar faces, though. Mito Iino and Yuu Ishigami are, once again, the characters we’re riding along with for the opening segment. They’ve been assigned to the planning committee for Shuchiin Academy’s cultural festival, making this the second anime episode I’ve covered in a row about that topic. (Although the one in Healer Girl wasn’t a pre-Winter Break festival like this one is.)

But this is Shuchiin Academy, home of the sons and daughters of Japan’s wealthiest and most important families, must of course have a suitably grandiose cultural festival. The planning involved here must be an absurd undertaking, and one does get that sense even though we only see a little bit of it here.

Both leads for this segment have an ulterior motive; Miko, for reasons we haven’t really had explained in full yet, really wants the festival to cap with a roaring bonfire. Ishigami, meanwhile, is trying to impress Tsubame, who is also on the planning committee. Ishigami has dealt with some of these people before, during the sports festival from last season, but Miko very much hasn’t, so she feels rather out of place.

And arguments break out over what the slogan for the festival should be, starting with several….creative suggestions from Ishigami’s ostensible romantic rivals, other boys on the committee.

This is probably also the worst the series has ever suffered from the official release’s subpar typesetting.

I believe this is also our formal introduction to Rei Onodera (Yuuki Takada), yet another member of the committee and one who initially clashes with Miko.

Miko’s able to stand up for herself though—including getting everyone on board for her bonfire idea—which is a nice way of showcasing some character development on her part. Ishigami offering to help is much the same.

The second segment deals with another pair of new characters, Karen Kino (Madoka Asahina) Erika Kose (Ayaka Asai). Well, they’re not new characters exactly. Karen and Erika, in addition to being the stars of the spinoff manga We Want to Talk about Kaguya!, have actually had several small appearances dating back to the beginning of the show. And I do mean the beginning. Karen was actually the very first character to get a voiced line in the entire series, other than the narrator.

Here they mostly go about and interview various folks about the upcoming festival. This includes Tsubame, who gets a little sequence showing off her gymnastic skills, and also mentions that there’s actually a legend associated with the cultural festival.

And later, when they interview Shirogane, he alludes to another tradition associated with the festival. A “prank” usually played by the student council that involves installing a giant papier-mache orb on the school roof.

They also interview Kaguya herself, who they promptly lose their entire minds over.

As the title of the spinoff focused on them implies, the two are both down absolutely horrible for Kags. It’d be enough to make me feel a little bad for them if they both didn’t also spend time swooning over, respectively, Tsubame and Shirogane. They’re fun, and they get a lot of entertainingly wrong ideas about what Kaguya is like.

(The fact that Kaguya is an absurdly prodigal archer and has been chosen to light the bonfire that the cultural festival committee worked so hard to get approved by firing an arrow at it makes their total misfires about her personality a bit easier to understand. Still, knowing what we do about her, they’re pretty funny.)

They also interview the game club, which is mostly an excuse for Love is War to once again show off how weird Chika and her (mostly offscreen) other group of friends are. One of them goes full chuuni while explaining their grand plans for the festival, which is animated like something out of Kill la Kill for presumably no real reason other than because it’s funny.

(This joke is also a nod to the origins of Love is War! itself. It’s a commonly known bit of fan trivia that the ancestral pitch for what eventually became Kaguya-sama was a death game manga.)

And lastly, what would an episode of Love is War be without Shirogane being comically inept at something? This time it’s balloon tying.

I don’t need to tell you that his inability to make funny balloon animals leads to him wallowing miserably on the floor, which nearly guilts Chika into helping him. (A decent chunk of the scene is also shot like a moody drama for, again, no real reason but amusing stylistic clash.)

It is notable that this time, though, he actually leaves before Chika can do her whole demon trainer / mom shtick on him. Instead he keeps practicing on his own, this time in the student council room. Kaguya, who is also there, has a hard time because of this, given all the balloons popping.

Here, Love is War pulls of a neat trick of flipping this usually comedic template—which it’s used several times at this point, including once before in this very season—into Shirogane genuinely reflecting on what he sees as his own shortcomings.

But, of course, Kaguya doesn’t see it that way. To her, this is Shirogane’s charm; a dedication in the face of challenge regardless of what that challenge is, be it large or, as in this case, small. The warm, full smile she gives him (and us, given that the scene briefly switches to his POV), is probably the most sincere we’ve seen in the whole show so far. This alone would justify the entire segment even if it weren’t already pretty good.

Things swing back to the comedic for the episode’s final few minutes, in its final scene.

Initially, it seems like Shirogane’s apparent incompetence here can be explained away by the fact that he was using old balloons. But then he tries the same method with brand-new ones, and they promptly pop as well.

Hang in there, Fujiwara.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 6

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

“The countdown to farewell has already begun.”

It has been three years since I started covering Kaguya-sama: Love is War! In that time, I’ve read much of the original manga, so I knew this day was coming eventually. But hindsight has a way of snapping together things that seemed unrelated at first glance. Call it reading too much into pure coincidence, call it serendipity, call it the norns at work.

In its sixth episode, the show’s third season finally rounds the bend and gets serious. These more dramatic parts of Love is War! are what the series’ reputation is truly built on. I think it would still be beloved without them, but they help the story to feel larger than its constituent characters. Even for someone far removed from the rich kids’ club of Shuchiin Academy, it can reach out and touch a point in one’s own personal timeline, creating resonances both close and far. That is what this episode, and eventually, this entire arc, is all about. Which isn’t to say it’s a drag, (most of this episode is just as funny as the ones before it) but if there are any clocks ticking in your own life, expect to hear them ever louder as you watch it.

The catalyst here is fairly simple; a parent-teacher conference. A minor rite of passage / perfect-storm anxiety machine that every high schooler goes through a few times over the course of their education. Kaguya’s dad, notably, doesn’t show up to hers.

This is perhaps to be expected from her total piece of shit of a father. A man who is a walking bundle of rotten wood held together by petty spite and pure greed, a nearly elemental incarnation of the phrase “Rich Old Bastard.” A figure who, in the scant handful of lines he’s gotten in the series so far, manages to ooze a crochety, warped old-money unpleasantness that is sadly probably the single most realistic thing about this series. I really quite strongly dislike Mr. Shinomiya, if that’s not obvious.

In any case, the person who does show up is Hayasaka’s mother, Nao Hayasaka (Toa Yukinari), who pulls double duty by both attending her own daughter’s conference and Kaguya’s. We learn here that Hayasaka is a total mama’s girl, which is pretty cute. (If also a bit sad, since their exchange here implies that they spend very little time together.)

There’s also some great work from Shirogane’s dad (Takehito Koyasu), who makes a drop-in appearance for the first time in the season, back to his usual antics of being a total weirdo but genuinely good dude.

But the real important development here is what we hear from Shirogane himself, during his parent-teacher conference.

Yes, that Stanford.

Immediately, everything else that happens for the rest of the series has this particular Sword of Damocles hanging over it. Shirogane and Kaguya’s time together in actual close proximity is ending. Not just ending but ending fairly soon. The deadline is in sight.

Kaguya-sama is notable in that its central dynamic, the “geniuses’ war of love and brains” that gives it both its tagline and original Japanese title, has faded the farther we’ve gotten from the premiere of season one. It has always felt—I think as much to its own characters as to us—that Miyuki and Kaguya have had all the time in the world to muster up the strength to finally shoot straight with each other. So their occasional throwbacks to that early period have been charming, but not felt urgent. That is no longer the case. This isn’t a slice of life series; the everyday here is not endless, and time is running out.

Give him some credit, our man knows it’s do or die time.

As I’ve gotten older, it’s felt like I should probably be able to relate to these sorts of stories—high school tales of romance and all—less. But the sense of urgency that Love is War! begins to carry from this point forward is universal. I’m 28, many people who read this column are older or younger than I, but who doesn’t feel Father Time breathing down their neck, at least occasionally?

But as we wish Miyuki good fortune and godspeed, we transition into talking about the rest of the episode. Which is, I must note, still very good, but it’s also a lot more conventional for Love is War!, so there’s simply less to discuss. In the second segment, the urgency is alleviated by one of the aforementioned throwbacks to the show’s early days. Kaguya and Shirogane both manage to galaxy brain their way out of inviting the other to a different school’s cultural festival, happening nearby. Even so, you feel for them.

In the third, Shirogane asks for the girls of the student council to help him evaluate himself “objectively.” This is mostly an excuse for wacky misunderstandings, such as here where Miko thinks he’s asking her out.

And also, for Miko and Chika to say mean but admittedly funny things about him.

But Kaguya, who can’t find a single bad word to say, is who ultimately leaves the day’s biggest impact.

Reinvigorated, Shirogane recommits himself to his plan, and it is for us and time to see if it will work out or not. Godspeed, Miyuki, and good luck.

Bonus Hayasaka Screencap: Dare I say, I think this was also how probably at least some of you reacted when Nao Hayasaka made her on-screen appearance, here.

That’s right, readers. I know your bones.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 5

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

I knew this day would come eventually.

He wants to express his feelings in rap. Miyuki Shirogane, student council president of Shuchiin Academy, wants to express his feelings through song. No, through performance art, in what is probably the absolute worst medium he could’ve chosen to do so short of perhaps mime. Ask anyone who’s ever been subjected to Lil Dicky; rap and comedy do not mix. Rap and anime have a very uneven track record and historically mix even worse.

A conflux of the three should signal a truly epic crash where Kaguya-sama: Love is War! burns out and never recovers. Improbably, it does not, but that may be because this is A-1’s most impressive production on the season yet, a true cartwheeling display of visual panache put in service of a bizarre pseudo-music video. The music is still very much at its worst the closer it is to actual hip-hop, but at least it’s never unwatchable. The combined first two segments of the episode are basically this Tumblr post, I don’t know what else to say.

Anyone familiar with the “Chika teaches Miyuki to do something” skits of prior seasons will understand immediately what’s going on here. The twist this time around is that Chika is also completely clueless about hip-hop and has to teach herself before she can teach Shirogane anything. This is admittedly pretty funny, but it does drift into the notion that rap is just funny as a concept, which definitely isn’t true and is usually the domain of a specific kind of bad American cartoons. Although Shirogane’s profound badness remains hilarious. His first try at “rapping” here sounds more like a walrus dying slowly. It physically propels Chika into the air.

The “actual” rap as it eventually develops here is, I don’t know, fine. It’s not the kind of skin-peeling cringiness that I usually associate with rap music showing up in cartoons, which is a positive. Shirogane’s actual song is notably old school, having something broadly in common with the retro pop rap stylings of chelmico. and similar acts.

What is he rapping about? Well, initially this is just followup on that karaoke episode. He wants to convince Hayasaka to be more honest with herself and others and such. We also get a flashback to the karaoke place, where Hayasaka mentions that her job is to “keep tabs on” Shinomiya. Hmm.

In any case, the “musical” segment that follows this is pretty damn impressive, just from a production standpoint. For my money though it’s actually Kaguya herself who has the best song, despite it being probably the farthest-removed from hip-hop music. It also has the best visuals, including a truly inexplicable nod to Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” (Maybe it’s a pun? “Rap”sody? I don’t know.)

In the largely-unrelated final segment of the episode, we link back up with Maki.

She seems to be doing well.

In what seems to be a recurring pattern, this section of the episode is a lot simpler and less ambitious than what precedes it. It’s mostly Maki venting to the boys again. Ishigami correctly points out that it’s usually best to be quick on the draw in games of love. The fact that all three people in the room have crushes they can’t own up to having, some more involved than others, casts a palpable irony over the whole thing, something the series itself is very much aware of. Maki’s own regret boils hot enough to burn away the tea Ishigami prepares for her, and Yu and Miyuki nearly give themselves a stroke just imagining the other person stealing their crushes.

All in all it’s a pretty simple segment that serves mostly to close out the episode. And it is nice to see Maki making friends, of a sort, it helps all the comedy at her expense feel less mean.

There’s also a new ED this week, presumably a one-off. Once again done in a totally different stlye from the rest of the show, and also featuring a hip-hop soundtrack. (One that I’d go so far to say is a fair bit better than Shirogane’s rap in the actual episode.) It’s cool, but I’ll welcome the return of the usual ED next week.

Until then, Kaguya fans.

Bonus Hayasaka Screencap: Why have one Hayasaka when you could have five?

I should here note that Hayasaka’s song is probably also the one that comes closest to having any real bite to it. It conveys her increasingly fed-up attitude with Kaguya pretty well. She even has something that might actually qualify as a Bar™ if you’re generous, rhyming that she has so many faces that she feels like “a hydra.”

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.