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.
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