I have written a lot about Kaguya-sama: Love is War! over the years. Before this site even existed, I wrote about it for GeekGirl Authority, and then did so again for its second season. This season I’ve been following the third, writing about it here all the while.
But one thing I’ve not discussed is the second, other anime hidden in plain sight in Love is War! I am talking, of course, about the combined storyline presented by the Season 1 and Season 3 EDs.
Unique to the anime, and with no real equivalent anywhere in the manga, these two EDs tell a wordless, fantastical otherworld version of Love is War!‘s central storyline, blown up to epic fantasy proportions despite their limited runtime. They cross Love is War!’s basic ideas with a setting that begins at Studio Ghibli and ends somewhere out near Starship Trooper. It’s a strange, singular thing, and I love that it exists.
Metatextually, they are presented as a pair of dreams. One had by Kaguya in the student council room as she dozes off after a day of hard work, and the other had by Miyuki in what appears to be the cafe` from season 2.
In this version of the story., Miyuki Shirogane is no student, he’s a plane mechanic. And Kaguya’s status as a “princess” appears to be far more literal, with all that implies. She’s also not human, possibly alluding to her namesake‘s nature as a princess from the Moon. By their nature, neither short has a terribly complex story. Indeed, the lack of any dialogue makes the specific events depicted in each ambiguous to some degree, but there’s no denying that they are telling a story, and that they do fit together.
Like her mundane counterpart, otherworld Kaguya appears to have her heart shut off from the world, and her only real companion is her maid, Hayasaka.
But it seems like some version of the student council did exist here at one point. A brief flash of a framed picture is all we get, but it’s enough to make the conclusion that Kaguya had bonded with these people—just like she did in the real show—only to have them taken away from her.
This frames what follows in a fascinating way; something like a mutual plan, by both this “aviation club” and Kaguya and Hayasaka themselves (the latter takes up a rifle here and looks perfectly at home holding it.) Kaguya escapes from the massive zeppelin all of her lonely isolation shots took place in, and literally sprouts fucking angel wings as she flees. In the pivotal, romantic clincher, she grabs on to Miyuki’s hand as he flies past in a biplane.
Ishigami and Chika are there, too, to give their approval. Kaguya is sometimes hard on these two, especially Chika, so it can be nice to have even small reminders that, yes, she really does care about them a lot.
And the short ends on a shot of Kaguya waking up in the council room, giving her friends a warm smile.
The second ED—again, from the third season. The second season’s ED was nice in its own way, but doesn’t connect to this story—is stranger and darker. Some amount of time has clearly passed, and Kaguya, here specifically marked out as an alien, has been once again spirited away by her people. The opening shot of the ED shows her coronated with a wicked crown that seems to change her very body and soul, a blunt and evocative metaphor for her abusive upbringing from the main series, and the “Ice Kaguya” persona she once put on to escape it.
So, what choice do our heroes have? Pulp sci-fi splash screens spring to life as they spell out the operation.
Miyuki broods as he remembers those he’s met over the course of what seems to be a rather long war (more questions unanswered, there). Hayasaka, Iino, and what appears to be his own family. But when the Earthlings arrive, there’s no time to reminisce; they come up against swarms of monster bugs, lead by Kaguya herself from the chair of command.
There’s a ton of movement in this microscopic fight scene—it really is only a few seconds—bullets fly and, at one point, Chika takes a shot to the head (don’t worry, she’s fine).
Through the furor, Miyuki can only think about one other person on the battlefield. An injured Hayasaka gives him Kaguya’s hair ribbon, and he dashes forward like a madman, leaping, seeming to knock the crown off, and tying her hair back into a ponytail. The spell is broken! Mission successful.
The dream ends here, and we see the real Miyuki’s eye pop open as Kaguya gently wakes him up.
Isn’t all this just adorable? That Miyuki fantasizes about being this romantic hero archetype rescuing the princess from the enemy’s clutches? Isn’t it adorable too, that Kaguya dreams of being rescued by him, even if she does a lot of the work herself, in her own dream? There is a lot of warmth between the two even in just the short few seconds they interact with each other at the end of the second ED.
To state the obvious; I would, of course, watch or read the absolute hell out of a spinoff that elaborated upon this story. But even as successful as Kaguya is, that seems unlikely. So, it remains, just these few minutes, like tiny jewels.
In general, I’ve always believed that Kaguya is at its strongest when making bold, sweeping, romantic gestures. It is at its weakest when it attempts to delve into gender psychology and make too-broad statements about the nature of love or sex. One of the reasons that these two EDs work so well is that they’re entirely the former, distilling down all of Kaguya‘s strengths and casually eliminating all of its flaws into just a couple combined minutes of excellence. There is nothing else like it, and as I already mentioned, I’m just happy that it exists. Hopefully you are too.
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