Manga / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

Love is war... and the one who falls in love loses!

OH! LOVE ME, MISTER! OH, MISTER!
It’s so sad how I want it so desperately!
Just the two of us in a dangerous GAME!
LOVE IS WAR! LOVE IS WAR! LOVE IS WAR!

— ''Love Dramatic" by Masayuki Suzuki (the anime's first opening theme)

Shuchi'in Academy is one of the most prestigious schools in Japan, attended by only the wealthiest families. Our main characters are the student council of this school. The vice president, Kaguya Shinomiya, comes from a family which owns one of the largest companies in Japan, mastering multiple forms of artistic and intellectual subjects. The president, Miyuki Shirogane, while of common birth, is a Teen Genius with one of the highest grades in the country.

These two geniuses slowly fell for each other, yet their gigantic prides would not let them be the one to confess. So, they secretly began a battle. That is, the battle to make the other side confess first!

Kaguya-sama: Love is War, also known as Lady Kaguya Wants to Make Him Confess: The Geniuses' War of Hearts and Minds (かぐや様は告らせたい ～天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～ Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunōsen) in the original Japanese version, is a Seinen manga by Aka Akasaka. It started publication in 2015 as a monthly series in Miracle Jump, but was later moved to Shuukan Young Jump as a weekly series in 2016. By 2018, the series also gained two spinoffs: a Hotter and Sexier "Doujin Edition", and a lower deck Yonkoma called We Want to Talk About Lady Kaguya (かぐや様を語りたい Kaguya-sama o Kataritai) focusing on two Shuuchin students looking at the plot from the outside. In March 2018, Viz Media began its release of the English translation. After 7 years of publication and 281 chapters, the manga concluded in November 2022.

On June 1, 2018 an anime adaptation was announced, coinciding with the release of Chapter 100,^note Well, Chapter 110. As mentioned above, the first 10 chapters were published in a different magazine from the rest and the numbering started over when it changed. which was developed by A-1 Pictures and premiered in the Winter 2019 season. A second season was announced on October 19, 2019, and premiered in the Spring 2020 season. A third season and OVA were both announced on October 24, 2020 with the latter being released as a preorder bonus for volume 22 on May 19, 2021, and the former later being confirmed for a Spring 2022 release. Funimation began releasing an English language dub on July 25, 2020.

An animated film titled Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends- (かぐや様は告らせたい-ファーストキッスは終わらない- Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: First Kiss wa Owaranai) was announced shortly after the end of the third season, which was released December 17, 2022 and given a limited theatrical release internationally on February 14, 2023. It became available on Crunchyroll and certain other streaming platforms as four 22-minute episodes on March 31, 2023.

A live-action movie was released on September 6, 2019. A sequel was released on August 20, 2021.

Please place character tropes on the character page.

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Oh, so you want to see this series' tropes? How cute.

A-H

• Absurdly Divided School: Shuchiin Academy students are divided between the 'pure' students who have been in the Academy since childhood, and the 'impure' students who transferred in. The fact that Shirogane managed to become the Student Council President despite being 'impure' is considered very impressive.
• Actor Allusion:
  • When Ishigami mentions that he has plans over Christmas, Fujiwara assumes that he'll be busy playing video games or watching Pretty Cure. Fujiwara's Japanese voice actress Konomi Kohara voiced Cure Milky.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Desiree Gonzalez (Miko Iino) already voiced another girl named Miko before.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • The anime has a habit of changing the tone of scenes set just before the season finales. For example, Kaguya being unable to find Shirogane in Chapter 133 is played out as a joke, complete with Hayasaka making a snarky comment to her. The anime cuts out Hayasaka's line, instead giving the whole thing a rather somber feeling.
  • Chapter 110 was an example of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, where Shirogane and Ishigami learned that MomoKan was getting an anime adaptation. The anime adapted the chapter as a PV for the third season and changed the MomoKan joke accordingly.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: The Cubari Facaccimo, a bizarre one-eyed... thing that had something to do with Kaguya's plans for Valentine's day the previous year appeared while the student council is cleaning up at the end of their first term. In the anime, it isn't seen until they're moving back in after the election.
• Adaptation Distillation: Due to the fact that the anime doesn't adapt chapter 112 (when Kaguya tries on a bunch of different cosplay outfits to try and get a reaction out of Shirogane), Shirogane's inspiration for wearing a costume as part of his Grand Romantic Gesture instead comes from when the student council wore cat ears back in season 1.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The scene where the entire school gathers around to watch Shirogane "confess" to Kaguya (actually ask her help with his reelection campaign) has an added appearance of Karen and Erika reporting on it for the Mass Media club in the anime. The following episode also shows a newspaper article where the Mass Media club subjects Hongo to a Media Scrum after Kaguya scares him into dropping out of the election.
  • During Kaguya's visit to the hospital, Dr Tanuma has a brief flashback of himself and his wife (who is never seen it the manga) when they were teenagers.
  • Episode 32 shows Tsubame's speech at the opening ceremonies of culture festival in full, as opposed to the manga where we only hear the very end of it.
  • Episode 35 adds a scene of several characters reading the article Karen and Erika wrote on the balloon thief while foreshadowing Momo's involvement. It also changes what was a single panel of a nondescript band performing while Kaguya and Shirogane were wandering around the festival with Hayasaka singing The Spring Pink Lipstick as part of an idol routine with Mirin and Subaru as backup dancers.
  • Hayasaka's plans on Christmas Eve were never specified at any point in the manga, but the movie has a brief shot of her Subaru, and Mirin doing karaoke together.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • Due to the fact that Kaguya's first study session with Ishigami was moved to before Shirogane's birthday in the anime, it cuts out any mention of her doing so due to owing him a favor and she is instead simply trying to keep him for tarnishing the name of the student council and inconveniencing Shirogane.
  • In the manga, Ogino was forced to transfer out of Shuchi'in after Kaguya found out what he did and informed the school VIPs. The anime merely has Hayasaka ask Kaguya if she was responsible, but it never goes into any detail.
  • The arm wrestling tournament was set in motion due to Fujiwara making fun of Ishigami struggling with carrying a desk of carnival equipment. In the manga, it's specified that it's all for the upcoming culture festival, while the anime never explains why he's carrying it due to it taking place before preparations for the festival have even been mentioned.
  • When Kaguya is thinking back to all the times she might have made Hayasaka angry in the second episode of Season 3, the ending of Chapter 92 (where Hayasaka ends up with the ice cream Erika gave her stuck on her cheek) is included despite the chapter otherwise being unadapted.
  • Similarly, Fujiwara says that Shirogane can't prepare fish when attempting to disuade Moeha from having a crush on him despite the anime completely skipping over her training him in Chapter 49.
  • Karen is able to identify a piece of paper as being inorganic just by feeling it during the climax of the culture festival thanks to her family owning a publishing company (and thus having plenty of paper samples laying around her house to familiarize herself with). While Kino Publishing is named in a Freeze-Frame Bonus on the ballon art book Shirogane shows Kaguya, Karen herself never makes any mention of it, much less the paper samples.
  • During the First Kiss Never Ends arc, Shirogane mentions how part of the reason he constatly studies and refuses to show weakness is because his mother abandoned him as a child and he hoped that he was successful enough she'd come back for him. However, the movie leaves out the crucial detail about how she initially took Kei (who got better grades) with her when she left, giving him an actual reason to think that rather than just assume that she abandoned both kids and nothing would have changed her mind.
  • One particularly extreme example happens in the final segment of the movie. Due to jumping directly from Kaguya and Shirogane's hook up on Chirstmas Eve to their first date, viewers are left with absolutely zero context about Tsubame's past romantic problems or the disasterous fallout of her offering Ishigami Pity Sex while she talks to Papa Shirogane at the fortune-telling booth (save for a few very brief flashbacks).
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • In the anime, Kaguya and Ishigami's tutoring sessions happened in the span of one week before the second semester final exams. However, they still kept the "Ishigami plays games right before the exams" gag, despite the fact that Kaguya would never allow it while he was under her tutelage. This plot hole doesn't exist in the manga, where the tutoring sessions were for a later test.
  • Hayasaka is shown looking at a series of photos while scolding Kaguya for her lack of progress with Shirogane in Episode 16, the last of which is from the moon viewing. While that picture does exist in the manga (having shown up when the student council put all their photos into a group album at the end of the Cell Phone arc), it's unclear how she got her hands on it given that Ishigami was presumably the one who took it and it's unlikely he would have shared it on social media for fear of Kaguya's wrath.
  • Kashiwagi is shown to be on the White team during the sports festival in the anime despite the teams being broken up by what class you're in and everyone else in her class (her boyfriend, Shirogane, and Fujiwara) being on the Red team. This mistake is not made in the manga, where she is not shown wearing a headband.
  • During the climax of the Culture Festival Arc, Kaguya and Shirogane both grab a passing balloon in their respective colors from the latter's Grand Romantic Gesture as a way of visually baring their hearts to one another. In the officially colored version of the manga, the balloons are shown to be a variety of different colors, so it makes sense that a red and blue one would happen to float by them. The anime on the other hand made all the balloons shades of pink, so the ones they grab seem to come out of nowhere.
• Adapted Out: Fujiwara's pet fish Namero never appear in the anime due to the chapter featuring them being skipped, though he is indirectly alluded to during the culture festival.
• Adults Are Useless: The whole incident with Ishigami was only resolved thanks to Iino and the student council and later, for good thanks to the graduating seniors starting a rumor mill among the student body. If Kaguya hadn't alerted the council to investigate, Ishigami could have been left behind forever, as all the adults took Ogino's side and scolded Ishigami.
• Advertised Extra: Karen, Erika, and Maki all show up in the opening of the first season, even though they barely show up and do nothing of consequence in the chapters that were adapted.
• An Aesop:
  • The overall point of the series is that relationships are built upon communication and that there's no way to go about them without risking emotional pain. Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship hit a wall for a year because they couldn't muster up the courage to change the status quo. They confess eventually and openly communicate their feelings after a really long time and are much better off than before, showing it was mostly a waste of time. Maki lost her chance for the boy she liked because she couldn't talk to him. Ishigami's accidental confession goes well for him as he is rejected but still earns the friendship and aid of his crush. Tsubasa, the only one who confesses directly and without hesitation, ends up with a stable and long-lasting relationship.
  • The series also loves to demonstrate that the traditional idea of "true love" and its ideals should never be what real love is, and that there is always an element of selfishness in there somewhere that should be acted on. Characters like Maki or Mikado who patiently wait for their chance to be loved and do everything they can for their loved ones in the interim are treated sympathetically, but mocked for not having the guts to cross the line and truly stick their neck out for their love. Other characters who do things for others that could be mistaken as love, like Osaragi or Tsubame's support of Ishigami, or Ishigami's defense of Ootomo, are explicitly stated not to be romantic in nature. The only concrete couples are the ones who act in the service of keeping their love interest all to themselves, and have just as many weak and unidealistic moments in their relationship as they do tender.
  • Shirogane reaches a conclusion in the penultimate chapter - the concept of a "genius" is subjective. Most of the people who are at the top of Shuuchi'in's ladder, such as himself, Iino, and Ishigami, got there by working their asses off rather than letting natural talent take the wheel, and being incredibly gifted at one thing doesn't mean you won't be utterly hopeless at another. Ultimately Shirogane decides that "genius" is just a label that is given to people who stand out from their peers too much, and that nobody is as naturally gifted as they're presented to be.
• Aesop Amnesia: Played for Laughs. In Chapter 91, Fujiwara proposes a Game of Chicken where everyone takes turns inflating a balloon and trying not to pop it. When the balloon gets close to bursting, everyone else is nervous except for Ishigami, whom the narration proclaims "a man who has abandoned all fear" thanks to the Character Development he got in the previous arc. ...And then he gets a good look at the balloon, realizes exactly how large and scary it is, and promptly chickens out as the narrator says "The Sports Festival Arc was meaningless".
• Affectionate Parody:
  • Chapter 74 as a whole to Shōjo Demographic romance stories. Kaguya goes from a calculating person to a typical shoujo heroine, she's in a Love Triangle with Shirogane and Ishigami (of all people) and has to choose between them to go to the aquarium, and Bishie Sparkle is rampant. And it's all because they starting reading Today Will Be Sweet together. Extra points go to Aka for trying to imitate the large advertisement space of shoujo magazines during the chapter.
  • Chapter 96 is done in the style of a cooking manga, complete with Fujiwara giving long (and inaccurate) descriptions of everyone's fried rice.
  • Chapter 172.1 puts Shirogane as the protagonist of a harem romcom. Kei is now Not Blood Related and has a brother complex, Fujiwara is a clingy next-door neighbor with whom he made a Childhood Marriage Promise, Kaguya is an evil Ice Queen who falls in love with Shirogane the instant he stands up to her, Hayasaka is a pervert who propositions him immediately, Iino is his kohai who is in love with him for no adequately explained reason, and Ishigami...doesn't exist, because harem protagonists don't have male friends^note They actually do...but at best they're a Bromantic Foil (like Ishigami is) and at worst they're Social Circle Filler. This is when it turns out to be Ishigami's nightmare.
  • Soundtrack-wise, the OST song "Papa Katsu" (playing when Shirogane's dad was talking to him and Kei) is a clear rearrangement of Wham!'s "Careless Whisper".
• All Elections Are Serious Business: The election arc, of course, has everyone take their positions a little too seriously (up to and including acts of industrial espionage). Shirogane ends up looking like a giant and threatening obstacle in the race, while Kaguya strong-arms and intimidates any potential threat to Shirogane's victory.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • Brought up in Chapter 71, where Hayasaka tells Kaguya that men want to have sex as often and with as many partners as possible.
  • Yume Atenbo mentions this, when Kaguya and Shirogane have their fortunes told by her. Shirogane doesn't even deny that he has a strong libido, shocking Kaguya.
  • In Chapter 153, Kaguya and Ishigami go buy Christmas presents together. After Kaguya rejects Ishigami's first Christmas present proposal for Tsubame, all his other suggestions enrage her, as he clearly is thinking with his lower half.
    Kaguya: Is that really all boys ever think about? It's like your mind set up camp in the gutter.
  • Discussed in Chapter 169, where Kaguya mentions to Maki how Hayasaka believes this (also shown in a flashback in Chapter 186). Maki then confronts Shirogane and Ishigami, and the latter freely admits that for most men this is the case, although he compares it to cigarettes and alcohol, so a virgin can't possibly get sex-addicted and is too scared of sex.
• Alma Mater Song: The student body of Shuuchin Academy sings the school anthem at the beginning of every week during the school assembley. Fujiwara teaches Shirogane how to sing properly so he can take part in Chapter 36.
• Almost Holding Hands: Chapter 142 has Kaguya trying to get Shirogane to hold her hand, but he completely misinterprets the very unsubtle signals she's sending him. The fact that she's acting wildly out of character (combined with him suffering from a severe lack of sleep) didn't help matters.
• Almost Kiss:
  • Shirogane nearly kisses Kaguya when they're locked in a storage shed, only for Iino to open the door right before anything can happen. This throws Kaguya's feelings into overdrive, to the point that she ends up fainting due to lovesickness in the following chapter. This would directly lead to her developing her routine to keep her nerves under control.
  • Ishigami and Iino almost kiss when the former escorts the latter home when she thinks she's being stalked. They're interrupted by Kaguya texting Ishigami, who happens to have a loud ringtone.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: In-Universe. When Shirogane and Kaguya talk about The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Shirogane thinks about the tragedy of Kaguya's lover burning the immortality elixir she gave him. Rather than the emperor being upset that he'd be living forever in a world without his lover, Shirogane thinks him to be mistaken; the elixir was given to him with the intent that she'd come back, but because he didn't understand her intent, he burned the elixir.
• Alternate History: Aka mentions in the Volume 4 Q&A that the world the series takes place in diverges from ours around the ninth century. Specifically, this is a timeline where The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is an actual historical event, albeit one distorted by time and myth. This somehow led to a Close-Enough Timeline to the real world where all the story's inconsistencies are explained, such as why Zaibatsu-type conglomerates like the one run by the Shinomiya family weren't abolished right after WWII, and why a high school student is eligible for professional certifications like chicken appraising.
• Alternate Universe Fic: The Official Doujin spinoff eventually becomes a collection of AUs instead of the initial Hotter and Sexier premise. There are The Little Mermaid AU, Cinderella AU, an all-girls school AU, and so on. The most well-known one is the Kindergarten AU, where Shirogane and Hayasaka are kindergarten teachers and the others as their students. It also has Hayasaka becoming Shirogane's love interest in this universe instead of Kaguya.
• Always in Class One:
  • Subverted. Kaguya herself is in Class 2-A, but Hayasaka is the only other character in her class (and even then, it's only because she is specifically attending the school for Kaguya's benefit). Everyone else (with the exception of Tsubame, Gigako, and the former student council president in Class 3-A) are in their respective grade's Class B or C. It's even a plot point on several occasions that Kaguya and Shirogane are in separate classes.
  • Played straight when the main cast advances to third year. Nearly all named characters are in Class 3-A. This is deliberate on the principal's part, as he foresees Kaguya facing troubles in the near future, and thus puts all her friends with her.
• Anachronic Order: The Rap Arc is told out of order, jumping between Chapter 94, 108, 107, and 97.
• Angry Cheek Puff: Fugiwara's cheeks puff up at one point, while her whole body glowed red with fury at Ishigami.
• Animate Inanimate Object: In what may be the single most meta example of this trope, the inside cover for Volume 3 depicts the inside covers for the previous two volumes as schoolgirls (complete with Sailor Fuku) in a Love Triangle. And then the inside back cover does the same thing, only with itself.
• Animation Bump:
  • The Dancing Theme ending from Episode 3 has incredibly fluid Rotoscoped animation, to the point that many people confused it for being CGI. Of course, it was animated by a former Kyoto Animation staffer.
  • Season 2, Episode 9 has a similar sequence where Kaguya dances in her room a bit until she finds a gesture that can calm her nerves. Even the parody references are quite noticeably more fluid.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Back in middle school, Fujiwara was a musical prodigy who spent every free moment practicing the piano until she was on the verge of burning out. Kaguya commenting "Why don't you just quit?" when seeing how miserable she looked caused her to stop playing the very next day, with her challenging Kaguya to a game to become friends so she could make up for all her lost leisure time. Kaguya wouldn't even find out how significant her words were until several years after the fact in their final year of high school.
• Arrows on Fire: Kaguya used one of these to light the bonfire during the culture festival. The fact that such things tend to have poor range is addressed by having her stand significantly closer to it than she normally would at an archery range.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Shirogane boasts that he has second highest grade in the entire country, passed very high level tests, is a certified hazardous material engineer...and an appraiser of chickens. Even the illustrations show this, with various professional certificates drawn along a cartoon-style chicken.
• Art Evolution: Over the years, a clear shift of Akasaka's art◊ can be seen. While initially all characters look rounder, more childish, and their hair is more detailed, Akasaka has shifted to a sharper and simpler art style that resembles the one he used for ib:Instant Bullet.
• Artifact Title:
  • Subtitle in this case. After a certain point, Shirogane and Kaguya kind of gave up on that "War of Love and Brains" in favor of dealing with their own feelings, with only Chapter 101 being their last major throwback to their early series behavior. Even the "Real War of Love and Brains" as mentioned in the School Festival Arc is just the two becoming more honest with themselves and finally throwing away their pride, which was the exact opposite of why the "War" even started.
  • Lampshaded in the extras, where Aka muses that the subtitle should probably be done away with at that point. By the second half of the series, this trope is now thoroughly played straight, as Aka held a contest to replace the subtitle with one more fitting for the romcom.
  • Chapter 249 however brings the "war" aspect of the series back in full force, only this time it's about Shirogane fighting to save Kaguya from a loveless Arranged Marriage and win her back.
  Shirogane: Now then, how should we go about waging war?
  • In the manga, chapters 112-114 were a 3 part story and were numbered as such in their titles. The anime skipped over 112, but still referred to the adaptations of 113 and 114 as part 2 and part 3.
• Artistic License – Space: During Chapter 56, Shirogane describes the star Vega when he's talking about Deneb. The volume release has him correctly referring to Vega.
• Art Shift: Sometimes the art will change to better suit a joke from scary to more shoujo-esque. Especially in Chapter 74.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Osaragi uses the Japanese invokedPortmanteau Couple Name "IshiTsuba" for Ishigami and Tsubame during Chapter 189.
  • After Chapter 137 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War featured Karen pass out upon witnessing Kaguya and Shirogane's first kiss, it became something of a Running Gag in the fandom to claim that she had died of pure happiness (something that was perpetuated by the fact that she was absent from the series for the next 10 months). When Chapter 114 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya (which covers those events) finally came out two years later, the cover page depicts Erika as an angel telling Karen that it isn't her time yet.
• Author Appeal: If the numerous references to it in later chapters didn't make it obvious, Aka loves Apex Legends.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • For all the mind battles they engage in, Kaguya and Shirogane are shown to actually like each other. This becomes way more obvious as the story goes on, to the point where it's subverted. Short of being actual lovers, they are at least friends.
  • For a played straight version, look no further than Ishigami and Iino. They both constantly get on each other's nerves, argue at every turn, and hate how similar they are to each other. However, they've both been secretly helping each other behind their backs but just won't admit it because they believe it wouldn't be truly altruistic to hold good deeds over people's heads.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Does it twice for "I Can't Hear the Fireworks" (Chapters 44 and 45). At first, it looks like, thanks to Hayasaka taking her place at home, she'll be able to watch the fireworks with the student council, but she makes it just in time fore the festivities to be over. Disheartened, she goes to cry under a stairway, where Shirogane finds her regardless and gets her on a taxi to watch the fireworks in Chiba (which had been delayed due to rain) with the student council.
  • The start of Chapter 70 makes it look like one of the girls is getting changed, complete with narration talking about how seeing someone's underwear is a Forbidden Fruit. Then it turns out that the one getting changed is actually Ishigami.
  • When Hayasaka gets stuck at a mixer, she's able to successfully get Shirogane alone. Based on her frustration with Kaguya's disregard for her feelings, and her remembering her mission from last time she was with Shirogane, she looks like she's going to either steal him away or force a confession out of him... but all that happens is she goes down to Shirogane's horrible singing.
  • The end of the "Dual Confession" has Shirogane ask Kaguya to join him at Stanford instead of asking her out. He then thinks that he just bought himself time before he needs to confess, restoring the status quo...for five seconds until Kaguya kisses him.
  • From the same arc's epilogue chapter, Ishigami finds Kaguya's heart charm and goes to Iino. At first it appears that he's going to accidentally confess again, with special emphasis on the charm, but neither of them take it as such. The real Ship Tease moment comes immediately after, where Ishigami verbally commends Iino on her work for the festival and even gives her photos showcasing the fruits of her labor; Iino, meanwhile, is happy about the festival's success and looks at the charm fondly.
  • Likewise, Iino looking at the charm is accompanied by a caption saying that the seeds of the next conflict have been sewn. It seems like its talking about the charm and how it might end up causing a love triangle, but it's actually taking about Kaguya and Shirogane's first kiss since Kaguya going for a french kiss causes a misunderstanding that lasts for the next 13 chapters.
  • Chapter 174 starts off looking like it's going to be another fourth wall-poking Meta chapter about MomoKan, but Iino confiscates Ishigami's manga on the first page. By Page 3 the premise has shifted to being about Ishigami trying to get on Iino's good side.
  • Chapter 180 ends with some of Shirogane's guy friends seemingly trying to convince him to peep on the girls while at a hot springs. However, Chapter 181 opens back at the student council room, where Ishigami and Iino discuss the Outdoor Bath Peeping trope (as well as a few other Hot Springs Episode tropes) and remark that besides being creepy, it's a crime and nobody would do it in real life. Instead it turns out that Shirogane's friends want to see the girls leave the changing area with wet hair.^note Their logic being that normally the only person who would see a girl with bath-fresh hair is her boyfriend, therefore they consider it super intimate and attractive.
  • Chapter 220 largely serves to relieve some of the newfound sexual tension between Kaguya and Shirogane. Even though the time they have together is growing shorter, they establish that the two of them perhaps aren't quite ready to have sex yet. They then go to sleep in the same bed, but not without sharing a few more romantic kisses. And then the last page reveals that they ended up having sex anyway.
  • Played for Drama in Chapter 249: Shirogane has just spent the chapter negotiating with Seiryu Shinomiya to get a better price for the psychological damage that his breakup with Kaguya has inflicted upon him. When he is successful in his negotiations (he gets 100 times the amount originally offered to him by the Shinomiya group), he stands there Laughing Mad about how money is everything that matters to the Shinomiyas. Hayasaka stands there dumbfounded with tears in her eyes saying she thought that he, of all people, would not give up on the love of his life. And then Shirogane drops this line:
  Shirogane: Did I ever say anything about giving up?
• Baseball Episode: There aren't actually any baseball games involved, but Chapter 196 has Shirogane, Ishigami, Maki, and Hayasaka spend an afternoon at a batting cage.
• Bathtub Bonding: Discussed in Chapter 263, where Kaguya brags to Maki about how freely she can get intimate with Shirogane, using the idea of taking a bath with him that night as an example (and while they've already slept together at this point in the series, her dialogue makes it clear that she isn't considering a Two-Person Pool Party).
• Batman Gambit: The premise of the series is two geniuses playing mind tricks to make the other confess first.
• Battle of Wits: The whole premise of the story is a "war" of love, to make the other confess. Fujiwara's games also often involve mind games. Though with Kaguya and Shirogane starting to date at the end of winter break, their war has ended and the manga slowly shifted to a more general portrayal of the relationships of the characters.
• Battle Rapping: Chapter 108 ends up becoming a rap battle between Hayasaka and Kaguya, where Hayasaka gives Kaguya a piece of her mind for how Kaguya takes Hayasaka and her services for granted.
• Beach Episode: Downplayed. A single panel at the start of the summer vacation arc shows Fujiwara and her sisters at a beach during their family vacation to Hawaii and the possibility of a trip to the beach comes up when the student council are discussing potential plans for a group trip, but there is never a dedicated beach chapter.
• Beta Couple:
  • Kashiwagi and her boyfriend are this. While they have their issues and come to the student council for help; they are dating and openly communicate with each other. While Kaguya and Shirogane refused to admit their feelings and are stuck in a constant war to make the other confess. Later on, Shirogane and Kaguya also begun to date in the winter break, thus becoming the Official Couple, while keeping it a secret due to the Shinomiya family's disdain towards common folk.
  • Among the student council, Ishigami and Iino serve as the heavily teased foil to Shirogane/Kaguya. They are equally as stubborn to each other as Kaguya and Shirogane were in the beginning, but where the latter two tried to hide their feelings through little tricks, the former two are always unknowingly helping each other out.
• Betty and Veronica: Zig-Zagged: Iino and Tsubame fit this respectively to Ishigami's Archie appearance-wise, since the former is the cute Token Mini-Moe while the latter is a tall, busty senpai regarded as the madonna of the school. Interestingly, the roles are inverted personality-wise; Iino is the hostile Tsundere while Tsubame is the Nice Girl.
• The Big Damn Kiss:
  • At the end of the Cultural Festival, Kaguya gives Shirogane their first kiss on the roof, surrounded by hundreds of gently falling heart-shaped balloons, just after declaring that she'll abandon her family name to go to America with him.
  • Averted with their second kiss on Christmas Eve, where they're just sitting on a park bench after having finally confessed their feelings for one another. There's no Grand Romantic Gesture, no fancy presents, no promises of being together forever, and no light but the half moon hanging in the sky. It's a perfectly normal kiss. For Kaguya, it's exactly what she always wanted.
• Bilingual Bonus: All the French spoken during the exchange party is left untranslated in both the original Japanese version of the manga and all versions of the anime. The English translation of the manga (both the fan translations and the official Viz Media release) provides subtitles.
• Birds of a Feather:
  • Iino brings this up in regards to Kaguya and Shirogane in Chapter 66, though it's actually averted. Every time a quality that one of them likes about the other is brought up, it's always something that they themselves lack.
  • Maki ends up striking a sort of kinship with Shirogane and Ishigami, due to their shared experience in being too shy and insecure to confess to their crushes first.
• Birthday Buddies:
  • Fujiwara and Ishigami were both born on Hinamatsuri (March 3rd). Fujiwara immediately begins complaining upon hearing this because she doesn't want to have to share her birthday party. When their birthday is celebrated later in the series, Fujiwara spends the whole time whining.
  • It's only ever mentioned in supplemental material, but Kaguya was born the same day as her cousin Maki (and by extention Maki's twin brother Mikado). Given that they've been rivals since their first meeting as children and the fact that they never had overlapping social circles until part-way though the series, it's unclear if they're even aware of it.
• Birthday Episode: Volume 6 had a several chapter long story arc devoted to Kaguya wanting to celebrate Shirogane's seventeenth birthday without revealing her feelings for him.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: The fourth wall-poking Bonus Chapter 64.5 ("Kaguya-sama: Love is War Darkness") ends with Ishigami screaming "SCREW YOU, SHUEISHA!"; naturally, Shueisha is the publisher of Weekly Young Jump, the magazine that serializes Kaguya-sama.
• Black Bra and Panties: Shirogane's preferred underwear for women to wear is "sexy black panties" as revealed by his thoughts in Chapter 70. Whether or not Kaguya actually starts wearing them after finding this out is unknown since Aka Akasaka avoids panty shots for the sake of his younger readers.
• Bland-Name Product: Mostly averted; Aka Akasaka has no issue mentioning big brand names like Pokémon, Super Mario Bros., Apex Legends, Among Us and more, as well as Apple Watches, Twitter and Discord. However, there are a few exceptions.
  • Erika's first crush when she was a child was a mascot called Marukose-kun, who is a dead ringer for Marukome-kun, the mascot of Japan's largest miso manufacturer.
  • The cafe that the student council goes to celebrate at after Shirogane's first term ends in the anime has "Minto Maid" Orange Juice, complete with a parody version of the Minute Maid logo.
  • The game Ishigami plays in the anime when Fujiwara is trying to train Iino to be less strict is "Marine Kart" (in the manga it was specifically shown to be Mario Kart 8 Deluxe). It even has an off-brand version of the Mario Circuit theme from Super Mario Kart.
  • Twitter, although mentioned by name, has its logo replaced in the anime by the bird from the movie in Episode 1.
  • Ishigami is seen drinking a can of "Mastar Energy" while studying in Chapter 198.
  • When Shirogane and Ishigami are reading the latest chapter of MomoKan in the Season 3 PV, there's an ad for "IPEX" on the back cover of the magazine.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: One chapter involves both Fujiwara and one of the Four Ramen Emperors trying to eat a bowl of spicy ramen, featuring an aside about how the introduction of ultra-hot peppers like the Carolina Reaper have catapulted the heat level of spicy food to levels way higher than previous. Both manage to finish their ramen, though Fujiwara, cheater that she is, also ate three bowls of ice cream.
• Boarding School: Downplayed. Shuchi'in Academy has both boys and girls dorms, though most of the cast (including all the main characters) live off-campus with their families. Only two characters (Kazeno and Makkii-senhai) are actually confirmed to live in the dorms.
• Bonding Through Shared Earbuds: One chapter ends with Kaguya listening in on something that Shirogane took out of the school library (after getting over her fear that his offer had some weird sexual connotation). Except it turns out that he wasn't listening to music, it was lessons on speaking French.
• Bonfire Dance: One of the plot points of the culture festival arc revolves around this in which Iino insists on having a large campfire after it was included in the suggestions box, and later on, Kaguya gets to light it. It eventually turns out that Shirogane was the one who requested it, having planed on using the updraft from the flames along with hundreds of heart-shaped balloons for a Grand Romantic Gesture to Kaguya. Maki has to watch the school couples dance around the bonfire with intense jealousy. Kashiwagi asks her to dance together, confessing she likes Maki more than her own boyfriend.
  Kashiwagi: Because... You're supposed to dance with the person you like the most, right?
• Bookcase Passage: Shuchi'in Academy's library has one of these leading to an old lookout tower. Karen accidentally comes across it during the culture festival, which puts her in the perfect position to spot Kaguya and Shirogane's First Kiss.
• Bookends:
  • The first season begins and ends with a couple being surrounded by a large group of people.
  • The second season begins and ends with Kaguya facing Shirogane while mentally resolving to make him confess.
  • The first non-anime original segment of second season is an adaptation of the first half of Chapter 30. Fujiwara's last line in the season was "Sky Burial", a reference to the second half of that same chapter.
  • The Cell Phone arc begins and ends with a group picture of the student council being displayed on Kaguya's phone.
  • The manga begins with Kaguya and Shirogane trying to force the other to confess to them as their secretary approaches them with movie tickets. The manga ends with their successors, Iino and Ishigami, trying to force the other to confess to them as their secretary approaches them with movie tickets.
  • The very first time we see Kaguya and Shirogane, they're walking side by side towards the reader. The final time we see them, they're walking side by side away from the reader.
  • Karen and Erika's first focus chapter in the main series ends with Karen pretending to narrate about an ongoing plot event passing down into school legend. Naturally, the final chapter of the spin-off ends with the exact same joke.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • In the aftermath of Shirogane visiting a sick Kaguya, in which both sides are angry at each other, the narrator observes that from their perspective, each of them has legitimate reasons to be annoyed with the other. Shirogane, despite being forcibly pulled into bed with Kaguya, hadn't done anything untoward to her. As for Kaguya, she doesn't remember what she did while she was sick. Despite this, both Kaguya and Shirogane gradually realize that they've been unfair to the other in their respective conversations with Kashiwagi and Ishigami, even as their conversation partner takes their side.
  • The debate between Shirogane and Iino. Shirogane reasonably points out that most of Iino's policies are overly strict and rather impractical (e.g. forcing students to shave their heads), but Iino brings up reasonable concerns about Shuchin Academy's reputation and can explain how her plans would help fix the problem. Iino manages to express her points well enough that while she still loses, it's relatively narrow compared to the projected landslide in Shirogane's favor.
• Bowdlerise: Both the tankobon release of Chapter 88 and the anime's adaptation of the same chapter heavily toned down Ogino's comments about "lending Otomo" to Ishigami in his attempt to bribe him into not ratting him out over his cheating by completely omitting most of his dialogue around it with Ishigami's monologues summarizing what he said instead.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the anime version of Chapter 74, Kaguya comments how the narrator sounds different due to everything going through a shojo filter. The narrator sometimes refers to episodic arcs from a real-world point of view.
• Breather Episode:
  • The "Fujiwara eating ramen" chapters come right before or right after very heavy arcs. The first one was right before the Fireworks arc, the second one came right after Tsubame's Christmas party and the third came right after Kaguya visiting the Shirogane household.
  • Chapter 91's balloon game concludes Volume 9/Season 2 after a series of very emotionally heavy moments before.
  • Chapter 181's "fanservice" chapter is mostly light in comedy in the middle of the very dramatic Kyoto Class Trip arc.
  • Chapter 195 is a Valentine's Day chapter which, in Japanese tradition, involves girls giving chocolate to the boys they like^note Though there's also giri-choco ("obligation chocolate") given to non-romantic associates like friends and co-workers. The twist is that there isn't a twist. There are no misunderstandings or hurt feelings, there aren't even a lot of gags either, just cute and heartwarming moments. Or to quote the narrator:
    Narrator: Sometimes, it's just nice to have a stress-free day. No drama, no twists.
  • Chapter 254 is a brief break in the drama of the final arc with Shirogane, Ishigami and Iino arguing about how to prepare instant yakisoba.
• Brick Joke:
  • In Chapter 83, Shirogane's father tries to give him love advice by claiming that ladies love a fast sprinter (which Shirogane brushes off as only working in elementary school). Jump forward 3 chapters to the sports festival, and Kaguya is indeed lovestruck when Shirogane wins one of the running events.
  • In Chapter 114, Fujiwara insists that she's absolutely, positively, done teaching Shirogane how to get better at whatever talent or activity he's into this week; off to the side is a narrator caption that says "To be continued in the Balloon Art and Ballroom Dancing Chapters". Both end up happening. Shirogane had to be taught how to do balloon art in the Culture Festival arc and how to dance before the second French Exchange Party, although he learns much more quickly with the latter. Although Fujiwara believes this is the last time she'll be teaching him, the narrator implies that she'll also have to help him conquer his fear of water and bugs, and if this joke is anything to go by...
• The Bro Code: Discussed individually by Shirogane and Kaguya that if Ishigami were ever to get rejected, by obligation as his friends, they would abstain from confessing for a certain period of time while he heals.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender Flipped. Once you strip away all the mind games, the story is ultimately about a girl who has been mentally scarred by the environment she grew up in, and the kind boy who teaches her to love and enjoy life.
• Bros Before Hoes:
  • Kashiwagi forgoes dancing with Tsubasa at the bonfire to spend time with Maki instead. When asked why, Kashiwagi simply responded that she cares more for her best friend than him.
  • Kaguya's phone call in Chapter 246 was a Moment Killer, but no one is angry about her, they just worry about her.
• Bust-Contrast Duo: Kaguya is on the petite side and is a hybrid of a Defrosting Ice Queen and a Tsundere. Meanwhile, her "best friend" Fujiwara has giant boobs and is a bubbly Cloudcuckoolander.
• But Liquor Is Quicker: Thankfully subverted. At Tsubame's Christmas party, Iino ends up getting drunk by eating alcoholic chocolate bonbons. A boy who'd been paying a lot of attention to her throughout the night offers to take her somewhere more comfortable...and then gets her to lie down on the sofa and sleep off the alcohol, while the other partygoers remark that Iino should never go to a bar or else this sort of thing will happen to her for real.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • The first butt-monkey is Maki, who keeps getting upset because of her miserable love life, while everyone else makes progress.
  • Ishigami. By god, he can't seem to go one chapter without worsening his reputation with Kaguya, which he admits he's seriously afraid of. Even when he's not there, people generally don't have a good opinion of him.
  • Iino becomes an even bigger one when she joins the student council with nearly every one of her chapters ending with her a shaking mess.
  • Fujiwara becomes this the longer the series goes, as the other student council members start calling her out on her crap more frequently.
  • From what little is seen of him, Hayato Hongo is treated as one, as he drops out of the election for Student Council President after Kaguya intimidates him. He also apparently tried to hit on and was rejected by the four girls, who would henceforth be known as the "Impossible Girls" ^*Tsubame Koyasu, Momo Ryuju, Kobachi Osaragi and Koromo Shiranui.
• Call-Back:
  • Chapter 56 has a sequence where Shirogane is stargazing with Kaguya during the moon viewing. It hearkens back to an Imagine Spot from an earlier chapter, where Shirogane pictured a camping trip ending with stargazing and a confession. However, in Chapter 56, he's barely even paying attention to Kaguya (even though he's unknowingly blowing her socks off) because he's so fascinated by astronomy.
  • In Chapter 74, Ishigami asks to take Kaguya to the aquarium as thanks for her help in tutoring him, chapters and chapters ago.
  • The photos of Shirogane that Kaguya shows to Dr Tanuma in Chapter 79 are the ones she took back in Chapters 17 and 72.
  • Kaguya puts oysters in her fried rice during the cooking competion in Chapter 96, as it had been established back in Chapter 5 that Shirogane likes them.
  • Almost every face that Maki makes in Chapter 98 is one that Kaguya has previously made (like so◊). It's rather appropriate, considering that they're cousins.
  • Chapter 100 shows all the pictures that Kaguya has saved on her phone. Every single one of them is taken from a previous chapter.
  • The sequence where Fujiwara notices Kaguya's new smartphone and Shirogane's musings about the subject is almost beat for beat the same sequence from Shirogane's own smartphone chapter, with some of the same panels even. Touched on when Ishigami randomly muses about how "people don't learn from their mistakes"' right after the Chapter 101 sequence.
  • Chapter 105 contains several references to Chapter 31, such as the "That was a lie!" running gag, the mention of frustration to the point of Tears of Blood, and Shirogane shadowboxing.
  • Chapter 109 has Ishigami explain to Maki the birds and the bees, much like her cousin Kaguya had to learn it from Fujiwara.
  • Iino texts to Osaragi that Shirogane a manwhore in Chapter 114 after he seems to confess to both her and Fujiwara in rapid succession, in reference to when she walked in on him and Kaguya back in Chapter 70. Osaragi's response references when she tried to talk down Iino's overactive imagination in Chapter 80.
  • Maki's appearance on the cover of Volume 13 is a mirror of Kaguya's on Volume 1◊, and the color has been inverted (green instead of red). Even the background images are in flipped locations, though Shirogane and Fujiwara are replaced with Tsubasa and Kashiwagi respectivly.
  • Chapter 129 starts with Kaguya reading an article on the interviews Karen and Erika did in Chapter 116.
  • In Chapter 134, Kaguya refers to her hunt for Shirogane as the "figure out what the President is thinking and guess where he went game", a direct reference to what he said to her back in Chapter 45.
  • The entire plot of Chapter 138 is a call-back to Chapter 98, mainly the fact that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa's French Kiss was the first romantic kiss that Kaguya had ever seen... which she then copied when she kissed Shirogane.
  • Chapter 145 once again has Kaguya trying to get some of the octopus-cut wieners in Shirogane's lunch like she did back in Chapter 5. Kaguya also mentions how Fujiwara claimed to be a "low-sugar low-carb girl" back in Chapter 117.
  • Chapter 147 has Shirogane be diagnosed with lovesickness, just like how Kaguya was back in Chapter 79. The doctor even notes that it's not the first time he's seen someone suffering from it.
  • Chapter 159 makes multiple references to Kaguya and Shirogane's movie date back in Chapter 3 (complete with Kaguya choosing the exact same seats that Shirogane had intended for them to originally have), as well as a reference to Shirogane's talk about the ABCs of love in Chapter 48.
  • In Chapter 58 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya, Karen pulls a rubber knife on Hayato when he tries to convince her and Erika to write an anti-Shirogane piece in the school newspaper. Erika quickly reveals that it's the same knife that Kaguya used for the school play.
  • The time that Shirogane accidentally groped Kaguya in Chapter 15 becomes a plot point in Chapter 167 when Kashiwagi is trying to gauge how far their relationship has developed.
  • Chapter 176 features multiple nods back to Chapter 23. Ishigami is trying to improve his volleyball skills, and gets found by Fujiwara; she initially suffers PTSD when she remembers training Shirogane, and she treats Ishigami like he's a prodigy simply because he's halfway decent — which, compared to Shirogane, is pretty accurate.
  • In Chapter 67, Kaguya mentions in her speech for Shirogane's reelection how the students were allowed to vote for where they wanted to go for their class trip. Chapter 180 reveals that this was Fujiwara's idea... and that it didn't turn out the way she hoped.
  • Chapter 181 reveals that Shirogane has a fetish for girls with wet hair, which is pointed out by the narration to be the result of how he first fell in love with Kaguya back in Chapter 121.
  • When Kaguya and Shirogane are talking about homemade chocolate in Chapter 194 and why they are respectively wary of making and receiving it, mention is made of the Cubari Facaccimo incident from Chapter 59 and the chocolate with hair in it from Chapter 14.
  • Earlier chapters showed that Shirogane tended to attract the attention of weird girls, receiving Valentine's chocolates that contained (human?) hair and emitted smoke. Chapter 195, also set on Valentine's, has him carefully checking his chocolate to avoid any more unpleasant surprises.
  • At the end of the Ballroom Dancing training in Chapter 224, Fujiwara references the very first bit of advice she ever gave Shirogane when she taught him how to play volleyball "keep your eyes open".
  • At the end of Chapter 249, Shirogane references his interpretation on the ending of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter back in Chapter 56 while telling Hayasaka that he has no intention of giving up on getting Kaguya back.
  • When Fujiwara shows off all the information that she's already gathered about the Shinomiya family behind the scenes in Chapter 250, she reminds everyone of her plans to become prime minister that she had discussed back in Chapter 111.
  • The arm-wrestling match of the first episode of season 3 cites Kaguya's archery background being the source of her surprising arm strength, and as it does that it directly references the first few seconds of the opening sequence of season 2.
  • When Iino is trying to find new members to join the student council after she becomes president in Chapter 277, there's a brief Imagine Spot of Makki-senhai offering a soda in exchange for the Tabletop Gaming Club getting a budget increase, just like Fujiwara did back in Chapter 29. Also, the chapter ends with Iino telling Ishigami "I need you" when asking him to join her student council, just like Shirogane did with Kaguya back in Chapter 69.
• Call-Forward: Several times in We Want to Talk About Kaguya, given the nature of the series.
  • When Karen catches a sight of Kaguya and Shirogane holding hands during the fireworks festival in Chapter 40, she passes out and starts quoting a Bible verse. This is identical to her reaction to seeing their first kiss in Chapter 137 of the main series.
  • Chapter 60 shows that Karen and Erika wrote an article on Today Will be Sweet, the shojo manga that the student council end up getting obsessed with in Chapter 73-74 of the main series.
  • Karen talks about the possibility of Ishigami falling in love in Chapter 72. This was set shortly before he develops a crush on Tsubame during the Sports Festival.
  • Karen mentions while preparing to interview Kaguya in chapter 103 that she wouldn't faint unless something truly extraordinary were to happen. This is exactly what happened when she caught sight of Kaguya and Shirogane's First Kiss.
  • Chapter 120 opens with Erika hugging Iino because she's smells like Kaguya due to Kaguya having given her some perfume. Iino is shown to be actively enjoying this, as it was established in Chapter 206 of the main series that she loves hugs 5 times more than the average person.
• The Cameo: Kaguya's voice actress Aoi Koga appears in the live-action movie as a movie theater employee.
• Canon Immigrant: The inside back cover for Volume 20 shows Fujiwara singing the first verse for her famous Dancing Theme from the anime.
• Captain Obvious: Played for Laughs in Chapter 76, where Kashiwagi's boyfriend comes to the student council for help figuring out why she's upset with him. It quickly turns out that the reasons are all blatantly obvious, but for some reason Ishigami is the only one who sees this, prompting the boyfriend, Shirogane, and Fujiwara all to act like he's a super-genius at relationships.
  Kashiwagi's Boyfriend: Nagisa said she wanted to play a fighting game at the arcade, so I tried to look cool and beat her to a pulp! Then she got really mad! Why did that happen?!
  Ishigami: Because you beat her to a bloody pulp! [...] Oh my God, this guy's a total dumbass!
• Cat/Dog Dichotomy: Kaguya is the Cat with her aloof nature, and Shirogane is the Dog with his tireless work ethic. Interestingly, both of them like the opposite animal, and describe their positive traits in a way that also describes what they like in the other person. Dips into Female Feline, Male Mutt as well.
• Cell Phones Are Useless: Kaguya phone didn't work when she tried to call the rest of the student council during the fireworks arc. She briefly wonders if it's due to her phone being out of date.
• Central Theme:
  • Who people are on the inside vs the masks they wear in public.
  • What high expectations can do to people.
  • Conveying your feelings directly instead of dancing around the subject.
• Cerebus Call-Back:
  • Ishigami wanting to die early on is portrayed in a comic light, even the scene when he actually tries a hangman's rope on. Cue Chapter 156 where he wants to die because he hurt Tsubame, which is portrayed as dramatic instead, especially when Ishigami slips on the stairs and accepts it, actually wanting to die from the impact of falling down.
  • Iino entering the Student Council's room at the worst time possible is initially used as a running gag where she'd get the wrong idea about a situation happening in the room due to innuendos. In Chapter 231, she arrives just in time to hear what Osaragi really thinks of her and their "friendship," and while it gets an over-exaggerated facial reaction from Kaguya, it's portrayed as dramatic.
  • Kaguya fainted after her near first kiss and was rushed to the hospital, where she was diagnosed as being "lovesick" in a Cringe Comedy segment and ultimately rejects the doctor's advice. After the actual first kiss, Shirogane collapses due to stress and the doctor gives the same diagnosis to Shirogane's confusion. Despite receiving good relationship and medical advice, Shirogane ignores it and returns to his unhealthy work schedule.
• Changing Yourself for Love: Shirogane reinvented himself as a confident academic in order to attract Kaguya after his stint as a Dogged Nice Guy proved unsuccessful. While this did help him catch her attention (to the point that she doesn't even remember that she met him before the change), she ultimately fell in love with the kind person underneath his mask. Kaguya also displayed shades of this, though her change was a case of Love Redeems. This also leads to a bit of drama during the Culture Festival arc, since both of them feared that the other only loved the persona that they had created.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Kaguya and Shirogane would originally refuse to express even the slightest implication of interest for each other. As the series progresses, they become gradually more honest about their feelings and even forget to read the meaning behind their actions when caught up in the moment. This leads to some obvious flirting moments and both are shown to be completely fine with it.
  • Fujiwara is introduced as the only normal high schooler in the student council who would refrain to acting as an oblivious Spanner in the Works but her friendship with the other members, as well as her Hidden Depths, have made her character more complex to the point fans theorize that she might be the smartest member of the student council, even better than Kaguya and Shirogane.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Kaguya's Twitter account ends up playing an important role as a cry for help in Chapter 44.
  • Chapter 60 establishes that one of the perks of being Student Council President is a letter of recommendation allowing access to any university in the world. In Chapter 111, Shirogane announces his intent to study abroad. And then Chapter 137 reveals that because Shirogane was elected twice, he's allowed two letters of recommendation, and he wants to use one of them to let Kaguya get accepted into Stanford with him.
  • The top secret report of what happened between Ishigami, Otomo, and Ogino back in middle school. It was first introduced during the sports festival arc and then disappears from plot until becoming relevant again during the End of Secrets arc when Osaragi uses it to reveal the truth to Tsubame.
  • For Kaguya's birthday, Shirogane gifts her a moon necklace that can function as a pendulum clock when swung. Kaguya uses it in the final arc to keep track of time until she can make her move on Gan'an's will, since Oko confiscated her phone.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: It's revealed late in the series that Mikado had promised to take Kaguya away from the Shinomiya Family and make all her dreams come true when the were kids. Unfortunately, the fact that they came from Feuding Families means that they wouldn't have a chance to interact again for the next decade, by which point Kaguya (convinced that Mikado had forgotten his promise) had fallen in love with and entered a relationship with Shirogane. She ends up having to gently turn down his renewed confession, and while he does accept her decision, it's obviously painful for him.
• Cinderella Plot: The Official Doujinshi adapted Cinderella in one of its Fairy Tale Episodes with Maki in the lead role. Of course, since this is Maki, she doesn't end up with the prince because her inexperience with wearing heels caused swelling that kept them from fitting the next day.
• Clip Show: Chapter 59 has the student council disbanded, and in true clipshow style, going through items that reminded them of previous chapters and taking a walk down memory lane. It even does the Stock Sitcom Grand Finale ending of turning off the lights and leaving the room in a bittersweet fashion.
• Close on Title:
  • Used in Chapter 45 (I Can't Hear The Fireworks pt. 2). Given the circumstances, it doubles as a Title Drop.
  • Chapter 59 (The 67th Student Council) ends this way, with a final shot of the student council room after Shirogane's first term as president comes to an end.
  • The anime used this in its adaptation of Chapter 68 (I Want to Make Miko Iino Smile), with Iino having finally earned the respect of her peers.
  • Chapter 187 (Ai Hayasaka and Kaguya Shinomiya's Friends) does this to mark the end of class trip arc and the beginning of Hayasaka and Kaguya's new dynamic as friends.
  • Chapter 261 (Kaguya-sama Wants to be Confessed to) does this to signify the climax of the arc and Shirogane properly asking Kaguya out to restart their relationship.
• Club Stub: The volunteering club was originally founded by Kashiwagi as a way to get closer to her boyfriend. She later gets her best friend Maki to join after the club adviser told her that they needed more members (unaware that Maki has had a crush on her boyfriend from long before they started dating). Maki admits that it's pretty much hell for her as they make out with each other whenever they think she isn't looking.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Chapter 70 starts with Fujiwara and Kaguya walking in on Ishigami getting changed in the student council room (though the narration and camera angles initially make it look like one of the girls is getting changed).
• Competition Coupon Madness: Chapter 75 has Iino get the entire student council to collect bellmarks (basically the Japanese equivelent to boxtops) for charity, with the added rule that they can only use ones from products that they've already bought. Ironically, Kaguya only manages to get 10 of them due to everything in her house being imported. She spends the rest of the chapter trying to render Fujiwara and Ishigami's much larger collections invalid so that Shirogane won't think that she's worthless (and so the fact that Hayasaka had to cut up a precious childhood memento to get her those 10 won't be for nothing). Unfortunately, Shirogane manages to completely blow everyone out of the water by collecting 255 Bellmarks from eating beansprouts.
• Confidence Building Scheme: A good third or so of the manga has a running subplot where Kaguya nurtures Ishigami's crush on Tsubame because she wants to improve his confidence and knows from personal experience how powerful of a motivator love can be for self-improvement. While he and Tsubame might not end up together, he does ultimately come out of the experience with a boost to his self-esteem.
• Continuity Cavalcade:
  • In Chapter 100, Kaguya thinks back to all the photos that were lost when her phone is destroyed. Every single one of them had been previously seen by the reader. And when the rest of the student council forms a group album so she has photos to put on her new smartphone in Chapter 101, every single one of them is new, but they can all be identified at a glance for which chapter they came from and who took the (with even more being added with it was adapted for Episode 24).
  • The ending for Episode 3 is a song sung by Fujiwara with most of her poses and lines taken directly from the manga◊.
  • The opening for the TV version of the movie takes this even further. Not only does it directly reference all of the past openings and endings, but it also features just about every character who appeared at some point in the show (almost fifty in total), recreates iconic scenes from four chapters that were previously unadapted, and makes subtle refereces to events that happen much later in the manga's timeline.
• Continuity Creep: Early chapters were (seemingly) self contained Battle of Wits between Kaguya and Shirogane, though Continuity Nods and ongoing plots became far more common as the series went on, especially after the fireworks arc.
• Continuity Nod: See this page.
• Contrived Coincidence: Fujiwara, Ishigami, and Iino all show up in turn while Kaguya and Shirogane are on their festival date, only for something to distract them before they can interfere. It ultimately turns out to be a Double Subverion. Shirogane had been secretly manipulating everything behind the scenes for months so no one would get in the way of his Grand Romantic Gesture, but Ishigami's distraction was a genuine coincidence because his accidental confession to Tsubame was something that Shirogane hadn't factored into his plans.
• Conversational Troping: The cast occasionally indulge in this, usually to look down upon common romance manga tropes that wouldn't work the same way in real life. A notable instance is in Chapter 181 when Ishigami and Iino discuss Outdoor Bath Peeping and common scenarios that accompany it.
• Cooking Duel: Chapter 96 has Kaguya, Ishigami, and Shirogane competing to see who can cook the best fried rice.
• Coordinated Clothes: Subverted for laughs. During their first official date as a couple, Kaguya arrives wearing her school uniform since that's what Shirogane normally wears every time she's seen him out of school, only for him to be wearing casual clothes instead since he felt it wasn't appropriate for this situation.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Moeha finds Kei so pure and cute, she can't help but try to corrupt her. Chapter 191 shows how Kei is about to get corrupted by money, seeing how her father keeps getting Super Chat donations on YouTube when she passes by the camera (and already having done it on purpose several times). Her brother watches in horror how she is about to lose her values, unable to do anything about it.
• Cosmic Motifs: Both Shirogane and Hayasaka have a stellar motif, though of different types. Shirogane uses real stars and constellations, while Hayasaka has more generic star fields. This ties into their respective relationships with Kaguya (who is named after the moon princess from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) since the moon is always accompanied by stars.
• Cosplay Café: Kaguya's class does a cosplay cafe during the culture festival. Hayasaka just ends up wearing her actual maid outfit.
  Subaru: Wow, Ai-chan, you're really in character!
  Hayasaka: Thank you. I've spent a long time getting it perfect.
• Courtroom Episode: On two occasions, Kaguya has had mental battles in her subconscious that are visualized as court cases, with her Superego as the prosecutor, her Id as the defense, and her Ego as the judge. Chapter 53 has her agonizing over whether to give Shirogane a birthday cake, and Chapter 141 has her trying to figure out what her relationship with him is after giving him a French kiss during the culture festival.
• Credits Running Sequence: The ending for Episode 12 has Kaguya chasing after Shirogane in an attempt to clear up a misunderstanding. It takes them through most of the school and past most of the supporting cast (including Iino and Osaragi) before shifting to the standard running loop from a side perspective.
• Criminal Mind Games: During the first night of the culture festival, a Phantom Thief steals a bunch of balloons from Class 2-B and later leaves behind a note with some clocks on it that nobody can make heads or tails of. Fujiwara, who has long since been established as a lover of games and riddles, spends most of the second day trying to figure out its meaning and catch the thief. It later turns out that the clocks didn't have any meaning whatsoever. Shirogane just threw a bunch of meaningless symbols together in the hopes that she would be distracted long enough for him to get his Grand Romantic Gesture for Kaguya ready.
• Cringe Comedy: Chapter 79 is this in its entirety, as Kaguya is baffled as to why lovesickness caused her to faint in school and pretty much professes her love of Shirogane to her doctors (in denial of course) while Hayasaka gets embarrassed on her own behalf.
• Crossover: Has a couple of short comic encounters with other manga in Young Jump. Shirogane and Kaguya briefly met with the leads of Tejima-senpai in order to manage their club's funds, and encounters the cast of Boarding School Juliet in one one-shot.
• Crossover Punchline: For Young Jump's "Jump Heroine" special edition in 2022, this series has a very brief crossover with Aka's then-concurrent serialization Oshi no Ko. There, the latter's heroine Ruby Hoshino discusses a recent photoshoot and how kind and welcoming she found her photographer. The last page reveals that the photographer was Kaguya, who finally realized her passion in adulthood, and that she eventually got married to Shirogane and took his name.
• Cross-Referenced Titles:
  • Several chapters focusing on Kaguya's (Ice) persona reuse old chapter titles, just with (Ice) added to the end (like "Kaguya Wants to Eat (Ice)", or "The Swallow's Cowry (Ice)").
  • The first chapter where Fujiwara unknowingly faces off against one of the Four Ramen Emperors of Tokyo is called "Chika Fujiwara Really Wants to Eat". The second time she faces off against one of them, its "Chika Fujiwara Really, Really Wants to Eat" and the third is "Chika Fujiwara Really, Really, Really Wants to Eat".
• Crowded-Cast Shot: Episode 17 has a scene where Fujiwara is leading the student assembly in singing the school anthem. While most of the students are random extras, just about every character who has appeared up to that point in the series can be picked out of the crowd, and there's even a few Early-Bird Cameos.
• Cruel to Be Kind: What Ishigami's plan to take down Iino's campaign boils down to. He wants an overwhelming victory in Shirogane's favor to take her down a peg, but the blow be so devastating that all the bullying she had been suffering from before, during, and after the election is turned to pity—that she didn't lose just because she was inept, she lost because her opponent outclassed her in every way. However, Shirogane making her focus on him and letting her get her points out softened the blow and turned her into a formidable opponent, ending the election with dignity and newfound respect. Shirogane's move is also an example in and of itself, since he starts off by insulting Iino's campaign promises and suggesting that she get off the stage, angering her and motivating her to argue in favor of her position.
• Crush Filter: In hindsight, this was clearly being used when Osaragi was watching Ishigami as he took a water break during Cheer Team practice in Chapter 85. It just wasn't noticeable at the time since the onlooker's crush wouldn't be revealed for another 107 chapters.
• Cultural Cross-Reference:
  • Chapter 116 sees the Tabletop Gaming Club plotting to stage a real-life Player Unknowns Battlegrounds for Shuchi'in Academy's culture festival, complete with one of the club members wearing the iconic Level 3 Helmet^note She's even wearing it slightly cocked, just like the character on the game's cover art.
  • In another chapter, Hayasaka pretends to be an innocent schoolgirl and tells Shirogane that she likes watching cute cat videos online; Kaguya, watching from the shadows, thinks to herself "No you don't! You watch things being crushed in a hydraulic press!"
  • In Chapter 57, the Tabletop Gaming Club's "Happy Life Game" is said to be based off of Sugoroku, but when it turns up again in Chapter 171 it's transformed into an off-brand version of the Game of Life, complete with station wagon-shaped pieces that hold pegs representing family members^note This reference may not be as random as it seems since Life enjoys some popularity in Japan, to the point where playing it on New Years' Day is a fairly common family tradition.
  • Hayasaka's attempts to keep everyone out of the student council room in Episode 13 references the opening for Mission: Impossible by having a lit fuse run across the screen.
  • Episode 21 of the anime showed that Iino read Fifty Shades of Grey, had a scene where she and Osaraigi were drawn to look like Peppermint Patty and Marcie, and made a reference to the music video for Vogue when Kaguya was trying to find her routine. The Peanuts reference in particular would turn out to be a major piece of foreshadowing, as both sets of characters have a shared unrequited crush on the local Classical Anti-Hero Butt-Monkey.
  • Episode 24 makes a reference to The Prisoner (1967) of all things, where Ishigami imagines a giant balloon as the Rover.
• Cute Kitten: Chapter 214 is based around Kaguya encountering one in the student council room after previously stating she hated them. It doesn't take long for her to act completely Tsundere towards it. After getting attached to it, even giving it a name, she learns that it already has an owner and that it visits the school frequently.
• Cuteness Overload:
  • The sight of Kaguya wearing cat ears caused this reaction to Shirogane, enough to make his speech get reduced to nonsense. Kaguya later made him wear one, too...and experienced the exact same reaction.
  • Kaguya also ends up frozen in place for an entire chapter when a sleeping Shirogane ends up leaning on her shoulder.
  • Shirogane ends up passing out after seeing Kaguya cosplay as a Cat Girl maid in Chapter 112.
• A Day in the Limelight: Most secondary characters get at least one focus chapter that is often completely detached from the Duel of Seduction that the series otherwise focuses on. Hayasaka in particular even gets an entire arc completely devoted to her character.
• Deadpan Door Shut: Exaggerated in Chapter 207, where Kei opens the door to find Kaguya arriving for a date with her brother only to close the door, open the door again because she was convinced she was seeing this, close the door again, freak out, and then finally let Kaguya in.
• Deconstructor Fleet: The series loves to make fun of romance manga tropes by either giving them realistic outcomes, or utilizing them in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. The very premise of the series is a deconstruction of Cannot Spit It Out, as Kaguya and Shirogane waste so much time dancing around their feelings for each other, that when they finally do get together, Shirogane only has a few months before he has to go overseas for college (albeit in part because doing so involves graduating early, something that helps force them to confess to each other).
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: Downplayed in Chapter 270, which mostly takes place on a Minecr... er, Winecraft server. The avatars are far more expressive than anything that would be remotely possible in the real game, though the fact that they look like their players and can hear each other just by getting close are both perfectly plausible (even if the latter would require a proximity chat mod).
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Kaguya's older brothers (except Unyo) are unabashedly misogynistic and believe in earnest that women exist to serve men. It's used to highlight how out-of-touch with modern society they are, rather than deliver a Stock Aesop about gender equality.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: The second season's opening uses this visual with Fujiwara (in her "Detective Chika" persona), Ishigami, Iino, and Osaragi following a trail of hearts that leads to Kaguya and Shirogane in the student council room.
• Did They or Didn't They?: In Chapter 48, Kashiwagi and her boyfriend see the student council for some more love advice, and because of their demeanor around each other and how they talk about their vacation together, it sounds like they've gotten more intimate. By the end of the chapter, neither one of them gives a straight answer, even though they both tricked the Council into thinking they were going to be a couple of Makeout Kids when they got alone time in the student council room.
• Did You Just Have Sex?:
  • In Chapter 155, Iino notices that Ishigami smells more like Tsubame than he did before she went to sleep. Due to the fact that they were alone for a few hours and that it's Christmas, she counts one and one together and concludes that Ishigami slept with Tsubame, congratulating him. However, Ishigami refused to sleep with Tsubame because she didn't want a Long-Distance Relationship with him, and Ishigami didn't want a one-night stand.
  • In Chapter 39 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya, Karen comes to the conclusion that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa has Their First Time over summer break after noticing that Kashiwagi seems to be positively glowing with sex appeal. She's absolutely right to think that.
  • In Chapter 225, Kaguya and Shirogane's friends correctly assume that they had Their First Time over the weekend and try to grill them for details.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • Hayasaka can be heard humming the opening theme to season 1 while preparing her bath in in episode 11.
  • Shirogane hums the opening theme to season 2 when trying on a waist pack in episode 32.
• Discarded, Not Delivered: Shirogane is shown trying to send Kaguya a text in Chapter 41, only to delete it because he doesn't want to look desperate. His ensuing outburst over how dumb he's being makes it clear that he's been repetedly doing this for a while.
• Distressed Drink Jitters: In episode 6, after Ishigami asks Kaguya if she's in love with Shirogane, she spews her tea out and then asks why he would say that, her shaking hands now rattling the teacup against the saucer.
• Ditzy Genius: Both Kaguya and Shirogane are legitimately very smart, but there's a good reason so many of their "battles" end in stalemates; they happen to have very little experience in the real world, and are often thrown off by variables that they can't account for.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Makkii-senhai's dialogue with Iino as she uses her as a model to gather binaural audio for their class' haunted house in Chapter 125 was clearly meant to resemble a certain genre of Hentai.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Fujiwara's pet dog is named Pes, which is Czech for "dog".
• Dog Walks You: The season 2 premier has an anime-original joke where Fujiwara is shown being dragged along by her dog Pes (on school grounds during school hours for some reason) and is then redireted by Hayasaka throwing a dog treat down a different path. This is very much in contrast to the manga, where Pes' few appearances show him to be very well behaved.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • "Chikatto Chika Chika", the ending theme for Episode 3 of Season 1, was sung in-character by Konomi Kohara (Fujiwara's voice actress).
  • "Blown In The Wind", the ending theme for Season 2, is sung by Haruka Fukuhara (Tsubame's voice actress).
  • "My Nonfiction", the ending theme for Episode 5 of Season 2, was sung in-character by Makoto Furukawa (Shirogane's voice actor) and Konomi Kohara.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Discussed. After Shirogane successfully cons Seiryu Shinomiya into giving him one billion yen in emotional damages following his forced breakup with Kaguya, Hayasaka notes that the Shinomiya family won't hesitate for a second to sick assassins on him should they catch wind of his plans to use it to get Kaguya back.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: The basis of the "how cute" Running Gag. The Phrase Catcher tends to feel belittled and looked down on, as if they were a mere insect.
• Double-Meaning Title: The "Open Hearts Festival and the Double Confessions" arc not only refers to Kaguya and Shirogane basically admitting their love for one another, but also to the fact that Ishigami (accidentally) "confesses" twice under the Festival's rules; once to Tsubame by winning and giving her a heart shaped cookie, and symbolically to Iino by giving her Kaguya's lost heart charm for Lost and Found.
• Downer Ending: Chapter 41 ends with the couple too nervous to text each other and just missing each other when they both decide to visit the school during summer vacation.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Shirogane says that Princess Kaguya's beloved was guilty of this in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The man had destroyed the elixir of immortality Kaguya had given him due to not wanting to live forever in a world without Kaguya. According to Shirogane, the elixir Kaguya's way of promising to see him again, even if their reunion would take longer than a human's lifetime.
• Dramatic Drop: Inverted in the anime where Shirogane "drops" a balloon when Kaguya pulls him in for their First Kiss. The balloon proceeds to float upwards and block the view of their lips connecting from the audience (and Karen), which hides the fact that Kaguya went for a french kiss.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Both Ishigami and Iino helped each other back in middle school, and neither is aware that the other did so. Ishigami sent Iino an anonymous letter of encouragement that continues to inspire her in the present, and Iino protesting Ishigami's continued suspension is what allowed him to graduate.
  • Kaguya mentioned to Hayasaka in Chapter 121 that she doesn't think she'd be able to get along with a truly selfless person. By that point in the series, it had long since been established that she had fallen in love with Shirogane precisely because of his kind and selfless nature.
  • At the end of Chapter 12 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya (set just before Chapter 14 of the main series), Karen and Erika comment on how pure Kashiwagi was. The chapter of the main series that came out that same week (set about five months later) had her getting caught making out with her boyfriend in a locker.
  • We Want to Talk About Kaguya is actually built on this, as most of the humor relies on the reader knowing what happened in the main series and seeing Karen and Erika grossly misinterpret it.
  • Both Kaguya and Shirogane fell in love with each other's true selves but are afraid that the other only loves them for how they present themselves to others.
  • During her trip to India, Maki thinks about the possibility that everyone else might be having just as bad luck as she is in love. At that very moment, Kaguya and Shirogane are having their Relationship Upgrade, Tsubame is attempting to proposition Ishigami, and Kashiwagi and Tsubasa are in the middle of having sex (presumably, as the entire panel is pixelated).
  • When Shirogane admits to Tsubasa and Mikado in Chapter 215 that he's a virgin, he claims that he's never even touched a girl's breasts. As a matter of fact, he actually had groped Kaguya by accident 200 chapters prior, he just has no memory of the event because he was too busy being scared by a cockroach at the time and Kaguya barely has any breasts to speak of.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas: Discuessed, but ultimately averted. There isn't any snowfall during the Christmas arc, something which is lampshaded by Shirogane when pointing out just how non-romantic the circumstances of his and Kaguya's Official Kiss was. Kaguya herself on the other hand is actually happy since such things are normal. Maki's trip to New Delhi is equally devoid of snow.
• Dress-Up Episode: Chapter 112 has Kaguya testing out multiple costumes in preparation for the cosplay cafe her class will be doing during the culture festival. She also uses it as a chance to get a rise out of Shirogane and force him to confess, but it fails because he had already decided to start being honest with his feelings for her in the previous chapter, which catches her completely off guard.
• Droste Image: The season 3 opening features a version where a slightly rotated copy of the student council room can be seen through the window behind Shirogane's desk.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
  • In the English translation, Kaguya refers to Shirogane by his last name instead of "President" and is on a First-Name Basis with Fujiwara. Both of these lead plot holes in Volume 6, since Kaguya mentions in Chapter 52 that Kei was the first person she was ever on a First-Name Basis with, and her inability to call Shirogane anything other than "president" in Chapter 60 set the entire re-election arc in motion. The official subs for the anime had the same issue when the first episode was released, but fan outcry resulted in them going back and changing it along with all future episodes. This is, additional to the fact that Japanese customs denote the level of formality in addressing a peer, the person's title being the most formal form of address, followed by the last name, while the least formal would be the first-name basis. Kaguya never addresses Shirogane by either his first or last name, as it would denote a level of fondness for him that she does not want to either admit or relent.
  • In the English localization of the first chapter of the manga, the narrator says that Kaguya is "Born to the son of Ganan Shinomiya, leader of the conglomerate." In actuality, Kaguya is Gan'an's daughter, not his granddaughter.
  • Another one occurs in Volume 9: When Otomo shows up at the sports festival to berate Ishigami, he ends up telling her off by responding "Shut up, stupid." This leads to a follow-up joke where one of Otomo's friends admits that she IS kind of an idiot, and Otomo herself reluctantly agrees on the basis that she failed the advancement exam to get into Shuchi'in's high school. The English translation changes Ishigami's retort to "Go to hell, jerk,"^note The phrase in Japanese is "Urusai baka." The most common interpretation of "baka" is "idiot," it can sometimes be translated as "jerk." but retains the follow-up jokes, making it sound like Otomo's friend agrees that she's a jerk, and that Otomo failed her exams because she's a jerk, effectively ruining the whole bit. To make it even worse, the line was a Meaningful Echo of something he had said back in Volume 4 (a line they had properly translated), so that extra meaning is also lost.
  • The only time the initial General Affairs officer and Auditor are directly mentioned in story is when Shirogane makes mention of "the third-years" at the start of Chapter 8. This is translated as "second-years" in the English translation, which doesn't make any sense since Shirogane and Kaguya are second-years themselves.
• Dub Name Change: Fujiwara's pet fish Namero is renamed Tartare in the English release of the manga. ^note The fan translation instead uses Philly as a pun on "fillet".
• Duel of Seduction: Kaguya and Shirogane are in love with each other, but a combination of pride and shyness keeps both of them from confessing. So they both try to force the other into a situation where they'd be forced to admit they're in love. Hilarity Ensues.
• Dutch Angle: Kaguya leaving the front gate of her house in Chapter 9 and walking to school by herself for the first time is drawn at a notable angle to underline her experiencing a brief bit of freedom from her rigid upbringing. The same shot would later be homaged in Chapter 187 to show how Hayasaka is now free of the Shinomimya family as the two of them walk to school together.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In both pilot chapters, Shirogane only starts thinking about dating Kaguya once he gets the impression that she likes him, and is not surprised by the latter. Later Cerebus Retcons establish that he was courting her even before his election to student council president, and was deeply insecure about the likelihood it would be unsuccessful.
  • In Tsubasa's introductary chapter, he refers to Kashiwagi as "a girl in my class" while talking to Shirogane. Later chapters establish that all three of them are in the same homeroom, so it would have made more sense for him to say "a girl in our class".
  • Kaguya's hair ribbon was Different in Every Episode for the first several chapters. Her normal "red with two black stripes at each end" one wouldn't make an apperance until Chapter 6, and it didn't become her standard design until Chapter 10.
• Elevator School: Shuchin Academy goes from kindergarten to university-level schooling, so pretty much everyone in the school is acquainted with each other. Being an "impure" (someone who didn't start at the kindergarten level) carries something of a social stigma.
• Elite Man–Courtesan Romance: During the final arc, it's revealed that Kaguya's mother was actually a High-Class Call Girl, and Gan'an did genuinely love her as opposed to just taking responsibility for getting her pregnant.
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: Shirogane and Kaguya are in constant competition for the top spot at their school, and the humor of the series revolves around them trying to overtake each other intellectually. Shirogane also accepts admission early to Stanford University.
• Enhanced on DVD: The original theater release of the movie had a montage of past episodes for the intro and more generic credits. When it was shown on TV, both had brand new visuals added in.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Played for Drama:
  • Ogino assumed that Ishigami's refusal to apologize meant that he would eventually spill the beans on Ogino threatening to release Otomo's porn that Ogino had filmed when they were an item. The longer it went on, the more Ogino became paranoid, finally resorting to destroying the SD card containing the porn and breaking up with Otomo.
  • Otomo is under the impression that Ogino broke up with her due to Ishigami, but she remains blissfully unaware that Ishigami put at stake his own reputation to protect her from Ogino's threat to release the aforementioned revenge porn he had of her.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Double Subverted during the Culture festival arc when a Phantom Thief steals all the extra heart shaped balloons class 2-B had and then leaves behind a clue to their next target that has a bunch of clock faces on it. Fujiwara seemingly solves it when Erika makes a comment about the sun setting earlier in the winter (making her come to the conclusion that the different times on the clocks corrospond to timezones). When she runs off to the computer lab for further information, Kaguya mentions to Hayasaka that Fujiwara was probably just making stuff up, but a comment that she made about how "all mysteries exist to be solved" cause her to figure out the actual answer. Namely that there isn't one. Shirogane just threw a bunch of meaningless symbols together to keep the riddle loving Fujiwara distracted so she wouldn't interfere with his Grand Romantic Gesture to Kaguya.
• Everybody Is Single: The only long-term romance shown is Kashiwagi and her byfriend (at least until Kaguya and Shirogane finally hook up over Christmas break). And despite most of the character's parents being married, the only one we see with any regularity (Shirogane's father) has been estranged from his wife for seven years.
• Every Episode Ending: Chapters normally end with the narration giving the results of the current Battle of Wits (plots that span multiple chapters usually save it until the last one). The anime kept this format, though it happens multiple times per episode due to each one adapting several chapters.
• Everyone Can See It: Kaguya and Shirogane are so obvious about their feelings that there are many rumors flying around that they're dating.
  • Chapter 50 shows the audience just what everyone else can see; in the eyes of a neutral party (in this case, Kashiwagi), all of the serious, mind-wracking battles that Shirogane and Kaguya go through and their extreme efforts to deny their feelings to themselves and each other end up looking like awkward flirting and thinly veiled confessions.
  • Pretty much the only one who can't see it is Erika, and that's only because she's completely oblivious to anything related to love.
  • The entire student council knew about Ishigami's crush on Tsubame pretty much from the moment he fell in love.
  • Onodera guessed Iino's crush for Ishigami as soon as Christmas party, before Iino herself. Maki was able to deduce it despite after the oblivious crush himself told her about their interaction. Rest of the student council quickly see it.
  • In Chapter 223, when Kaguya and Shirogane finally let the whole council know that they're dating, Ishigami and Iino not only knew the very moments their relationship became intimate, but even figured that it was only a matter of time due to their overwhelming chemistry. Iino even pointed out that they were so bad at hiding the relationship, that she figured it was one of those open secrets.
  • By the end, Ishigami and Iino are basically seen by the whole school like Kaguya and Shirogane were in chapter 1.
• Evolving Credits:
  • The ending for Season 2 initially keeps Iino's face hidden during her close-up, but she turns to face Kaguya like everyone else following her formal introduction in Episode 4. Episode 9 would further change her expression from a frown to a smile, and Episode 11 would do the same thing for Ishigami.
  • The opening of Season 3 features a scene where Kaguya is standing with her back to Shirogane with a closed hand held in front of her. In episode 12 she opens her hand, revealing the heart pendant she plans to give Shirogane for her love confession.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Chapter 215 has Shirogane, Mikado and Tsubasa discussing their bust size preferences, ending with the narrator warning boys to be careful with who hears their "boob talk" as Shirogane confesses to wanting sex with Kaguya, blissfully unaware that she's listening to their conversation.
• Exact Words:
  • Early on in the series, when Shirogane is asked for love advice, he boasts that he's never been rejected. The narrator points out that this is true... because he's never asked anyone out.
  • Shirogane mentions that he doesn't have a girlfriend "right now" to honestly state that he's not in a relationship, but dishonestly imply that he might have been in one in the past.
  • When one of Hayasaka's friends compliments Hayasaka on how convincing her maid act for their cosplay cafe at the culture festival is, she says that she spent a long time getting the role perfect, neglecting to mention just how long she's been practicing.
  • Kaguya does this in Chapter 163 as part of a Sarcastic Confession regarding her dating Shirogane by holding up a sign Fujiwara made for revealing pranks. Fujiwara assumes Kaguya was just messing with them, but savvy readers will note that she never actually says that it was a prank, nor does she ever deny that her statement was true.
  • In Chapter 191, Papa Shirogane becomes a successful YouTuber who sees an influx of ¥10000 donations whenever Kei walks by on camera during his streams. During an omake at the end of the chapter, Kei tries to convince the watchers not to spend so much money on her, with the very next Super Chat message being "Ok. Saving money." and a donation of ¥9999.
• Expospeak Gag: In Chapter 36, Hayasaka goes into a lengthy and philosophical explanation of why a sick Kaguya is acting like a moron, when the basic message is this: Kaguya turns into an idiot if she is too tired to think rationally. In Chapter 139, "Kaguya-chan" (Moron) comes to school, with Fujiwara explaining when exactly she appears. While she gives weird specifics, she's basically saying the same thing Hayasaka said, with the added component that happiness is an important factor for her to appear.
• Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: Karen and Erika shout this while spreading an article on the balloon thief all over the school in the anime (while the same article does exist in the manga, they just stick one to a bulletin board rather than throwing copies everywhere).
• Face Doodling: In Chapter 10, Fujiwara decides to play a prank on a pretending to be sleeping Shirogane by writing on his forehead. Kaguya is aghast at this since she couldn't comprehend the idea of pranks being a sign of closeness. When she does the exact same thing to Ishigami in Chapter 82, it's a subtle sign of both her Character Development and her growing closeness to him.
• The Faceless: Happens every now and again, but with Ishigami most frequently. There's a reason for this— he "closed his eyes" to people after the middle school incident, only perceiving people not close to him as faceless.
• Fairytale Motifs: The series takes many motifs from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter; several characters are either named after characters from the story, or their names reference the objects from Princess Kaguya's Impossible Tasks.
• Fake Mystery: During the Culture Festival arc, notes left by a so-called phantom thief start showing up around the school, with various cryptic clues proclaiming his intent to "steal the festival". The riddle-loving Fujiwara spends most of the festival trying to solve the mystery, but Kaguya ultimately figures out that the clues are completely meaningless. The whole thing was set up by Shirogane, solely to keep Fujiwara occupied so there's no chance of her usual Spanner in the Works antics during his Grand Romantic Gesture to Kaguya.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Played with. Episode 37 shows a montage of all the most romantic moments between Kaguya and Shirogane over the past 3 seasons as a way to remind the audience of just how far they've come as they share their first kiss.
• False Camera Effects: Episode 20 has a scene where Fujiwara is taking a picture of Iino with a filter. There is a slight delay between Iino moving her face and the filter lining up to simulate the app calculating where her facial features are.
• False Start: At the start of the election arc, Shirogane asks Kaguya to meet him behind the school so he can requst her help in his campaign, which the entire school ends up misinterpreting for something romantic and watches from nearby in the hopes of seeing a confession. Given the environment, he actually does briefly consider putting their whole Duel of Seduction aside and confessing to her right then and there, but he chickens out at the last second and goes with his original request. That said, she makes it clear in her response that she would have gladly said yes regardless of which question he had chosen to go with.
• Family Portrait of Characterization: Played with. After her father dies, Kaguya laments the fact that she doesn't have a single picture of the two of them together, reflecting the fact that he was practically a non-entity in her life.
• Family Theme Naming: The various members of the Fujiwara family all have names that reference plants in some way.
• Fanservice:
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 64.5, but it's averted the rest of the time.
  Ishigami: So this series is a romcom in a seinen magazine, but there's no boobs or panty shots or anything.
  • The Doujin Edition spin-off serves as a different version of the trope; yes, the characters are a little more sexy than usual, but the main draw comes from plots common to the series' fanfics and fancomics.
• Fast-Forward Gag: The first two episodes have a minute long segment explaining the premise of the series before the opening credits (the second time being an adaptation of a joke from when the manga changed magazines). The third episode starts off looking like it would repeat the segment again... before fast forwarding about ten seconds in and dropping it altogether for the remainder of the series.
• Faux Horrific: Kaguya becomes scared of Iino after she declares her intention to make Fujiwara her vice-president after she wins the election.
• Favors for the Sexy: In Chapter 191, Kei demonstrates to her brother that her father's viewers donate money whenever she appears on his stream. She has shown herself intentionally several times already and contemplates selling herself out on a streaming platform, since it's much more lucrative than delivering newspapers, which worries Shirogane as he sees his sister about to lose her values to money.
• Feedback Rule: Invoked by Kaugya during the Election Arc, where she deliberately triggers some feedback by poking the microphone before giving her speech for Shirogane's campaign in order to make sure that everyone was paying attention to her (it's noted by Ishigami that less than half of the students were paying attention when Osaragi went up right before her).
• Feuding Families: Chapter 168 reveals the moderate Shinomiyas formed the Shijo family when they were exiled from the Shinomiyas because of their distaste for the main families' unsavory business practices. The Shinomiyas have done all they can to interfere with the Shijos since then, forcing the Shijos to move their business overseas. In the modern day both families see each other as enemies to crush to the point Maki even states the Shijos are driven to succeed because of their grudge.
• Fictional Board Game: Fujiwara belongs to the Tabletop Games club, where they both play and create Board Games. Chapter 57 centers around the student council playing a Game of Life/Sugoroku mashup that Fujiwara's group had made. It's called Happy Life and is card-based.
• Finale Credits: The final episode of the first anime season has pretty much the entire cast get dragged into a giant stampede that follows Shirogane and Kaguya until they're all standing in a circle as the pair reaffirm their goal to make the other confess. The second season instead has Fujiwara's balloon-popping game blow up the entire school, causing the various cast members to fly by the screen (long enough for their actors to get credited) before it ends on Shirogane helping Kaguya to her feet in the ruins of the "destroyed" school. Both scenes can be presumed to be purely metaphorical, as they would otherwise create plot holes.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: The series uses this to contrast the birth of two primary couples in the series. Shirogane fell in love with Kaguya when he saw her rescue Asahi from drowning, while Iino fell in love with Ishigami when he showed her video of everyone enjoying the bonfire she worked to get approved.
• Fireworks of Love: During a fireworks show, Kaguya feels so infatuated with Shirogane that she doesn't pay attention to the fireworks.
• First Kiss:
  • Kaguya initiates her first kiss with Shirogane after witnessing his Grand Romantic Gesture during the culture festival and agreeing to go with him to Stanford. Unfortunately, a bit of miscommunication from Kashiwagi earlier on leads her to give him a full French kiss and her attempts at damage control after realizing her mistake just leave him confused.
  • Kashiwagi's first kiss with Tsubasa wasn't anything special by her own admission. They were just wating for a red light to change while walking home from a date. When being told this, Kaguya comments that it sounds wonderful as normalcy is something that she never really had a chance to experience.
• First Love: The narrator stated that Kaguya and Shirogane are each other's first love.
• Flash Forward: Chapter 275 jumps forward to the time period of Oshi no Ko (as shown by the presenece of a B-Komachi advertisement), with the now former student council and Hayasaka having a get-together. While it is ultimately shown to be a dream Hayasaka is having, the narration points towards it being something that actually will happen as opposed to just being a product of her subconsious.
• Foreshadowing: See this page.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: During the school festival, Kaguya's class did a cosplay cafe. Hayasaka, also a part of this class, decides to attend the event in her usual maid outfit and no one was the wiser.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: Erika (oblivious to all manners related to love and the least studious of the four), Maki (a Tsundere and the only one with male friends), Kashiwagi (the only one with a boyfriend and an active sex life), and Karen (the mediator of the group, though not without her own obsessions). That said, this only really applies in the We Want to Talk About Kaguya spin-off due to Karen and Erika rarely showing up in the main series.
• The Four Loves: In a manga that is all about love, all four kinds are naturally an important aspect of the story.
  • Storge (Affection/Family): Many characters have issues because they were deprived of this, either because they are neglected or because their parent left them/died. However, Kaguya for instance built up a sibling-like relationship with Hayasaka and Ishigami. Fujiwara seems to be the character with no Dark and Troubled Past and has the least problems, because she has the love of her family. Her relationship with Shirogane also is more like the relationship between a mother and her son.
  • Philia (Friendship): Prior to being student council members, most members had a near or completely Friendless Background. Tsubame is not sure, whether her relationship with Ishigami is more friendship or romance. She decides on the former.
  • Eros (Romance): A major part of why characters develop into better people is that they fall in love with someone. Kaguya only started to really defrost after falling in love with Shirogane, Shirogane became outstanding after aiming to be worthy of Kaguya, Ishigami has become more confident and ambitious, and Iino starts to loosen up and mature.
  • Agape (Unconditional Love): This is what Iino and Ishigami think true love has to be - altruistic and without reservation. However, since both think this way, neither realize that the other doesn't hate them and is looking out for them. Osaragi's love for Ishigami is also this. She wants to do everything for Ishigami to make sure he becomes happy, even if that means she has to prioritize him over her best friend, Iino.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: It's shown in a flashback that Osaragi's parents were a celebrity couple that only dated for about a month before getting married. It's all but stated that they ended up getting divorced after news of her mother having an affair was published in the tabloids, so it's safe to say that it wasn't exactly a healthy relationship.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The opening for season 3 has a slideshow of the student council room which begins with Kaguya and Shirogane present but ends with Shirogane gone. Slowing down reveals that when Shirogane disappears the room is temporarily filled with fluttering papers which disappear by the final frame. In addition, the camera then zooms into a Droste Image of the room with Kaguya standing alone, except for a single room where Kaguya is gone and Shirogane returns.
• Friendly Rivalry: Kaguya and Shirogane are academic rivals who always compete for the top spot during the end of semester exams, but this doesn't keep them from enjoying each other's company or having a rather large mutual crush. In fact, the rivalry exists because of the romance. Kaguya completely ignored Shirogane's Dogged Nice Guy routine in their freshman year, so Momo (who was annoyed by his constant moping) suggested that he present himself as someone who could stand as her equal in order to get her attention.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: While they might not always get devoted chapters to their relationships (Fujiwara with either of the freshmen for example), all of the members of the student council do demonstrate unique relationships with one another... except for Shirogane and Iino. This gets lampshaded in Chapter 165 (literally a hundred chapters after they first met) when they are alone in the student council room together, and Shirogane realizes he has no idea how to interact with her. They do become fast friends however in said chapter after discovering they do in fact have a lot in common, and develop a good Senpai/Kohai relationship.
  • Chapter 244 demonstrates Kaguya is actually the glue who maintain all of them together, and Fujiwara is especially uninterested in hanging out with Ishigami in her absence.
• Funny Background Event:
  • When Kaguya is helping a young girl walk to school in Episode 3, the girl mentions that she normally walks with one of her friends who goes by the nickname "yeti". Right after she says this, an actual yeti can briefly be seen crossing the street on the left side of the screen.
  • Every single instance where Maki is shown painfully pining for Tsubasa after he and Kashiwagi became an item, usually hiding in the background; this somewhat stopped after she was formally introduced.
  • Fujiwara also causes a few of these, like with her lousy excuse at "innocent whistling" after failing to bribe Shirogane with a soda in a Season 1 episode, and her repeating Ishigami's second "death by Harisen" in Season 2, Episode 3.
  • When Fujiwara is talking about how much she wants ramen in Episode 11, Moeha can be seen slowly passing out from jet lag.
  • While chapter 79 had Ishigami playing video games before Kaguya collapsed, in the anime adaptation Iino was trying to pull the console from his hands.
• Gambit Roulette: The series: romcom version.
• Gave Up Too Soon: One Doujin Edition chapter has Iino go around town trying to prevent students from performing indecent behavior. For most of them, the situations were non-issues or taken care of appropriately, but the last one (with Kashiwagi and Tsubasa) is the only real incriminating incident since the former had a hickey on her neck. Unfortunately Iino was spent from guessing incorrectly all chapter that she took their words at face value and called it a day.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: During the first term, the student council had two boys and two girls (there were two others, but neither of them were ever seen and their genders are unknown). The gender ratio would be skewed in favor of women after Shirogane's reelection when he appointed Iino to be the auditing officer.
• Genre Shift: A gag segment in the anime switches it to the style of a shojo romance while Kaguya, Ishigami and Shirogane imagine themselves in one, while an Imagine Spot of Iino switches to that of a serious highschool drama based on what she thought the student council was going to be like. Art Shift and different production techniques are used for both segments.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: Chapter 77 has Fujiwara and Kaguya throw a party to celebrate Iino joining the student council.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Parodied in Chapter 14 of the "Official Doujin'' where Maki is playing the role of Cinderella. The shoe doesn't fit when she tries it on, since her lack of experience with wearing heels caused swelling. Meanwhile, it fits Kashiwagi just fine.
• Girly Run: Fujiwara does one in the anime opening, though the camera zooms quickly away from it and then shows several other characters also running.
• Glurge: In universe example with Today Will Be Sweet, a tear jerking manga the cast has read. According to the brief plot summary, the male lead is an Delicate and Sickly boy with a terminal disease while the heroine lives in an abusive household and suffered from isolation and anorexia before the male lead breaks her out of her shell. She also hasn't eaten decent food in a while, and the one decent meal she gets is a curry dish made by her love interest^note which, by the way, is the only dish he's made that tasted halfway decent but too sweet before he kicks the bucket.
• Gone Horribly Right: During Chapter 226 Fujiwara urges Iino to just accept her feelings for Ishigami and be more active in pursuing him. During the very next chapter, even she is suprised at how bold Iino is at showing her affection and how effective she is in manipulating Ishigami.
• Good-Times Montage: Chapter 131 has a brief scene of Kaguya and Shirogane enjoying the culture festival together while Kaguya marvels at her good luck over the fact that all the people who would normally get in the way being distracted by a series of Contrived Coincidences. And then Shirogane drops the bomb that he's going to be graduating a year early.
• Graduate from the Story: The final chapter takes place graduation day, and ends with the now former student council heading off to a restaurant to celebrate while Kaguya and Shirogane debate where they should all go for their graduation trip. The student body even holds a pseudo-graduation for Shirogane, who dropped out earlier in the school year to skip a grade and attend Stanford.
• Grand Romantic Gesture:
  • Ishigami unwittingly gives one to Tsubame at the school festival by giving her a large heart-shaped cookie. Thing is, he was unaware that there was undertones to giving hearts to a significant other during the festival, so he remained unaware of what he did for most of the arc. To make things worse, he also gives a heart locket to Iino, as he hasn't quite grasped that hearts don't only apply to Tsubame.
  • The school festival arc is this big time from Shirogane to Kaguya, as he stole all of the heart shaped balloons and put on a phantom thief persona to shower Kaguya in them on the festival's final day in his attempt to finally convey his feelings.
  • Inverted during the End of Secrets arc where Tsubame uses her social connections to improve Ishigami's reputation among the student body specifically because she isn't in love with him and is trying to soften the blow of turning down his love confession.
  • In the final chapter, Kaguya (knowing that Shirogane was flying back to Japan unannounced to surprise her at graduation) prepares a surprise of her own by getting the entire student body to celebrate his graduation so he wouldn't feel left out after leaving several months early to attend Stanford.
• Gratuitous Rap: Chapter 18 has Fujiwara doing this when playing a "guess the word" game with Kaguya and Shirogane. She stops doing it when she fails to get a reaction out of Kaguya.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany:
  • Fujiwara invokes this on Kashiwagi in Chapter 16. She tells Kashiwagi to imagine her boyfriend with another girl and if she feels bad or annoyed then that means she loves him. The hilarious part is that Kaguya also imagined Shirogane with Fujiwara and was furious. She didn't take the implication that it meant she cared for Shirogane well.
  • Happens with a much more serious tone with Iino. She initially thought that she hated Ishigami, but once she sees him with Tsubame, what starts out as anger and frustration turns into heartache and becomes outright depressed. This epiphany is what kickstarts her Character Development since she learned that her initial behavior is the main reason why Ishigami thinks a relationship between the two would never happen.
• Group Picture Ending: Chapter 101 (and -by extension- Volume 10) ends with the student council taking a group photo with Kaguya's new cell phone. This same photo was also used as the final shot of season 2 in the anime.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. Promotional material for the series often has Kaguya with knives and Shirogane with a pistol as a visual representation for their Battle of Wits.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Shirogane is blond and Fujiwara has silver hair despite being Japanese. Lampshaded in Shirogane's character profile.
  "His hair color is merely manga artistic expression. He is fully Japanese."
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Kaguya and Shirogane have the standard black/blond contrast, along with contrasting red/blue eyes.
• Hard Truth Aesop:
  • Ishigami's backstory and status seems to make the point that it doesn't matter what the general public thinks of you, so long as those who actually know you like you. While his reviled status among the community is the source of a misunderstanding, he shows no desire to go out of his way to correct it because the student council knows the truth about it.
  • His major romance arc also brings up the idea that people who care a lot about you aren't obligated to fall in love with you. Tsubame knows perfectly well that Ishigami's a great catch and had been working hard to be a better man for her, but she just doesn't want to date him.
  • Even though Kaguya fell in love with Shirogane's genuine kindness and determination to improve himself, the fact remains that she showed interest when he acted confident. Loving the true you is great and all, but if you don't have confidence or show some backbones, likely your crush wouldn't notice or remember you. The same can apply to Tsubasa since Kashiwagi didn't show interest in him until the latter acted more assertive by Shirogane's advice that the two started dating.
• Hate Sink: Kaguya's father. He drags her a quarter of the way across Japan (causing her to miss out on a chance to hang out with her friends), and barely even acknowledges her presence when she shows up. This is immediately followed by the reveal that he has never given her even the most basic form of parental affection. Then he forbids her from attending the fireworks festival, sending her into a Heroic BSoD. And all of this is in his first appearance. To add insult to injury, it's not even shown what the hell he wanted Kaguya at Kyoto for.
• Heartbeat Soundtrack: Episode 12 has the sound of Kaguya's heartbeat drowning out the sound of the fireworks show the Student Council is watching as she stares at Shirogane in complete awe of everything he did to get her there (thus the title of the segment, "I Can't Hear the Fireworks").
• Heart Symbol: The Japanese logo for the series features a heart which is usually superimposed over someone's eye on the volume covers. Hearts are also a major motif during the culture festival arc, as there is a legend that if someone give another a heart shaped object during the festival the two of them will be granted eternal love. Said arc's climax has Shirogane showering the school in hundreds of heart shaped balloons as a Grand Romantic Gesture for Kaguya.
• Helping Another Save Face: Chapter 64 has Kashiwagi cover for Kaguya during a talk about true love when Fujiwara tries to join the conversation. Kaguya even innocently comments that she was was the one who was asking for advice, only to be cut off.
  Kashiwagi: Just be quiet! Don't let my shame be for nothing!
• Here We Go Again!:
  • Iino and Ishigami's final apperance in the manga mirrors Kaguya and Shirogane's situation at the beginning. You even have the other students comment about how cute of a couple they'd be, as well as the council secretary fuelling their first of (presumably) many conflicts with two movie tickets.
  • And not to be outdone Kaguya and Shirogane then get into a new conflict with who can get the other to propose first, since Shirogane first wants to gain the power to stand up to Kaguya's family on his own two feet while Kaguya wants them to be married as soon as possible.
• Hidden Eyes: This style is applied to the entire cheer club when Ishigami joins it, and it's used to depict how he cannot look them in the eye. It starts spreading to more individuals — even the student council — when his past gets brought up and he succumbs to his guilt. After he breaks free of his self-loathing, the trope is averted and we see the faces of the cheer club.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Fujiwara keeps the top secret file detailing what really happened between Ishigami, Otomo, and Ogino back in middle school on a bookcase in the student council room, placed in such a way that anyone could find it if they bothered looking. Unlike most examples she does this because she wants it to be found, having put it there as an act of silent protest over Ishigami's desire to keep the truth hidden.
• High-Class Fan: Played with. Shirogane is the only one in the series seen with a hand fan, but the fact that it was a birthday present from Kaguya still fits the upper society association of the item.
• Higher Education Is for Women: Inverted. Almost everyone goes off to college, with the two who don't (Terashima and Hayasaka) being female. Although, this is balanced out by Osaragi being the only one who attends grad school.
• High School AU: Doujin Edition presents us with a younger version: the Kindergarten AU. Shirogane and Hayasaka both work as teachers at a daycare and the latter has a crush on the former. The rest of the cast are still rich, but toddlers and children.
• High-School Dance: The second French exchange event held near the tail end of the series is a ball (unlike the first one, where there is no mention of dancing). It ends up serving as a Breather Episode before the start of the Arranged Marriage arc.
• High-School Sweethearts:
  • When explaining the legend of the Devoted Hearts Festival to Kaguya, Tsubame mentions in the passing that her brother and sister-in-law first got together when they were attending Shuchi'in as teenagers.
  • Kaguya's cameo in a bonus chapter of Oshi no Ko confirms that she and Shirogane will get married at some point within the next few years.
• Holiday Ceasefire: Internally lampshaded by Kaguya in Chapter 54. Celebrating Shirogane's birthday was something of an unspoken truce in her eyes, but now that it's the day after she has no problem attempting to weaponize the birthday gift she gave him in her latest scheme.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Referenced in Chapter 109. While Maki finds the idea of teenagers having sex before marriage incredilous, Ishigami points out the "1 in 3 teens have had sex before" statistic and surmises that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa are deeply entrenched in this trope.
• Hotter and Sexier:
  • The initial premise of the Official Doujin spinoff. It takes the cast of the fanservice-free series, and puts them in more risque situations commonly seen in doujins. At least for the first few chapters. Afterwards, it just becomes a collection of Alternate Universe Fics.
  • Not in the graphical sense, but late main series' gags and conversation topics are much raunchier than what the early events ever had, talking about sex becomes more common place as questions pop up about what further steps should one take after hooking up, two gags on teen pregnancy happens, one outlandish misunderstanding of an innocent board game crafting as running a full blown drug cartel / prostitution ring, and so on.
  • The OVA turned up the fanservice in the first Darkness chapter significantly, turning what was once a straight parody into an Indecisive Parody.
• Hypocritical Humor: Every other chapter, as it provides for a significant part of the humor in the series due to Shirogane and Kaguya's manipulative natures:
  • This little tidbit from Chapter 47:
  Fujiwara: We don't get to have the rest of our classes together, so we should pick the same elective!
  Shirogane: This is your chance to learn something. You should make a choice based on what you feel it is you need to learn.
  Kaguya: He's right. Wanting to be in the same class as someone simply isn't a good reason to pick an elective.
  Shirogane: [thinking] Now then... Which elective is Shinomiya going to pick?
  • After Shirogane has one good night of rest, Kaguya muses to herself that the student body would throw themselves at him simply because he looks more attractive. Not only failing to realize that her love for Shirogane also extends to her major preference for his exhausted look, and that she was just as unresponsive when he tried to coax her into confessing while he still had his well-rested eyes.
  • Any time Kaguya criticizes Kashiwagi's extreme clinginess and insecurities.
    • In Chapter 76 when Kashiwagi talk to Kaguya about her relationship problems, Kaguya finds it annoying how Kashiwagi can obsess over things so trivial, when Hayasaka has to deal with the exact same headaches from the girl herself on a daily basis. The art even lampshades it by giving Kaguya Hayasaka's expressionless face.
    • Chapter 97 has her think to herself that she'd never be as paranoid or distrustful as Kashiwagi was. And then proceeds to agree with every insane action and thought that Kashiwagi had to prove that her boyfriend wasn't cheating on her. Keep telling yourself that, Kaguya.
  • Chapter 104 is a bidding war of hypocritical humor:
    • Ishigami argues that high school is for studying, not finding love. While playing video game (called by Kaguya).
    • Tsubame shows up and request arrangements for cultural festival, obviously playing Favors for the Sexy.
    • Kaguya tell Ishigami that a love must never be left unconfessed.
  • In Chapter 110, Fujiwara criticizes invokedMoe characters for being cutesy and childish but well endowed and high pitched, while exhibiting all of those traits herself.
  • In We Want To Talk About Kaguya, Karen and Erika criticize each other for their delusions - Karen's shipping fantasies and Erika's obsession with Kaguya, considering the other not right in the head.

I-P

• I Ate WHAT?!: Chapter 13 ends with the reveal that the coffee that Kaguya and Shirogane were drinking was actually Kopi Luwak (i.e. processed from civet droppings). Both of them are predictably disgusted.
• Iconic Item: This was used as part of the Season 2 ED, with heavily stylized symbols representing items belonging to the main cast (except for Kaguya, who was represented by a full moon). In order: Ishigami's headphones and Iino's disciplinary committee armband, Hayasaka's maid uniform pendant and Fujiwara's hair ribbon, and finally Shirogane's Aiguilette.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • The chapters of the main series and Doujin usually start with "[Character] Wants to XXX". If they don't, it's a fair bet that it's either a break in the usual formula or features some major plot developments.
  • Chapters in We Want to Talk About Kaguya are titled "I/We Want to Talk About XXX".
• Ignoring by Singing: Poor Maki spends a good chunck of Chapter 216 trying to block out Kashiwagi talking about the first time she had sex with her boyfriend.
• I Have This Friend:
  • When Kaguya goes to Kashiwagi for love advice, she tries this to skirt around the fact that she's talking about her and Shirogane. Kashiwagi is so used to this by now that she sees right through her lame excuse.
  • Defied by Kaguya (Ice) when she's the one to ask for advice, who doesn't bother to hide a thing, which greatly surprises Kashiwagi.
  • Shirogane also uses this when asking Ishigami and Maki for his own love advice, and while the latter also sees through it, the former is thoroughly convinced.
  • Completely averted in chapter 193: Shirogane asks Maki for advice on behalf of his kohai. Maki immediately figures it's Iino, but the only reason Shirogane doesn't give a name is because he's unaware that both girls are acquainted.
  • Variant in chapter 233: Kaguya asks Shirogane for advice, using random names to explain the specific circumstances between two girls who are old friends liking the same guy — namely Iino, Osaragi, and Ishigami — without breaking confidentiality. Shirogane doesn't figure it at the time, but ends up doing it anyway by the end of the chapter when he sees both girls cross paths in the school without saying a word to each other, plus the fact he knows for certain that Iino likes Ishigami because he has been helping her with that.
• Imaginary Love Triangle:
  • Kaguya sometimes thinks that there is one going on between her, Shirogane and Fujiwara. However, this is all just on Kaguya's bad habit to resent Fujiwara for her qualities. Shirogane only has eyes for Kaguya. She in general doesn't look too favorable on Shirogane making female friends.
  • Chapter 74, as a parody of shoujo manga, shows Kaguya in an imagined love triangle, where Shirogane and Ishigami try to court Kaguya.
  • In Chapter 182 and 187, Hayasaka's and Shirogane's friends assume there is a love triangle going on between Kaguya, Shirogane and Hayasaka.
  • In chapter 228, Koromo being nice to Ishigami raises alarms in Iino's head. However, they don't seem interested being anything else than online gaming partners. Ishigami denies any romantic intention with Koromo in the 4-Koma, and Koromo encourages Iino to pursue Ishigami when learning about her crush in the main series.
• Immediate Sequel: Season 2 begins right where Season 1 left off with the cast surrounding Kaguya and Shirogane before cutting to the series subtitle complaining about being irrelevant.
• Improbable Chopsticks Skill: Kaguya easily catches a fly with chopsticks in chapter 15 and releases it outside. Shirogane then compares her with the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.
• Improbable Taxonomy Skills: Both Kaguya and Fujiwara are able to correctly identify a lacquer tree cockroach from a quick glance. And then Karen ups the ante in the spin-off where she's able to do the same thing from a distance (though unlike the other two, her ability to do so is Played for Laughs).
• Improvised Weapon: Shirogane uses a spice blend he bought during the Kyoto trip as impromptu pepper spray against one of Unyo's goons in Chapter 186.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Fujiwara's reaction in Chapter 139 when she sees "Kaguya-chan" (Moron) is to squee over seeing her and cuddle her like a pet.
• Indirect Kiss:
  • One chapter has Kaguya switching her and Shirogane's cups to watch him squirm over this. She didn't realize that means she's also having an indirect kiss, causing her to squirm.
  • Played for Laughs. Kaguya considers sharing earbuds to qualify as this.
• Informed Attractiveness: In chapter 166, we learn the "official" list of hottest girls in Shuchi'in according to the general student body: the student council girls (Kaguya, Fujiwara, and Iino) and the four Impossible Girls (Tsubame, Osaragi, Ryuju, and Shiranui). Osaragi is even referenced as the most beautiful girl in Young Jump history. While all of them are drawn as pretty, there really isn't much done to show them as being more beautiful than all the other girls.
• Injured Limb Episode: Ishigami accidentally breaks Iino's arm over winter break when she saved him from falling down the stairs, and she guilts him into taking care of her afterwards at Onodera's suggestion (she says it's so Ishigami will have an outlet for his guilt, but it's implied that she had other reasons for bringing up the idea).
• Innocent Bystander Series: We Want to Talk About Kaguya is a mundane version of this, focusing on the Mass Media Club misinterpreting Kaguya and Shirogane's Battle of Wits.
• Innocent Innuendo:
  • Chapter 14 is built on these. Due to thinking that "first time" means kissing, Kaguya ends up implying that she had sex with her newborn nephew on camera (among other things).
  • Chapter 22 is sort of a continuation to that. Due to her inexperience, she started seeing every word and action as an innuendo. In particular, she described the act of sharing earbuds as "penetrating a membrane with a foreign object".
  • In Chapter 91, Fujiwara wants to play a "game where you can pump it as many times as you want, but you have to pump it at least once, and whoever busts it, loses", while moving her hands in a very suggestive way ^note to make it even more obvious, the sounds for pump are like the sounds when you fap. Shirogane, Ishigami, and Iino are somewhat disappointed because it sounded like a Sexual Euphemism for a dirty game, but what Fujiwara wanted to pump with air turned out to be a balloon.
• Insecure Love Interest: They call it "pride", but at the end of the day, this is the real problem that prevented the (clearly smitten with each other) Kaguya and Shirogane from confessing their real feelings for so long.
  • Shirogane fell in love with Kaguya the first day he met her; however, life experience had taught him that there is no such thing as "true love", and that nobody could love you unless you put on a mask and adopt a different persona to attract their interest. On top of that, Kaguya wasn't just anybody - the balance of power between the two didn't even merit comparison. She was certainly not someone who he could ever stand beside as an equal. So he began to strive every day to establish and maintain his status as the smartest student at Shuchi'in, through blood, sweat, and tears, because his good grades were the only advantage he had over her. Because through them, he felt he could become someone who could someday be worthy of her. And that's why he can't be the one to confess, because if he opened his heart, any response Kaguya would give would just seem like pity for someone so far below her. Even if she agreed to date him, he would always exist in her shadow, and he could never close that gap.
  • Kaguya was raised to see the worst in people, and to only see them as tools to be exploited for the benefit of her and of the Shinomiya family. That was what made it so strange when she met Shirogane, someone who was genuinely kind to everyone he met. No matter how hard she looked or scrutinized, she couldn't find anything against him, and so she was forced to accept that her way of thinking was wrong, and that there really were people out there who were as kind as they seemed. That revelation made her hate herself more than she already did, seeing herself as nothing more than a cold and hateful shell of a person in comparison. And that's why she can't be the one to confess, because she can't know for certain if she's just misinterpreting their relationship - if he's just kind to her because he's kind to everyone. If she opened her heart, and he refused, she'll have ruined one of the few genuine friendships she's ever had in life.
• Insignificant Anniversary: Kashiwagi and Tsubasa's 6 month anniversary sets in motion the conflict for Chapter 97, with him ending up being Mistaken for Cheating when getting Maki's help picking out an anniversary present.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In Chapter 161, Maki tries to console herself by saying that success in love is very rare. She thinks to herself that even Kaguya and Shirogane, Ishigami and Tsubame, and Tsubasa and Kashiwagi probably aren't doing too well. These thoughts are immediately followed by Smash Cuts proving her wrong: Shirogane and Kaguya kissing, Tsubame hugging Ishigami, and a pixellated Sexy Discretion Shot for Tsubasa and Kashiwagi.
• Insult Friendly Fire: When Kashiwagi and Maki meet up at a restaurant over winter break to discuss the latter's trip to India, they end up talking about how stupid some people are for believing that crystals can have special powers. Unbeknownst to both of them, Tsubame is sitting the next table over and actually had been scammed into buying one of those crystals earlier that day.
  • In Chapter 263, Maki and Kaguya argue, Maki calls Kaguya for flirting with a commoner, Kaguya strikes back bragging about their perfect sex life. Then Ishigami, Iino and Fujiwara show up, having heard everything. Ishigami calls Maki for referring to Shirogane as such, but they all complain for Too Much Information. At this point of the story, everyone present but Kaguya is unhappy due to their failed love life, so Kaguya's bragging was very cruel for them.
• Internal Homage:
  • In Chapter 11 Shirogane buys a new smartphone, and in Chapter 101 Kaguya buys one. Many of the panels are changed only slightly to fit the new events, and the composition is exactly the same in some cases. Dialogue is reflected by the different circumstances, but in some cases almost the same.
  • Chapter 80's first and second pages have Iino introduced with the same paneling of Ishigami's introductory chapter.
  • Chapter 144 does this for Chapter 38. Both deal with Kaguya and Shirogane seeking advice regarding their relationship in a Two Scenes, One Dialogue manner, both have Kaguya asking Kashiwagi in the student council room, and both have Shirogane asking for advice while lying under a tree. The only real differences (aside from the specifics of the discussions) are that Shirogane is asking Maki for advice instead of Ishigami, and the fact that it's the middle of winter. Both chapters even end with Kaguya touching Shirogane on the lips.
  • Chapter 176 revisits Chapter 23, with a shot for shot recreation of when Fujiwara came across Shirogane practicing volleyball, just with Shirogane replaced with Ishigami.
    Fujiwara: I'm getting deja vu. I feel like I've been in this situation before.
  • The final panel of Chapter 187 is near identical to Kaguya leaving her house and walking to school for the first time in Chapter 9, the only difference being that Hayasaka is going with her.
  • The shot of Kaguya offering her Valentine's Day chocolate to Shirogane in Chapter 195 calls back to her holding a heart balloon after seeing his Grand Romantic Gesture in Chapter 136.
  • In chapter 98, Ishigami forces Maki to admit she has a crush on Tsubasa, then she cries. In chapter 251, Ishigami forces her to admit she likes Kaguya, then she cries. One panel is identical except uniforms which switched from winter to summer, two panels are just copy-pasted.
• Interrupted Bath: In Chapter 42, Kaguya keeps dragging Hayasaka away from her bath to help set up a Twitter account. As a result, Hayasaka spends most of the chapter wearing nothing but a Modesty Towel.
• In the Style of: The series has often been described as being Death Note as a romantic comedy.
• Intimacy Via Horror: Ishigami invites Tsubame to check out his class's haunted house during the culture festival in an attempt to get closer to her because it includes a section where people are put in a locker for several minutes for some horror ASMR. Unfortunately, Iino catches Kashiwagi and Tsubasa making out in one of the lockers, leading her to start splitting people up by gender before he and Tsubame arrive.
• Intimate Artistry: This is used as the subject for one of Kaguya and Shirogane's many Battle of Wits when they're paired up in art class. Kaguya ends up producing a photo-realistic drawing with roses on the side without even thinking about it, then deliberately tries to make it less appealing in order to hide her feelings for him (but keeps on finding the end result attractive no matter what she does). Shirogane, meanwhile, becomes engrossed in his work and accepts nothing but perfection, repeatedly tearing up his work until he manages to produce something that he feels captures her beauty.
• Intimate Hair Brushing: A flashback shows Hayasaka brushing Kaguya's hair alongside a caption talking about how they're Childhood Friends.
• Intimate Telecommunications: Downplayed. Kaguya and Shirogane spend almost 5 1/2 hours talking on the phone in Chapter 170 as they lie in their beds (and the only reason it wasn't longer is because the former isn't used to staying up late and eventually passed out). Nothing sexual actually happens, though it is framed in such a way to make it seem like they're lying next to each other.
• Ironic Echo: After Kaguya fails to beat Shirogane in the end of semester exams in Chapter 31, the narration describes her as being so frustrated that she might start crying Tears of Blood. This is repeated with Ishigami in Chapter 105 after he doesn't reach his goal of breaking the top 50 in his grade during the following semester's finals, only this time around it isn't being Played for Laughs.
• Irony:
  • In Chapter 14, Shirogane and Fujiwara can't believe 34% people have their first time in high school. At that point, everyone in student council was a virgin. At the beginning of the final arc, 2 out of 5 student council members have done it, 1 discarded an opportunity to do it in first year, 2 were one phone call short of doing it.
  • When the student council collects bellmarks only using things they've already bought in Chapter 75, Kaguya only gets 10 due to everything in her house being imported. In other words, she was too rich to win a contest that involved spending money. To take the irony even further, Shirogane ended up collecting more than everyone else put together.
  • Shirogane and Fujiwara prevent Iino from being the one to cheer up Ishigami after he comes in second place in the relay race, because they felt that it'd be better for Ishigami if the Cheer Team did it instead. Jump forward to the End of Secrets arc and they're both shown to support Iino's crush on Ishigami, who is now interested in Tsubame in part because she was the first one to cheer him up after said race.
  • Maki is the one character in the series who is shown to outright dislike Kaguya. Naturally, two of her closest friends are the resident Kaguya fangirls Karen and Erika. This is due to the fact that she has spent most of her life being compared to Kaguya and actively comparing herself to her, being a "Shinomiya" but much more familiarly removed than Kaguya.
  • Kaguya is established as being a Clingy Jealous Girl in regards to Shirogane, getting worried whenever another girl is shown to be close to him. When she discovers that Moeha (whom she has previously been established has having a hard time interacting with) also has a crush on him, the two of them use it as a bonding experience as they both gush about all the things they like about him.
  • Iino, in spite of being on the disciplinary committee, is shown to have the absolutely kinkiest thoughts of anyone in the student council.
  • One of the series premier Running Gags is Shirogane imagining Kaguya giving him a condescending "How Cute" over any sign that he likes her. The one time she actually does this, it's because he isn't acting on his feelings for her.
  • Chapter 152 has Kashiwagi trying to keep several people out of the Student Council room to keep them from finding out about Kaguya and Shirogane's Secret Relationship. It's later shown that all but one of them were already a Secret-Keeper or Secret Secret-Keeper at that point.
• I "Uh" You, Too:
  • A platonic variant in Chapter 77. After Fujiwara finally spits out how much Kaguya means to her (even using the word love during this), Kaguya merely responds that she tends to keep the things close to her around her.
  • In Chapter 192, Osaragi tells Ishigami that she has always looked at him and that she prays for his happiness. That is as close to a Love Confession as she will likely ever get, as she has pledged to make him happy with whomever he wants to be with, even if it's not herself.
• Jobless Parent Drama: Shirogane's father lost control of his company to Kaguya's eldest brother Oko roughly seven years before the start of the series, leaving him and Kei to have to work several part time jobs to provide for the family. Kei is even shown calculating how many paper routes a dress would cost while window shopping with her friends. Fortunately, the family's finances take a turn for the better later on when Papa Shirogane manages to become a sucessful YouTube streamer.
• Judgment of Solomon: The Japanese version of the story with Echizen Ooka — a famous historical magistrate in service of the Tokugawa shogunate during the 18th century whose life inspired a Long Runner prime-time television series that ran from 1970 to 1999 — is parodied when Kaguya and Fujiwara begin pulling at Shirogane's arms over who is the better teacher. The narrator then brings up how in the story (portrayed in the anime by Ishigami as Ooka, and Tsubasa, Kashiwagi, and Maki as the kid and the mothers), the better mother (portrayed by Kashiwagi) was willing to let go of the child when she noticed he was in pain. The tug-of-war between Kaguya and Fujiwara plays out differently depending on the medium. In the original manga, both girls absolutely refuse to let Shirogane go, only stopping out of exhaustion after 16 minutes of struggle. In the anime, both girls let Shirogane go at the same time when they realize he's in pain.
• "Kick Me" Prank: Iino was often subjected to these back in middle school, with signs mocking her inablity to win the student council elections. On at least one occasion, Ishigami quietly removed one without her noticing.
• Kids Are Cruel: The story has shown time and time again how cruel teenagers in school can be. Many resented or bullied people like Kaguya, Ishigami, Iino, and Osaragi out of jealousy for their talents/looks, or for being socially awkward and alone.
• Kingmaker Scenario: Kaguya has no real chance of inheriting the family business empire due to being an illegitimate child, but she had Hayasaka collect a wealth of blackmail material on all three of her older brothers that could tip the scale in any of their favor. This also paints a massive target on Hayasaka's back when she decides to retire from her role as Kaguya's valet.
• Kissing Cousins: Downplayed. Kaguya is betrothed to her cousin Mikado during the final arc, though they're very distantly related (second cousins twice removed, or eight degrees of separation).
• Kissing Discretion Shot:
  • Played for Laughs when Kashiwagi gives a rather lewd kiss to her boyfriend after receiving definitive proof that he wasn't cheating on her with her best friend. They're only shown from the neck down, while the student council provides reactions.
  • Kaguya and Shirogane's first kiss has their lips blocked off by one of the hundreds of heart-shaped balloons from Shirogane's Grand Romantic Gesture, though it is shown in full at the end of the following chapter.
• Landslide Election:
  • Subverted when Shirogane runs for reelection, since while he's initially projected to win 90% of the vote, his deliberately helping out Iino leads to him only having a 40 vote lead.
  • Played straight the following year. Thanks to a good showing on her prior attempt, having the backing of the previous student council, and a year's worth of Character Development, Iino's run for Student Council President in Chapter 275 is a complete runaway with 83% of student body voting in her favor.
• Language Barrier: In Chapter 20 Shuchi'in Academy hosts a party for their sister school in Paris. It's only after the party starts that Shirogane realizes he's the only one there that doesn't speak French, forcing him to try and hide it with what little he memorized from a phrasebook. This actually ends up helping him when a French girl gives him a Breaking Speech as part of a Secret Test of Character, since he has no idea that she's even insulting him, let alone what she's saying.
• Lap Pillow: Iino of all people offers one to Ishigami during Chapter 227, in order to better comfort him after his heartbreak, which he accepts! Even Fujiwara is unnerved by this development, and she was the one who encouraged Iino to become more bold in the first place!
• Large Ham: The narrator. He will happily describe whatever the current scheme is with full force.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In Chapter 3 of Doujin, Fujiwara uses a hypnosis app on her phone to make Shirogane and Kaguya more honest with each other. After finding them both freaking out in the nurse's office, she uses it to wipe their memories of the chapter.
• Laser Hallway: Chapter 30 opens with Hayasaka dodging lasers to break into the student council room in the middle of the night and swap out Shirogane's personal supply of coffee beans for decaf. Why a high school of all places would have laser security isn't really specified (even if it is a school for rich kids), so it can probably be chalked up to Rule of Funny.
• Last Episode Theme Reprise: In the final episode of season 3, the ending song "Sentimental Crisis" from the first season plays as Kaguya and Shirogane share their First Kiss. While there is plenty of material to adapt into future seasons, this moment does mark a major shift in the plot.
• Last-Name Basis: Everyone is referred to by their last name. The only exception being Fujiwara, who is on a one-sided First-Name Basis with Kaguya (mutual First-Name Basis in the English translation), as well as with Iino.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The special chapter has Ishigami read a romcom seinen manga Momo-chan Doesn't Think, and comment that it's an oddball in the magazine because it's completely devoid of Fanservice. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?
  • In the Young Jump 100th chapter, Shirogane and Ishigami celebrate the anime adaptation announcement of Momo-chan, and has the chapter end with Shirogane instructing the student council to say "Anime adaptation banzai!" repeatedly, just to drive the point home. Shortly before this chapter was published, Kaguya-sama announced that it was getting its own animated adaptation.
  • Chapter 140 did the same thing for the announcement of the live-action movie, complete with having the same actor in the lead male role.
• Lemony Narrator: The narration in this series takes itself way too seriously at times, and other times it's directly responding to what the characters say in a snarky fashion.
  Shirogane: What am I, some lovestruck teen in a third-rate romcom?!
  Narration: Yes.
  • This trope occurs even moreso in the dub, the narrator frequently giving his thoughts on what's occuring on screen as if he's an audience member.
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: Chapter 58 has Kaguya challenge Hayasaka to seduce Shirogane after the latter calls her out for her lack of progress. She does a lot better than Kaguya ever had at that point, only failing because Shirogane has Single-Target Sexuality and Kaguya only gave her one day.
• Lie Detector: Fujiwara pulls one out while the student council is playing the 10 Yen game to make sure that everyone gives truthful answers, though it never ends up being used.
• Light Liege, Dark Defender: While both Kaguya and Shirogane are incredibly intelligent and resourceful, Kaguya's upbringing means that she's a lot more willing to do morally questionable things in the pursuit of her goals, especially if it involves protecting Shirogane.
• Like Father, Like Son: Most of the main characters' families have similar personalities (for example, Kei Shirogane being enough like her brother Shirogane that Kaguya has a similar dynamic with both of them), but the school sports festival features a spoof. Both of Fujiwara's sisters are well-endowed, so Kaguya comes to the conclusion that it runs in the family; however, when their mother finally appears it's shown that she has a completely average bust, leading Kaguya to wonder if the big-breast genes come from their father.
• Limited Social Circle:
  • In general, this is subverted. While the student council is by definition an exclusive clique and most chapter only show them with each other, all five of them are shown to either already be a part of or join separate friend groups (in particular, Ishigami joining the Cheer Team marks a major turning point in his character arc). Even most of the major secondary characters have two or three different sets of friends that they hang out with.
  • Deconstructed with Ishigami back in middle school. His teammates when he was on the soccer team were the only friends he had, so when he quit and it became too awkward to keep hanging around with them, and thus was left with basically nobody who would speak on his behalf when the whole incident with Otomo happened (barring Iino, but saying that they were friends back then would be a bit of a stretch).
• Line-of-Sight Name: Chapter 3 has a variation when Shirogane is trying to figure out how to make sure he and Kaguya end up sitting next to each other in the movie theater without directly telling her his seat number. He sees a mascot costume of a character named Pen-tan (who is the star of a show called 12 Great Penguins) and chooses seat G-12, subtly trying to pass on the information to Kaguya by pointing out the mascot after he gets his ticket. Unfortunately, her train of logic goes from Pen-tan to Pentane (C5H12), comes to the conclusion that he's sitting at seat H-12, and picks seat H-13.
• Locked in a Room: Chapter 78 has Kaguya and Shirogane checking the equipment for the upcomming sports festival, only for the door to get jammed due to a tree branch. The thing is, they're so used to their ongoing Battle of Wits that both are convinced that the other is pulling an elaborate scheme to force them to confess, unaware of the actual danger they're in given the isolated location and the fact neither is carrying a phone. They almost end up having their first kiss when Shirogane falls on top of Kaguya, only for Iino to open the door at the last second (which ends up being an important plot point for the next several chapters).
• Logging onto the Fourth Wall: In Chapter 101 (and its adaptation in Episode 24), Kaguya shows a QR code on her phone so she and Shirogane can exchange LINE IDs. Scanning it will pull up a link for purchasing the series' official LINE stickers.
• Lonely Piano Piece: "Souiu Natsu" (That Kind of Summer) plays during some of the most depressing moments in the anime, like when Kaguya and Shirogane try and fail to meet up over summer break or when Kaguya is forbidden from attending the fireworks festival with her friends.
• Lonely Together: Maki preemptively offers to do this with Ishigami during the Culture Festival arc, promising to hang out with him if Tsubame turns down his love confession so they could both wallow in misery over their failed love lives together. She draws the line at being his date for the dance, though, feeling that pairing up for convenience's sake would be wrong.
• Loony Fan: Papa Shirogane moves his entire family to a new apartment after a fan tracks him down and tries to follow him home. Koromo and Osaragi also mention that similar things have happened to them in the past when Iino suspects that she's being stalked.
• Loophole Abuse: Subverted in Chapter 85. When Iino threatens to confiscate Ishigami's game console, he points out that he's currently underneath the student council room (which is treated as being outside of the school grounds and therefore exempt from the rules). Rather than leave him be, she just drags him several feet so that he is on school grounds and confiscates the game.
• Loser Protagonist: It appears to be inverted but is ultimately played. Kaguya and Shirogane are both brilliant individuals who can expertly debate highly complicated and intricate subjects like philosophy without blinking an eye, and they are adored by their elite school as model students by both the faculty and the staff. Despite this, both of them are repeatedly mocked by the narration for their simplistic views of romantic relationships and their inability to confess to one another, which turns them from intelligent chessmasters into bumbling idiots.
• Lost in Translation:
  • The infamous Heh Heh, You Said "X" chapter/episode focuses on the word "chinchin", which is a slang term for "penis" but is also the Japanese term for "beg" (as in, the dog-training trick). The official translation goes with "wiener", which loses the latter connotation entirely and makes it sound like Fujiwara really is talking about her dog's penis apropos of nothing.
  • Given how the series title was changed for the English release, any gags relating to "The Geniuses' War of Love and Brains" subtitle being rendered obsolete are bound to leave more than a few fans scratching their heads. Especially since Season 2 opens with that gag without any other context.
• Lost Will and Testament: Played with. The plot of the final arc centers around finding and destroying Gan'an's will so Oko can't force Kaguya into an Arranged Marriage.
• Love Confession: The entire series is built on Kaguya and Shirogane trying to force a confession out of one another. The offical confession comes from Kaguya when the two of them are on their first date in Chapter 160, though both of them had technically admitted their feelings 10 chapters earlier.
• Love Confessor: Kaguya admits to Hayasaka that she's in love with Shirogane in Chapter 120. Given the fact that she had spent the entire series denying it up to this point, Hayasaka is shocked.
• Love Letter:
  • Kaguya gets a love letter in Chapter 12. She has no intention of actually meeting the person that wrote it, but she pretended to be interested in order to force Shirogane to confess to her. The writer of the letter was never identified. Chapter 3 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya (which takes place concurrently with Chapter 12 of the main series) rules out resident Kaguya fangirl Erika... while at the same time revealing that she has a massive box of letters addressed to Kaguya that she's never sent.
  • The light novel's plot is set in motion when Kaguya receives another letter, presumably from the same student. It's not. Hayasaka had taken care of the original writer months ago and the current one was actually written by Kaguya herself as part of another one of her schemes to get Shirogane to confess.
• Love Theme: While it's heard under a variety of circumstances, "Kokuhaku" is most commonly played in the anime whenever Kaguya and Shirogane are having a particularly romantic moment.
• Love Triangle: The series has two of these, though neither of them include the main couple.
  • Kashiwagi and Tsubasa start dating early in the series, both unaware that Kashiwagi's best friend Maki has had a crush on Tsubasa for a long time. A big part of Maki's character is trying to stay loyal to her best friend while dealing with insane jealousy.
  • Ishigami ends up developing a crush on Tsubame after the sports festival, and Iino in turn falls in love with him during the culture festival (but remains unaware of her own feelings). Tsubame likes Ishigami as a friend at the very least, but she isn't sure if she wants a relationship with him which isn't helped by her Commitment Issues due to her previous boyfriend cheating on her.
• Loves Me Not: In Chapter 83, Shirogane is shown sitting alone with a flower that's had most of its petals ripped off. While we don't actually see him remove any of the petals, it tips off Kei for the first time that he has a crush (though she doesn't find out at the time that it's Kaguya).
• Lunarians: The series canonically takes place in a world where The Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter is an actual historical event, meaning that at some point there were aliens living on the moon. This is only established in the Volume 4 Q&A, and the series is never shown to have actual science fiction or fantasy elements.^note Barring that yeti in Episode 3 of Season 1, the Moon breaking in Episode 3 of Season 2 (which apparently happened due to the moon still being broken in Episode 12), the Cubari Faccaciamo, the ghost of Girl A in the Light Novel, etc.
• Make Way for the Princess: Kaguya and Shirogane pull this off in the first real scene of the series. as they head towards the student council room while resident Fangirls Karen and Erika provide commentary. This scene would later be recreated in the first Gender Flip chapter of the Official Doujin.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Discussed. While there has been a lot of emphasis on girls in the story being just as hormone-addled in relationships, Kashiwagi's advice to Kaguya in volume 22 boils down to asking her to be considerate of Shirogane's libido, as she claims that all boys are holding back on sexual feelings at a larger rate than girls which makes them awkward and nervous about ruining things for both of them.
• Marshmallow Hell: Only done by Fujiwara, the Team Mom and main character with the biggest chest.
  • At the end of Chapter 34, Fujiwara hugs Kaguya this way, overwhelmed that her "son", Shirogane, could properly hit the notes and sing.
  • In Chapter 139, she excitedly subjects "Kaguya-chan" to this, who is not happy about this (considering her A-Cup Angst) and hits Fujiwara's chest.
    Ishigami: We just got a glimpse at the inner workings of Shinomiya-senpai's psyche.
• Masochism Tango: The entire basis of why the series is so funny is because both Kaguya and Shirogane constantly torment each other and themselves by playing mind games to force the other to confess their feelings first, when both already desperately want to do so and are deeply in love.
• May–December Romance: Implied with Kaguya's parents. Nayotake appears to have been in her twenties or thirties when she was born, while multiple context clues (like her and Maki being 2 generations apart despite having been born on the same day or the age gap between her and her brothers) point to Gan'an being an old man.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • If you listen very closely during all the times that Ishigami heads home early in Season 1, you'll faintly hear the cheer team practicing in the background. This most likely played a role in his decision to join in the sports festival arc.
  • Ishigami clearly notices Kaguya and Shirogane on their date in Chapter 160.
  • Once Kaguya and Shirogane start dating, they can occasionally be seen discreetly being affectionate to one another (as they have to keep their relationship a secret to keep Kaguya's family from finding out). One particular example being Chapter 164, where they are clearly holding hands in the background while the rest of the student council is distracted with the "I love you" game.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • When Shirogane is talking to Ishigami about girl trouble that "a friend" is having in Chapter 38, Ishigami eventually yells "Shut up, stupid!" after getting frustrated with how annoying the girl sounds. Jump forward to Chapter 89 in the Sports Festival arc, when it's revealed that Shirogane had originally told him to write this when he had to make an apology letter for Ogino. And then he uses it again against Ootomo when she continues to hold a grudge against him due to being oblivious to everything he did to protect her.
  • When Shirogane pulls off a Grand Romantic Gesture for Kaguya in Chapter 135, it ends with him telling her "this is how I feel". When Kaguya gives him a kiss in Chapter 136 after agreeing to come with him to Stanford, it ends with her telling him "this is how I feel".
  • In Chapter 10, Kaguya tries to whisper to a (pretending to be) sleeping Shirogane that she loves him as part of a ploy to influence his dreams. She does this again in Chapter 144, except Shirogane is actually asleep and she actually means it.
  • The first time Kaguya and Maki met as children at a party during a flashback in Chapter 168, Maki asked Kaguya if the book she was reading was good and Kaguya asked if she wanted to read with her. Given that Maki's father had told her that all Shinomiyas were evil, she turns her down. 10+ years later, they would repeat this conversation regarding a porn DVD, only this time Maki accepts her offer.
  • In Chapter 33, Hayasaka tells Kaguya that she shouldn't take her for granted or she may end up facing divine punishment. She thinks that line to herself in Chapter 177 as it's revealed that she'll be stepping down as Kaguya's valet with this addendum:
    But even if that happens, I'm sure you'll be able to overcome it. You aren't alone anymore Kaguya-sama. You'll be fine even when I'm gone.
  • Chapter 85 and Chapter 192 are narrated from Osaragi's POV and start the same way, with her introducing herself. Except in Chapter 192, her introduction is a flashback back when she was still a cheerful, social and cute-dressed Child Popstar. In the present, she dresses plainly, her beautiful face is hidden by her Scary Shiny Glasses, and her voice actress, Rina Hidaka, voices this line in Episode 22 more in a matter-of-factly manner. This contrast shows how Osaragi Used to Be More Social and Took a Level in Cynic after constantly being harassed and mocked by her fellow students in school.
    Osaragi: I'm Kobachi Osaragi. It's written as "Daibutsu", but you read it as "Osaragi". Please remember.
  • In Chapter 158, Osaragi responds to Onodera's compliment on her looks with a blasé "Huh. Thanks." Chapter 192 reveals that Tsubame had told her to say this whenever she felt she was receiving empty praise. The similarities with Ishigami's "Shut up, stupid" line above are quite deliberate.
  • In Chapter 275, Osaragi repeats her line from Chapter 68 about how happy she is for Iino following the election, the only difference being that Iino won rather than getting in a close second. She's even in a near identical pose.
• Meaningful Name:
  • As mentioned in Theme Naming below, most of the major characters are named after story elements from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. For the various members of the student council, their personalities were based off of the author's interpretation of their counterparts.
  • Karen and Erika are unique in that they are named after a real life poet and artist respectively, which both fits their status as members of the Mass Media club and demonstrates how they are looking in on Kaguya and Shirogane's story rather than actually being a part of it.
  • From chapter 249 onwards the "War of Love and Brains" subtitle of the is bought to the forefront as Shirogane wages war on the Shinomiya faction in order to get Kaguya back and save her from a loveless Arranged Marriage.
• Medium Blending:
  • Episode 18 briefly changes into a Motion Comic version of Chapter 67 when showing Ishigami's flashback of Iino, with even the gutters left intact.
  • Episode 32 has several scenes where the show shifts into redrawn panels from Chapters 120 and 122.
• Melancholy Moon: Chapter 56 has a case where the moon itself is the cause of the melancholy. While the student council is moongazing during the Full Moon festival, Kaguya mentions that she hates the moon due to it reminding her of her namesake Princess Kaguya in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (who was forced to return to the moon and abandon the man she loved). The next time the moon becomes a plot point it's under far more romantic circumstances, as a half-moon is used to represent her and Shirogane finally meeting in the middle and having a Relationship Upgrade.
  • The moon returns once more in Chapter 261, where Shirogane is reunited with Kaguya after the Shinomiya family took her away from him. Representing that unlike The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter story, Shirogane saved his Kaguya.
• Minor Living Alone: Parodied in the harem bonus chapter, where Shirogane considers the fact that he and Kei are living at home without adult supervision while their parents work overseas to be a major red flag and is curious why child protective services haven't intervened. As for the series proper, everyone either lives with their families, in the school dorms, or in Kaguya and Hayasaka's case has a mansion full of adult servants. And while Hayasaka might be living by herself following her quitting her job (it's never specified if she bought an apartment or moved in with her parents), she was only 2 months away from turning 18 at the time anyway.
• Modesty Bedsheet: Kaguya and Shirogane are depicted this way after they have sex for the first time, Shirogane fast asleep while Kaguya lies awake in shock of what they've just done.
• Moment Killer:
  • Just as Kaguya and Shirogane finally got to feed each other after fighting about who gets the last strawberry shortcake, Fujiwara comes out of nowhere, simply eats their pieces and the rest of the cake (from their forks, no less) and scolds them for fighting. This is just one of many moments that Fujiwara interrupts.
  • A big one at the end of Chapter 78, where Kaguya and Shirogane are trapped in the gym utility closet and looking at each other while Kaguya is pinned to the floor when Iino comes in.
  • Kaguya returns the favor in Chapter 246, sending a text to Ishigami just as he and Iino are about to kiss (and potentially more.)
• Mood Whiplash:
  • In Chapter 27, Kaguya recalls a time when she was an Ice Queen who looked down upon Shirogane, and is grateful that Fujiwara stayed by her in spite of that. The rest of the chapter is about Fujiwara making her laugh by saying "wiener" and trying to get Shirogane to say it, too.
  • In the aftermath of the emotionally charged "I Can't Hear The Fireworks" arc, the story returns to the school, where Shirogane is comically mortified by all the cheesy things he said to Kaguya at the fireworks festival. He and Kaguya end up being rather awkward with each other for a while, before their relationship temporarily returns to the status quo. All this takes place in Episode 12 of the anime.
  • Chapter 87 is mostly just a collection of short looks into certain sports festival activities with a lighthearted tone. Ishigami rounds out the last couple of pages, noting that he's been having fun this time around and that he's glad he joined the cheer team, just as the girl who helped get him ostracized shows up and calls to him.
  • The last third of Episode 8 of the second season sees Kaguya collapse and be rushed to the hospital, with an uncharacteristically serious Fujiwara mentioning Kaguya's poor constitution and her fear that she'll share her mother's fate. Then a renowned doctor drops everything to see Kaguya... and pronounces her lovesick.
  • The last episode of the second season of the anime is similar to the last episode of the previous season. The first two thirds are an emotional story about Kaguya's phone breaking and her losing all the memories she'd accumulated, before she gets a new phone and the rest of the student council shares photos with her. The rest of the episode is a mostly funny story about the cast pumping a balloon while trying to avoid bursting it.
  • Papa Shirogane gives his Omega Speedmaster wristwatch to Shirogane along with the story of how he earned it and wants his son to carry on the dream it represents. Shirogane is in the middle of accepting this heartwarming gesture when Kei snarkily tells him to ditch the "old man watch".
  • Chapter 131 is mostly about Kaguya and Shirogane's spending time together around the Culture Festival. It ends with Shirogane telling her that he's going to skip a year and go to Stanford for college and that the current Culture Festival is his last one.
  • Chapter 164 has the student council playing a game where you tell someone you love them and they try not to get flustered. In order to avoid embarrassing himself, Shirogane tries to imagine that it's his father or sister saying it when Fujiwara does so, only to have a flashback to the day his mother left and start crying.
  • Most of Chapter 168 is about the bad blood between Maki and Kaguya's families and how it caused their current tense relationship and then Maki and Kaguya's attempt to bond despite that. The chapter ends with the two of them unknowingly watching a porn dvd that Kashiwagi gave Kaguya the previous chapter.
  • Chapter 191 starts with Papa Shirogane starting a channel as a professional YouTuber. While it seems like another gag chapter, it eventually factors into the ongoing conflict from the previous two chapters as he unwittingly gives relationship advice to Tsubame.
  • Fujiwara's third Ramen Emperor encounter is largely a melodramatic face-off between the Glutton Girl of Jinbocho and the shop owner. While her own story is a little sad (that she was dumped because her ramen consuming style was incompatible with her beau's), the shop owner's Freudian Excuse (where he watches as his sister starves herself to the point of collapse in a misguided attempt to be skinnier for her boyfriend) is the darkest moment of the whole encounter before going straight on back to melodrama.
  • Chapter 216 starts off with all the girls having a tea party to discuss the corparate war between the Shinomiya and Shijo families... and then it turns out that Kaguya only called them together because she wanted advice on having sex with Shirogane.
  • Chapter 238 is an entire chapter of Ship Tease where Ishigami and Iino agree to dance with each other at the second French exchange event. Following that is Chapter 239, which goes into detail about how corrupt the Shinomiya family actually is and how much influence they hold.
• Mouth Taped Shut: When Fujiwara accidentally spoils a manga they were trying to recommend to Kaguya, Shirogane and Ishigami tape her mouth shut to prevent her from speaking. When they almost immediately after spoil the entire manga, Fujiwara returns the favour.
• Movie-Theater Episode:
  • Kaguya and Shirogane go to the movies in Chapter 3, though their attempts to sit next to each other without overtly asking the other where they're sitting fail miserably. Chapter 2 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya shows it from Karen's perspective.
  • Chapter 159 returns to that same movie theater, where Kaguya and Shirogane have their first official date post-Relationship Upgrade.
• Moving Right Through: During the culture festival, Kaguya is expecting that Fujiwara will ruin a romantic moment between her and Shirogane like she usually does, only for Fujiwara to walk straight past her because she was so busy trying to solve the mystery of the balloon thief that she didn't even notice them.
• Ms. Fanservice: Fujiwara's older sister in Chapter 87. She comes to the sports festival wearing a deep neck line with her huge breasts, midriff and hot pants.
• Mukokuseki: The Shirogane family is fully Japanese without any mixed bloodline mentioned so far, and the author himself says in the character's bio that he only made Shirogane have blond hair and blue eyes based purely on artistic freedom. The reader is made aware that the Shirogane family is fully Japanese despite their obvious European features.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: Aka Akasaka has stated in interviews that the series was deliberately written to be as inclusive as possible with potential readers and the reason why it lacks any fanservice elements (which are normally a staple of seinen romcoms) is so that younger children would also be able to read it.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • The fundamental premise of the story is two shy teenagers trying to get the other to confess to them because they don't have the guts to do it themselves. But! It's dressed up to look like crazy mind games between the two as they try to trick the other into confessing, asking them out or showing undeniable interest in them. For every zany competition between them, at the end there's always a battle record of who won or lost. ...But don't forget, they don't actually think they're really competing with each other: If they did, they would know the other is interested in them and therefore defeat the point of the (imaginary) competition.
  • Shirogane's attempts to convince Tsubasa to get a job in the anime are so full of fiery passion that they causes temperatures across Japan to skyrocket.
• Mutual Pining: The series fundamentally centers around this setup, with both Kaguya and Shirogane having the titular "war" because both of them are worried about what'll happen if they're the one to confess first.
• My Fist Forgives You: After Ishigami makes some comments about Kaguya and Fujiwara's breasts without realizing that they're in the room, Fujiwara makes her presence known, assembles a paper fan out of a newspaper, bashes him over and over again in the back of the head with it until she runs out of breath, and then forgives him. Kaguya then implies that she'd do far worse to him if he ever does something like that again.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The principal is briefly shown playing on his phone during the credits of the season 1 finale with the Unsound Effect "Go" briefly appearing over him, referencing his love of Pokémon GO in the manga.
  • Every DVD cover in season 1 shares its background color with a volume of the manga (1, 2, 5, 3, 4, and 7 respectively) and also features whatever characters were present on those covers.^note The final DVD is the odd one out, as it shows the full student council (Manga Volume 10) rather than Iino (Manga Volume 7). That said, Iino's only appearance in the first season is on that DVD.
  • Chapter 168 is like a much more lighthearted scenario of Yume asking Kuro in Chapter 12 of ib: Instant Bullet to watch porn with her (which he instantly refuses), except here neither Maki nor Kaguya know it's porn, so they end up watching it together and are fascinated by what they have seen.
  • Chapter 211 introduces Koromo Shiranui, one of Shuchi'in High's four Impossible Girls, who comes in late to class because she was busy with a shooting. This is very similar to Frill Shiranui's (also a School Idol) earlier entrance in Chapter 19 of Akasaka's other simultaneously released manga, Oshi no Ko.
  • When Shirogane and Ishigami are reading the latest issue of MomoKan in the Season 3 PV, the announcement of it getting a third season features a variation of the title page for Chapter 110 (which the PV was adapted from).
  • Chapter 128 centers around Kaguya trying to get Shirogane to eat some takoyaki that secretly has a heart shape in it. The anime skips over these events, though the stall that Kaguya bought it from is briefly shown during the Culture Festival's opening ceremonies.
  • The home release version of the movie's opening contains several references to the manga that the anime either skipped over or hadn't reached yet, including:
    • Kaguya's moon necklace and graduation ribbon.
    • Makki-senhai in the same angel outfit she wears during her Student Council President campaign.
    • Kazeno doing the workout routine that he gives to Ishigami.
    • Screenshots from hypothetical adaptations of chapters 3, 22, 47, and 112. Chapter 3 in particular references a bit of Early-Installment Weirdness where Kaguya's hair ribbon would constantly change designs during the first volume.
    • A sign for something called "Kagu-koku", referencing the titles of bonus chapters 109.1 and 172.1
    • The completed version of Happy Life from chapter 171, complete with Erika's face drawn on the money.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Hayasaka's Flash Forward dream in Chapter 276 reveals that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa ultimately choose to name their firstborn son after Maki (though they mercifully choose a more gender neutral spelling rather than saddling the poor kid with a name that means "princess").
• New Season, New Name:
  • The second season is titled Kaguya-sama: Love is War? (or ''Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai? ~Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen~ in the original Japanese). In both cases, the subtitle is crosssed out.
  • The third season is titled Kaguya-sama: Love Is War Ultra Romantic (or Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Ultra Romantic in the original Japanese).
• New Year, Same Class:
  • Inverted. The second year characters are all scattered between classes 2-A, 2-B, and 2-C, and it's a plot point on several occasions that Kaguya and Shirogane are not in the same homeroom. When they move on to their senior year however, pretty much all of them are placed in class 3-A because the principal wanted to make sure that Kaguya would have all her friends to support her in the near future.
  • It's also mentioned in We Want to Talk About Kaguya that resident Four-Girl Ensemble Kashiwagi, Maki, Karen, and Erika were all classmates in their first year before being split up in their second year.
• No Communities Were Harmed: The description of Shuchi'in in the beginning of the manga is understood by Japanese as a not-so-veiled reference to the real-life Gakushūin, the school established for and exclusively used by the Japanese noble class between 1877 to 1947, and continues to be the "default" school for the descendants of the same people.
• No Export for You: Fujiwara discusses this In-Universe when she reveals her status as an Omniglot.
• No Name Given: An odd example for Kashiwagi's boyfriend as not only is he a Recurring Character but he even appeared before Kashiwagi. But we haven't gotten his name at all, the extras only list him as Kashiwagi's boyfriend and nothing else. This changes in Chapter 109, when Maki finally reveals his name (with the Narrator lampshading this). Shirogane and Ishigami lose focus of the conversation due to this fact.
• Nonstandard Character Design: During Maki's trip to India, all the locals were drawn far more realistically than is standard for the series. Presumably, they're based off of people that the author met during his research trip.
• Noodle Implements: One of Kaguya's plans involved a tape measurer. We never find out what she was going to measure since Shirogane leaning on her caused a Cuteness Overload.
• Noodle Incident:
  • When the student council disbands after Shirogane's first term as student council president in Chapter 59, they reminisce about the past. Fujiwara suddenly pulls out a potato-like, one-eyed... thing that she calls the "Cubari Facaccimo" and starts talking about Valentine's day, which hadn't ever been mentioned in the manga up until that point. Kaguya behind her shakes her head violently to dissuade Fujiwara, and Shirogane muses that there were events he wasn't present for.
  • Finally un-Noodlified in Chapter 194, although the answer just brings up more questions. Kaguya tried to make Valentine's Day chocolate for Shirogane with Hayasaka's help during their first year, but she followed a recipe that she got from the Occult Research Club that somehow made the chocolate haunted. Both girls ended up a trauma about it, with Kaguya remaining deathly afraid of making handmade chocolate again, and Hayasaka had managed to suppress the memory until she made the mistake of asking Kaguya whether she was going to make chocolate for Shirogane days before the next Valentine's Day.
• No OSHA Compliance: The roofs for the school buildings lack proper fencing. This is especially conspicuous after the light novel revealed that the principal personally knew somebody back when he was a student who died after falling off of one of those very roofs.
• No-Sell: At a party with their French sister school, Shirogane is subjected to an absolutely brutal Breaking Speech from one of the French students as part of a Secret Test of Character. He amazes onlookers by remaining composed and unaffected by the fierce insults, because he barely speaks a word of French and is doing his best to pretend to understand what he assumes is a casual conversation.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Despite upholding Status Quo Is God for a good portion of the manga, which makes this very noticeable.
  • Iino joining the Student Council in Chapter 69, shaking up the initial dynamic of the Student Council.
  • Shirogane revealing he's going to Stanford, bringing an urgency to end the battle of love and to confess from both sides.
  • In Chapter 136, Kaguya kissing Shirogane during the latter's Grand Romantic Gesture.
  • Chapter 160 at the climax of the New Game arc: Kaguya and Shirogane begin dating and bring their war of love to an official end.
  • Hayasaka leaving her job at the Shinomiyas', and thus leaving Kaguya alone without her confidant.
  • Chapter 240 ends with Kaguya mysteriously leaving Shuchiin after the fallout of the internal conflict among the Shinomiyas.
• Not Me This Time: When all of the heart shaped balloons disappear from the culture festival overnight, Karen automatically assumes that the Tabletop Gaming Club must be responsible due to their reputation as troublemakers. It was actually Shirogane (and Momo) who gathered them all up for his Grand Romantic Gesture to Kaguya.
• Not So Similar: At first glance, Kaguya and Shirogane appear to be Birds of a Feather as prideful, intelligent teenagers with the same views on love. It quickly becomes apparent that this couldn't be any further from the truth, as the two differ in just about every other aspect. It's even a major plot point, since the reason they fell in love is because they admired attributes in the other that they themselves lacked.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Ishigami basically tells Maki that her crush will go nowhere if she doesn't act and expects the other party to come confess to her first, and she has even less chances of realizing her love if her crush felt the same way. Shirogane was right behind him as he said all of this, and suddenly felt terrible.
• Obvious Beta: In-Universe example. Chapter 57 has the student council trying out a board game created by the Tabletop Gaming Club which is clearly still in the development stage, most prominently with the fact that it's almost entirely luck based. Ishigami (who is the son of a toy company president and knows a thing or two about game design) ended up having a very long list of things that need to be improved before letting people play it when giving Fujiwara his feedback.
• Obvious Rule Patch: In Chapter 18, Shirogane adds an extra rule to the Banned Word game that players have to talk enough to carry a conversation after Kaguya tries to game the system by just not talking at all.
• Official Couple: Kaguya and Shirogane finally hook up in Chapter 151 and officially start dating in Chapter 160 (technically speaking they're already shown dating in Chapter 152, it's just that Chapters 153-161 are a series of Whole Episode Flashbacks).
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The final chapter ends with the now former student council leaving the school while discussing where they'll go for their graduation trip. It also serves as a Bookend, since the story began with Kaguya and Shirogane walking towards the reader.
• Offscreen Romance: Played for Laughs when it was casually revealed during the culture festival that Osaragi had been dating the captain of the cheer team for the past several weeks (whom she had previously interacted with onscreen a grand total of once). This comes as a complete shock to Iino.
• Old-Timey Ankle Taboo: Fujiwara gets drunk eating alcoholic chocolate in the Official Doujin and offers to show Shirogane a girl's "secret place". So she pulls up her skirt... and shows him her knees and ankles.
• Once a Season: The closest manga approximation would be once per volume. Every volume will have a chapter that focuses on someone asking for love advice from the Student Council.
  • Kashiwagi's relationship with Tsubasa is a frequent topic, or Maki's jealousy over their relationship comes up. Beginning in Chapter 98, Maki has joined the fray, but coming to Shirogane and Ishigami instead.
  • The school festival arc has Tsubame come to Kaguya for love advice, since she's conflicted over accepting or rejecting Ishigami's accidental confession.
• Once More, with Clarity: Downplayed. When Ishigami is explaining why he fell in love with Tsubame in the anime, several flashbacks to their time together on the cheer team are shown. Unlike in the manga (which simply reposts old manga panels), the events are redrawn with face fully visible thanks to Ishigami having "opened his eyes".
• One Cast Member per Cover:
  • The manga does this with a little over half of its volumes, with the other half focusing on two or more characters. It also falls a bit into P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl since Shirogane doesn't appear on his own until volume 20 and Ishigami never appears by himself at all.
  • The Official Doujinshi Spin-Off also does this, though the final volume does show a second character's hands.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
  • Kaguya gets buried under a mountain of embarrassment due to the fact that she thought that a couple "doing it" meant kissing. Both Shirogane and Fujiwara were thinking that Kaguya was a little too cavalier when she admitted that she had "done it" with her newborn nephew.
  • Kaguya asks Shirogane what kind of underwear he likes in Chapter 70 in order to find out if he's promiscuous. Of course, she ends up wording it poorly, resulting in him thinking that she's talking about women's underwear instead of men's, leading to a hilarious misunderstanding.
  • When Tsubame talks to Ishigami about setting a deadline for her to accept or decline his "love confession" in Chapter 133, he's under the impression that she's talking about setting a date for cherry blossom viewing.
  • In Chapter 171, Karen suspects that the Tabletop Gaming Club is up to no good, so she calls Makkii-senhai to find out what they're doing. She interprets everything Makkii says in the worst possible way, and ends up jumping to the conclusion that they're engaged in (among other things) prostitution, counterfeiting, and terrorism, when in reality all they're doing is remaking the Happy Life Game from Chapter 57. At one point Makkii outright says "Are you sure we're on the same page here? We're just talking about a game", but Karen misinterprets that too.
  • Chapter 95 of We Want to Talk About Kaguya has a case of One Dialogue, Three Conversations, with Karen and Erika both misinterpreting Fujiwara's suspicions about Shirogane and Hayasaka being a gay couple (Karen thinks she's talking about the possibility of Shirogane being with Saburo or Ishigami, while Erika thinks it's about LGBT rights in Japan).
  • In Chapter 228, Ishigami and Koromo Shiranui's classmates ask them how they know each other after seeing them chatting amiably before class, something that struck them as very odd given that she's one of Shuchi'in High School's "Impossible Girls" and known for barely talking to guys. Long story short, they met online and played some games until late the night before without Ishigami realizing she was a classmate until she called him by a nickname. Problem is, their gamer jargon didn't translate well at all when they explained this to their classmates, resulting in the whole classroom getting the idea the two of them are Friends with Benefits and that Ishigami is such a good partner that she wanted their next encounter to be as soon as tonight.
• Opening Shout-Out:
  • The final scene of season 2 makes reference to the opening for season 1, with the school being blown up in a pink explosion and a shot of Kaguya's ribbon and Shirogane's Aiguilette lying on the ground on opposite sides of a heart with the kanji for "confession" in it.
  • Played for Laughs in the first episode of season 3, where the shot of Kaguya readying her bow in the season 2 opening is shown several times in a row, complete with the first measure of "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" playing on repeat.
• Operation: [Blank]: Chapter 103 revolves around "Operation Friendship", Shirogane and Osaragi's plan to have Ishigami and Iino get along.
• Opposites Attract: At first glance, Kaguya and Shirogane appear to be Birds of a Feather, but as the series goes on it becomes apparent that they're Not So Similar. Their contrast is even a major plot point, since the entire reason they fell in love was they admired virtues in the other that they themselves lacked.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Chapter 74 for the student council (save Fujiwara), as they all start acting like Shoujo romance characters after reading a sappy shoujo manga. In particular, they note that Ishigami is much more forward with Kaguya even though he can't so much as make eye contact with her in a normal setting.
• Overdramatic Dating Commotion: Downplayed. There are several chapters where the entire school is shown to get very invested in Kaguya and Shirogane's perceived love life and a rumor that Shirogane was going to confess led to what was probably half the student body showing up to watch. The only one who actually obsesses over it on a daily basis, however, is Karen.
• Page-Turn Surprise: The manga has used this on several occasions, particularly with really romantic moments like Shirogane finding Kaguya during the fireworks arc, their First Kiss, and Kaguya's Love Confession.
• Painting the Medium: Chapter 74's Art Shift accompanied by obnoxiously large ads for other series, as if it was printed in a Shoujo magazine.
• Paper Fan of Doom: Fujiwara is seen making one in Chapter 29 after Ishigami continually talks about the girl's breast sizes. She then repeatedly smacks him over the head with it. The same fan makes a reappearance in Chapter 59 when the student council is reminiscing over the past year, and Fujiwara hits him with it again when he repeats the breast comment.
• Parental Neglect: Kaguya's father doesn't show her any sign of affection, while Shirogane's mother left the family when he was young.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Ogino turned Ishigami into a pariah, but was ultimately unable to break him. Later, exacting retribution for what he did to Ishigami, Kaguya turned Ogino into a pariah and forced him to move schools.
• Paying It Forward: There's a recurring pattern of a second year member of the student council reaching out to an isolated first year, only for the first year to join the council and repeat the process all over again the following year (The Previous Student Council President -> Shirogane -> Ishigami -> Takano). To further the pattern, it alternates between dark haird pures and light haired impures.
• Percussive Therapy: In Chapter 196, Hayasaka brings Shirogane, Ishigami and Maki to a batting cage. She mentions that whenever her "employer" gave her "issues", she came to the center to vent out her frustration.
• Perpetual Poverty: Played with. The Shirogane family is 500 million yen in debt, with three people living in a one-bedroom apartment and everyone working various part-time jobs to help pay the rent. Later, Shirogane's dad becomes a successful livestreamer, and though he's still deeply in debt, the family is able to move to a nicer place off the earnings.
• Pet the Dog: In Chapter 54, Kaguya gives Ishigami her genuine thanks and an IOU after he unknowingly stopped Shirogane's mental assault. As expected, Ishigami is horrified and confused.
• A Pig Named "Porkchop": In Chapter 49, Fujiwara names a fish she had gotten to help Shirogane practice filleting for their home economics class Namero (a type of minced fish dish). The English translation of the manga keeps this theme but changes it to either Philly (in the fan translation) or Tartare (in the official Viz release).
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Conversed. Chapter 75 has Iino getting the group to do some actual onscreen work after noticing the trend of them not performing their duties while in the council room. They actually do work, but Shirogane points out that she's never around when they work.
• Pity Sex: Deconstructed. Tsubame offers to sleep with Ishigami after the Christmas party in order to soften the blow of her turning down his Love Confession, but he just storms out because he doesn't want his first time to be with someone who doesn't love him the same way he loves them. When Iino rightfully points out that doing so probably hurt Tsubame just as badly as she hurt him, he's so depressed that he doesn't bother trying to break his fall when he trips down the stairs. The only reason he's not dead is because Iino realized he might try to do something stupid and caught him (breaking her arm in the process).
• Playing Card Motifs: The anime assigned individual cards to the starting members of the student council. Kaguya and Shirogane share the Ace of Hearts, Ishigami is the Ace Of Spades, and Fujiwara is the Joker.
• Playing Hard to Get: The Series. At least the early and middle parts of it; by the time of the culture festival, they no longer care about this and are just trying to confess their feelings the normal way.
• Playing Sick: Meta example with the author feigning sickness to avoid having to draw any gags for the inside cover of Volume 5.
• Poisoned Drink Drop: Played for Laughs. Shirogane acts this way after Kaguya has his coffee bean supply swapped out with decaf, complete with acting like he's choking and the sound of his teacup shattering.
• Poor Communication Kills: A lot of problems would not happen if people just talked.
  • The whole premise of the story is based on the fact that neither Kaguya nor Shirogane can be honest and confess their feelings to the other person, because they fear a possible rejection. The problem comes up again after the two of them kiss at the end of the culture festival. Overwhelmed by her feelings, Kaguya reverts to her Brutally Honest Ice persona, with Shirogane constantly misinterpreting her actions, forcing him to ask Maki to help him understand Kaguya. Once that is sorted out, Shirogane still is too afraid to reveal his flaws to Kaguya until Christmas, where Kaguya makes it clear that she wants to know and love every side of his. After this emotional talk, they properly confess and start dating.
  • Ishigami spends the first part of the series convinced that Kaguya hates him and is plotting to kill him because of a number of miscommunications. The most prominent was when he outright asked her if she liked President Shirogane; Kaguya, unable to admit it, gave a flustered "No!" response which led to Ishigami announcing that he would tell Shirogane so he didn't have to stress about it. Kaguya panicked and grabbed him by the collar while shouting "Don't tell anyone!", which he interpreted as a death threat, kicking off the whole thing. Ironically, Ishigami was a Shipper on Deck for the pair and probably would have helped them get together sooner if she'd just admitted her feelings honestly in the first place.
  • Iino and Ishigami don't get along because Iino in particular gets the wrong impression about Ishigami and is not aware that he really respects her and has looked after her ever since middle school. Iino in turn was very upset about how unfairly Ishigami was treated in middle school and complained to the school authorities as part of the disciplinary committee. However, neither is willing to reveal what they do for the other because it wouldn't be truly altruistic otherwise.
  • Ishigami is a pariah because he was blackmailed into keeping quiet about Ogino cheating on Otomo and then was made to look like a violent and jealous stalker. Since Ishigami didn't want Otomo to be negatively affected by this affair, he was (and still is) ostracized and was very close to getting kicked out if not for Iino and the high school student council interfering.
  • Hayasaka and Kaguya, while usually being as close as sisters, slowly drift apart because Kaguya is unable to see how much Hayasaka is suffering, and Hayasaka cannot reveal how she has been spying on Kaguya for Kaguya's eldest brother since the beginning. This gets sorted out, first after Hayasaka rants at Kaguya in a rap battle, then completely at the end of the Kyoto Trip arc, with Hayasaka quitting her job as Kaguya's maid and properly becoming Kaguya's friend.
  • Averted in Chapter 199. Kashiwagi convinces Kaguya that boys only care about "the chase" and now that she and Shirogane are a couple, he won't be interested in her. She decides to test him, but since Shirogane dropped from 1st to 12th in the school's exams, he becomes worried that she doesn't respect him anymore. After a little confusion, Kaguya just explains her concerns to Shirogane and the two of them reaffirm their feelings for each other.
• Popularity Food Chain: Shuchi'in Academy actually has two separate ones, the first being the standard one and the other being determined by the parents' social standing. This means that Shirogane is simultaneously at the very top and the very bottom of the food chain.
• P.O.V. Sequel: More like POV Spinoff. We Want to Talk About Kaguya mostly covers the events happening in the main series, but from the points of view of Karen and Erika instead of the student council members. Most notably, it shows the events that lead to Tsubasa asking Shirogane for love advice. In fact, much of the spinoff's humor come from knowing exactly what's happening in the main series and seeing Karen and Erika grossly misinterpret them.
• Power is Sexy: Discussed by Kaguya. No matter what kind of power a person comes across (wealth, physical, mental, etc.) ultimately she argues that it's the main attraction factor for men. Since they're secure in their field, a woman would feel safe under their care, and feel like they can depend upon them for whatever comes next in their relationship.
• Practically Different Generations:
  • There is a very large gap between Kaguya and her older brothers, enough so that Unyo (the youngest of the three) is shown to be about the same age as Maki's father. It helps that she doesn't have the same mother as them.
  • The Elementary School AU in the Official Doujin depicts Shiorgane as a teacher in his mid-late twenties and Kei as a child young enough to have not started school yet.
• Pride:
  • Pride is why Kaguya and Shirogane don't confess. They're both so arrogant, they refuse to accept the idea that someone has any form of power over them even something as simple as a crush. Their ideal of dating is the other begging to date them. Later chapters, however, show that this is mostly just an excuse and they're just two awkward teenagers too shy to confess.
  • Also why Ishigami and Iino won't just tell each other what they've done for each other. They have their own version of justice they uphold, and they wouldn't consider their actions selfless if they just hold it over each other's heads.
• Production Throwback: A character dresses up as 1st Place's vocal synthsizer IA in Chapter 123. Aka Akasaka was responsible for her character design.
• Product Placement: The 110th chapter takes a little time out of its day to promote the Young Jump digital app, justifying this with Shirogane being too poor to afford buying anthology manga every week.
• "Psycho" Strings: "Tsukete" (Help Me) plays whenever the show decides to dip into the horror genre, usually involving Ishigami in some way.
• Punny Name: One of the members of the Tabletop Games club is named Gigako. It used to be Terako, but she was demoted.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Some "victories" end up with the winner being in worse condition than the loser. For example, Chapter 15 is labelled as Kaguya's loss, despite Shirogane suffering more the entire chapter and ended up fainting. All Kaguya suffered was accidentally getting her breast groped.

R-Z

• Real Life Writes the Plot: The 110th chapter released at the same time the anime adaptation was announced. The topic of the chapter is Ishigami and Shirogane discussing their favorite manga getting an anime.
• Really Gets Around: Strongly Implied about Fujiwara's older sister. Their father's fear that Fujiwara will end up becoming just like Toyomi is the whole reason why he forbids her from getting a boyfriend and even vetoes any lewd material, like books or games with mature content, from getting anywhere near Fujiwara.
• Real-Person Fic: In-Universe example. Karen secretly draws Kaguya/Shirogane doujinshi in her spare time (with 11 full volumes by the end of Shirogane's first term as President), recruits Ishigami as her editor, and offers to draw one about him as thanks for his help if he ever falls in love.
• Real-Place Background: Events set outside of the school use actual locations from Tokyo for its backgrounds. For example, Kaguya's mansion is set in the Minato ward.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Kaguya and Shirogane have one on separate occasions from, of all things, a horoscope website. It tells them (based on their birthdays) what their problems and faults exactly are, and that they'd probably never get together if they don't set aside their pride and just ask each other out. On Kaguya's part she just doesn't believe the negative qualities in herself exist, while in Shirogane's case he's just insecure.
  • Hayasaka gives her one in Chapter 64, shutting down her Tsundere "I don't like him at all" line with noting that she probably doesn't consider that if his physical appearance is enough to sway her heart, she's probably very fickle with love. Fujiwara (indirectly) gives her another one, saying that true love is unconditional, regardless of looks.
  • Iino gives one to the whole student body, bringing up their lack of morals and their terrible reputation despite their fantastic grades.
• Recap Episode: The first half of Chapter 11 is basically reiterating what Chapter 1 said. It's because the series moved magazines, so the concept needed to be explained again to potential new readers.
• Recursive Canon:
  • Kaguya briefly has an Imagine Spot of Shirogane dressed up as Umaru in Episode 14 when Kei tells her how he acts at home. During this, a book is lying next to him whose cover bears an uncanny resemblance to Volume 2 of the manga.
  • When Ishigami is complaining about Shueisha denying him fanservice in the OVA, the cover for the first volume of We Want to Talk About Kaguya is clearly plastered on the side of the building.
• Relationship Labeling Problems: The early parts of the post-Culture Festival Arc has both Kaguya and Shirogane ask themselves this following their first kiss with Kaguya at the very least settling on the classic "more than friends, less than lovers" answer. Seeing as they officially start dating about a week later, the discussion is purely academic.
• Relationship Reset Button: Subverted. Shortly after her first kiss with Shirogane, Kaguya reverts to the cold Ice Queen personality that she had back when they first met. While this initially seems like they've gone back to square one, she's actually trying to advance their relationship as she believes that dating means being able to accept all of your partner's flaws and craves proof that Shirogane loves even the ugliest parts of her personality. Finding a middle ground between this and Shirogane's belief that people should only be at their best around their significant other proves to be the final hurdle that the two have to overcome before they finally have a Relationship Upgrade.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: The We Want to Talk About Kaguya spinoff sometimes covers events that the main series only refers to once. For example, in the Sports festival, it's mentioned that the Red Team is losing because of the Tabletop Game Club's antics. The spinoff shows what the antics are (handing out suspicious drinks to the athletes).
• Retraux: Iino's description of what her ideal Student Council is to Osaragi has the feel of a movie trailer on VHS.
• Rewatch Bonus: The series thrives on this, with lots of little details, foreshadowing, and character traits only becoming noticeable on a second or third rereading.
• Right Behind Me: Ishigami making fun of Kaguya's and Fujiwara's breast sizes in Chapter 29. Shirogane starts freaking out, but Ishigami is completely unaware of them until Fujiwara starts talking. She then makes a Paper Fan of Doom and smacks him with it, while Kaguya hints that she'll probably kill him later for his insults. He decides to go home to update his will.
• Romantic Ride Sharing: One of the earliest romantic moments between Kaguya and Shirogane happens in Chapter 9 when he has her ride on the back of his bike on the way to school so they won't be late. Even if Shirogane didn't intend it as a romantic act (and almost certainly wouldn't have been able to go through with it if he realized the implications), Kaguya is shown to look back on it quite fondly the next day.
• Romantic Spoonfeeding:
  • Chapter 5 opens with a girl offering her boyfriend some food from her bento. Kaguya, being an incredibly Sheltered Aristocrat is scandalized at such a brazen display of affection. Jump forward to Chapter 226, and she's the one offering food to Shirogane while Iino looks on in shock.
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 37. Kaguya and Shirogane (who are in the middle of an ongoing argument) both try to feed each other a piece of cake a the same time after being unable to decide who would offer the slice to the other person... at which point Fujiwara barges in and eats both pieces right off of their forks while scolding them for fighting.
• Room Full of Crazy: The walls and even ceiling of Shirogane's study room are covered with pieces of paper with things like "everything else is meaningless", "fuck sleep", and "carelessness is the enemy" written on them.
• Rotoscoping: Fujiwara's dance in the ending for Episode 3 was rotoscoped, resulting in a massive Animation Bump.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • During the culture festival, Ishigami gives away two hearts. The one he gives to Tsubame is large to reflect his crush on her but is made out of a cookie that will easily crumble away. Iino on the other hand (who he at best views as a friend at the time) is given a metal keychain which is much smaller but far more durable.
  • When Kaguya and Shirogane finally confess their feelings to one another in Chapter 150, there is a half-moon hanging in the sky, showing that they've finally been able to meet each other halfway as equals.
• Rule of Three: On three separate occasions, the line "and during that time, nothing of note had happened" comes up regarding Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship (Chapter 1 for the 6-month Time Skip after the prologue, Chapter 41 for the first half of summer break, and Chapter 152 regarding winter break). The third time around is actually a Blatant Lie, as quite a bit actually did happen.
• Running Gag:
  • A shot of Kaguya with a sarcastic smile, looking down and muttering "How cute". They're all also in Shirogane's imaginations and we never see her actually do it. Several chapters had the situation reversed, with Kaguya having the condescending delusion instead. It actually happens to him on Chapter 142 verbatim.
  • Whenever Fujiwara gets close to Shirogane, Kaguya will very darkly think about how much she hates the former (usually getting in at least one shot at her breasts)...but when Fujiwara turns around and brings Kaguya into the situation, all of a sudden she's bright-eyed and acting like they're best friends^note Example: Shirogane shares his lunch with Fujiwara, Kaguya mentally calls her a "disgusting parasite"; Fujiwara shares the food with Kaguya, she apologizes and says "You're human after all. Later on this gag extends to other members of the Fujiwara family, including Fujiwara's little sister Moeha and their father.
    • In chapters 39 and 52, Kaguya reacts in a similar manner when the Fujiwara sisters (unknowingly) interfere with her attempts to bond with Shirogane's little sister Kei.
  • Ishigami getting terrified of Kaguya or just being depressed and coming up with excuses to go home for the day. Gets Running Gagged via Character Development, with the two developing an almost big sister/little brother relationship.
  • Chapters focusing on end-of-semester exams will have each character claim something before the next page has the narration claiming "That was a lie!". There will always be one person telling the truth instead.
  • Maki stalking Kashiwagi and her boyfriend.
  • Characters making overly generalized statements, accompanied by a caption box that says "Individual opinions may vary."
  • People refusing Kaguya's offers of cake.
  • Iino walking into the student council room at the worst possible time.
  • Kaguya (and Maki's) inability to say the word "sex". Kaguya eventually gets over it.
  • Osaragi is consistently referred to as one of the most beautiful girls in the series, which clashes with her plain design.
  • In an anime-exclusive example, Shinobu Nishioka getting incredibly specific titles in the credits like "Fujiwara Rap Supervisor" or "Animator Who Made Sure Fujiwara Looks The Most Dangerous".
  • Shirogane being terrible at various skills and Fujiwara having to teach him from scratch. The process becomes gradually more elaborate each time this happens; by the fifth time or so, Shirogane ends up teaching Fujiwara about the basics of rap so she can teach him how to actually do it in return.
  • Iino unintentionally pissing Kaguya off for a variety of reasons...only for Iino to later say something unexpectedly complimentary to Kaguya, intentionally or not, that would do more than lift her back into Kaguya's good graces and have Kaguya declare her as a "good girl".
• Sanity Ball: The sanest person in the room varies from chapter to chapter. Usually, it will be whoever is impressed upon during the chapter.
• School Festival: The sports festival is a big arc for both Ishigami and Iino, since it elaborates on the reason why Ishigami is treated with disdain in school and looks at Iino's middle school years. The culture festival is also a major arc for Kaguya and Shirogane, culminating in their First Kiss.
• School Forced Us Together: Iino and Onodera end up becoming friends due to their time together on the Culture Festival Committee (Onodera had joined voluntarily, while Iino was there as a representative of the student council). While the two were already in the same class, it's clear that they never would have interacted otherwise due to just how different their personalities and social circles were.
• School of No Studying: Downplayed. Shuchi'in is an academically focused school, studying is mentioned multiple times, and there are entire chapters devoted to end of semester exams, but the closest the series ever gets to showing the characters in class are a drawing session in art and cooking in home economics (the latter of which isn't actually shown).
• School Play: In Chapter 24, Kaguya and Fujiwara are revealed to be assisting the drama club with their production of "Women of Love and Hate". The actual play is never seen during the events of the main series (though Karen and Erika are shown watching it in their spin-off), but Kaguya takes the chance to spook Ishigami and Shirogane by coming into the Student Council room covered in stage blood and wielding a rubber knife.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Averted with most of the characters, on their days off they wear normal clothes. The only exception is Shirogane, which is both lampshaded and justified due to all potential money for new clothes going towards supporting his family.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Curiously Subverted in the Valentine's Day Episodes. Due to Shuchi'in Academy being a school for the rich, expensive chocolate actually lacks any real punch as a gift. This creates problems for Kaguya because she can't make homemade ones out of fear of the chocolate getting possessed by evil spirits.
• Secret Message Wink: In chapter 9, Kaguya winks at Hayasaka to signal her to come up with an excuse so she can walk to school by herself and experience being a normal student for once in her life.
• Secret Relationship: Kaguya and Shirogane finally start dating over winter break, though they try to keep it a secret to keep Kaguya's family from finding out. That said, Hayasaka, Shirogane's father, Kashiwagi, and Ishigami all find out by the time the spring semester starts up. Kaguya also takes any chance she can get to show off to the rest of the student council while still keeping it within the realm of a Sarcastic Confession.
• Secret Room: Shuchi'in Academy's High School Student Council Room has a room hidden behind the cabinet that Shirogane was completely unaware of until the last day of his first term as president. Karen also comes across a classic "push a certain book to move the bookcase" example during the culture festival.
• Secret Test of Character: Done before the start of the manga by Kaguya to every potential friend they met. They would reveal a "secret", which was actually a lie, and then wait a few to see if it was leaked as a rumour before moving forwards with friendship. Only Fujiwara successfully passed the test.
• Self-Deprecation: When Ishigami and Shirogane are discussing manga early on, Ishigami thinks seinen romcom manga with little to no fanservice are a horrible idea. And even when it seems like there might be some, instead there's some kind of lame effect that ruins the point. Gee, I wonder how fanservicey Kaguya-sama is?
• Self-Parody: Chapter 110 themed itself with the then upcoming anime adaptation by having Ishigami and Shirogane talk about a manga series they like, Momo-chan Wa Kangaenai, getting an animated adaptation in-universe; said series shares several parallels to Kaguya-sama itself, as it is pointed out that is a romantic comedy that does not rely on Fanservice and further strong sexual themes despite running in a Seinen magazine thus meant for adult males, so it is seen as a waste by some detractors in-universe but the fans were charmed by the setting and characters nonetheless so it ended up getting an Anime due its increasing popularity.
• Sequel Hook: In the final shot of Episode 24 there is some words etched into the ground to the right of Kaguya's cell phone that are just barely visible and read as follows:
  Continue?

  Yes
  No
  3
• Series Continuity Error:
  • In 2020, Nissin released two ads for Cup Noodles featuring the student council. The first one could theoretically be placed at any point in the timeline between Iino becoming comfortable with the council and the culture festival. The latter on the other hand is stated to take place shortly before Shirogane's birthday but shows both Iino on the council and Hayasaka still working for Kaguya, details that would preclude it from being his seventeenth or eighteenth birthdays respectively. Also, they had specifically agreed to ban Cup Noodles from the student council room after an uncomfortable Closet Shuffle moment in an early bonus chapter.
  • Chapter 222 has a brief scene of Fujiwara and Moeha together in the Shuchi'in middle school uniforms, something that shouldn't be possible since the established age gap between them means that Moeha wouldn't have started attending until the year after Fujiwara graduated.
• Serious Business:
  • Kaguya and Shirogane turns pretty much everything into mind battles, from Old Maid, discussing where to go on vacation, to exchanging LINE ids.
  • One chapter has Kaguya faint and go to the doctor's for examination. Why, you ask? She's come down with a case of lovesickness, much to Hayasaka's complete surprise and embarrassment.
  • The "Four Ramen Emperors," periodically recurring character who treat enjoying ramen like life or death. In one chapter two of them extend their critiques to coffee.
  • The Student Council treat instant yakisoba with such seriousness that one of the later chapters centers around them debating how best to prepare it.
• The Seven Mysteries: The light novel Spin-Off deals with the seven mysteries of Shuchi'in Academy, with the seventh being that anyone who finds the other six will fall to their death. Due to a string of coincidences, Ishigami ends up encountering all six of the non-fatal ones. The final chapter of the book also revealed that all of them (including the death) have a mundane origin from an event 40 years prior.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: The fanservice-focused OVA has a Male Gaze shot of Fujiwara dramatically surfacing from the pool in her school swimsuit.
• Shadow Archetype: One can argue that Kaguya and Maki are one for each other each having what the other desires. Kaguya deeply desires to be loved whether by friends or family due to her upbringing while Maki is pained by her romantic life as she sees her crush happily date her best friend. Kaguya has the undivided attention of her crush Shirogane while Maki has three best friends and what seems to be a healthy family.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Many chapters end with Kaguya and Shirogane's mutual defeat, usually thanks to Fujiwara or Kaguya's lack of common sense.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • The entire Shirogane family are revealed to share the same scary eyes and enjoy drinking coffee.
  • Whenever the Shirogane family wants to appear disinterested or otherwise occupied, they look away and stretch.
  • Kaguya and her cousin Maki have a uncanny amount of similarities for people with 8 degrees of separation, to the point that many people often comment on it. It's part of the reason why they don't get along very well. In fact, a lot of the panels in the latter's first Day in the Limelight where direct references to faces that Kaguya had previously made◊.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: A lot of readers were uncomfortable by how nice the cheer team was to Ishigami and were worried that their plan to have everyone cross dress for the sports festival was an attempt to embarrass him (not helped by the fact that they all have Hidden Eyes). But by the time the sports festival actually came around, it turned out that they really are that nice and their lack of eyes was a visual representation of how Ishigami reflexively shut everyone out (leading to a heartwarming moment when he finally sees their faces after the relay race).
  • Those are the same people who ensure an intoxicated Iino can safely sleep during Christmas party, when Ishigami feared they'd take advantage on her.
  • In the Sports Festival Arc, Kaguya admits to Papa Shirogane that she initially suspected Shirogane to have an ulterior motive for being a Nice Guy, and tried to find out the cause and expose him, due to her upbringing that all people are Secretly Selfish and want more as a reward. She could find no such reason for Shirogane no matter how hard she looked, which is why she fell for him.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Given the sheer number of people who gathered when a rumor spread that there was going to be a confession, it wouldn't be that much of an exaggeration to say that the entire student body of Shuchi'in Academy ships Shirogane/Kaguya.
  • The principal of Shuuchin tells Kaguya straight to her face that she and Shirogane should be together, and pushes Ishigami and Iino together for one photo.
  • The Shinomiya family doctor and the nurses in his hospital's cardiology department all support the main ship after Kaguya gets hospitalized for lovesickness and expresses her feelings in supreme tsundere fashion.
  • Chapter 189 is literally all about who everybody ships Ishigami with: Osaragi and Kaguya try to further his relationship with Tsubame, while Fujiwara and Onodera want him to get with Iino, leading to in-universe Ship-to-Ship Combat. When they ask Shirogane to pick a side, he runs away. At the end of the chapter, Karen (whom Makki-senhai calls "this school's number one shiptrash") declares that she ships Ishigami with Shirogane. However, after realizing that Iino really has feelings for Ishigami, Shirogane decides to support Iino instead.
    • Ishigami's romance arc also plays this for drama: everyone is so busy trying to push their candidate in Ishigami's romance that none of them even stopped to consider how Tsubame felt at all beyond superficial problems. It comes off as a shock to everybody when she explains she just doesn't want to date Ishigami.
• Ship Sinking:
  • Zig-Zagging Trope. Chapter 114 seems intended to sink Shirogane×Fujiwara by giving her the chance to talk — at length — about why she would never go out with him. Then it Subverts everything on a dime when he asks her and Iino what kind of guys are their type, prompting Fujiwara to describe her ideal as "someone who can be honest about their flaws and faults and keeps trying even if it's embarrassing", which is the exact moment her nondescript mental image of Mr. Right takes the form of none other than Shirogane himself. Then Double Subverted t when, instead of a Love Epiphany, Fujiwara reacts to the realization that she could fall in love with him with outright apprehension, vowing herself to not allow it to happen. It's even possible that part of the reason why Fujiwara tried so hard to talk her little sister Moeha out of her crush on Shirogane 12 chapters later is plain old Psychological Projection.
  • Chapter 204 sinks Ishigami×Tsubame when the latter rejects the former's Love Confession, explaining that she just doesn't see him in a romantic light. Even though this breaks Ishigami's heart, he accepts this and doesn't press it any further.
• Ship Tease:
  • Chapter 73 is a zigzagged one for Ishigami/Fujiwara. When Shirogane asked about various girls Ishigami likes, he brings up Iino and Kaguya, both of which Ishigami doesn't care for romantically. Then Shirogane brings up Fujiwara, and we're treated to two panels of Ishigami's non-response, with a subtle blush in the second one. He then reacts in horror that he could fall in love with her and refuses to.
  • Another zigzagged case in Chapter 114; while Fujiwara says she wouldn't date Shirogane because she finds him childish, she does blush when she realizes that he hits all her criteria for a good man (i.e. someone who will build himself up and determined enough to not give up on himself).
  • The "Shoujo mindset" affliction on the main cast (sans Fujiwara) in Chapter 74 had Kaguya actually considering Ishigami as not only surprisingly attractive but also as a romantic rival for Shirogane. It also made Ishigami himself get over his usual fear of Kaguya enough to offer to eat a dessert with her actually ask her out to the aquarium.
  • In one of the extra chapters, Ishigami finds himself very fascinated with the girl who looks like Fujiwara in the fanservice manga chapter he's reading, but skips over the Kaguya-lookalike entirely (while Shirogane tried to sneak a peek at her).
  • Shirogane's father tells the kids that running is a guaranteed way into a woman's heart. When Ishigami runs in his team's relay race, the manga puts specific focus on Iino cheering him on.
  • On their character profiles, Ishigami and Iino are labeled the "secret protagonist" and "secret heroine" respectively.
  • The game Aka comes up with gives Iino the ability of "Childish Justice". When Ishigami's ability is used in tandem with hers, it becomes "True Justice"— showing that they bring out the best in each other.
  • The chapter where Iino reveals that she keeps and treasures a mysterious letter she got in middle school has Ishigami as the chapter's title character. Ishigami is barely mentioned and doesn't even appear that chapter, all but stating outright that Iino's Mysterious Benefactor (and the one she holds so dear) is none other than him. Other evidence in support of this includes him knowing about the language of flowers, and a later chapter showing that he considers leaving a flower and anonymous message on a girl's desk to be a romantic gesture (which Kaguya dismisses as needlessly creepy).
  • When Iino is asked to describe what type of person she's attracted to, she says Sho Hirano, who just so happens to resemble a certain black haired treasurer. She also says the type of man she wants would always look after her, understand her, and come to her rescue when she's in distress, which perfectly sums up her relationship with him.
  • Osaragi likes to remind Ishigami and Iino that people often pick on and pester the ones they love. Both times it's brought up, they deny it, but the point still persists.
  • Chapter 144 ends with Maki hugging Ishigami and crying that he's the only one for her (admittedly, she means this in a completely platonic manner).
  • During the movie's Enhanced on DVD opening, there's a brief shot of Ishigami starring in a Harry Potter parody. In Chapter 158, Iino is confirmed to be a Harry Potter fangirl.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: In-Universe example. Chapter 189 is all about a shipping war involving the Ishigami, Iino, and Tsubame Love Triangle. Kaguya and Osaragi are on Team Ishigami/Tsubame while Fujiwara and Onodera are on Team Ishigami/Iino.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Everyone important to the plot has a name referencing The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter:
  • Kaguya, Shirogane, Ishigami, Fujiwara, and Iino all reference Kaguya-hime herself and the princes trying to court her.
  • Osaragi, Tsubame, Momo, and Koromo all reference the gifts sought by Kaguya-hime as part of her impossible tasks to her suitors (and the first three all have some sort of relationship with the student council members that share their respective suitor's namesake). It's later revealed that the four of them are referred to as the "Impossible Girls" in-universe, deliberately invoking the theme.
  • Maki's twin brother is named Mikado, a reference to the emperor who tries to marry Kaguya-hime.
  • Ootomo also references one of the suitors, interestingly the same one as Shirogane's.
  • Kaguya's mother is named Nayotake (Supple Bamboo), meaning that Kaguya was metaphorically born from bamboo, just like her literary counterpart.
• Show Within a Show: Today Will Be Sweet, a shoujo manga that the members of the student council become obsessed with. According to a brief plot synopsis, it's about a romance between an Delicate and Sickly boy and a girl from an abusive household, and tearjerking moments from such a relationship are milked for all they're worth.
• Sibling Triangle: Subverted, because Kei merely admires Kaguya rather than express romantic attraction towards her like her brother. However, both vie for Kaguya's affection and smugly tell the other sibling how close they are to Kaguya. Shirogane shocks Kei though, when she learns in Chapter 170 that the two have become a couple, and wants to learn all the details.
  Siblings tend to have similar tastes.
• Sick Episode: Chapter 79 has Kaguya fall ill and get sent to the hospital suddenly. As she's loaded into the ambulance, it's stated that that she has the capacity for heart disease given her mother suffered from it. During a checkup at her doctor's office, it's revealed that it wasn't even clinical heart problems that caused her to faint in school this time; it was love sickness.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: When Ishigami is explaining to Maki that All Men Are Perverts only applies to non-virgins, she gets distracted by his comparison of sex addiction to smoking and ends up coming up with her own analogy about a mafioso having One Last Smoke after being fatally shot that is completely disconnected from the topic at hand.
• Simultaneous Arcs: Chapters 149-151, 154-156, and 161 all take place at roughly the same time on Christmas Eve, each of which follows a different set of characters (Kaguya and Shirogane for the first, Ishigami, Iino and Tsubame for the second, and Maki for the third).
• Sliding Scale of Beauty:
  • Kaguya is a World Class Beauty, being revered by the student body for her looks and her social standing. She gets hit on by boys on a monthly basis, and Shirogane fell in love with her after only knowing her for a week.
  • Shirogane is an Imperfect Beauty, as he's commonly seen as handsome by others, but at the same time quite intimidating thanks to his perpetual glare, which makes him difficult to approach.
  • Fujiwara and Iino are both Common Beauties who, despite not commanding the same level of worship as Kaguya, are still considered attractive enough to get male attention.
  • Osaragi and Hayasaka are both considered World Class Beauties, frequently being treated as drop-dead gorgeous by anyone who meets them for the first time. Osaragi's case is a bit more difficult to see.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Despite being largely grounded in reality and acting as a Deconstructor Fleet for romcom manga, the series is still largely highly idealistic. It says things such as "Love is more complicated than in fiction, but it's still worth pursuing" and "Hard work pays off, but only if you work on the right things", and largely acts more as a Reconstruction than a Deconstruction. Iino, who strives for justice and good morals, is treated as naive, but mainly for her black-and-white perception of morality rather than her idealistic pursuits at large. Meanwhile, the more cynical characters such as Ishigami generally come around to seeing things in a more optimistic light after witnessing human kindness in full force.
• Sneeze Cut: In Episode 3 of Season 2, Hayasaka, who goes to a mixer with Shirogane in disguise, complains about how her "little sister" made her go, and how said sister has a skewed grasp on feelings and a warped personality. Kaguya, who is obviously the girl Hayasaka is talking about despite not being her sister, sneezes.
• Snowy Sleigh Bells: This shows up in several songs of the movie's soundtrack in the final quarter of the runtime given that it takes place during and shortly after Christmas Eve (though it's also worth pointing out that there isn't actually any snow).
• Spoiler Opening:
  • The endings for seasons 1 and 2 (disregarding the one-off "Chika Dance") blatantly spell out what the final arcs for their respective seasons will be, though they're wrapped up in enough fantasy imagery that only those familiar with the source material will pick up on it ahead of time. Season 3's ending maintains the fantasy theme but chooses to spoil events at the very end of the manga instead of just this season.
  • Season 3's opening spoils mosts of its final arc in the opening without the fantasy imagery, but with enough metaphor and missing context to only make sense retroactively.
  • The opening for Season 2 shows Iino as a member of the student council despite her not joining until halfway through the season.
• Staircase Tumble: Ishigami and Iino both end up falling down a flight of stairs during the "New Game" arc. The former had tripped and was so depressed over recent events that they didn't bother trying to catch their balance, while the latter (realizing that the former might end up doing something stupid) had gone to check on them and tried to grab them before they fell. Unfortunately, the fact that they were slightly tipsy and wearing rather large heels meant that they failed to pull them back and both tumbled to the bottom (breaking the latter's arm in the process).
• Starfish Language: In Chapter 20, to demonstrate the language barrier, all unfamiliar French from Shirogane's point of view is portrayed as various shapes in the speech bubbles.
• Stargazing Scene: In Chapter 56, the student council are watching the Autumn Moon. Kaguya tries to turn it into her latest Battle of Wits with Shirogane, but -in true You Were Trying Too Hard fashion- Shirogane's innocent love of the stars turns him into a full blown romantic that reduces her to putty in his hands.
• Stealth Insult: Under her breath, Fujiwara criticizes Kashiwagi for her constant trysts with Tsubasa, calling her "Most likely to get pregnant".
• Stealth Pun:
  • As of his second term, Shirogane is the president of the 68th student council. Iino is hoping to take the position once his term ends, which would make her...
  • When Ishigami faces off against Kaguya in the arm wrestling contest, he thinks that it's like pushing up against a rock. When the anime adapted that scene, it had a song playing that sounded suspeciously like the iconic rhythm section from Queen's "We Will Rock You".
• The Stinger: The end of Episode 5 of the first season has Kaguya and Shirogane walk by Ishigami on their way home.
• Strangely Specific Horoscope: Horoscopes tend to be incredibly specific when they show up despite the series otherwise lacking any supernatural elements. A website that gauged compatibility based on birthdays even gave Shirogane a "The Reason You Suck" Speech over his and Kaguya's inability to confess to each other.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Fujiwara and her sisters look pretty much the same, the only difference is the obvious age differences.
• Stylized for the Viewer: "Kaguya-chan" is drawn in a Super-Deformed art style, making her look much smaller and child-like. The narrator even lampshades that this trope is in effect and to everyone else she just looks like an absent-minded Kaguya. Taken to a hilarious degree when Shirogane copied her. While the readers see two adorable Super-Deformed characters, Iino sees two young adults behaving in a really creepy manner.
  • A later instance of the "Court of Kaguyas" admits that the entire concept (Kaguya's different personalities arguing in courtroom setting) is just an artistic depiction of a young woman in love trying to sort out her feelings.
• Surprisingly Moving Song: Played for laughs in where Hayasaka is brought to tears over how average Shirogane's rapping is (much to Kaguya's confusion). Given just how bad it was the last time she heard it...
  Hayasaka: What an amazingly mediocre rap. I can't imagine how much practice it took to become this average. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.
  Fujiwara: I understand completely.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In general, the series thrives on deconstructing or outright mocking common tropes in romance manga, while giving anyone who applies them to real life a harsh reality check.
  • Although Shirogane is the Student Council President and his year's top student, there's a faction who looks down on him due to his commoner status and attempt to sabotage him while he stands for re-election. Kaguya and Fujiwara take note of this beforehand and foil any attempts subsequently.
  • Kaguya and Shirogane constantly dancing around their feelings is amusing at first, but it's quickly shown that it's ultimately pointless and that both would be far better off just telling each other how they feel in earnest. Shirogane in particular spends far more time working himself to exhaustion on a daily basis than he needs to. By the time he finally mans up and confesses his love, he only has a few months before he leaves to study abroad anyway, further establishing what a waste of time his war of love with Kaguya was. Although they state that they won't let Shirogane going to Stanford be a major obstacle in their relationship.
  • Until Iino actually made her case about how corrupt the student body is, she was losing the election to Shirogane by a massive margin. Even though she has the students' best interests at heart, her refusal to compromise on her strict policies paints a massive target on her back when her audience is a bunch of teenagers. Just as well, she's generally disliked by her peers while the rest of the student council are some of the most popular students in school, and Kaguya makes a point to showcase how effective Shirogane's own policies were during his first term. Besides the borderline insurmountable social barrier Iino was faced with, there's a reason most relection campaigns end in the previous holder's victory.
  • Ishigami's plan to win over Tsubame is essentially to get such a good score on the final exams that everyone notices how intelligent he is, leading into her getting interested in his powerful mind. After weeks of genuine studying and hellish coaching from Kaguya, he finishes twenty places higher than he did on his last exam (which genuinely is impressive for him)...but he still failed, and he's nowhere on the roster for top scores. Remember, this is a boy who wasn't accustomed to studying because he just didn't feel like doing it. This is the best he could do in such a short amount of time.
  • Were you expecting the series to end with Kaguya and Shirogane (pretty much inevitably) getting together? Nope. Kaguya still has a bunch of issues to sort out with her family that impedes her relationship with Shirogane, and she has to keep the fact that she's dating him a secret since they'd never approve of her dating a commoner. Also, as soon as their love war seems to have been resolved, a new one begins brewing between Ishigami and Iino.
  • After turning down Tsubame's offer for sex, Ishigami trips and almost falls down a flight of stairs. While Iino breaks his fall, she breaks her arm doing so. And she doesn't shrug it off the next day either, she spends several weeks afterwards wearing a cast.
  • Ishigami points out that while The Peeping Tom is a common trope in manga, it's both extremely creepy and illegal. Indeed, when the scene cuts back to Shirogane and his friends, they were actually planning on watching the girls emerge from the baths with wet hair.
  • Tsubame rejecting Ishigami's Love Confession. Just because a girl cares deeply about a boy doesn't mean she has feelings for him. Ishigami ultimately accepts that he can't control how Tsubame feels no matter how much he wants to be with her, and puts it to rest. Likewise, Tsubame tried to fall in love with him and wanted to because she appreciates his noble heart and efforts to win her over, but as real life shows, the sparks just don't fly for certain people.
  • Iino demonstrates that I Want My Beloved to Be Happy is a harder mentality to adopt than it's often depicted. While she feels horrible about it afterwards, her initial reaction when she learns that Tsubame rejected her crush Ishigami's confession is joy. Maki and Osaragi also take their turns with this trope, but they approach it in different ways; Maki's case is near universally played for laughs, but her love for her best friend and her crush always comes before her frustration that she can't get together with Tsubasa. Meanwhile, Osaragi puts on airs that she only wants what's best for Ishigami, but she gets unnervingly obsessed with his happiness to the point where other people question the true nature of those feelings.
  • A friendship between two pariahs who have nobody but each other isn't going to last if they can't find legitimate common interests. Iino's reputation improving and then her finding friends that truly care for her emotional health causes her to realize how shallow her "friendship" with Osaragi actually is, and catching Osaragi badmouthing her is all it takes for Iino to decide she's outgrown her friend-by-necessity. They are back on better terms by the end of the arc and even still hang out with each other, but they don't seem to be as close as they used to be.
  • One that the series loves to repeat in the second half— the families of the rich and powerful like to keep relationships in money, and any happy relationships the kids have in the meantime are simply to let them live out their youth. Oko tells Kaguya as much to keep his thumb on her and ensure she doesn't rebel, while Kashiwagi straight up admits that her relationship with Tsubasa was a lucky one because she both loves him and her family would allow it since he's the heir of a famous hospital.
  • Chapter 267, where Shirogane leaves for America, is full of them.
    • Kaguya is awake most of the night stressing herself out over the thought of Shirogane springing an airport proposal on her that she oversleeps.
    • Since she couldn't get to sleep, she starts watching random videos on her phone, and so her battery dies as she's rushing to the airport.
    • Shirogane, for his part, can't have a sappy romcom airport goodbye with Kaguya, as airports have timetables to keep, so he really does have to go.
    • Kaguya arrives just in time to be too late. She starts crying, seemingly at a loss... only to call for someone to bring her her wallet and passport, book a plane, and fly to California on the next flight out. She is, after all, the daughter of the Shinomiya family, and can spend money like this on a whim.
    • Finally, everyone treats Shirogane leaving to go to college abroad as an indicator that they won't see him for a long time, and that for the most part, he's out of their lives. However, this is the modern era, so they simply set up the TV in the student council office so that Shirogane can use it for video calls, meaning they can talk whenever they want (albeit with a large timezone difference).
• Survival Mantra: In Chapter 44, Kaguya repeats "It's okay" over and over so she doesn't cry after not being allowed to go to the fireworks with her friends.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music:
  • Chapter 36 is all about Fujiwara tutoring Shirogane how to sing so he can take part in the weekly singing of the school anthem (which has lyrics about overcoming one's flaws). Hearing him sing it at the end of the chapter causes her to collapse into a pile of tears, much to the confusion of the rest of the student body.
  • The Good-Times Montage of Kaguya enjoying her culture festival date with Shirogane and marvelling at her good luck in the anime is accompanied by Hayasaka singing "The Spring Pink Lipstick" as part of an idol routine. Said song's opening lyrics are "This isn't fiction! It's not a dream!"
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: As the narrator explains the entire reason behind this war, accompanied by a blushing Kaguya:
  The war of love and brains. The battle where they put their honors and pride and stake. Naturally, reasons like "It would be too embarassing to confess" or "I might get rejected" obviously have nothing to do with it.
• Symbolic Distance: The show's first opening starts with a shot that makes it look like Kaguya and Shirogane are staring face to face before the angle changes to reveal that they're actually several yards apart, making it clear that — while they might already be in love — they're a long ways away from actually getting together.
• The Talk: Fujiwara ends up having to do this for Kaguya after a hilarious string of Innocent Innuendos caused by Kaguya thinking that teenagers having their "First Time" refers simply to kissing while Fujiwara and Shirogane know what the term actually means.
• A Taste of the Lash: During Kaguya's study sessions with Ishigami, she is shown weilding a riding crop (presumably to strike him on the fingers when he gets a question wrong). It's later revealed that this is a standardized form of punishment in the Shinomiya household, and that Kaguya (Ice) in particular associates violence with proper education.
• Teasing from Behind the Language Barrier: In the aftermath of the first French Exchange party, Shirogane cheered Kaguya after she regretted what she had done in the party. She replied with something said in an unspecified language. It's unvoiced in the anime, while manga just covers the word with symbols.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • This is the biggest difference between Kaguya and Shirogane in their Battle of Wits. Kaguya is a schemer who tends to come up with her plans ahead of time and favors being Crazy-Prepared, while Shirogane tends to prefer Indy Ploys. They end up swapping roles when they finally admit their feelings to one another, with Shirogane spending weeks planning out a Grand Romantic Gesture and Kaguya spontaneously initiating The Big Damn Kiss.
  • This also comes up when Kaguya and Fujiwara both try to help Shirogane learn a dance for the sports festival. Kaguya has him go through the motions and memorize the proper moves, while Fujiwara tells him he has to understand the feeling of being pulled.^note The dance in question was inspired by fishermen, and the move he was having difficulty pulling off was based on pulling in fishing nets.
• Tempting Fate: When Kaguya and Shirogane inspect all of the sports equipment, Kaguya mentions that the Tug o' War rope is worn down and old, with Shirogane replying that it can "survive another [year]". The next major arc after that chapter was the Sports Festival, and it's unlikely that that's going to go unnoticed... and it doesn't do anything. The rope stays intact through the whole thing.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Shirogane ends up grabbing Kaguya's breast in a panic in Chapter 15 when he gets scared by a cockroach, leading her to bite him in retaliation. This event would become a plot point 152 chapters later when Kashiwagi wrongly comes to the conclusion that they've already gotten to second base after finding out that they recently started dating.
• Their First Time:
  • It's implied at several points in the series (and confirmed in Chapter 138) that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa had sex for the first time during summer vacation.
  • Kaguya and Shirogane have their first time in Chapter 220 when Kaguya stays the night at Shirogane's apartment while his father and sister are out.
• Theme Twin Naming: Maki and her brother Mikado, whose names contain the characters for "princess" and "emperor" respectively.
• There Are No Coincidences: Kaguya and Shirogane end up getting trapped in a storeroom together in Chapter 78 and are so used to their ongoing Battle of Wits that they both automatically assume the reason the door won't open is because it's part of some scheme that the other hatched and decide to play along. In reality, a twig had fallen off an overhanging tree and gotten caught in the track for the sliding door and both of them remain completely oblivious to the fact that they were actually trapped until Iino comes along.
• Those Two Guys:
  • Karen and Erika start off this way, though they both got a lot more development in their spin-off series.
  • Saburo and Go are both shown to be friends of Shirogane, though very little is shown about their personalities outside of one of the extra pages in Volume 10.
  • Hayasaka's friends Hinokuchi & Suruga, though nothing is known about them other than them being Gyaru Girls and their parent's jobs. Their names weren't even given until Volume 18 (and it didn't specify which name was for which girl until Volume 19).
• Through His Stomach
  • Kaguya enters the cooking contest for this exact reason. Her plan fails because Iino finishes all her dishes before Shirogane can have a taste. Incidentally, Ishigami may have done the same by accident as Iino enjoyed his cooking as well.
  • It's actually a Running Gag that Kaguya is never able to give Shirogane any food that she either personally prepared or procured for him, barring a single slice of birthday cake. It isn't until several months after they've started dating that she' actually shown giving him a full meal (in this case a bento she prepared).
  • Iino herself considers preparing a bento for Ishigami, before remembering she has no cooking skills. She does excel at preparing instant noodles, though; Chapter 254 reveals that she carries a ginger packet in her bag just in case she needs to make some. Shirogane and Ishigami, despite having preconceived notions of how to best cook instant noodles, are humbled and impressed by Iino's expertise.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Chapter 195 shows Saburo and Go getting Valentine Day chocolates after their sadness over being single.
• Time Skip: There's a six month skip during the first chapter to show how Kaguya and Shirogane's Duel of Seduction is keeping them from making any romantic progress with each other. Iino and Ishigami's final chapter has a similar skip to reflect how they're in the exact same situation.
• Title Drop:
  • Kaguya's narration reveals that she "Can't Hear the Fireworks" (title for Chapters 44 and 45) because her heart's pounding loud enough for her not to hear anything else while she's busy staring at Shirogane, awestruck at how much he's done for her to get to to see fireworks. Doubles as Close on Title.
  • Chapter 135 does this with the series' Japanese title "Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to", when Kaguya mentally points out the reason why she could never confess to Shirogane.
    Kaguya: If you were to reject my confession, there's no doubt that our friendship would be ruined. That's why I want to be confessed to. Because if I were to confess, I might fail. However, if you were to confess to me, your chance of success is 100%!
• Title Drop Chapter: While not used for the series as a whole, the final chapter of "The First Kiss Never Ends" arc shares its name.
• Title Theme Drop: Episode 11 has a soft piano cover of "Sentimental Crisis" playing when Kaguya starts going into depth about just how much of a Stepford Smiler she is in regards to her family life.
• Toast of Tardiness: Parodied in Chapter 20 of the "Offical Doujin" where Iino is shown eating a footlong sub sandwich as she runs to school. Although it was actually part of a dream that Osaragi was having.
• To Be Continued... Right Now: Chapter 104 ends with the narrator talking about how the current storyline would continue in the following chapter. The anime kept this line despite chapters 104 and 105 being adapted as part of a singular episode.
• Too Clever by Half: An underlying theme of the series is intelligent people failing at simple tasks because they drastically overthink things. The two, supposedly genius characters are repeatedly kept at arms length from a likely very happy romance because their method getting there is so needlessly complicated.
• Too Much Information: Chapter 216 has Maki covering her ears whenever Kashiwagi gets too detailed about her sex life with Tsubasa.
• Took the Wife's Name: Based on the family tree provided in Chapter 98, it's implied that Maki and Mikado's father took the Shijo surname when he and their unseen mother got married.
• Top Wife: Played for Laughs. Karen is perfectly fine with the idea of Shirogane having a harem and even being a part of it just so long as Kaguya is the favorite.
• Training Montage: Chapters that focus on Fujiwara helping Shirogane improve a skill always feature a montage showing the two of them performing ludicrous training acts together.
• Trash the Set: Played for Laughs in Episode 24, which ends with an Imagine Spot of the balloon being inflated during the balloon inflating contest blowing up the entire school.
• Tsundere: Both main characters, but Kaguya displays the trait more. She tries to hide it with her graceful demeanor, but she slips into a maiden-in-love when nobody's looking. Both even said the classical "It's not like I like him/her or something!" tsundere line at some points.
• Twice Shy: Inverted. Both Kaguya and Shirogane are aware of each other's love and want nothing more than to provoke a Love Confession to be the dominant one in the relationship (in a non-sexual way). However, they are entirely unaware of -and can't admit- their own feelings.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: The chapters where Kaguya and Shirogane seek guidance from Kashiwagi/Ishigami and Kashiwagi/Maki respectively are telling the same story, but from their respective point of view in classical "Rashomon"-Style.
• Two-Timing with the Bestie:
  • Subverted with Kashiwagi. She thought that her boyfriend was messing around with her best friend Maki behind her back, but he was actually just asking her for help in picking out an anniversary present. Double Subverted when it turns out that Maki was actually trying to break them up so she could have him for himself (though she admits to Shirogane and Ishigami that'd she'd never been able to fully go through with it because she cares too much for Kashiwagi as a friend to break her heart like that).
  • Tsubame developed Commitment Issues after her boyfriend cheated on her. It's implied that the other girl in the equation was her best friend, but Onodera doesn't give enough detail when explaining the situation to Iino to make it clear one way or another.
• Uncovering Relationship Status: Kashiwagi's relationship with her boyfriend was set in motion when she asked him if he had a girlfriend. Spin-Off series We Want to Talk About Kaguya revealed that Karen was trying to invoke this, though she had meant for Maki to be the one to ask him. She knew that Maki had a crush on him and was trying to help her get past the Cannot Spit It Out stage, and Kashiwagi didn't know about said crush and innocently offered to help instead. Things pretty much spiraled out of control from there.
• Universal Eyeglasses: Downplayed. Hayasaka has Shirogane try on her glasses in Chapter 237 after a quick vision test and they work perfectly, leading her to suspect that they have a similiar level of nearsightedness.
• Unnecessarily Cruel Rejection: Discussed in Chapter 130 when Tsubame comes to Kaguya for advice regarding a love confession she recieved and Kaguya (acting as Ishigami's Romantic Wingman and attempting to crush any of his potential rivals) tells her that the best thing to do is to turn down the boy as harshly as possible so as not to give them false hope. Then she learns that the boy in question was actually Ishigami, causing her to make a very panicked 180 in her advice.
• The Unreveal: Chapter 12 has Kaguya receive an anonymous love letter. Despite We Want to Talk About Kaguya and the light novel both having followup chapters, the identity of the writer is never given. All that's known for certain is that it wasn't Erika.
• Unwinnable by Design: The riddle left behind by the Phantom Thief during the culture festival proved to be completely unsolvable, even to someone who loves riddles (like Fujiwara). As Kaguya realizes near the end of the arc, this was deliberate. Shirogane just threw together a bunch of meaningless symbols to keep Fujiwara occupied while he worked on his Grand Romantic Gesture.
• Uptown Girl: Kaguya is from one of the richest families in Japan. Shirogane is, while very intelligent, a commoner and his obsession with saving money implies that his family is not that well off. While nothing has come of their infatuation yet in the school since most students are too afraid of Shirogane to say anything, it remains to be seen what problems will arise, given how Kaguya's family often looks down on common traditions let alone common people.
• Urban Segregation: In Chapter 197, the Tokyo caste system is brought up. Fujiwara believes in the system, and she tries to dissuade Shirogane from moving to Minato, a ward that is considered socially higher than where she lives.
• Vacation Episode: Chapter 161 has Maki travel to India with her brother over Christmas break in order to gain enlightenment (and go sight-seeing).
• Valentine's Day Episode: Chapter 195 focuses on all the female members of the cast giving out chocolate. Despite taking place in the middle of an arc focusing on a Love Triangle, it's actually a Breather Episode.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: A minor case in the balloon popping contest. When Kaguya offers Fujiwara some tangerines, the narrator points out that the tangerines contain limonene, which can dissolve rubber, meaning that Kaguya's offer was to trick Fujiwara into popping the balloon. Minutes later, Fujiwara has the tangerines, and the narrator reminds the viewers about the limonene before the balloon bursts.
• Visual Pun:
  • Chapter 30 showed the principal hunting for a Pikachu while playing Pokémon GO. The anime managed to get around the copyright issues by having Hayasaka point him in the direction of the gym with two word balloons: a sparkle (pika) and a kiss (chu).
  • Episode 20 shows koi fish (鯉) when the subject of "love" (恋, koi) is brought up.
  • The final scene of Episode 24 involves the entire school (metaphorically) exploding when the giant balloon the student council was inflating pops. Given that this was the season finale, you could say that it "went out with a bang".
• Voodoo Shark: Played for Laughs. The reason that Shirogane is able to be a licensed appraiser of chickens is because the story takes place in an alternate history where The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is real (among other things).
• Warts and All: The Christmas arc basically has this trope enforced on the main pair; both are afraid of exposing their weak and more unpalatable personalities to each other for fear of a Broken Pedestal, but this is still a huge barrier in their getting together. It's not until they actually partially expose themselves (Kaguya with her "Ice" personality, Shirogane with a spontaneous and lame gift) that they actually begin to talk about their insecurities and gain a deeper appreciation for each other.
• Westminster Chimes: Episode 3's Dancing Theme opens with the sound of the school bells ringing due to it being set in the student council room.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 111 reveals that Shirogane plans to study abroad following graduation, giving the pair a very limited deadline to confess their feelings for each other. The story describes this as the real war of love and brains beginning.
  • The second half of Chapter 191 is all about Tsubame's relationship woes with Ishigami. It ends with Tsubame contacting Otomo, the girl that Ishigami was willing to sacrifice his reputation to keep her happiness.
  • Chapter 192 is A Day in the Limelight for Osaragi and reveals that she's been in love with Ishigami for a long time, something which paints all of her previous appearances in a very different light.
  • Chapter 222-223 has Kaguya inform Fujiwara of her and Shirogane's relationship, and while she initially gives them her blessing, she hits her Rage Breaking Point the next day, declares Shirogane unworthy of Kaguya, and storms off promising to break them up.
  • Chapter 239 suggests that the Shinomiya family is something far worse than simply an absurdly wealthy family of businessmen, and that their influence stretches from the school, to Tokyo's justice system, to foreign countries.
  • Chapter 240 follows in kind in its last two pages with a massive scandal breaking out concerning the Shinomiya Group, news headlines reporting their possible downfall, and Kaguya mysteriously vanishing.
• Wham Line:
  • Shirogane gives one at the end of Chapter 111.
    The last day of the culture festival. If Shinomiya hasn't confessed by then, I will confess to her.
  • Kaguya gives a pretty big one during Chapter 120.
    Hayasaka: Well, I'm sure you'll just make up some crazy excuse, and go on about how you don't really like—
    Kaguya: I like him.
    Hayasaka: ...What?
    Kaguya: I... like Miyuki Shirogane.
  • Shirogane gives another one at the end of Chapter 131.
    I have been accepted by Stanford University. So I'll be skipping a year and going overseas. I'll be leaving Shuuichuin a step ahead of you guys next year. This is the last festival I'll be doing at this school.
  • Chapter 136 has a manga-exclusive one (the line is more heavily foreshadowed in the anime due to the episode showing the events of 136 and the concurrent 137 in chronological order).
    Shirogane: Apply to Stanford, Shinomiya! Come to America with me!
  • Chapter 150 has the biggest one of all.
    Kaguya: I just wanted to show you my true self...
    Shirogane: What are you talking about...?
    Kaguya: I mean, who wouldn't want to show their true self to the person they love?
  • The narration for Chapter 179 gives this one while covering Hayasaka's daily routine:
    After returning to her room, she carries out her final duty for the day... reporting in detail on Kaguya Shinomiya's behavior to the main house.
  • Chapter 184 rather casually drops this line during a flashback:
    Kaguya: I overheard some kids from my class talking, saying how sad it was that I'm an illegitimate child.
  • Tsubame gives this one while talking on the phone in Chapter 191:
    Tsubame: There's something I wanted to talk to you about. It won't take long. Can you make some time for me, Ootomo-chan?
  • Kaguya gives this one while talking with Shirogane in Chapter 209:
    Kaguya: And I know that the one who took everything from your father was the Shinomiya Group.
  • Chapter 240 ends with a sign that the end is near.
    Shirogane: [narrating] And on that day...Kaguya Shinomiya disappeared without a trace.
    Final Act: Kaguya-sama Wants to be Confessed to
  • Ishigami comes to a realization in Chapter 245 that causes a fandom-wide Squee:
    Iino is cute.
• Wham Shot:
  • A rather shocking one in Chapter 177. After a typical lighthearted debate between Kaguya and Hayasaka on how to help with Ishigami's date with Tsubame, we see Hayasaka open her phone to see a message from her mother telling her that she's being relieved of her duties as Kaguya's valet.
  • After being an almost entirely light-hearted chapter surrounding the male cast discussing boobs, Chapter 215 reveals that Kaguya was eavesdropping on Shirogane's conversation with Tsubasa and Mikado, and thus him saying that he really wanted to have sex. And the narration makes it clear that this is going to have consequences going forward.
  • Chapter 273 starts off as another "Maki is having romantic woes" chapter, only for it to take a major turn when it's shown that Kashiwagi accidentally overheard her talking about her crush on Tsubasa.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • Chapter 88 finally tells the full story of why Ishigami was ostracized.
  • Chapter 121 details why Shirogane initially decided to run for Student Council President.
  • The New Game arc (Chapters 153-161) is told almost entirely via flashback, detailing what the rest of the cast was getting up to during Christmas break.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The series is basically a modern day retelling of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Most of the major characters' names and personalities are derived from the story in one way or another.
• Wild Teen Party: Subverted. Despite Iino's initial concerns about it being an orgy, Tsubame's Christmas party is perfectly normal with nary an alcoholic beverage in sight. Iino is ironically the only one who gets drunk, since she was bingeing on the whiskey chocolates Tsubame provided (which are legal for minors due to the law only covering drinks). Tsubame also tries to have sex with Ishigami, but that was only after the party was over and everyone had left.
• Win Her a Prize: Ishigami wins a large heart-shaped cookie during the culture festival and gives it to Tsubame as thanks for all the times she's helped him out. What he doesn't know is that giving someone a heart shaped object during the culture festival is a sign of eternal love, so the entire school interprets it as a love confession.
• Win-Win Ending: Chapter 47 ends in this as Kaguya was successful in her plan to copy Shirogane's elective, so they would be in a class together, which was both their goals.
• Wistful Amnesia: In the final chapter of the Official Doujin, Kaguya disappears from everyone's memories. Shirogane partially resists, realizing that something is wrong, having Kaguya silently appear to him in a dream, and still being driven to not lose to Kaguya even if he can't actually remember her. Fujiwara and Kei also manage it to a lesser degree, recognizing gaps in their memories regarding why Fujiwara joined the student council and who have Kei her fragrance machine at Christmas, respectively. Eventually, Shirogane manages to regain his memories (and by extension, Kaguya herself) thanks to the personalized calendar book she gave him.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Kaguya puts on some Crocodile Tears and claims Shirogane was being a jerk when she wanted to see a photo of him when he was younger on the Line app in his new smartphone, which he shared with Fujiwara. She successfully guilt trips him, and he shows her the photo for a brief moment before snapping it away after realizing her ploy. Unfortunately for him, she saw it long enough to memorize it. Fujiwara then unintentionally destroys the moment when she mentions that Kaguya can't use the Line app since she was still using an old flip phone, shocking both of the others.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: As part of the whole Here We Go Again! situation of Iino and Ishigami's final chapter, it's stated that half a year has passed since Iino was elected as Student Council President; (which given that elections are in mid October would place it at some point in April of the following schooly year). Despite this Takano (who was introduced in the previous chapter) is still refered to as a first year, and Kaguya is still shown to be in the school when she should have already graduated and left to join Shirogane in California. Even if you assume that it's slightly less than six months and they're still in the previous school year, Kaguya still would have already left since senior graduation is at the beginning of March.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Shirogane's strategies often involve quickly taking advantage of situations to attract Kaguya. In the event things do not go as plan or Kaguya tries to turn the tables on him, he is usually quick-witted enough to improvise and adapt to the new conditions.
• X-Ray Sparks: The season 3 opening has a brief shot where Karen is struck by lightning. On top of her body briefly having a visible skeleton, the microphone she's holding is also inexplicably shown to have a bone as well.
• You Are in Command Now: Shizuku appointed Karen and Erika as the new heads of the Mass Media Club when she graduated, with Karen as president and Erika as vice-president.
• You Must Be Cold:
  • Kaguya tries to invoke this during the stargazing chapter of so she can make Shirogane squirm, only for him to offer it before she can even ask due to his innocent love of the stars allowing him to effortlessly perform romantic actions that he'd normally be far to embarrassed to do.
  • While meeting on top of the clock tower during the Culture Festival, Shirogane says Kaguya must be cold and gives her the costume cape he was wearing.
• You Need to Get Laid: With all of the sexual tension and constant longing for Shirogane, Hayasaka explicitly tells Kaguya this almost word for word in Chapter 71.

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Result of today's battle:
(Due to spending too much time on TV Tropes)
TROPER LOSES

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