Manga Season 1 and 2 Review(Edited)
Edited to include Season 2, as well as my thoughts after rewatching Season 1
When it comes to romance stories, it's generally likely that almost any storyline you can think of has already been done before in some other work. Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War goes for a relatively novel approach, and mostly handles it well.
The premise of the series is that Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane, vice president and president of the Shuchin Academy student council, are in love with each other, but are determined to make the other confess to them, going through all sorts of zany schemes to get the other to tip their hand. Each chapter, many of which are adapted into a third or fourth of an episode, adapts one such "battle" betwen the two leads, with the narrator giving a play-by-play analysis, and announcing the outcome of the "battle" at the end.
As strange as it may sound, I enjoyed the comedic portions less than the serious portions, which help flesh out Kaguya and Shirogane's characters and explain why they act the way they do. Because of this, I liked the somewhat ore serious Season 2 more, especially the episodes about Ishigami's backstory.
The supporting cast, which consists of Kaguya and Shirogane's fellow student council members, a few schoolmates, their families and others, are generally colorful and add to the story, whether by complicating the main leads' schemes or helping flesh out their characters. In Season 2, the characters take on more of a life of the own, helping the show develop a healthy ensemble cast.
The pacing can be rather slow at times, and it seems as though not much happens as of the end of the first season. Without spoiling too much, Kaguya and Shirogane still aren't a couple as of the end of the second season, but it feels as though they're making progress, however subtle or slight it may be.
If you're the kind of person who gets annoyed at romance stories that would end much sooner if one or both of the leads were honest with each other (e.g. Recovery of an MMO Junkie), Kaguya-sama may not be for you. If you're willing to be patient, you should give the first season some time to grow on you, and stick with the series until at least a few episodes into the second season. While I found the first season a bit slow, I gave the second a second chance, and I'm eagerly waiting for the third season.
Manga A Fantastic Romantic Comedy That Unfortunately Sometimes Feels the Need To Be a Much Less Impressive Romantic Drama
Love Is War benefits from a dynamite premise that had me hooked from the very first episode. At a classy, fancy private school, the top two students, a scholarship kid and a wealthy uptown girl, are in love with each other and pretty sure that the other is in love with them, but they're also both very proud and very insecure, so instead of just coming out and saying it, they both try to engineer and manipulate situations where the other will be pushed into confessing to them. Sprinkle in some strong comedic supporting characters, and I was absolutely hooked. I could watch these incredibly smart, talented young people be the biggest fools in the world forever.
It doesn't hurt that the English dub cast give spirited, energetic performances, alongside a witty dub script that knows when strict fidelity is less important than the joke. While the animation is generally cheap and money saving, they occasionally splurge on a random dance sequence or music video to hilarious effect, and the fact that it's a romantic comedy means that the visuals often back up the script rather than vice-versa. My one technical complaint was persistent problems with sound-mixing, where particularly high-pitched voices (usually women in distress, for obvious reasons) were basically incomprehensible, and the streaming site I watched it on only allowed captioning for stuff in the original Japanese, not for the English dub, so probably good jokes died in execution.
Unfortunately, as the show goes on, sometimes this uniformly-excellent comedy gives way to uneven drama. Not only is almost uniformly less compelling and less interesting than the comedy it's replacing (although the worst cliches are avoided), and not only does it tend to absolutely take a sledgehammer to the pacing (although they do get better about interpolating comedic bits into dramatic bits as the series continues, it doesn't mean the drama in question actually improves in quality), but it undermines the show more subtly as well.
Even when it's not outright bad, stuff that works fine in an over-the-top comedy doesn’t work nearly as well when it has to instead to be played for drama, because drama requires a certain amount of realism to remain relatable. And being more realistic in tone draws attention to things about the characters and situation that are inherently ridiculous. While sometimes, the opportunity is taken to try do deepen the characters in interesting ways, it doesn't necessarily improve the show in the process.
Also, the Christmas movie/short season/whatever that as of this moment closes the show out is a bit of a dull regression, but at least it has a happy ending and some belly laughs, so I'm up for it.
For all that the dramatics are easily the weakest part of a very strong show, though, don't get it twisted. Love Is War is fantastic television and I heartily recommend it.