Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (anime)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Season 1 poster

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War[1] is an anime produced by A-1 Pictures, based on a manga from Aka Akasaka. Three seasons has been released: the first and second consisting of 12 episodes, and the third of 13. An OVA in the second season, "Kaguya-sama Darkness Volume 1/Kaguya-sama Darkness Volume 2/Kaguya-sama wa Tabesasetai", was released in May 2021. Season 3 was released in 2022, with an introduction from the preview "Yu Ishigami Wants to Talk". A film, titled Kaguya-sama: Love Is War - The First Kiss That Never Ends, serves as a continuation to the series.

Shuchiin Academy is the source of all things prestige. If you are in Japan, is of exceptional intelligence, and has a moderate amount of self respect, this is where you would go. But what happens at the top of the top? Of the most powerful of powerful, the most elite of elite, on top of the highest mountain, sits Miyuki Shirogane and Kaguya Shinomiya. And not even they are immune from Teen Drama.

To the average user of All The Tropes, love is just another part of life. Just like water, air, and sunlight, love is something we all take for granted as part life. Sure, it's heartbreaking when you get rejected, but rejection isn't exactly life threatening. You just learn to move on.

Except they're wrong.

For you see, there is nothing more serious than drama resulting from love. On top of the highest mountain, on the highest point in one's life, for the highest point in society, sits the battle of love. It is a dangerous one, a carefully planned psychological maneuver where you desperately try to dodge the incoming missiles to get another to confess. Even the cutest couples have power dynamics. To confess first is to admit the loss of this great battle. The person who gives their heart first will forever live their life in shame, dominated by the other lover.

The stakes are just a little high.

The show isn't pure "love is war", though. There are some dramatic scenes exploring the dramatic past of characters, as well as other scenes which explore the lives of students both outside and inside the council.

The main character Kaguya Shinomiya shares some characteristics with Princess Kaguya from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and its adaptations The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and Princess from the Moon. Both Shinomiya and Princess Kaguya feel restricted by the expectations placed on them by being in a wealthy family, seeking out and valuing the friendships her friends. They both appear stoic on the outside, but in reality are hiding their emotions on the inside. S2E3 of the show alludes to the original tale, as Shinomiya and Shirogane sits above the school rooftop gazing at the moon, where the two strike up a conversation about Princess Kaguya, comparing her to Kaguya Shinomiya.

Tropes used in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (anime) include:

Frequently used tropes

You know how Omnipresent Tropes have too many examples to list? Well, these tropes pop up in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War so much we'll explode every hard drive in existence trying to list every single example of them in this series.

  • Art Shift: Whenever a character has an Inner Monologue (which happens more often than you would expect), an art shift probably happens. A particularly noticeable example occurs when Fujiwara suggests the student council should visit Mount Osore. The scenes depicting the mountain are vastly different than any other shots in battle two of S1E2. They're much more realistic, darker, with more black stroking outlines.
  • Crush Blush: Shirogane and Kaguya gets them every other episode, as well as in the season 1 opening. In season 2, they both get Crush Blushes around three times an episode. Each.
  • Gambit Roulette: The series uses the trope so much, we're pretty sure it would be a trope namer if it was released earlier. Each episode has around three parts. Every part usually has at least two (one from Shirogane, and one from Kaguya), although this is toned down in season 2. Any scene involving Teen Drama in season 1 (you should expect a lot of Teen Drama in a show literally titled Love is War) has two of these.
  • Inner Monologue: The entire show can be renamed to just "Inner Monologue: Love is War", and would tell you more about the premise than the original title. Every other minute, a character bursts into an inner monologue trying to decide the best plan forward in a world of chaotic Teen Drama. Intense schemes, and traps are all planned out in their inner monologue, with the objective of trying to get the other person to confess their love. These monologues are often accompanied with background shots depicting what they're saying.
  • Lemony Narrator: The English narrator, Ian Sinclair, goes so wild in the English dub there's an entire genre of YouTube videos titled "Kaguya dub". Take a look.

Remember when I said we would get to the home visit later?
It's later!

  • Off-Model: Used for expression. For example, when a character is painted as being intimidating their heads will grow in size. The size of everyone's mouths will change depending on much their movements are being exaggerated.
  • Post Modernism: The entire show contains enough grain filters to make The End of Evangelion jealous. All concept of linear storytelling is abolished as every other shot takes you into the mind of a character. Backgrounds frequently devolve into simple, static colours, and occasionally the English dub narrator takes a wrecking ball to the fourth wall.
  • The Teaser: Used in most episodes. Exceptions include S1E7-9 and S1E12.
  • Teen Drama: The entire series basically evolves around this.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Welcome to Will They or Won't They?: The manga: The anime. We hope you enjoy your stay! It's quite impressive to build an entire series around this one singular trope, but Love is War has done it!

Other Tropes

  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Averted. You would think this trope is in use with all the shenanigans going on in the student council, but nope. It's actually a pretty normal student council doing the usual things a student council does.
  • Animation Bump: In the ending of all places. The "Chika Dance" ending of S1E3 has better animation than the entire episode that came before it, with a notable increase in fluidity. The best part is that it's rotoscoped, meaning someone did the Chika Dance in real life.
  • Beach Episode: One is teased in battle two of S1E2, but it never happens. Shinomiya wants to turn a student council trip into a beach episode, but Shirogane wants to turn it into a mountain episode. Shirogane states he will never go to the ocean as he cannot swim, and prefers drowning over using a floatie.
  • Bland-Name Product: Both averted and played straight. Phones in the show looks like Apple products, but the logo is slightly too deformed. On the other hand, Twitter straight up exists in universe. Although its logo is slightly different than the real world one, the name remains completely the same.
    • S2E8 introduces us to Marinekart.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: The fourth wall is shattered as, halfway throughout the first episode, the narrator straight up reveals that despite only being twelve minutes into the episode, the audience probably knows Shinomiya enough to know she is not being honest.
    • In the epilogue of S1E1, Shinomiya straight up tears through the end screen and asks to be left alone. The narrator apologises.
  • Breather Episode: Part 3 of S1E4 is a nice, relaxing contrast with the romantic drama that comes before (and after) it. There's still romantic drama, but there's more calmer and relaxing scenes. Episodes involving the student council giving out romantic advice to other students tend to be calmer as well.
  • Cell Phone: Shirogane gets one in the first part of S1E2. This leads to an intense battle where the he tries subtly to convince Shinomiya to ask for his contact info, while Shinomiya tries her hardest to get him to ask for her info. Shinomiya has a flip phone she used since pre-school. She's quite attached to it, but it does become a problem as it cannot support any apps. There's also a sequence involving Shinomiya not wanting to be the first person to send Shirogane a text message, instead wishing for Shirogane to text her back, and another one involving the "message read by recipient" notification on many texting apps.
    • Shinomiya finally gets one in season three, after her old phone broke. Unfortunately, she is less tech savvy than a monkey with a Windows 95 computer, so she needs a lot of help from Hayasaka.
  • Conspicuous CG: A lot of times when the camera is moving in 3D, it's quite easy to tell that some background elements are in CG, as they are way too smooth in both outline and colouring. The S3 opening is pretty conspicuous.
  • Creative Closing Credits: The ending of S1E3, instead of the usual sequence, features the Chika Dance. This is basically Detective Fujiwara bragging about how the student council is loved, and about her ability to uncover mysteries about love. The credits song, unsubtly named "Chikatto Chika Chika♡ (チカっとチカ千花っ♡)" says that even though Fujiwara has an IQ of 3, she can handle the job.
  • Credits Running Sequence: The very last episode of season 1 features Shirogane being embarrassed by what he did in the firework arc, and rapidly running away from Shinomiya in the credits. Shinomiya, on the other hand, chases Shirogane to express her gratitude.
  • Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune: The ending theme to episode three, in the Kaguya-sama: Love Is War ♡ ULTRA BEST album, straight up had "Chika Fujiwara" as the artist. Of course, the album did note who is actually behind the song, which happens to be Fujiwara's voice actor Konomi Kohara.
  • Dramatic Irony: In battle three of S1E2, Shirogane is giving out relationship advice to get Tsubasa Tanuma paired up with Nagisa Kashiwagi. Little did he (but a lot did the audience) know, Shinomiya is actually behind the entrance to the student council door, and is eavesdropping on everything he's saying. This only gets more dramatic when he pretends there is a girl on the other side of the door, then walks up to it, and confesses his love, right while Shinomiya is listening on the other side with a blush too big. Then, things become the most dramatic when Shirogane talks about why he likes Shinomiya right in front of the girl herself.

Shirogane: She's so stinking perfect I can barely believe she is real! That's right! Between you and me Shinomiya is everything I want in a girl!
She's standing right outside the freaking door! Good thing I noticed!

  • Dramatic Slip: In part two of S2E8, Shinomiya's dramatic slip onto a gym mat initiates their fairy tale kiss. They never kissed.
  • Faceless Masses: In part two of S2E4, faceless masses watch as Shirogane asks Kaguya to be in charge of his campaigning speeches. Of course, that simple request isn't the reason the Faceless Masses are watching. In reality, they're watching because they think the two are confessing their love for each other. This confession never happens. This is a running theme throughout the series.
  • Flashback: In S1E2, another student of Shuchiin Academy enters the student council to ask for relationship advice. He gets a flashback to when girls state that he's "still on the market" (translation: still looking for a girlfriend).
  • Genre Shift: The third part of S1E3 takes the usual high-stakes Rom Com Teen Drama into a Slice of Life segment closer to a typical Studio Ghibli production. There's no intense romance scheming, rather, we get a nice story about helping a girl cross the road and walk to school.
  • Ghibli Hills: In the second battle of s1e2, Shirogane wants to go on a trip to a mountain. Ghibli Hills appear in mental sequences of him visualising the location.
  • Gratuitous English: Used in the opening themes for the first and second season. The first opening uses the phase "Love is war! Love is war! Love is war!" (get it, because the show is called Love is War and it's the premise of the whole series), while the second opens with "Daddy daddy do!" The rest of the lyrics are in Japanese.
  • In Medias Res: Part two of S2E8 begins with Shinomiya and Shirogane about to do a fairy tale kiss, before flashing back to "three hours earlier".
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The preview of S3 sees the characters discussing a manga's anime adaptation getting season 3, while in an anime adaptation of a manga about to get season 3.
  • Long Title: Kaguya-sama: Love is War doesn't seem that bad, until you venture into other languages.
    • Season 1 and 2
      • The original title is 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 zunô sen ~)
      • The Chinese title is 辉夜大小姐想让我告白：天才们的恋爱头脑战.
      • The Chinese title is basically the Japanese title translated into Chinese. Both titles roughly translates to "Lady Kaguya Wants to Make Him Confess: The Geniuses' War of Hearts and Minds". Be glad you can refer to the series in English as simply Love is War.
      • The season 2 title adds a question mark to the title, to get something like "Kaguya wants to confess?"
    • Season 3
      • The original Japanese title is かぐや様は告らせたい-ウルトラロマンティック-, with the Chinese title being 辉夜大小姐想让我告白：究极浪漫. The subtitle roughly translates to "Ultra Romantic".
    • The titles of each chapters aren't particularly long. However, each episode consists of three chapters, with the occasional four chapter episode. The name of the chapters are combined into one title. Therefore, we get behemoths like "Miyuki Shirogane Wants Girls to Fall for Him/Nagisa Kashiwagi Wants to Console/Miyuki Shirogane Wants to Sing/Kaguya Wants to Kick Them Down" and "Ai Hayasaka Wants to Stave Them Off/The Student Council Has Not Achieved Nirvana/Kaguya Wants to Get Married/Kaguya Wants to Celebrate".
  • Opening Monologue: Delivered in the first episode to explain the background of the two leads. Also followed through in the second episode. It starts in the third episode, but gets fast forwarded as we all know the point by that time.
  • Retraux: The very first episode of season 2 features title cards, deliberately made in the style of old film reels (with complementary grain and sound effects), that introduces the viewer to the series if they haven't seen season 1.
  • Sailor Fuku: The female uniform at the academy.
  • Shout-Out: In the preview teaser of S3, titled "Yu Ishigami Wants to Talk", the student council has a scene where they list their favourite anime. Thus, we shout out the following works and creators (in order):
  • Story Within a Story: The Momo Can't Think Straight manga that shows up in the season 3 preview. The characters discuss Momo Can't Think Straight‍'‍s third season, before devolving into a full blown war about who is a weeb and who is not. They're all weebs.
  • Super-Deformed: Around seven minutes into S1E2, several super-deformed versions of Kaguya Shinomiya scroll down on screen.
  • Tempting Fate: In the last part of S1E9, Hayasaka makes it abundantly clear that:
    • Shinomiya is stuck in bed with an illness, due to being stuck in the rain.
    • Kaguya, due to a bunch of Freudian stuff, will not remember what happened for three hours.
    • Hayasaka will ensure Shirogane and Shinomiya are left alone in the room for three hours.
    • The walls are soundproof.
    • What happened in the room stays in the room.
    The bonus is that Hayasaka repeatedly emphasizes that absolutely nothing inappropriate should happen in the room. Granted, no one will know if anything inappropriate happened, but Hayasaka keeps insisting, creating the perfect condition for something inappropriate to occur. Nothing inappropriate occurred. They didn't have sex as Shirogane resisted. Shinomiya becomes an incredibly angry being (angry Kaguya is the scariest Kaguya), as Shirogane slept under her sheets, and immediately gave him the boot when her normal self returned. Hayasaka, after inspecting the bedsheets in the transition to ending credits, states that he didn't do anything inappropriate.
    • While inside a sports shed in S2E8, Shinomiya states "Imagine what it be like if the two of us got trapped in here?" The two of them got trapped in there.
  • Their First Time: A phase used to demonstrate the innocence and sheltered nature of Kaguya, with how she believes it refers to a first kiss instead of its actual meaning.
  • Title Drop: An obvious example in S3E8. Shinomiya, in an internal monologue, wonders to herself "It's not like Love Is War and whoever gives their heart first is somehow conquered!" The narrator, in response to this, remarks that this is the point of the entire story. After an internal monologue, Shinomiya decides she has chickened out and will not be confessing. Thus, we are back to square one, but at least the narrator remarks that they don't have to change the title.
  • Title Theme Drop: In the third part of S3E1, a small section of the S2 opening "Daddy Daddy Do!" is played as Shinomiya draws a bow.
  • Time Skip: Right in the first episode of the entire series, we get one that goes for half a year as Shinomiya and Shirogane made absolutely no romantic progress whatsoever.

Narrator: Yeah, we're skipping ahead because nothing happened between then and now.

Today's Troping Outcome:
(For spending too long editing All The Tropes instead of studying for school tests)
Editor Loses!

  1. ↑ Japanese: かぐや様は告らせたい ～天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～, Hepburn: Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunōsen, literally "Lady Kaguya Wants to Make Him Confess: The Geniuses' War of Hearts and Minds"
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