Manga 90125 Kaguya-sama Wa Kokurasetai Tensai-tachi No Renai Zunousen Reviews Filter Check 2

This manga was always at its best when it knew what it was, a comedy. The whole premise was to put a bunch of horny autists in a classroom and have them go to town. The strengths of this manga were in its hilarious and unique premise, but it excelled as a comedy that satirized romance tropes, not as an actual romance.

Unfortunately, after the culture festival, it all goes downhill, and its pretty funny as the manga itself even acknowledges this. The manga goes from being a unique school comedy to an unfocused mess of a generic school romance anime as the author starts splitting ... his attention onto numerous side characters giving us several different generic romances at the same time, none of which I was really invested in.

Read this for the early comedy chapters, then if you truly have nothing better to do read the rest of it for generic melodramatic school romance.

comedy was 8/10, romance was 3/10 so i give it a 5

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai—or just "Love is War"—has grown into such a big name that it's virtually impossible to be interested in either anime or manga without knowing what it is. There's no doubt in my mind that Love is War is going to go down in history along with the shounen giants that we just can't seem to forget. But despite all the praise it gets, I can't help but feel like my experience with the series has been more like that of speeding through the main story of a game just to get to the side quests.

Love is War is fundamentally a character-based story, ... so it's a shame that the characters happen to be its weakest aspect. Don't misunderstand, though; the majority of the cast is actually pretty solid, both main and supporting. There's not all that much depth to them, but most of the characters fit their roles perfectly. Heck, some of the interpersonal relationships are even fairly interesting. That sounds good, though, right? So what's the deal? It all comes down to the two protagonists, sadly.

Social awkwardness and emotional constipation both come as a matter of course with a premise like this, as you were presumably fully aware of long before ever laying eyes on this review. The problem is how far it ends up taking it. Every single interaction between the leads is painfully frustrating from the start, which just might be your cup of tea if you're even thinking of reading this manga. That's okay. But see, it keeps getting worse for every chapter until it starts becoming nigh unbearable. And no, it's not in the intentionally frustrating slow burn "why won't they just talk?!" kind of way. It reaches a point where the mental gymnastics just become annoying. A point where you find yourself staring at the page with a blank expression on your face, muttering "Really...?" under your breath for the umpteenth time in the same volume. The fact that these people are supposed to be 17 at the start of the series is beyond baffling when they're acting like particularly awkward 12-year-olds every opportunity they get. The manga tries to excuse it by continuously pointing out how Kaguya is sheltered and lacks experience talking to people, but that doesn't do much to make every conversation she has with the love interest any less aggravating.

In contrast, the rest of the cast is rather good. Everyone here probably already knows Chika from the memes, and that's basically what she's there for in the first place. Rarely doing anything to directly further the plot, she's mostly there to make the dumb jokes possible. Ishigami starts off rather bland, but ends up turning into the most interesting character by far as the story progresses. Iino doesn't do much of anything as she enters the stage, but she eventually manages to take an important role in the better part of the series. Hayasaka is one of the best characters from the very start, and stays that way through the entirety of the manga. Even some of the less important characters are genuinely interesting in some way. It's just a shame that the protagonists end up outweighing everyone else.

You may have noticed that this review hasn't mentioned anything about the plot yet, but that's fine. The manga takes its damn time getting around to it. In fact, in a lot of ways, it probably shouldn't have ever gone past its basic premise. Without saying too much, the whole style of the series changes in the blink of an eye and never really fully returns to what it used to be, and I get the impression that people are somewhat split on whether this is good or bad for the story in general. To be perfectly clear, I personally didn't like any part of it before this point in the story. After this point, however, I started liking SOME parts. That's pretty huge in itself. On the other hand, I've seen a good number of people say that they liked it before, but not after. To be frank, although the storytelling improves drastically in the short time dedicated to this shift, it costs the story its entire identity. And the best part? The protagonists are still annoying. The greatest improvement is genuinely that more time is now getting dedicated to the rest of the cast—particularly Ishigami. And this brings us to my final real point.

Ishigami's part of the story was the only thing keeping me somewhat interested in this series. Had it stood isolated, I could easily have recommended it to anyone interested in drama or romance. It's not watered down like the rest of the series, it feels genuine and raw, and every character seems drastically much better compared to how they are outside of it. But alas. In the end, it's just not worth walking through all the other shit just to get to the chapters that are truly good.

Comedy is purely subjective, so there probably isn't much of a point in me saying what I think on that. I will however say that there's so much repetition that it wouldn't be weird to get tired of the gag after a few chapters. It gets a bit better after the shift, but don't think for a moment that it's going to fully stop. I personally found the visual comedy to be best, which is in part carried by how good the art is. It looks somewhat awkward at times, particularly at the start, but the art's odd points become less and less frequent for every volume.

Love is War was a tiring read in general. It definitely has some good moments, a few truly fantastic ones, and a whole lot of bad ones. I can't see anyone enjoying the whole thing unless they love the comedy from the start and still appreciate the huge change in the writing. It seriously would have been so much better with Ishigami as the protagonist.

Story: 5/10
Art: 8/10
Characters: 4/10
Enjoyment: 3/10
Overall: 5/10

Before chapter 160 or so, it's a 10/10. Kaguya and Miyuki figure out that they like each other in trying to make the other confess. It's funny, cute and doesn't ever stray too far from the romantic development.

However, the romcom after 160 is so heavy on character development that it loses a lot of the "rom" and "com" aspect found in the earlier chapters (and the anime from season 3 and before). The story that Akasaka writes is good, but because it spreads itself so thin documenting so many different characters, it feels rudderless at times because he forgets whom everyone is supposed to be ... circling around. It feels more real at the expense of losing focus on Kaguya and Miyuki.

Kaguya becomes a different manga. It isn't bad storytelling, but it's a bit heavier and feels like continuous and complicated side tangents that sometimes circle back to the two protagonists. This different manga warrants an 8. Averaging the rating before 160 and the rating after gives a 9/10.

The initial appeal of Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen was a funny romcom with great humour, and an interesting premise. I really loved the premise, which was to make the students try to make each other confess. I loved it. However, that was only until chapter 130 or so, the manga took a drama stage. Instead of continuing the relationship, it takes a big dive into garbage writing. The initial appeal had disappeared, and what I had been reading was filled with boring old rom com drama. If it had continued the humorous and romantic relationships, then I would've given Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: ... Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen, a perfect 10/10.

The story is simple. Shirogane and Kaguya, are in the student council. They both have this feeling for each other, and they try to make others confess. I was very interested in this idea. It was much different from your usual romcoms, so I had high expectations, y'know? Chapters 1-130 were a 10/10, no doubt, but straight after that, it gets horrible, as I mentioned before. Everything gets worse and worse. Drama was the thing that I did not want Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen to use. Well, unluckily for me, that happened.

Chapters that stop the drama, continuing the manga from chapter 262 and so on were trying to tie all of the screws that were loose, but it just didn't work out. The initial charm of the series had been gone. The humour was dry and unfunny, and most importantly, the side character's relationships were rushed. We never get a proper story for side character's relationships.

The ending: Horrifying. I absolutely despised the ending. We never get a proper conclusion for Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen, we only have the student council team graduating, that's it. We don't get to see the outcome of everyone's relationships.

The characters? Still likeable. Shirogane & Ishigami are my favourite characters. One positive thing I can say about the drama is that they didn't really change their characters, which was good. I basically liked every character. No characters were unlikeable, except for one of Kaguya's cousins, and her family.

The art is splendid. The coloured pages are awesome. Each panel had been taken the utmost care of. Nothing looked particularly rushed.

A 10/10 wouldn't be enough for my enjoyment. I loved every single chapter of Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen, and was just way too hyped for the next chapter. After chapter 130, things get negative, sadly. I get really bored, as Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen turns from one of the best (if not best) romcom anime, to an absolute garbage dumpster. All of the things that I loved, humour and story, were thrown into the bin.

Seriously though. I've seen so many anime that I loved so much, but just don't reach a good conclusion, or get trash later on. Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen is part of the "wasted potential" anime/manga. I really am disappointed. I don't hate Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen, I'm just disappointed straight after the duel confessions arc.

Kaguya sama Love is war is the perfect example of a manga that starts good, but becomes incredibly bland later on.

So let me start with the things that made this series good.

Characters:

The main cast was likable and although they seemed to be particulary dense at certain moments ( they are supposed to be elite students lol) I blame romantic comedy sterotypes on that one.
Especially Ishigami has been a very relatable supporting character, who had a great redemption arc later on in the manga.
The other characters were fine, although I didnt like them quite as much as Ishigami. With have of them being occassional fanservice ... devices (RIP Fujiwara).


Story:

After a certain couple confesses to each other the manga just becomes more and more riduculous, yes even more than before. Teenagers being able to beat Yakuzas. Uninteresting plot points (like who cares about a feud in the Shinomiya family in a darn romance manga, the evila partiach lmao).The thing is ofc it was always supposed to make no sense at times (afterall its a romcom). The problem that arises is that the story tries to take its subject matter way to fking seriously.

Oh no Hayasaka has been snitching infos for kaguyas brother all along , but she doesnt't want to betray Kaguya no more, now she can stop being her servant and start being a real friend. As if, this story has to overly stretch out and overdramatise that plot point for no reason whatsoever. And worse of all in the most stupid and illogical way. Her older brother is portrayed as someone dangerous with a lot more influence than someone like Kaguya can ever can hope to achieve. A guy that hates traitors and thus goes after Hayasaka (a child lmao). They can't possibly hope to reason with him easily. An ingenious plan and much persuasion is surely needed.
Guess what, she just slaps him and her brother is talk no jutsued into stopping just like that. And apparently he just lets himself be assaulted by his little sister without her facing any reperscussion. This scene was so incredibly useless you could have just skipped it and missed out on nothing. A trajectory that the series seems alas to be permanently adapting.

Manga was enjoyable otherwise thats why I will give it a 5, read it if you don't want to use your brain in some scenes so you don't get overly triggered by the absurd stupidity and redundance.

A good manga which strays away from what made it such at the start.

Great 'rom' and 'com' parts, but they start to disappear after... some events. Which is where the story basically loses the 'com' part, with great comedy characters like Chika or Maki (my favs, btw) showing up less and less, and it focusing on drama - which is fine, but it shifts the tone of the story too much - + side characters when the point of the story was and should be Kaguya and Miyuki.

I can see why its liked and it's not *bad* but you should be sure about whether you're ... fine with the 'com' part of a romcom just... ending.