Manga 90125 Kaguya-sama Wa Kokurasetai Tensai-tachi No Renai Zunousen Reviews Filter Check 3

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAIN SPOILERS

When I read the first arc of this manga, I am already imagined that the ending would be 2 possible scenarios: There will be a confession in the last chapter or, by default, they never confess their love to each other. At the end, I was partially right, because the last scenario happened in the first part of the manga. So, what's more have this to offer us? Let's find out. I'm gonna divide this review for each part of the manga:

1. First part: Each arc of this one can be summarized as follows: Our protagonists try to force the other ... side to confess their love, Chika and/or a similar plot device creates a random romantic misunderstanding, both sides try to take advantage of this to win this conflict and in the end none of them do. In order to show you what's wrong with this, I'm gonna take a classic cartoon (Roadrunner vs Coyote), that it has a similar format and episodic mechanic to make the comparison:

a) Objective: In the case of Roadrunner vs Coyote the goal is Coyote catching and eating the Roadrunner in order to survive. Simple premise and makes sense. On the other hand, the goal of this manga is that one of the two protagonists make a love confession. Using common sense, aren't there better ways to make a confession of love? I don't know. Why is always a third person involved in order to advance the plot in each arc? Wouldn't it be better and more interesting to see how the two sides use their wits on their own? No fucking idea.

b) Pretentiousness level: In this manga, they try to present our protagonists as a smart and calculator people because of their strategies. For what reason do they do it? Mystery. Normally, a person is considered smart according to his/her capacity to solve their problems, and, in this case, the main problem is not solved (at least in this first part). It is not like in each arc one of the two sides gets closer to the goal. So they don't have anything smart if you ask me.

c) Bait: In the case of Roadrunner vs Coyote, subtly, the cartoon shows that as long Coyote keep using the ACME brand artifacts, he wouldn't be able to catch the roadrunner. In this manga, the author leaves you hoping that, at some point, one of the two will ending making the confession, being more dishonest in comparisson if you ask me. Despite that the one of the them ended making the confession, this didn't happened in this part, where it was supposed to happen, at least, in the final episode of this format.

As we can see, the mechanics are similar, however, the execution is what makes the difference between them.

2. Second part: The formula, now, in each arc is as follows: Partially remove what supposedly is the original aspect of the manga (comedy), in a attempt to take itself more seriously, take one of the characters of the cast and put the rest out of the scene, make a random and generic story and that's it. Is that really necessary to put out the other characters of the cast in each arc? No fucking idea. There's no need for them to be some kind of middle man in the arcs with romance involved, but they could at least show us some progress in their character development. It is an unnecessary disconnection in the narrative flow and in the character's arc if you ask me. As I mentioned before, the confession between the main characters, indeed, happened, but it was in a storyline that you can find in any other average rom-com. It wouldn't have been better that this confession happened during the most comedic part of the manga? No fucking idea. The reason of why I don't mention the stories of the other characters is because they are irrelevant to the main plot raised here. In other words, they felt like a filler. It was really necessary to make that stories? It wouldn't have better focused more in finish the main story and, after that, go for the other ones? Mystery.

That's it for now. Despite having a good and original idea, the manga ended being a mess up because of a poor execution of the same.

Most rom-coms follow the same trend: it starts hilarious and fun, then it gets serious and cringe. It feels like rom-com authors don't assume the comedy side of things, and only use it as a bait to tell an uninspired, boring story that was told billions of times before their own version appears.

Sadly, this description fits Love is War.


STORY
This is a mind game between a boy and a girl living a love story. At least... in the beginning.
The mind game side of the story is given up after 100 chapters, and the manga becomes the usual, boring love story like there are thousands of others.

The ... author is clearly less and less inspired, as the characters' stories take retarded routes (a nonsensical family clan wars ; a love triangle with no consequential development ; plot twists that cancels previous plot twists ; mafiosi being defeated by teenagers).

In the end it's just a rom-com : it started with a brillant concept, but quickly gave up on it and became the usual uninspired boring love story.



ART
The manga is beautiful, nothing to complain here.



CHARACTER
The characters have nice personalities, too bad they often become transparent. Poor Chika never lives any interesting story except when she must teach Shirogane. The only chapters revolving around her are boring, repetitive fillers about ramen.

The other main characters have deeper stories, but when the chapter isn't about them, they often completely disappear.

It's too bad, because the main characters are awesome. I love Miko, she's like Azusa from K-On as she's the 5th and new member of the main characters club. I loved the dynamic of the group after she joined. But like all the other characters, she's just transparent when it's not a chapter about her.


ENJOYMENT
Love is War had an incredible potential, and it shows in the first 100 chapters. Those are brillant and hilarious.
But the next 100 chapters become boring. It tries to be way too serious, and when it tries to be funny, it's just uninspired, repetitive gags.

I only recommend reading up until chapter 130. It's not all bad after that, but it's definitely subpar compared to the first part of this manga. What a horrible waste...

Really formulaic, the supossed smart characters are bad af and got tired real fast of the How Cute panel with Kaguya that was spammed every chapter.

Haven't watched the anime but im guessing is way better than the manga, as its really popular. I've been meaning to try to get into it, but my experience with the manga was god awful, and i don't think the good animation and (i hope) less spam of the same jokes over and over will help much, because the two main characters really didn't make it for me.

At least Chika is really cute and the art is good, but ... i couldn't get my self to go further than where i got (arround chapter 30ish) because it was the same jokes over and over.

They say timing matters, we're in the age of continuous social media exposure, and the internet is at an all-time high and that's what made Kaguya Sama stand out.
BUT !!
The plot is your typical hate-to-love cynical story, from the beginning chapters it's visible that Kaguya Sama is inspired by 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗘𝗞𝗢𝗜 at multiple stages including the basic theme of using love as a tug of war and influence.
The humour is bland most of the time.

In short, Kaguya Sama lacks genuineness and originality.
Overall, One shouldn't go by the hype and the herd.
Kaguya sama is an average read.

Now it depends if you're a newcomer or you haven't seen ... or read such plots, you might find Kaguya sama as the extreme best.
Hence I mentioned it's all about timing.

I wouldn't recommend it. You're better off reading or seeing plots much much better than this, but then again some people have a side of cheap thrills.
Your choice!