MeinMMO Demon Cortyn wants to recommend an anime series that will win over any doubter. Because with Kaguya-sama, everyone is guaranteed to smile.
The world of anime is colorful. Whether it’s screaming students, young ladies in kitschy colorful costumes, incredibly strong superheroes, or excessively dramatic romances – in the anime segment, you can find absolutely everything you can imagine and usually even things you can’t imagine.
But like many other media, anime is most enjoyable when watched together with others.
But how do you introduce someone to the medium who usually doesn’t have much to do with anime? What series covers many tastes, is engaging enough to hold attention, but not too weird to scare viewers away?
For exactly this case, I want to recommend a series to you: Kaguya-sama: Love is War.
What is Kaguya-sama: Love is War about?
The premise of the anime is relatively simple. The story revolves around Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane. Both are students at the prestigious Shuchiin Academy and members of the student council.
Miyuki is the chairman of the council. He comes from relatively humble beginnings, is known for his somewhat cold gaze – but is especially appreciated for his commitment to performance. He is the most talented student at the school with the best test results and is considered eager to learn and diligent: the perfect model student.
Kaguya, on the other hand, comes from a wealthy family, as her father owns a whole business empire. She has her own maids, enjoys an elite education, and is regarded as a genius – she never has to study much to get good grades. For that, she has been a bit too sheltered, but that only makes her seem more mysterious in the eyes of many.
Miyuki and Kaguya share not only their work on the student council but also one circumstance: they are both in love with each other. At the same time, they are both too proud to admit it to each other. For neither of them would it be acceptable to expose themselves to the embarrassment of confessing their feelings and risk placing themselves in a subordinate position.
Thus, both separately harbor the plan: to make the other confess love without having to take the first step themselves.
The series repeatedly gives insight into the plans and thoughts of both, who often think two or three steps ahead to trap the other. While Kaguya often uses money and her maid to manipulate the entire environment, Shirogane utilizes Kaguya’s inexperience to lure her into a trap as much as possible.
The two are frequently torpedoed in their efforts by the other two members of the student council.
Fujiwara Chika is lively and a bit simple-minded but often brings chaos to their plans with her energy and unexpected contributions, while the withdrawn outsider Ishigami Yuu occasionally heats up the mood with cynical or careless remarks, casting well-laid plans in a whole different light.
What at first seems like a concept that would become stale after the 3rd episode surprises positively here.
Nevertheless, Love is War does not make the mistakes that so many romantically tinged series make: the plot remains stagnant for ages, or it simply doesn’t progress. That is absolutely not the case here. The story moves forward relentlessly, and the relationships between the characters evolve. This is also necessary, as the shared school time is coming to an end, and the remaining weeks are continually recalled.
That Kaguya-sama: Love is War is so good is no wonder. The work is from the same author as Oshi no Ko – one of the mega-hits of last year.
I promise you: Once you’ve watched the first three episodes of Kaguya-sama, you won’t be able to stop. It’s rare for me to actually laugh out loud at an anime – but with Love is War, that happens regularly. Because every time you think “Ah, now they’re bringing in this anime cliché,” you can be sure that in the end, it will turn out quite differently.
If you want a little preview of it, here’s a 10-minute “trailer,” which is actually a whole chapter from the manga – summarizing the madness quite well:
While Kaguya-Sama: Love is War kicks off strongly with the first season, the later seasons are even better. The 3rd season is currently rated myanimelist with a score of 9.02 / 10 – ranking it 12th among the best anime of all time.
If you want to entice someone into anime – use Kaguya-sama: Love is War. I did this with our author Marie Friske, and now she is being forced to watch more anime during every lunch break until she becomes a weeb and is shunned by conventional society. Whether that is successful, you’d best hear from her:
Additionally, there’s the wonderfully exaggerated way in which even the smallest, most insignificant moments are portrayed: I have never seen anyone write a school test as epic as the protagonist in Kaguya-Sama.
Furthermore, the characters have interesting personality traits that lead to relationships that are immensely entertaining.
Whether it be the two main characters Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane, who continually try to maneuver each other into checkmate in the most absurd ways so that the other can finally confess his love, or the interactions between Yuu Ishigami and the protagonist, in which the computer nerd fears for his life – the anime continually brings surprising, sometimes heartwarming moments.
So if you’re still looking for a humorous, light anime with many lovable characters for a lunch break with a demon, I can highly recommend Kaguya-Sama.
If you’re interested, you can watch all the currently available episodes on the streaming service Crunchyroll.
By the way, Kaguya-sama is one of the few series where it makes a big difference whether you watch the Japanese, English, or German dubbing. Because the narrator has a completely different personality in each of these versions – from the distant butler in the original to the hyperactive fanboy in the English version. This means that the series has a different charm each time without losing the appeal and complexity of the main characters.
Have you seen Kaguya-Sama: Love is War? What do you think of this series?
Here are more series with which you can entice your friends to anime.
