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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

Story - 1
The story often jumps from one thing to another and may leave the viewer slightly confused as to what is actually going on. There are also a LOT of plot holes that are left untouched. To make it worse, there is no flow to this at all.

Characters - 1
No development. The writers have clearly attempted to give the characters some backstory, but it just doesn't work at all. Some of the characters actually have some sort of goal, but none of them have what I would call a strong or developed personality.

Art - 5
The art is okay and all, but I wouldn't want ... to watch a longer series in this style.

Sound - 4
There is nothing particularly wrong here (except for the mediocre music and, of course, the sounds of Utsutsu being eaten by his little sister).

Overall Enjoyment - 1
I can't really find a good thing to say about this. There are literally episodes where the only thing happening, is Yume feeding on her brother while he's having incestuous-sounding thoughts about it. This anime is downright disgusting in every aspect of the word.

Story - 10
This is a heartwarming anime about kitties in bananas through both good and bad times. Every episode is a stand-alone with a story of its own and we quickly get through the plot in those five minutes. Even though every episode is short, this anime conveys all the messages, perfectly.

Characters - 10
This series has a medium-sized cast, all of the characters with a perfect amount of development. The most developed character is of course our protagonist, Bananya. He just seems deeper and deeper through the entire series, as we watch him reach for his dream of becoming a chocolate-covered banana.

Sound - 10
Simply amazing. ... Cute and catchy music anyone would like and a cast of a full three voice actors, all of them brilliant.

Animation - 10
Superb.

Overall Enjoyment - 10
Perfect story, perfect characters, perfect music, perfect voice acting, perfect animation...overall perfect; a true masterpiece. And I mean, kitties in bananas. Why wouldn't you watch this?