Review of Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic-

Kaguya-sama Season 3 continues the shift that Season 2 started by being even more lax about Kaguya and Miyuki’s “rivalry”. Granted, it’s not too surprising they’d calm down given how far their relationship has come. But I’d say Season 2 was the middle ground between Season 1’s focus on the anime’s premise and Season 3 basically being a romance slice of life. There’s a much bigger focus on the side characters this time. It’s to the point where Kaguya and Miyuki’s relationship only seems to be touched upon half of the time. Most notably, Iino thankfully gets to be an actual character this season, Hayasakais more open about her feelings, and Ishigami gets a ton of screen time thanks to his crush. As much as I love the main “couple”, I think these and most of the other shifts in focus were nice…though I was getting conscious of the main two slipping away. Unfortunaely, Fujiwara’s character unfortunately suffers this time around and new addition Shijou was only welcome a quarter of the time.

The finale to the season was heart-pumping — on a different level from the first two finales. Hell, it felt like the entire latter half of the season was ramping up to it. With what was happening I was starting to get sad that Season 3 would be where the story basically ends! But without saying too much, I thought Season 3 ended in a way that was satisfying while also making the upcoming movie and 4th season not only plausible, but exciting.

I can see why Season 3 is divisive. I don’t think arguments saying it’s losing its humor and identity due to focusing more on drama, similar jokes, and side characters are untrue. However, these things didn’t bother me, and I was still invested and having a fun time — especially during the latter half.