Review of Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic-
Tldr at the bottom: Kaguya is back again and quite honestly blows any other show that is not SpyxFamily out of the water for this season. This is probably the best rom-com you will ever watch; if not one of the best anime. I honestly couldn’t find any glaring flaws with this show, no matter how hard I looked. However, there are a few things that might irritate a select group of people. The bad: Adaptation: About 37-38 chapters of content are covered during every season of Kaguya. Since the anime ends on chapter 137, certain chapters had to be skipped to get there. Thisseason, chapters 92, 112, and 128 were skipped. These chapters don’t affect the story and shouldn’t affect anyone that has not read the manga, but it's still important to point out because some people like to complain.
Tone Shift: The main thing that might be off-putting about season three is the tone shift. In season 1, the tone was that of a playful comedy with romance as the focus. 85% of that season's episodes were comedy based, while a small arc at the end was a little more serious and dramatic. In season 2, there are more serious moments with the backstories of Miko and Ishigami, but still nothing overly serious with a split of around 65% comedy and 35% seriousness. However, season 3 features a lot more serious episodes, making the split around 50-50. If you liked season 2 less than season 1, chances are you’ll like season 3 less. I can imagine this only applies to a small group of people but it is still worth mentioning.
And that's pretty much it for the bad. Seriously this season was so good all of my complaints were either nitpicks or only applicable to manga readers. Anyway, let's move on to the good.
The Good:
Side Character Developments: Of course with a new season, the main characters get development and screen time. However, this season Kaguya took some time to flesh out the side character cast. Now, this might not seem like anything special until you realize that Kaguya introduced 0 new characters of plot importance this season. This means that Kaguya stuck with and developed its side characters instead of abandoning them for new ones. Ishigami, Iino, Maki, and Hayasaka all get significant screen time and developments this season. Tsubasa, Tsubame, Kashiwagi, Karen, and Erika all also make more minor appearances. This character cast stays close-knit throughout the entire season and even up to the current manga chapter, with few characters being written out of the story.
The Culture Festival: Recently in Anime, culture festivals have become a predictable trope. They typically last 1 or 2 episodes and involve the characters bullshiting around a festival, typically in a montage. From here, some sort of development would happen to validate the whole point of having the arc. Most culture festivals in other fiction could be interchanged for another trope without the developments suffering. Kaguya’s culture festival is different as all of the developments that happen in the latter part of this season occur directly because of the culture festival and the lore behind it. It doesn’t feel like the culture festival is just here as a trope that the author would employ to sell a volume. It feels like a well-thought-out and planned catalyst that gives all of the main characters and side characters romantic development in a 6 episode arc. I don’t see a way that the culture festival can be interchanged without damaging the developments that take place.
References: Kaguya makes around 4 to 5 references to other media forms throughout each episode. These are just fun easter eggs that are fun to look out for. I can at least remember references to Your Name, Persona 5, Max Headroom, Monogatari, The Blair Witch Project, Resident Evil, and the song Take on Me.
OP & ED: Masayuki Suzuki composes another brilliant op in his typical jazzy style. The ED is a wonderful continuation of the first ED in the series. There is also a special ED that’s just like the Chika Dance. I’m not saying that good OPs & EDs make a show fundamentally better, but it’s a whole lot easier to enjoy a show when you can bop to a good OP at the beginning and a good ED at the end.
Comedy: Kaguya is one of the funniest anime I have ever watched. Kaguya’s comedy is fairly inconsistent; meaning that there is no clear theme to the jokes being made. This helps because, in my opinion, comedy is a whole lot easier to appreciate when the punchline is hard to predict. Most of the funnier moments in Kaguya aren’t even written in the manga. They are added on as part of A1's adaptation. The way A1 presents the comedy tends to make it very self-aware. A1 deserves a lot of credit for this as they do a great job bringing Kaguya to life
Final Episode: The Kaguya ending is a masterful end to the season. Without spoiling, all of the plot lines come together, with new ones being started. The new plot lines also undoubtedly confirm either another season or a movie. It’s hard to put this episode into words without spoiling much, but just know it's a treat when you reach it.
Conclusion/TDLR: Kaguya is a serious candidate for the best anime of the season, only having competition from a certain spy. Although not every chapter was animated, and the tone shift may turn some off, there are no glaring flaws in this show. It develops side characters masterfully without abandoning any of them, it perfects an overused trope and references damn near every reach of pop culture. It stays consistent with its previous standards for comedy and music, and it ends the show off with one of the best season finales in recent memory. Kaguya is truly a must-watch for anyone that likes comedy, romance, or just anime in general.