With the amount of love Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 has already received, looking back at it is going to be interesting. It’s time to revisit it with the eyes of someone who watched the series episodically on this review!
Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 Overview
Kaguya sama Love is War Season 3 or Kaguya sama wa Kokurasetai Season 3 in original Japanese (stylized as Kaguya-sama Love is War Season 3 and Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai Season 3) is a romance, comedy, and psychological warfare (yes, really) anime based on the manga of the same name written by Aka Akasaka. Seasons 1 and 2 of the show aired in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and this series serves as a direct sequel to them.
The anime is developed by A-1 Pictures, who have been responsible for some of the most highly acclaimed shows in these times, including 86 and Erased, alongside both the previous seasons of Kaguya-sama. Shinichi Omata directed this season, and he was also responsible for directing both the previous seasons of the show. This season, with its tagline, was referred to as Kaguya Sama Love Is War Ultra Romantic! Click here to read our review of the entire series!
– Kaguya sama wa Kokurasetai Season 3 Review does not contain spoilers –
Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 Review- The Plot
Any statement that says this season of Kaguya was anything less than excellent would be blasphemous. It was among the most well-written and tightly directed slice of life series in all anime. The series was able to deliver on a narrative that had been building up for multiple years and through two different seasons in a satisfying manner that was better than anyone could have imagined. However, was it good enough to be the best anime of all time? Absolutely not.
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There is a lot of recency bias in the manner everyone is looking at this season. The final six episodes were phenomenal, and there is no doubt about it. However, there were 6 episodes before the final arc where next to nothing of note happened. The episodes were tonally inconsistent and were usually below the quality benchmark that the previous seasons established. They were still good episodes and highly entertaining watches, but this season did not start well.
The season was remarkably one-track-minded towards the latter half, but it felt directionless initially. The mini-arc with Hayasaka trying to woo Miyuki was off-putting and counter-intuitive to everything else that this season tried to establish. It also damaged Hayasaka’s character, and she hasn’t recovered since. After this, the show ran a series of greatest hits episodes that relied upon the concepts that previously hit episodes had perfected. That included another Nagisa episode alongside a rap-based outing that is still too weird to comprehend properly. Was it the best episode of the season or the worst?
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However, after it was done doing nothing, the show embarked upon a six-episode run building to the best school festival arc ever seen in anime. A staple of the slice of life genre, the Japanese school festivals usually signify a lot of love, singing, dancing, and a general tone of joyfulness that lifts the mood. However, this time, it signified something more than that. It was the culmination of multiple years worth of adulation, falling in love, and fighting to not be the one to admit it first between the main characters. Glorious would be too small a word to describe what happened.
Meticulous details planned months in advance adorned the entirety of the final half of this season that balanced more than a dozen different characters in an arc that featured some of everything- romance, horror, comedy, surrealism, flashbacks, and Rube Goldberg-style dominos. This series was amazing to the levels that catapulted this show to the best series of all time by many. One would even be inclined to agree if the show was just these episodes. However, the initial six episodes do bring the quality down slightly.
Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 Review- The Characters
Like the plot, the character development this season also saw a heavy increase in quality in the second half. The first half featured most of what we saw in the previous seasons, as the series saw fit to remind us about a lot of it. Hayasaka, as a character, was thoroughly massacred in the first three episodes, coming off as heartless and cruel in her attempts to do the impossible- woo Miyuki. She wasn’t even entertaining enough in her attempts to do it, coming across as incredibly disingenuous and parasitic in the process.
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There were the usual suspects on and about. Nagisa and her forgettable boyfriend got a decent showing alongside Kaguya’s cousin, who is one of the more interesting new characters introduced in the show in quite a while. Yuu and Iino were both also present and had a lot of time to shine, Yuu much more than Iino. Chika had her role severely reduced in Kaguya sama Season 3 and was relegated to mostly being background noise and comic relief. That was a blessing and a curse since Chika is entertaining enough to carry several episodes, but too much Chika can burn you out on her very quickly.
The stars of the show, like always, were Miyuki and Kaguya. The entire season was built around Miyuki proving himself to be worthy of someone like Kaguya, while Kaguya wrestled with her feelings of falling for someone at all. The two got closer to each other than they ever had, all while still maintaining the issue that has been between them since the start of the series- that neither of them wants to be the loser who confesses first. The conclusion to this particular arc was always going to be a big deal, but it was handled breathtakingly by the show, enhancing both of their personalities.
Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 Review- Art and Music
The animation has always been a high point of the show, and the adaptation does a tremendous job of keeping things fresh. There are several experiments and animation styles used in a single episode, maintaining the fast-paced nature of the show even in the slower slice-of-life segments. The show is colourful and incredibly stylized, and the character design remains as solid as ever. It also contributed heavily to the comedy in Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3, and watching this season was an absolute blast.
Similarly, the music was also solid, even if it didn’t stand out nearly as much as the animation. If anything, the music was even more experimental than the animation, with an entire rap episode adorning this show’s wall of classics. While that could be seen as cringy or hilarious based upon how much it personally offended you, the effort behind it was extremely obvious and is part of what makes this show one of the most high-effort shows of this generation. Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 4 needs to be a thing.
Verdict
Kaguya Sama Love Is War Season 3 might not have been the best anime ever, but it came very close. The plot, animation, characters, and pacing were all some of the best this genre has ever seen, and it is great that they are being recognized.