Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 1

かぐや様は告らせたい ～天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～[Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen] #1

by Aka Akasaka

All’s fair when love is war!

Two prideful geniuses locked in battle. Who will make the first misstep and in doing so…confess their love?

Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are two geniuses who stand atop their prestigious academy’s student council, making them the elite among elite. But it’s lonely at the top and each has fallen for the other. There’s just one huge problem standing in the way of lovey-dovey bliss—they’re both too prideful to be the first to confess their romantic feelings and thus become the “loser” in the competition of love! And so begins their daily schemes to force the other to confess first!

Genres: Manga, Romance, Fiction, Humor, Graphic Novels, Comics, Young Adult

216 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2016

About the author

AKASAKA Aka
Name (in native language): 赤坂アカ

Zodiac: Virgo

Blood Type: O

Reviews

[human · Rating 5 out of 5]

SBDKFJBDKFJBSDKFJBSKDFJB I LOVE THIS SO MUCH

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING

THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE GENIUSES BUT ALSO DENSE AF AND IN A WORLD OF THEIR OWN DENIAL WHICH MAKES THIS THE FUNNIEST THING I'VE READ IN A WHILE

ISHIGAMI SUPREMACY

I JUST-

*incoherent screaming intensifies*

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two really smart teens are in love, but both want the other to reveal their feelings first.

That premise sounds fun, sorta, but then you think about it and wonder, if the focus is so heavily on "winning" over the other person, can they really be in love? Maybe, possibly, but I didn't really see any evidence of the kids caring about one another at all. It just seemed like they wanted to score points by having the other person want them. And they were both not at all likable. I didn't want them together. I didn't want either of them to date anyone, ever!

The art was weak and not pleasing to look at.

The only amusement value was the clueless (or is she?) friend who keeps inadvertently (or is it?) messing up their over-complicated plans.

[Dani ❤️ Perspective of a Writer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out more manga and graphic novel reviews @ Perspective of a Writer...

Kaguya is the vice president of their prestigious academy’s student council and she's in love with, Miyuki, the president, and he with her! BUT both are well aware that in love there is always a winner... and neither wants to be the "loser!" As both are geniuses and quite proud they spend each day laying in wait for an opportunity to get the other to confess without losing face... only Chika, their secretary seems ready to innocently mess up their careful machinations.

This is not your typical manga art... First the backgrounds are simple and almost understated... And the 2 MC designs aren't buxom/buff and rainbow haired! They are short and petite and long and lean and both dark haired (see the note from the mangka about Miyuki's hair)!! Particular attention was paid to their facial expressions... I LOVE art when characters are freaking out, trying to be sly and are smug as hell... So yeah I enjoyed the art a lot. It's not perfect art (and I will have to check out a printed version to double check this, because it very well could be) but I felt it ADDED to the story. Which is totally the job of the art!!

The plot is where I struggled a little. I LOVE The machinations between the two... I felt their battles were sharp, smart and sly! But not much happened for 10 chapters. There was this battle a chapter formula that I know works well for their original print format but which gets tiring in a collected volume. I'm not worried though! I feel like these chapter established the characters very well. And since this is the first volume I'm good with that... hopefully as the series gained popularity this format was broken up!! (I look forward to reading more!)

So the characters... were so cute!! THEY ARE TOO SMART FOR THEIR OWN GOOD... I love the way they made me chuckle and giggle through the volume. And I'm including Chika in this... she is the perfect foil for these two and I LOVE that she is best buds with rich and snooty Kaguya. I love how sheltered Kaguya is that she doesn’t know how a movie theater works! And he being the common one knows all about pop culture and that backfired with her... I loved how insecure they both could be... and now these two are totally my babies!

As each chapter progressed I got more and more sucked in with these two... I admit that Chika adds a much needed spontaneity to their machinations... I hope other characters can join them and do the same, keep things unexpected. The end was a little soft... a cliff hanger would be better, but this is a fun series! I've totally bought into the battle for their hearts and I'm totally shipping these two, may their war take many volumes...

The characters, the characters!! They make you giggle and snort and just take plain delight in their little war... Honestly, you want to prolong their battles so you can see them get more and more extreme!! You may be split over the art... I suggest giving the first volume a try and pay particular attention to their faces... it adds an unexpected humor to the story that will win you over!!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Authenticity
⋆⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tension
⋆ ⋆⭐⭐⭐ Plot
⋆⭐⭐⭐⭐ Art

BOTTOM LINE: A battle rich start with two delightful, pride filled love birds that I totally ship!!

This is a multi-volume series and there may be references to the plot of those volumes... SO READ WITH CARE! Here is my review of 1 |2 |3 |4 |5


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. It has not influenced my opinions.

______________________
You can find this review and many others on my book blog @ Perspective of a Writer. See my manga and graphic novel reviews in a special feature called Saturday Morning Cartoons...

[Nicolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the battlefield that is love, who ever confesses first, loses.

The thing with romance manga set in high school is that they can get cringey and cloying. Not so with this well-written and well-drawn series that trans-mutates a teenagers' awkwardness into comedy gold. Each chapter is a riot. Be warned: you may find yourself literally rolling on the floor laughing.

[steph reads (hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

idk….the fact that the topics and images in this book were written by a grown man about teenagers makes me feel weird.

[Anushka Malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane, two geniuses in love, both of the opinion that the one who admits to their feelings first ------loses in the game of L. O. V. E.
Who will win this War, then?

This is one of the cutest manga I've ever come across. No action, but there is war. The war of love.

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fully get the hype around this series and I know I’m going to love it 🥹 I already like Fujiwara more than the main characters though oops 💖

[Ricarda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute (and also a little weird tbh), but there is no way I'm reading 28 volumes of this.

[b. ♡]

filling the romantic void in my life by reading the pettiest slow burn ever written <3

[cheska]

literally alicehenry in another universe

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was quite good.

Its hilarious and full of funny moments and is like the love story of Shinomiya and Shirogane but anyone who confesses their love first, well they lose and its the fancy school setting and overthinking teenagers and its funny but the wrench is Chika whose a chaos factor and she brings about some of the most funny moments in this manga.

Its so well done and has such great moments like when they are playing cards or solving puzzles or talking about sharing food or even giving others love advice and how they overthink things and how it leads to these many funny moments is the story of this manga and its so well written and drawn and is a must read for sure.

A high recommendation from me!

[isa ☆ﾐ · Rating 3 out of 5]

idk was a cute and fun read, nothing that special. if my local library had more of the volumes i'd read them tho

[Elizabeth (Elzburg) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series Review: ★★★★☆ (Scroll down for my Volume 1 review)
Kaguya-sama: Love is War is the funniest manga/comic that I've ever read and I recommend you try it out if you're in the mood for some laughs. The characters are super-funny-lunatic-tsundere-geniuses who are super overdramatic and take everything to extremes, which is where most of the comedy stems from. This first volume didn't completely blow me away right off the bat, but I'm now completely caught up with the series and I can definitely say that it's become one of my favorites. This series is very much in the sitcom format, however later on it even starts to have some story arcs which are also very fun. If you like Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan or Gintama, Kaguya-sama is in their same vein and format. This also applies vise-versa. (Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan and Gintama are two of my other favourite comedies, though I've only seen their animes.)

If you would like some more specific details feel free to read my volume one review below, or my reviews for the other volumes (links are at the bottom of this review), all of which are spoiler free. Not that there's really much to spoil anyway.


Volume One Review: ★★★☆☆
Ah, Kaguya-sama! I’m pretty sure some people on /r/Anime indirectly recommended this to me because they said it is really funny, and they were not wrong.

At first I thought this was going to be about a genius/nerd boy called Kaguya who was going to somehow go around using tricks and intellect to convince girls to fall for him or something. I was mostly wrong.

First of all this is actually mostly about two geniuses, not one. A girl called Kaguya and a boy called… Well his last name is pretty long and it starts with S, that’s all I remember. Can you tell I’m not good with Japanese names yet!? They are geniuses who like each other, but both of their prides are too big to allow either of them to confess to the other, and thus the battle of trying to make the other person confess first begins! This whole situation is taken extremely seriously by both parties, which is what makes this pretty funny. Got me giggling a few times in the first chapter alone.

I think the cover is super misleading. This is a comedy. It’s a funny haha for laughs book. The cover is soooo spooky for some reason?? It makes it look like this is some horror book or something, which is literally the complete opposite of what it actually is. So don’t be fooled by the cover! If you were looking for spooks, I’m sorry, you won’t find any here. But it’s still a good read. There are 10 chapters in this first volume, so by the end of it you’ll get a pretty good idea of the story and humor and if you’ll want to continue reading or not. You know what, you’ll also be able to tell all those things just from the first chapter as well. It’s written in a sitcom style, in that so far there is no overarching plot (besides their mutual goals of getting the other to confess) and each chapter is a new scenario.

I always say how art is one of the most important parts of the reading experience of sequential art. I still think this is mostly true, but I now have an exception. I’m not going to lie, the art in this manga is pretty… Bad. Or, I mean this is all pretty subjective, but let’s just say I’ve read a lot, lot, LOT, better looking manga. BUT! And there’s a big but!
(( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) As I’ve already noticed with anime, in a comedy bad art doesn’t really seem to be a problem. If anything it just adds to the goofs and gafs and gives the comedy even more charm. So where I by no means ever found myself swooning over the art, this was not a problem at all for me. Also I feel like I might be being a bit over dramatic. The art was not UGLY, okay? I just have high standards because I’m an art buff, so I’m sure you probably won’t even have any problems with it.

This all seems pretty positive at this point, so why only three stars? Well, because on Goodreads three stars means "liked it", and well, I did like it. So yeah. "Really liked it" seems a biiit like a stretch. Like, it was good, but I'm not sure if it was "really liked it" good. But I really feel that this series has a lot of potential for the plot and the characters to grow. As of the writing of this review this series only has 46 chapters, so this is still a pretty new manga, and I’m excited to see where it goes! I see a bright future ahead of it.

Click here to read my re-read review! 16 months and 6 volumes later, I return to the volume that started it all. Have my opinions changed? Click and read to find out!


Please consider giving this review a "Like" if you've made it this far, it helps me out a lot! And follow me if you want more!

Click to read all of my Kaguya-sama: Love is War Reviews:
Volumes: 1* | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

*Current review

[ir · Rating 4 out of 5]

first read: 2020; up till volume 20/28; rating: 4/5
catching up and completion: 2025; volumes 21-28, rating: 4-4.5/5

review for the entire manga:
i completely forgot about this manga until i saw a tiktok about the new season coming out and i was like wait… i used to read this thing weekly… so, i spontaneously decided to catch up and complete the manga! i really enjoyed where i started off from - i forgot how funny it is and all the romances in it are sooo cute. they're all not very stereotypical as well which is nice. the friendships in this are very sweet as well and it’s a very wholesome read. also, i forgot there was a burgeoning wlw couple in this which is?? impressive for what the target audience of this and something i appreciate.

nothing worldshattering, hence why i didn’t want to reread this whole thing (though the chapters are very short), but still very touching and nice. since i started reading now at a point where character arcs are finishing satisfyingly, i think my rating is biased and i remember enjoying it the first time i read this before but, take what i’m saying with a slight grain of salt.

[Jessica ❀ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was adorable. Two overachievers liking each other but being too proud to express it first so they continue to try to trick each other in to confessing their feelings first. I’m obsessed, it was so cutesy and I will most definitely be continuing this manga.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoa, the art in the first handful of chapters is rough. One of the illustrations between chapters literally looks like the artist used one of those poseable wooden dolls as his model. Thankfully the art and the storytelling both improve quite a bit, even this early on.

The difference in mindset between "scheming to make the other confess" and "being too shy to confess and hoping the other will go first" might seem academic, but I prefer the episodes where the latter is happening. This is a cute series and I'm looking forward to reading more of it.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a 2.5
I definitely see how some people could enjoy it. It is an interesting premise and I am slightly intrigued, but I feel like I'm not really interested in picking up the next volume (at least anytime soon). I might start watching the anime though.

One of the reasons I picked up this manga was the character Chika, who I've seen basically everywhere. And I can definitely see why basically everyone likes her so much :)

[Keiko, the manga enthusiast ♒︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilarious and a pretty light read. Two geniuses trying to outsmart each other by casually pushing the other one to profess their feelings first to determine who loses the war that is love.

I'm not actually fond of this one! Believe me, I tried. Just how many times have I opened this series in the past months, and I just got myself to finish it today—and I don't even feel like continuing. I was really curious about this one but I guess it's still not what I'm looking for, for today. I was only here after I saw an edited clip of Shirogane and Fujiwara rapping, dubbed by Eminem's song. That was hilarious by the way.

I guess I'll try to catch the sequels someday... when I feel up to it.

[灰 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less enjoyable than I thought it would be. This just feels like a contest and not actual love. I could be missing something here or judging this too quickly but I don’t even like the characters so far either.

[milkbread · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was overjoyed when i found this book; I loved the secretary Chika! What goes on in Shirogane and Kaguya's mind is so complicated! 4.5 stars. Would reccomend to anime/manga lovers

[Chantaal · Rating 4 out of 5]

So my co-worker suggested I watched the anime, and while I liked the first episode well enough, it was way too chaotic for me to continue watching. Then he said, I have all the volumes, do you want to read those? And I said SURE lmao. Anyway yes, this is SO much better on my brain in manga form. Will I read all 28 volumes? We shall see.

[Conejo Literario · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta bien coqueto, me latiò mucho

[Wei Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down my favourite manga of all time.

Every new chapter brings me indescribable joy and i frequently laugh out loud. It is extremely funny.

One of the reasons it is so funny is because it is so relatable and believable. It is also in a high school teenager setting, which i am automatically a sucker for.

The characters are beautifully drawn, realistic, lovable, and grows throughout. The changes are slow and completely natural. The characters have so much potential and are so good. All the side characters have potential to take over a chapter or two.

The pacing of the story doesnt disappoint. It is not afraid to go faster instead of milking the manga to death. At the beginning, every chapter seems detached and able to stand on its own. However, the manga makes a noticeable shift to have a more coherent and important overarching storyline later on. I am a huge fan of both. It becomes a lot more “serious” but still extremely funny and light hearted.

I would highly recommend this romcom. Probably the funniest and most relatable one ive read.

[Kelvino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bro literally the best romance comedy manga in the history of manga. I’ve been reading manga since 5th grade when the cool wave was romantic comedies (now it’s isekai self inserts 🤢🤮) so I’ve gone through sooooo many romantic comedies 🤢🤮 and this is one of the few that I still smile and laugh at. The confession plot for Shirogane literally had me jumping and shrieking in excitement, literally perfect romantic comedy I love it so muchhhhh !!!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️ thé séries evolves so much too, it doesn’t just stick with the initial gags. It catches you with its comedy and you stick for the characters. I barely enjoy romance anymore it usually makes me roll my eyes and I can’t sit through it so like 👀👀👀trust me it’s good

I think the only romantic comedy that is to it’s equal is karakai jouzu no takagi san but the series are so different anyways so I wouldn’t compare them. I love them both ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Victor The Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This manga follow the bizarre relationship of two students Kaguya and Miyuki, who both come from very prominent families and attend a most prestigious academy where only the best of the best attend. They have some type of chemistry that’s becoming very romantic, but instead of being all lovey-dovey and embracing the infatuation they’re too proud to declare their love and they pit each other in tactical “love games” to see who will crack easily.

I’ve heard of this series for a while and after a few chapters, it certainly brought me in. It’s definitely very different for the other romantic manga as it’s not sweet or comfy but more snidely and cunning, maybe a little mean spirited. While the couple hasn’t won me over yet, their flighty friend Chika definitely has. The whole “love war” theme is really unique like playing a tactical board game or tower defense. I do hope it gets more romantic and less rigid. B+ (83%/Very Good)

[SummeroftheSeasons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even having watched the anime, I forgot how hilarious and cute this is. Had to hold in laughter multiple times in public, such a fun read! Hope to get to the next volumes soon!

[Percy · Rating 2 out of 5]

why the fuck did I think I was gonna like a serie that can exist exclusively because of the miscommunication trope???

[CC]

... something about the whole ::two geniuses who are in love with each other but refuse to confess which means defeat in their "war":: appeals XD

[wanji · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was really enjoyable to read and very funny too. i love the two main characters and how they go about trying to make each other confess.

[LG (A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaguya Shinomiya is elite Shuchiin Academy's student council vice president. Her family is wealthy and influential, and Kaguya is a highly intelligent girl who is used to viewing every interaction as a potential power struggle. Miyuki Shirogane is the student council president. His family is neither wealthy nor influential, but he's dedicated to his studies and still manages to earn everyone's respect.

There is a rumor going around that Kaguya and Miyuki are going out. In reality, although they're both secretly interested in each other, neither one is willing to admit it. Kaguya views love as a battle in which the first one to confess is the loser, and Miyuki is keenly aware of the difference in their classes and thinks Kaguya is constantly looking down on him. Neither of them wants to lose by being the first to confess to the other.

The art has some issues, and Kaguya and Miyuki were occasionally more frustrating than amusing, but overall I enjoyed this. Kaguya and Miyuki's stubborn refusal to say how they felt made me laugh several times. My favorite part was probably the movie ticket storyline. They both got free tickets and wanted to go together, but that was date-like and neither one of them wanted to look too interested in that. They were both intelligent, but their minds worked differently, so their efforts to outmaneuver each other didn't always work the way they intended.

There were times when I wanted to shout at Kaguya and Miyuki to just talk to each other like normal people, but they weren't horrible people. Kaguya had vulnerable moments and could be very sweet, and I enjoyed the part where another student asked Miyuki how he felt about Kaguya. They were just really bad at being honest and potentially vulnerable with each other.

So far this works more for me as a comedy than as a romance. I'm looking forward to reading more of this. I just hope that the slight frustration factor doesn't start to overshadow the comedy.

Extras:

The first few pages are in full-color. Also, most chapters end with character profiles or extra illustrations. One of them ends with the solutions to several brain-teasers Chika (the student council secretary) challenged Kaguya and Miyuki with. There's also a two-page comic at the end that was originally under the book jacket of the Japanese edition.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)