Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 13

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] #13

by Aka Akasaka

Will Yu make a confession of love? Who would date someone who is both an emo gamer and a former school pariah…? Meanwhile, someone is ready to confess her love to Miyuki—and it’s not Kaguya! Then Miko sabotages a romantic tour of a haunted house, Miyuki reveals some unexpected nonacademic skills, Kaguya accidentally dispenses good advice and a fortune-teller foretells an ominous date for our pride-crossed lovers—no, not that kind of date. Plus, heart-themed key rings, cookies, takoyaki and balloons!

But nobody turns down Stanford.

Genres: Manga, Romance, Comedy, Seinen, Humor, Slice Of Life, Young Adult

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 18, 2019

About the author

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

Zodiac: Virgo

Blood Type: O

Reviews

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

Ugh how is it that the majority of the characters in the Love Is War series frustrate me, but then I also love them so damn much !? 😅😭
Will Ishigami make a love confession to Tsubame? And will this, in turn, finally spur Shinomiya on to confess her love to Shirogane?
That cliffhanger tho, omg 😱 may have to read the next volume asap 🥲

[Anushka Malik · Rating 3 out of 5]

- 3 stars -

Chapter-wise breakdown and detailed review of Volume 13 -

Chapter 122: Kaguya Wants to Confess, Part 1 : This volume begins with the
Dual Confessions Culture Festival Arc and that alone was enough to get me super excited. This chapter is basically just Kaguya trying to bolster the courage to confess her feelings to Shirogane. Me? I would totally want Shirogane to take that plunge but, oh well. I'm old school but at the same time, I just want one of the two reticent teenagers to just come out and SAY IT ALREADY!

This is waaayyyyy tooo much SLOWBURN! Even for me! *sigh*


Chapter 123: Kaguya's Culture Festival : Two words. Kaguya. And Cosplay! Enough said. Ah. Our Kaguya looks adorable in this one. My heart couldn't take it. I almost expected Shirogane to simply keel over on the spot from the cuteness of it all but alas, that did not happen.

Why do I torture myself like this? I swear it's never gonna happen!

Chapter 124: Yu Ishigami's Culture Festival : Ishigame and Tsubame moments. They are cute and all but I'm only here for Kaguya and Shirogane. So. Yeah.

Chapter 125: Kozue Makihara Wants to Play : A haunted house. Hmm. Might've been cute if Kaguya went there with a certain someone. AGHNSJDJJXCNJODSL. My patience runs thin with this constant slowburn I swear.

Chapter 126: Chika Fujiwara Wants to Set the Record Straight : Fujiwara's sister is crushing on Shirogane? No surprise there. He is totally dreamy after all.

Chapter 127: Miyuki Shirogane's Culture Festival : Ishigame unknowingly confesses to Tsubame and Shirogane knowingly or unknowingly does nothing (once again) about his feelings for Kaguya.

Chapter 128: Kaguya Wants to Shoot Them Down : I want to shoot everyone down! Confess already!

Chapter 129: Miyuki Shirogane Wants to be Confessed to, Part 4 : Awww. Kaguya wanted Shirogane to give her a heart shaped balloon. How cute!

Chapter 130: Tsubame Koyasu Wants to Turn Him Down : Tsubame has doubts. I don't care all that much about this parallel story one way or the other. The chapter was hilarious though particularly the advice Kaguya was giving Tsubame until she realized just who that advice would end up affecting. Haha.

Chapter 131: Miyuki Shirogane Wants to be Confessed to, Part 5 : The last chapter had a little bit of what I was craving throughout and that's what's keeping me from giving this volume an even lower rating.

AAAAHHHH. I like this manga. I do. I just wish the slowburn comes to an end. It's been forever!

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

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 and Ishigami, their treasurer, seem ready to innocently mess up their careful machinations.

Since this is about a student council I really love how many festivals are used to move along plot. This time love is in the air... if you get your special someone to give you a heart shaped item you have their eternal love. Ishigami and Kaguya have their eyes on a certain someone but have to work up to making the decision to confess.

This volume was a lot more Kaguya getting in the right frame of mind because Shirogane was already there. I will admit this didn’t end the way I thought it would. But I did enjoy seeing this new and confident Shirogane in the last chapter. It’s amazing how good making a decision to do something you’ve been agonizing over looks on a person.

I did really enjoy seeing Kaguya slowly coming around to the idea of confessing herself. Actually that moment at the balloon animal table would have made a cute story about how it all happened. I can only hope for her sake that she finds to gumption to be true to her feelings.

There were a couple of the typical gags that were more tedious than snicker inducing. I think it’s a case of trying too hard. Still there were plenty of cute moments with art that makes them even better. If you enjoy tongue in cheek writing then Kaguya-sama: Love is War is a series you must read.

[Facundo Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ishigami dios ojala encuentres el amor.

[Nathan Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cliffhanger!!!!!!!

[Rereader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME with that cliffhanger?! Are you ACTUALLY FUCKING KIDDING ME right not?! And you expect me to wait until May to see what happens?! HOW. FUCKING. DARE YOU!!! GAAAAAAAAAH!! *hysterical screaming, flailing arms*

Okay, okay, okay, being serious for a second, this was a really good volume. I loved how prominent romance was in all aspects of this volume. Usually romance is limited to one or two characters, but this volume featured romance with a multitude of characters. It really notched up the tension between Shinomiya and Shirogane and that tension DEFINITELY paid off in the final scene. This volume was a ton of fun from start to finish, and you can bet your ASS I'm so hyped for the next volume. Oh my gosh, I can't even, I need to know what happens next...

[di(vi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

JUST CONFESS ALREADY

[Ruthsic · Rating 4 out of 5]

The school festival begins and romance is in the air, thanks to the theme of the festival capitalizing on a love story. Shirogane is determined and Kaguya has accepted that she loves him, but she also wants him to make the move. Meanwhile, Ishigami, encouraged by Kaguya, tries to get closer to his crush, a third year student who he adores, and while his aim is to spend time with her, things happen such that it becomes a public declaration of his love for her. So both Shirogane and Kaguya are hanging on how his confession will go, because it will determine the general atmosphere of their group in the upcoming days. Other than that, well there are a lot of festival shenanigans going on in this volume: Kaguya being a Taisho-style maid for her cosplay's cafe has her serving the ramen king (yes, that one in that one bonus chapter with Chika) who determines her tea-making skills to be full of love, in front of Shirogane, so that sort of ruins her chance. Then there is Ishigami's class' horror house which goes the audio route for maximum scare, and we get to see how they created the binaural audio for it (which was informative btw) and I must say, that Makihara is a sadistic character! Oh, and Chika's younger sister is interested in Shirogane and Chika tries to dissuade her, but it backfires! Finally, well, Shirogane drops his Stanford bomb on Kaguya and I'm eager to find out what happens next!

Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Viz Media LLC, via Edelweiss.

[Elly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume was so great. Full of laughs and shenanigans.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War follows our two genius protagonists, Kaguya and Shirogane, as they try to get the other to confess their love. In addition, there are side characters with their own romance struggles and goals. It's a sweet romcom manga that I think is able to play with traditional tropes while also subverting them. It's very good.

In this volume, the cultural festival is in full swing. We follow each character's experience during the festival which is filled with hilarious misunderstandings and shenanigans. However, the volume ends with a bittersweet declaration from Shirogane. It seems the next volume is going to have some serious development!

Gave this a straight 4 stars.

[b. ♡]

PLEASE LET MY KIDS BE HAPPY

[Cecille · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad the Cultural Festival arc is hitting me just as hard as it did in the anime.

[Alyson Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book: Kaguya-Sama: Love is War, Vol 13
Author: Aka Akasaka
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I don’t know why I keep reading this series. It’s one of those that I should not be having this great of a time with. Romance is not normally a genre that I pick up. However, whenever I do, I find that I do enjoy the escape that it has to offer. That is what this series does. It offers me a chance to escape.

I’ll try to keep this review as vague as possible. However, being thirteen volumes into a series, it is very difficult to keep everything spoiler free.

In this one, we are following our characters as they attend the cultural festival. While they do have to spend some time working, there is also plenty of time to get up to some things. We see them take in the different booths and activities that the festival has to offer. It is also the perfect time to confess feelings toward one another and it does happen. These confessions leave our characters in places that they had not been before and they now have to make sense of these feelings and how to handle them. It’s awkward and very messy. However, I found myself enjoying it. I liked getting to see how imperfect our characters’ lives be.

The use of human emotions is what keeps me going in this series. Time and time again, the author uses purely human emotions to allow us to see how our characters handle situations. I know this may not sound like a lot, but it is. Using everyday emotions, allows us to form a bond with the characters and get to know them. We have a reason to care when things go both good and bad. It is this investment that makes me want to keep reading. I feel all of the things that the characters feel and I have to know what is going to happen next.

Plus, the author does throw in cliffhangers and that is what happened here. That cliffhanger at the end makes me want to read the next chapters so quickly, but I had to pause to write this review.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This warrants 4.5 stars, rounded up because, basically, it shames pretty much every other school festival arc I’ve read recently (it destroys the rather underwhelming one we saw in the latest English release of We’ll Never Learn).

There aren’t too many laugh out loud moments to be found here, but we get a lot of solid comedy and the whole volume focusing on the event means that pretty much the entire cast gets a chance to shine, which is also no mean feat, so kudos to the writing.

Poor Ishigami gets put through the ringer on this one; his attempts to confess to his sempai throughout this volume lead to one of the best gags - statistics can be cruel. I still think he’s going to end up with Ino, based on their love-hate relationship, but that’s a prediction I look forward to seeing if I’m right about.

This volume’s Chika and Shirogane focused story is a brilliant inversion of their usual stories, set against the context of Chika’s younger sister who has a crush on Shirogane. It’s probably my favorite thing in the book.

Kaguya has some great moments as well, plus a very sweet ending with Shirogane, up to the point where the rug is pulled out from under everything (although this turning out to be a long con isn’t something I’d put past the series).

Toss in the world’s laziest (yet most effective) haunted house, the revenge of the discipline committee, a coffee vs tea showdown, AND a ballon sculpture throw down (Shirogane wins that one hands down) and you have a jam-packed and excellent bit of manga.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confessions…attempts and utter failures is the theme of this latest volume of Kaguya-sama: Love is War! My oldest daughter didn’t get into this series, but I find it very very hard to not be entertained. While the issues are very much far removed from my life, I find the relationship discussion so interesting! The Haunted house, the café adds so much flavor to the adventures and the intensity of the “ask out” or “being asked out” has picked up a notch! Some parts of the story end up being put “On hold” but for some reason I don’t feel any less satisfied with the outcome for the volume. That speaks to Aka Asasaka’s great story telling, which shines for me in this volume. The way the volume ended is the perfect way to hook the reader (as if you need hooking by volume 13 to stay). Amazing read!

[Jesus Ascencio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los personajes están mejorando mucho, la historia de Kaguya y el presidente parece que por fin va a unirse, pero al final se detiene toda la emoción con una trate noticia que nos deja en un cliffhanger que hace que no pueda esperar por leer el siguiente tomo.
Todas las historias son muy divertidas como siempre, no puedo evitar reírme y emocionarme con todos los personajes. Ishigami está avanzando mucho y puede que tenga una oportunidad, aunque por poco es destruido por Kaguya.
Me encanta como evoluciona la relación entre Kaguya e Ishigami, se ve que los dos podrán llegar a ser grandes amigos.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.

DAMN IT!! I didn't think he would get the acceptance letter so soon! But uuughghh, this volume was so cute. THEY BOTH ARE AWARE THAT THEY LOVE THE OTHER PERSON AND ARE TRYING SO HARD TO GET THE COURAGE TO CONFESS!! (also i think Shirogane purposely planned everything so that nothing would interrupt his date with Kaguya which is so sweet.)

Also Ishigami confessing but not realizing he confessing was sweet and funny. I hope it works out for him. I think that they would make a cute couple.

[Ade Fraser · Rating 5 out of 5]

QUE MARAVILLA DE TOMO!! Todos los personajes tienen sus buenos momentos, hasta los secundarios y no te sobra nada de nada. Me encantan los planes de Kaguya que cada vez son más perfectos 🤣

Por otro lado el pobre Ishigami ni se ha enterado de lo que ha hecho, pobrecito JAJAJAJAJAJA

El capítulo de la globoflexia es absolutamente genial, me he comido con patatas el engaño JAJAJAJAJAJAJA

Aquí hay un plan de Miyuki, se nota un montón y de este burro no me baja nadie hasta que lea el tomo 14, que pase el mes rápido por favor, que lo necesito!

El final de tomo, ay Dios mío 🥲

[Chrollo]

This book was honestly a surprise. I found it hilarious on how it pro-trays Kayugas actual thoughts vs how she seems. The humour was top notch, and I particularly enjoyed Ishigamis methods in winning Tsubames heart. The two elements which stood out to me the most was how it portrayed the rejecting someone romantically. They showed that it was,nt just hard on the rejectee but also the person rejecting them because they don,t want to hurt their feelings. I also liked the surprise ending where Mitsuki reveals that he,s going to study abroad in Stanford

[Martin R · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's my own fault for letting my guard down, but that one came unexpected and really hit hard. What a cliff hanger! And thinking about it, it wasn't exactly out of nowhere. There were signs that something was going to happen.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

As has been happening for the last few volumes, there's a lot going on, and not much happening. Each panel is very cluttered and hard to read. I'm hoping the next few volumes get better, but I'm starting to lose interest now.

[Anthony Wendel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume strikes the perfect balance of comedy and drama. The school festival is in full effect and the characters have a lot going on. Between trying to work their shifts for the events and dealing with their relationships this one is a page turner.

[rey :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

if i had a nickel for every time i reached the end of a kaguya-sama volume at work & was distraught that i hadn’t brought the next one & just had to live in agony for the rest of my shift, i’d have multiple nickels, but this one would deserve like three because CLIFFHANGERRRR

[Amara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't have the patience for this anymore :o
I love how the side characters are really developing throughout these last few volumes.

[ReadingFrog · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this 10/10 stars, I will! 😍💝💝😍💝😍💝😍💝💝💝😍💝💝 I LOVE IT because of its dramatic storylines among the characters! 💝😍💝😍

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

IM FUCKING SCREAMIIIIIIINGNNGGG THAT ENDING

[Sheepy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was so many moments to love, the sort of confession but the one that was really big was that final panel!

Now I must read the next volume!

[Elizabeth Núñez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estoy disfrutando muchísimo este arco y el capítulo 129 ha sido mi favorito de este tomo.

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY BROKEN HEARTTTTTT

[Minah · Rating 4 out of 5]

the ending noooo