We’re only two eps in, but I can already tell Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai is going to be a vexing series for me. Some shows are slam-dunks one way or the other, some you feel indifferent about, but this is one of those that pulls you in two different directions. It’s a matter of whether you’re willing to take the bad (as you define it) with the good – whether the toll to cross the bridge is worth paying or not. Or you hope that things improve enough that it becomes a moot point.
A few things strike me after watching the second episode:
- The first 4:15 of the episode was almost entirely narration and EP, and if that weren’t enough it was pretty all recycled from the first episode. That’s certainly easy on the production budget, but I sincerely hope it’s not going to be the case every week.
- This is basically a gag comedy, and it seems to fall into the bucket many gag manga adaptations do – some of the gags work a lot better than others. I haven’t hated any of the chapters so far, but it’s two weeks in a row where only one of them really made me laugh hard. Still, any comedy that can make me LOL is unusual. But that’s the nature of comedies that take the volume approach – throw a ton of jokes out there and some of them are bound to hit the target (unless the writing is incompetent, which is not the case here).
- Last week it was the bento chapter that really made me laugh, this week the love advice chapter. Commonalities:
- Very little narration. Is that a coincidence? Surely not.
- Major focus on non-protagonist characters. Coincidence? Almost surely not.
- Third and final chapter of the episode. Probably a coincidence (but that’s not as obvious as it might seem).
One thing is clear, this is certainly a change of pace for Hatakeyama Mamoru after Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu. Very much a return to his roots in fact, which is not entirely a boon for me but will surely please fans of Shaft, because for all intents and purposes Kaguya-sama is a 100% Shaft series in terms of style, just with a better director and less corner-cutting on production. That is what it is, and it seems very unlikely that it’s going to change. That means it really comes down to how funny the gags are, and how one feels about the two protagonists.
That’s a complicated question, in point of fact. In using Miyuki and Kaguya as leads, is this series committing itself to basically using them as objects of ridicule – on other words, is the humor here effectively at their expense? Or is a matter of them becoming more likeable as the series progresses? They’re both pretty pathetic to be certain, but that’s surely part of the joke if not all of it – these elites held up as paragons of grace and maturity by their classmates, but in point of fact both clueless and petty when it comes to romance and totally unmade by their feelings for each other.
That last part would be another reason why the “Confession” chapter worked so well – it perfectly epitomizes the disconnect between the perception of Miyuki (and by extension Kaguya) and the reality. The first two parts are more or less just two petty children trying to outdo the other at making their rival uncomfortable, with Chika being cute and silly in the background. What worries is that might be the meat of what Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai is, for the most part – and anything above and beyond that an occasional exception.
*Note: The irritating subbing decision were Miyuki and Kaguya addressed each other by their names rather than titles was fixed – and apparently retroactively for the first episode too. A good response to be sure.
Miyu Fan
January 20, 2019 at 12:00 pmYes, the last chapter was the best because the lack of the overbearing narration (I did like the narrator saying “Love~” in this episode). Koga Aoi also made a good tsukkomi as Kaguya in that chapter.
As a manga reader the comedy does become better as it starts utilizing the side characters more to show the ridiculousness of what Kaguya and Miyuki doing now. The minus point of the series is that the mangaka doesn’t really realised the drama potential 100% – there’s only a few true heartfelt moments in the manga. It’s a good comedy manga but not so much in the romance part.
bnbros
January 20, 2019 at 1:00 pmWith regard to the reintroduction of the premise at the beginning, this one comment here probably best sums up the most likely reason: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/ahnb1o/_/eeg3joe
On a minor note, I am glad to see that the subs are now addressing the characters according to their proper titles, and folks were also saying that Aniplex apparently went out of the way to retroactively apply the new translation to the first episode too.
Guardian Enzo
January 20, 2019 at 1:15 pmThanks, that is indeed an explanation on both fronts and I’ll note that in the post.
Re-running the first four minutes was still a bogus move for the anime though.
bnbros
January 20, 2019 at 2:18 pmI’ll admit that even as a manga reader, I forgot about that chapter and initially thought that episode 2 was an accidentally mislabeled episode 1 from watching the reintroduction lol. It’s thankfully not too big of a misstep that should not resurface, hopefully.
Agreed that the last skit was the best. As much as I enjoy the narrator’s hamminess (he’s practically a main character at times along with the actual characters lol), the moments when he takes a backseat really allow the other character interactions to stand out.
Guardian Enzo
January 20, 2019 at 2:30 pmHeh, me too – I was sure I accidentally loaded the first episode instead of the second.
Why the heck did the manga change magazines after one chapter?
bnbros
January 20, 2019 at 3:09 pmThe series changed magazines after 10 chapters to be serialized weekly.
The anime is currently adapting the chapters in a different order, possibly for a better narrative flow due to only 12 episodes being confirmed, I think.
Simone
January 20, 2019 at 6:57 pm“Or is a matter of them becoming more likeable as the series progresses?”
In the manga, that’s definitely the charm, though it will all depend on which chapters get chosen for adaptation. If they go for “the” stopping point (the one that seems most natural for a 12 episodes series) then it’ll definitely include some of that character development. I also hope for some insight in the other relationships in the manga (for example I find the Shirogane-Fujiwara dynamic especially endearing, though we haven’t seen much of it yet).
Sam
January 21, 2019 at 3:07 amOnce again I know Kaguya-sama has a sizable fan base and decidedly positive fans in this forum, but I think you nailed it with “more or less just two petty children trying to outdo the other at making their rival uncomfortable, with Chika being cute and silly in the background.” That’s the whole premise of this franchise and can one buy the repeated gags from it enough to ride along – it’s basically a guaranteed feature every week going forward, with the anime being short 12 ep format. Not sure if it is just me but I find the gags just not as funny in anime form than the printed – perhaps because I already read it and/or I’ve stopped reading – and overall I find myself already checked out while watching ep2. Guess that leaves me zero anime show until next season then. Welp.
Nadavu
January 21, 2019 at 6:55 pmSomewhat off-topic kedo… When Yuyu Hakusho was shown in Israel, I guess someone must have decided that “Yuyu” is Yusuke’s nickname, and therefore “Hakusho”should be his last name. God knows why. But whenever someone would call out “Uremishi!!”, the subtitles would say “Hakusho!!” It was altenatingly hillarious and grattig.