I guess I’m fated to soldier on never knowing what the big deal about Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai was. I don’t think I can be accused of not giving it a robust effort – I watched half the series, after all. But I have a golden rule for bubble shows – once I start hitting the fast-forward button, that’s it – no exceptions. That’s not always in play (sometimes I jump straight to “stop”) but it factors in a surprisingly high percentage of the time. Sooner or later you just have to read the handwriting on the wall.
Here’s the thing – I like understanding stuff. Or perhaps more importantly – in that same way that it’s more important for athletes to hate losing than to love winning – I hate not understanding stuff. I’m past the point of asking “What’s wrong with me?” when my opinion disagrees with the anime zeitgeist, because the anime zeitgeist’s taste speaks for itself much of the time. And as I’ve noted ad nauseam, nothing in art is more personal than comedy. But nevertheless, it grates on my that after six episodes directed by one of anime’s finest craftsmen (he did “Rakugo” for jeebus’ sake) I still have no idea why Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai is such a big deal. It’s just not that funny.
My last realistic hope for the salvation of this series was the arrival of Ishigami Yuu (Suzuki Ryouta), the mysterious first-year treasurer of the student council. A new character in the mix at least offered the potential to spice up the dynamic, but while in a vacuum Ishigami is fine and so is Suzuki’s performance, the humor derived from his situation fell flat. It’s a trite misunderstanding trope form starters, and it mainly serves (and this is a real problem) to make the already pretty unlikeable Kaguya-san even more unlikeable. Yuu was present for all three chapters this week and none of them got more than an occasional chuckle from me (to be honest I only lasted about 3 minutes into the last one) so to hold out any hope that he’ll make a real difference seems pointless.
There are plenty of popular series that I either overtly dislike or feel ambivalence towards (and this one is definitely the latter), so that’s nothing new. But the two factors that make this one more irritating than usual are the presence of Hatakeyama Mamoru as director, and the fact that some folks whose tastes often overlap mine really like it. I think there’s a definite SHAFT factor here, and let’s be clear, Kaguya-sama is for all intents and purposes a SHAFT series (Hatakeyama cut his teeth there). I have effectively zero tolerance for the SHAFT comedic style at this point, which is more pertinent here than my dislike of their visual style.
That’s it, in the end – a comedy has to make you laugh, or what’s the point? That’s especially true of gag comedies, which Kaguya-sama certainly is – if there’s any character development worth caring about, it certainly wasn’t on display in the first six episodes. Watching annoying people screw with other has a pretty short shelf life if it ain’t funny most of the time, so it’s time to admit that this series and I are two ships passing in the night, wish it luck and congratulate those who’re enjoying it on its likely commercial success, and walk away. Another “top shelf” expectations series bites the dust – a distressingly common theme in anime lately. I could do with 2019 not having any more instances of it, because it annoys the hell out of me.
bnbros
February 17, 2019 at 11:59 amThere are further developments in the manga outside the romcom elements that I think might be up your alley, but it will be a slow, gradual process since the author is playing the long game here.
That said, I can understand the series not clicking for you at this point, especially with the ever subjective nature of comedies as you have mentioned. You’ve certainly given it a good shot anyway.
Would you perhaps consider reading the manga though? The Shaft comedy style isn’t really prevalent there, so you might enjoy it better in paper form.
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 1:15 pmNormally I wouldn’t even give the manga a second thought with an anime that did as little for me as this one, TBH. But you guys offer a good case.
Derpy Wanderer
February 17, 2019 at 1:01 pmThank you for at least giving it a try. Just to give you some background on its popularity:
When Kaguya first came out, no one was expecting a masterpiece. In fact, most people considered it to be a low calorie romcom staple that goes nowhere. However, people greatly enjoyed it due to the awesome translation efforts by a fan translator (seriously, his translations are on a whole different level than the official one) as well as the narrator who acts as a snarky commentator on all the shenanigans. All in all, just a fun manga to read.
And then chapter 45 hit. I won’t spoil it for you but it got a lot of people talking. And from there, its popularity started to soar.
Once again, thank you for taking to time to watch. If you have time, please do consider reading the manga (especially with the fan translation).
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 1:17 pmI appreciate not being attacked over dropping it.
Can I just skip to chapter 45? Cause honestly, I can’t see devoting the time to reading 45 chapters at this point.
bnbros
February 17, 2019 at 2:00 pmIn all honesty, I would not recommend doing that. The reason chapter 45 worked so well for many people was because it was a culmination of many character developments from prior chapters, even the seemingly insignificant gag ones, that slowly built up to its payoff.
It’d be like watching the final scenes of an amazing movie like Titanic without watching all the prior scenes, for example. The payoff would not be as strong.
Proto
February 17, 2019 at 1:11 pmAye, for me this series turned out to be the surprise of the year when I binged read the entire thing after watching episode 1 of the anime. A shame that you don’t like it though, I really like your prose when you love a show. That said, I’m happy to add another name to the list of ppl that makes you wonder what does everyone sees in this show. 😀
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 1:20 pmWould you say the manga is better than the anime?
While there have been plenty of anime comedies over the years that fall into the “sort of like it” category for me, comedy does tend to be more all-or-nothing than most genres. What seems self-evident to fans of this series is totally lost on others (like me).
Proto
February 17, 2019 at 2:07 pmI would say the manga is better than the anime, at least in regards to some of the style oriented things you have referred to:
– Direction style (no shaft like presentation. This one does not annoy me as much as it does to you, but it is definitely not present in the manga)
– The narrator: This one does grate on me when the narrator gains a voice and an overbearing presence, which is less overbearing on the manga where he’s just a text blob.
The style of comedy does remain similar, so that may be a minus in your book. However what helps the series in future chapters is that the characters themselves become more well rounded in terms of personality and the relationships between the group become more complete so the comedy skits themselves are always fresh.
Simone
February 17, 2019 at 5:33 pmYou just have a tendency to read into things too much to the point you can’t enjoy it. For example, sure, irl Kaguya threatening Ishigami would not be funny, the poor guy is terrified and not without reason. But if you buy into the over the top nature of the characters you can ignore that. My impression is that your problem is similar to a lack of suspension of disbelief: you look at the events with an excessively realistic lens and that ruins the fun that is in all the little absurd details (like Ishigami saying he’ll go home due to having Stockholm syndrome, Kaguya immediately worrying about how difficult it would be to have nine children, then looking up hormone injections, or Hayasaka being forced to play Fujiwara in Kaguya’s mock test sssion).
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 6:02 pmActually, I think my problem is that the stuff that’s supposed to be funny isn’t very funny. But that’s comedy – as long as it works for you, that’s all that matters.
Simone
February 17, 2019 at 6:59 pm“the stuff that’s supposed to be funny isn’t very funny”
You said that comedy is subjective, there’s no such thing as something BEING funny or not. It’s about whether it’s funny FOR YOU, and my point is, it isn’t because of the way you approach it. As I said, it’s like suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t bring myself to finish watching Ant-Man and the Wasp because I’m an actual quantum physicist and the amount of times they tossed around the word “quantum” as handwavium for increasingly ridiculous plot contrivances just made it impossible for me to care about any stakes the story could have any more. Same thing.
Dewey
February 17, 2019 at 6:14 pmThe manga hits its stride in Chapter 45 and never stops. Characters like Ishigami and Kaguya break beyond their one-note tropes and jokes and go on interesting character arcs, the show finally gives backstories on all the characters, etc. It was just a fun little forgettable series until that arc that culminates in Chapter 45, and I think at that point everyone realized that the author was playing the long game and that he could pull off some impressive stuff.
I will say that it’s not strange for you to feel confused about what people like about Kaguya-sama. It hasn’t reared its head yet.
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 6:32 pmThat’s kind of a problem though, isn’t it? I mean, I’m assuming we won’t even get to that part of the manga. Maybe this is a split cour and already booked for 12 more eps, or maybe it will do well enough to get a sequel. But I’ve always held a pretty strong belief that any anime needs to be able to succeed without prior knowledge of the source material – be that manga, VN or anything else.
Dewey
February 17, 2019 at 6:56 pmI was referring more to the abundance of manga readers who flood anime episode topics to laud it as a masterpiece when it is (right now) just a good series. On that point you obviously disagree, which is fine. I was more referring to those who have given you the impression that the series is supposed to be the second coming right from the start.
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 7:03 pmI get that, just making a more general point I guess.
If anything, even if the manga doesn’t hit its stride till chapter 45, it obviously had to do enough before that to at least keep people interested. The fact that I’m not even getting that experience with the anime is probably not a good sign.
Simone
February 17, 2019 at 7:02 pmI love this manga, but IMHO this sort of “it gets better! It gets better!” attitude all people who love the source material of something have with anime-onlies who dislike the show is fundamentally just delusional. It may get better for us, but “better” doesn’t mean it transforms completely into something different. Rather, it riffs further on the same established style of humour, while developing the characters more. At this point I’m 99% sure Enzo wouldn’t enjoy the manga either, save perhaps for the fact that the narrator is less overbearing, not even past chapter 45.
Haak
February 17, 2019 at 6:53 pmI don’t think you need to be that hung up about it to be honest. Comedy relies a lot on timing and pacing and with a manga the reader actually has more control of that than they would as an anime viewer, imo. And the characterisation is very incremental: It might interest you to know that Ishigami and Kaguya actually develop a closer and sincere (non-romantic) relationship and Ishigami himself is given quite a substantial arc of his own but this is all later on.
Whether or not you want to read the manga is up to you and whilst I do think the manga is considerably better, I wouldn’t want you to read it purely for the sake of having an opinion. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty straightforward rom-com. I know I’m guilty of hyping it up myself but I don’t actually consider it any kind of masterpiece. I don’t think you’d be missing out on much.
Haak
February 17, 2019 at 6:58 pmBut if you are going to read the manga, make sure you don’t have the anime narrator’s voice in your head. That guy was a fundamental miscast.
Zack
February 17, 2019 at 6:56 pmLike other people said, Chapter 44~45 is the first climax of the series. Every little skit that you have watched so far are pretty much introductory at the start e.g for Ishigami Yu it is understandably a bit tough for us manga readers to watch some anime-only reviewers judge him off one episode (and presumably keep it that way till the end of the first cour) since Ishigami’s backstory didn’t get delved into until chapter 80+ or so.
All these skits make it seem like Kaguya is a pretty episodic series, but like others mentioned, it is the author filling it up bit by bit. So far the author Akasaka Aka have been employing a 45 chapter rule for his manga, with say, first climax being around chapter 45, second being around 90 etc.
The anime is still on track to hit at least chapter 45 being adapted (hopefully), but if you feel like the anime version is throwing you off, you can just pick up the manga from where episode 6 left off and see if it might be of a better fit for you.
Episode 6 adapted chapter 24: Ishigami Yu wants to survive, 28 (quiz) and 25 (nails) for your reference if you want to read ahead and get a sense of what some of the comments here are saying. Cheers.
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 7:00 pmThanks.
Paul
February 17, 2019 at 7:32 pmtl;dr: in my opinion, the manga is better than the anime hands down. But I get it if people don’t like either.
Okay. So. Take this comment with the knowledge that I was reading the manga before the show. And also know that I love most romcoms in general, so it doesn’t take much to please me.
But!
I actually don’t really enjoy the anime. Which is disappointing. Kaguya is my favorite manga (i’ve read like 3), and I definitely wanted to like the anime. I watch it every week out of more of a duty to the series as a whole, instead of the fact that I want to watch it. I already know what’s going to happen, so at this point, if the anime doesn’t do anything more for me than the manga, I might as well just reread the chapters.
Someone already said this, but one thing that I don’t like in anime vs. manga is the narrator. Because he is voiced, I have no choice but to hear him. The things he says tends to slow down pacing of what is actually showing on screen, as the nature of the anime is that something has to be on the screen as noise happens. Because of this, anytime the narrator explains something, 10ish seconds of screen has to be used. In the manga, it’s 1 panel. This helps IMMENSELY to lead up to the follow of whatever concept the narrator just explained in the manga. On top of that, because of how my human brain reads, I often never really even think of the narrator as some actual voice that lends itself separately to the scene apart from Kaguya and the president.
Secondly, when I read, I feel that I understand the correct timing for jokes to land perfectly for me better than an anime. Whether consciously or not, my mind read the manga at that speed, which also helps. The lines of the jokes are often longer than the gag of the imagery they are paired with in the anime, imo. In the manga, there is an immediate cut to the visual gag at the literal instant you get to read the line in its entirety, which is lost because voiced things take time, which makes a sudden art/face change not happen quite right. I feel this isn’t necessarily fault of the director, or anyone on the project, but as a result of the media itself.
Going back to the idea that the anime after reading the manga should do something more for me. What does the medium of an anime add that manga doesn’t have? Well, only about four things, really. Voice acting, color, music (sound effects as well), and movement. The voice acting is fine, in my opinion, but the nature of voices ruins some jokes for me, as explained before. The color is nice and I appreciate it. The music… does it do anything to impact the scenes? Not in my memory (without going back and watching to help). In terms of sound effects, I feel that they are over-balanced and also get in the way of explanations (see the narrator telling you about the Shinomiya family in ep 1 as it introduces her character). The sounds that play in the mental battles do help and are interesting, I guess. They give some more oomph to the reactions. In terms of movement, nothing happens in this series that is really dependent or made more impressive by movement. I mean, this is primarily a “psychological warfare” thing, where half of the episode are two or three characters just sitting in a room, talking and thinking. Most of the gags aren’t movement centered, just facial expressions, which the manga does just as well. (the anime versions of any given reaction face very closely mirrors the manga panels) Movement of animation doesn’t really add much, with the obvious exception of the Chika dance, which is my favorite thing the anime has done. So, there isn’t really much the medium of an anime adds that makes Kaguya-sama better than the manga. In fact, I think it subtracts more than it adds.
But, at the end of the day, this kind of romcom doesn’t work for everyone. And I get that. I don’t blame you at all for not wanting to drop the anime, but I do think that you should at least try the manga. I also wouldn’t blame you if you don’t like that as well. As you did point out, the jokes tend to fall flat as well because it just seems like the same kind of joke over and over. It is. I’m not going to sugar-coat it. I just happen to really like that joke, so it works perfectly for me.
fgfdfh
February 17, 2019 at 7:33 pmWow, lots of people are telling you to read the manga, so I guess I have to give you a warning:The manga might not “improve” as much as you’d like.
Yes, there’s more character development and drama later on, but 80% of the manga still employs the exact same style of comedy. The narrator still has a very noticeable presence. And if you don’t like the characters now, there’s a good chance you won’t care about the drama. Also, a large portion of the fanbase(including me) have been clamoring for a shaft adaptation since the very beginning, so they obviously do not share your taste.
I love the manga, and I think some fans are underselling the early chapters quite a bit. At ep 6, lots of characterization have been done.
That said, the remaining 20 chapters are quite short, so give it a try. If you don’t like that, it’s time to stop.
L0ken
February 17, 2019 at 9:28 pmYeah,I agree with all the comments above,not to mention the anime skipped or rearranged chapters in order to fit the first climax of the series in chapter 45,so if you going to read the manga I recommend from the begging or at least check the chapters that anime skipped,someone made a list of them:https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1761357
Also can you elaborate and I’m kinda confused why is Kaguya as the character is so unlikable to you?She’s obviously a good but shy sheltered girl who also helps others and is responsible vice-president despite her other flaws,which was pointed out across the episodes by other characters and even by herself,saying like how her old self was much worse and colder then now and Prezident commented how much she’s improved,that alone means her personality has reasonable explanation and some backstory behind it,isn’t all that a good points for a character and potential development?From what I gathered from anime-onlys almost everyone didn’t thought she’s unlikable or straight up evil person after watching some amount of episodes,in fact moments when she’s thinks bad about others is plays more for comedy and in the same time it’s relatable to many people(cause irl everyone having some bad thougts about people,even the ones we like) so I having a hard time to understand what in your opinion makes so unlikable?
Guardian Enzo
February 17, 2019 at 9:51 pmIt’s not so much that she’s unlikeable, it’s that none of them are especially likeable to me. They’re basic archetypes we’ve seen many times before. Nothing about them is especially interesting or different or even sympathetic, frankly.
Sam
February 18, 2019 at 9:39 amHmm so this has been dropped. As I am only sorta watching 1 show (Mob Psycho) casually, I haven’t visited here for a while.
As a “former” reader of Kaguya, I don’t remember what this “Chapter 45” folks here is passionately bringing up as some sort of a magic word. My sense is that yes manga is probably a bit better than the anime adaptation, but as mentioned a couple times, I personally don’t consider it that good – or I wouldn’t have dropped it after reading some 120+ chapters. 🙂 Hinamatsuri is funnier and a better show IMO, ahem.
Guardian Enzo
February 18, 2019 at 9:58 amHave you tried Dororo by any chance? It’s the one series that seems to be crossing demographic lines appeal-wise. Well, that and Neverland but Dororo is much better.
Terrestrious
February 21, 2019 at 1:31 pmI suppose since you only made three minutes into the nails segment I figured I’d mention that my favourite part of the episode came from there. Near the end Shirogane is in his typical internal monologue debating about complimenting Kaguya’s nails, and decides the prospect of her calling him creepy makes it too risky BUT then realizes wait, this is just an excuse, it’s his own problem, he’s just too bashful to actually compliment her. It ends with him starting too compliment them but getting too embarrassed to finish his thought then rushing off, but for me the important part was that self-acknowledgement that stood out, and one of the main reasons keeping me from watching is moments like that, the French language thing, and the umbrella ending, certainly make it seem that the series is building to genuine relationship development. I’m not saying this to convince to you pick it back up, you gave the series a fair shake and no matter what story progression might happen, it’s doubtful the comedic structure will change (anime-only so I don’t know that for sure, but it feels like a lock that the humour will remain in the same style), but I just thought it was another layer that you might at least appreciate hearing about since it might makes it’s appeal a little more clear. I don’t know.
Though, I also genuinely find the series amusing and charming. I don’t laugh much admittedly, a couple chuckles here and there but that’s how I work with most comedies, but most episodes I do have a stupid grin plastered over my face. Not so much in this one, I kinda felt it was bit flat compared to previous ones but still.
Guardian Enzo
February 21, 2019 at 2:09 pmI’m not going to be picking this show up again realistically, but I may watch another episode or two to see if it can convince me to at least keep watching. If the characters and relationships actually develop that’s great, but if you don’t really see anything that makes you care about them and it’s not making you laugh, it becomes pretty much moot.