*Spoiler Warning*
After taking what I thought was a step in the right direction with season 2, Classroom of The Elite's season 3 felt like a step backwards in terms of story quality and general direction. In a lot of ways it reverted to form with season 1, in which it had a lot of good ideas but poor execution. This is also something that I felt that the anime has struggled with through its entire run so far and it doesn't seem like it's been able to get a handle on that, now whether that's because of the source material or they're not adapting it
...
well enough is not something I can answer. While there were good moments in season 3, there were also a lot of times where it felt like the there were a lot of easy plot conveniences or plot points were completely ignored for the sake of moving the story forward, just like there had been in previous seasons though this time it felt a lot more blatant. There were also times where plot points in the story felt forced whether it was character actions or just overall story setting. The presence of some characters also felt either entirely forced or completely useless.
One of the biggest flaws of this season was its primary antagonist: Sakayanagi. After 2 seasons of hyping her up as an antagonist and being portrayed as this force to be reckoned with, she really fell below expectations and just fell flat entirely in her role. All her "schemes'' that she cooked up throughout the season from beefing with Class B's leader Inchinose (which was really a bad attempt at girl drama) and her all desperate attempts to fight with Ayanokouji throughout the season (in which she lost each time except for in the season finale where she only won because there was outside interference) really just fall apart by the end of the episode they're concocted in. The season made her out to be more of a paper tiger than as an antagonist you should take seriously, and her motives for wanting to beef with Ayanokouji were just....weird to say the least. She basically wanted to compete against him this entire time just to essentially confess her feelings for him (even though it wasn't much of a romantic confession and she was trying to teach him to be more open and accepting of others, it seems like she went through a lot of work for nothing).
To be frank, the only "antagonist" you can probably take seriously after watching this season would probably be none other than Ayanokouji himself, if you can really call him an antagonist and I'm not sure if that's even the right label for him. He does cook up some good schemes throughout the anime to save his class, and at one point himself during Sakayangi's only good scheme which was to try to get him expelled in what was an otherwise shoehorned plot to "vote someone off the island", and his manipulation of Karuizawa is impressive despite the fact that he manages to convey no emotion at all and still gets her to fall for him (not that I think he was even particularly trying to get that to happen). Though I'd say its more indicative of the flaws of Karuizawa's character than Ayanokouji's manipulations. Still man got himself a girlfriend, so I do have to tip my hat to that.
To sum up my overall feelings: I didn't hate this season, but I would say it's been the worst to watch so far from this anime.
The season did shine through in its production value. I did enjoy the season's OP: Minor Piece, and the outro for the majority of the season: "Konse Daikakumei". Both songs were pretty enjoyable to listen to and the animations for both were very well done and they did have me looking forward to the episode every time I watched (even if the episode turned out to be a disappointing one). The animation, voice acting, backgrounds and art all felt just as good as they have been in seasons past.
Now to get into more of the story for this season, it started off rather confusing and was overall lackluster until around the midway point of the season where it got interesting and engaging before things fell off by the end. It somewhat mirrored my watch experience with the first season, but only instead of things generally getting better by the end of the story things instead got worse.
The season started off on a rather confusing note when we're told that Ayanokouji and Class D have since been promoted since we last saw them and are now Class C. I actually went back and refreshed myself on how season 2 ended just to make sure I wasn't forgetting something. I was under the impression that while it was possible for classes to move up and down (as well as individual students), that was something that was changed the following year (so if you were class 1-D one year and you get promoted, the next year you're class 2-C). I also don't know if they got promoted because Class D finally amassed more points than Class C, the anime is not big on explaining stuff like that and unfortunately there's multiple times throughout the season where you'll get confused by the plot.
Not only does the plot start off on a confusing note but the first few episodes also kind of copy off the setting of the finale in season 1, the only real differences being that its the entire school involved this time and the location is different. Ayanokouji and his classmates are subjected to yet another test where the stakes are either you pass the exam or if you fail, you're expelled (for a school that's supposed to pride itself on nurturing and training the country's "future leaders", they sure seem to go out of their way to try to make their students fail and punish them for it rather than setting them up for success and rewarding them for it. Then again maybe the irony of it all is the point here.).
The first set of episodes also gives us a look at the new student council president: Nagumo Miyabi. While he's certainly not portrayed in a positive light throughout the season, he's more of what you'd call a frat boy douche than an actual villain. Even though Horikita's brother (who stepped down from his positions for reasons that were never explained), warns Ayanokouji that Nagumo is going to do a sort of "purge" and expel a bunch of students next year on likely trumped up charges, there's not really a whole lot of reason to take him super seriously as of yet. He does make a bet with Horikita's brother which he ends up resorting to underhanded tactics to try to get his "friend" expelled and tries to pressure Inchinose to date him for points so that she can go on her futile quest to save everyone in her class. Nagumo is definitely someone worth keeping your eye on in future installments, but for right now, I haven't been overly impressed from what I've seen from him. Much like Sakayanagi: the hype around their characters fell flat.
Another rather dumb plot thread that the anime is still currently holding onto is Horkita's attempts to make peace with Kushida. It's become clear as day to me at least that Kushida is crazy and there's just no reasoning with her. Ayanokouji honestly has a pretty good way of dealing with her: the relationship that they have is highly transactional which is probably the most they'll get out of her. Now I do believe her character is on the chopping block to get the boot one of these days and I was fairly surprised it was Yamauchi of all characters that got the boot this go around considering he was just a side character (which in hindsight does make him a fairly good candidate to get expelled and the moment he accidentally knocked Sakayanagi ended up being foreshadowing that he signed his death warrant) during what was a rather forced story sequence of essentially trying to "vote someone off the island", but then again only Ayanokouji, Horikita and a very select few characters know her true nature. I was half expecting Horikita to try to out Kushida for what she is, but in hindsight she would've had a very difficult time proving it and considering she's popular with everyone it could've easily backfired. Ayanokouji did state he plans to get her expelled sooner or later and though sometimes its because of borderline magic, he does usually deliver on his word. I was also surprised that Ryunen managed to hang on and it seems like he's back in charge of his class. Even the anime pretty much wrote off his character as everyone was expecting him to get the boot considering he led his class to demotion, but thanks to some clever maneuvering on Ayanokouji's part, we'll have Ryunen to kick around for the foreseeable future. He is an entertaining character to watch so I won't be complaining.
Now all that being said, there were some good moments that happened this season. One example being the rather heartwarming farewell between Horikita and her brother. Horikita's brother finally graduates and Horikita finally comes to terms with being herself rather than just copying everything that her brother did. It made for a truly impactful moment and it does feel like Horikita has had some genuine character growth over the last three seasons and the moment that she had with her brother was truly sweet. But the warm fuzzy feelings you get from her moment with her brother pretty much get swept away when she decides to end her alliance with Inchinose and pretty much actively compete with each other going forward, which I think is a mistake. Horkita and her class got demoted back to class D after falling short to Class A in the finale (at this point I don't know how the class promotion/demotion system works), and although they will have to face Class B eventually if they want to move up to Class A, cutting yourself short of allies at a time like this seems rather inadvisable. But hey "character growth!".
I'll also give this season credit for finally bringing much needed clarity for Ayanokouji's motivations for why he does the things that he does. Essentially, "The White Room" has trained him to be a super genius and he's conditioned to use people as tools to advance his objectives and achieve whatever it is he desires. He ultimately choose to escape his father, who runs The White Room project, to at least get a taste of what a "normal kid's life" is like and he holds back as a means not to draw attention to himself. While I'll admit I was a little underwhelmed by the revelation, it does make sense for his character and I guess I got my wish on finally understanding why he is this way. Now I don't believe for even a second that he genuinely even likes Karuizawa, given his lack of facial movement and his inner monologue stating he wants to learn what he can about romance and the get rid of her. Though all that being said, he and Karuizawa had a lot of good and funny moments throughout this season which often were the highlights of the episodes themselves. Ironically, they do make for a decent couple, but I don't think Ayanokouji actually cares for her (and he might not even be capable of caring for her given his conditioning). I also thought that he was going to try something with Inchinose and towards the end of the season during their final conversation it does seem like the anime is setting up for something to happen between them. Ayanokouji also seems to have something going on with a new character named Shiina who he connects with over books and meeting her during the special exam at the start of the season, but for now seems like they'll just be friends. I still believe that if he is to end up with anybody it'll likely be with Horikita, but Sakayanagi did end up presenting herself as an option for Ayanokouji should he choose to go down that path. I'm uncertain if he ultimately will end up with someone, but my money is on Horikita, Inchinose Karuizawa, Sakayanagi in that order. I don't see Ayanokouji's "relationship" with Karuizawa lasting, and he did say that he wants to take down Inchinose as well and is just playing with her feelings to throw her off balance but perhaps he grows to like her, who knows?
Even though I criticized this plot point as forced earlier, the whole "special exam" which strongly encouraged classes to boot their least productive member, did make for some good and interesting drama and it did a great job of creating uncertainty. For a while it looked like Ayanokouji was going to be cooked and although I fully expected him to maneuver his way out of it, it made for a few dramatic and entertaining episodes. It also did a good job of giving Hirata a little bit of an arc as he felt anger and guilt that he couldn't save everyone like Inchinose did with Class B, but Ayanokouji talked some sense into him and he pulled himself together which made for a pretty good scene. The final exams were also entertaining to watch unfold.
There was also a good set up for the conflict of next season in which Ayanokouji will have to deal with the school's interim principal who works for Ayanokouji's father as he tries to get him expelled so that he can return to The White Room. There is some genuine intrigue with this plot point and if handled correctly it can make for some interesting moments in the next season! I'm also curious to learn why Ayanokouji feels like he'll need to return to The White Room anyway as by the time he graduates (assuming he manages to stay) he should be a legal adult and can choose his own destiny at that point. Perhaps it has to do with his conditioning.
While there some good moments this season, generally speaking, it felt like season 3 was a step backwards from what the later half of season 1 and all of season 2 had built. This season was done-in by antagonists who were not compelling, forced and confusing plot moments (though the anime did make the most out of some of these) and just brazenly stupid moves on the part of many characters. Now if you generally liked seasons 1 and 2, you'll probably be fine with this season, but as someone who generally hasn't been sold on this anime, this season did not allow the anime to take the step forward that I thought it should've. That being said this season wasn't all doom and gloom and there are opportunities for things to get back on track with the next season but I'll be lowering my expectations next time around. Though I'd consider this season to be average, it felt like there was more bad in this season than good but when there were good moments, the anime really shined. However, I felt that this season took the anime backwards and erased a lot of goodwill that I had slowly gained over the last season and a half, so I couldn't give this season high marks if you're a casual watcher of this anime like I am.
May 7, 2024 Not Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
After taking what I thought was a step in the right direction with season 2, Classroom of The Elite's season 3 felt like a step backwards in terms of story quality and general direction. In a lot of ways it reverted to form with season 1, in which it had a lot of good ideas but poor execution. This is also something that I felt that the anime has struggled with through its entire run so far and it doesn't seem like it's been able to get a handle on that, now whether that's because of the source material or they're not adapting it ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 21, 2024
"Oshi no Ko"
(Anime)
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Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
Anytime an anime briefly manages to take the #1 spot, especially overtaking Full Metal Alchemist which I've always understood has held that ranking for a while, it deserves a watch through to see if it is indeed worth the hype. Though admittedly I got around to watching this anime much later than I would've liked to, I was keeping an eye on the ratings and general discourse surrounding it. Overtime, Oshi No Ko fell out of the #1 spot (for various reasons) before steadily falling to its current standing (as of this writing) to #60, which all things considered any anime that falls within ... the top 100 would probably be considered good by the MAL community. Regarding Oshi No Ko specifically, the one common thing I heard was that the anime had an absolute banger of a first episode before it steadily dropped off. This is a rather common occurrence even in the anime I've watched. However, I've come across just as many anime that started off a little patchy before closing out strongly. For my personal experience, I'd put Oshi No Ko in the latter category. Now don't get me wrong: Oshi No Ko's first episode (or movie if you want to call it that), was a phenomenal set up and it has a very compelling and interesting story. Overall I did enjoy the first episode and I did keep watching and eventually finished the whole anime, but there were some things that took me out of the watching experience and overall didn't feel that the first episode was all that grand or special. If I were to judge the first episode as a standalone thing, I'd probably given Oshi No Ko a 6 or 7. It was the other 10 episodes where Oshi No Ko really shined like the stars and I started really getting into the anime. From my understanding, my watching experience was the opposite of mostly everybody else's experience in which the first episode was kind of the peak for the anime before dropping off while for me the first episode was alright before steadily improving with each episode. We'll get into all the story stuff and characters in a little bit. I will say that the production value of Oshi No Ko was top notch. For an anime that is about idols and the entertainment industry, Doga Kobo spared no expense in this department. The animation, the designs and visuals all looked extremely crisp, colorful and clean. It's definitely among the best visually looking anime that I've watched so far, being up there with the likes of Attack on Titan, Angel Beats (though dated by today's standards), Weathering With You (even though I did not particularly care for this one), Spy X Family, Demon Slayer and others. I really did like the "star eyes" that they gave Ai, Aqua, Ruby and Akane when she briefly had them. It always looked beautiful and it's easily one of my favorite things about those characters. The music in Oshi No Ko was also phenomenal and was one of my favorite things about the anime. I'll actually admit that I really found out about Oshi No Ko when the OP song, "Idol" was making its rounds throughout the internet. It's a great song that you can bop your head to and it's super high energy. The visuals do ironically paint a bleaker but more accurate picture of what the story is about than the tone of the song would suggest, but it was eye-catching and it got me interested in the anime. I didn't get to hear the outro song until I watched episode 2, but I was blown away by how good the whole outro was. The visuals were straight up cinematic (hell, I'll argue that some of the best animation is in the outro!) and the song, Mephisto, was an absolute banger as it definitely captured Oshi No Ko's dark side very well. It's not often that you come across an anime that has a both tier S intro and outro, but Oshi No Ko definitely has both. There are also plenty of great covers out there for both songs. The story for Oshi No Ko was generally good but as I said earlier, for me it took a little while to pick up steam. The anime pulls a head fake in the first episode by making it seem that Ai, the poster girl for the anime, is the main star of the show but shockingly and tragically kills her off by the end of the first episode (now I did get this part spoiled to me so I knew it was coming but it was still an impactful scene), leaving the main stars of the anime to be her two children: Aqua (who is Dr. Goru, Ai's 1 time doctor, reincarnated after he too is killed earlier in the episode by Ai's stalker) and Ruby (who is Sarina, a girl who dies early on in the episode due to a crippling illness and is the catalyst for Dr. Goru becoming an Ai-stan). I didn't have any issue with this. If done properly it can be very good for the story and Oshi No Ko handled it well and Aqua and Ruby were great main characters. The supporting characters as well such as the likes of Kana, Akane, Miyako, Taishi and later Mem-cho, were all great supporting characters that had good or memorable moments on screen that make them likable. None of the major characters ever really felt side-lined or unintentionally forgotten about. The rest of story follows Aqua and Ruby in their respective quests: Aqua wants to figure out who his biological father is as he has reason to believe that he is ultimately responsible for the death of Ai as he may have divulged the location to her stalker (which ep 1 makes it seem to be the case), while Ruby wants to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a full-fledged idol despite her brother's reservations and subtle attempts at sabotaging her early on in the season. The story does a good job on balancing both of the major plotlines and though Ruby's quest may have more screen time, the times we see Aqua doing his mission make for some of the highpoints of the anime. My general issue with the story in Oshi No Ko has to be with the whole reincarnation thing going on. Now I'm not opposed to using reincarnation in a story, but I did feel taken out of the watching experience a little bit by how it was generally handled even though I do recognize what I do like about the story probably wouldn't work as well if they didn't handle it this way. What was taking me out of the first episode was the fact that Aqua and Ruby remembered their entire past lives. I felt that was a little too unrealistic. I wouldn't have been opposed to it if they had remembered snippets or key moments of their past lives but them remembering everything is a little too much for me personally. Also the rules for reincarnation are a little confusing in this universe. Aqua in his past life as Dr. Gorou died right as Ai was giving birth to her two children and Dr. Gorou subsequently became Aqua. So going off this alone it would seem that reincarnation is rather instant. However, Ruby is Sarina reincarnated. Now we don't know specifically when she died in relation to her being reborn but the anime makes it seem like it's been possibly months or even years since she passed. So if Dr. Gorou gets reincarnated instantly, why did Sarina have to wait around to get reincarnated? And also...are there specific rules about who can and can't get reincarnated? Did Ai get reincarnated when she died? Now I did briefly think she got reincarnated as Akane but the anime makes it more so seem that it was Akane's skillful imitation rather than Ai being reincarnated, and at the end of the idol concert in the finale, the anime made it more so seem that Ai was in heaven watching down on them (again it could've been purely symbolic), and there is a scene in the finale where Aqua was staring at a crow (it might've been a raven, I don't really know), and was reminiscing about his time with Ai, so maybe she pulled an Eren Yeager and got reincarnated as a bird (For the record I don't actually believe that, I'm just saying it for the meme)? I don't know, the rules for reincarnation in Oshi No Ko are vague and appear to be inconsistent, and maybe that's intentional and I'm thinking too hard about this but it seems like it's relevant to the story here. Aside from Aqua and Ruby remembering their past lives in their entirety, I'm surprised they both haven't figured out who they were in their past lives yet. Now I'm sure they will later on in the story (probably towards the end if I had to guess), but we're led to believe that in the 17 years or so that they've spent their lives together, they didn't have more conversations about who they were? We only get one conversation in the first episode when Aqua asked Ruby but she largely brushed him off. I would've thought they would've talked more about it over the years or at least they could've figured it out on their own by then. Especially since Ruby and Sarina have pretty identical personalities. It seemed Dr. Gorou retained most of his personality when he was reborn as Aqua, though obviously he became more dark and cynical and had pretty good reason to. I would've thought that they would've picked up on that after 17 years. I also did find them being able to fully talk as babies also a little unrealistic. Like the fact that Aqua was standing around and forming complete sentences by the time he was like 1 took me out of the story a little bit. The other issue I had with Oshi No Ko was a particular plot point that I just thought wasn't executed very well. In ep 6, Aqua is in a reality dating show with Akane, Mem-cho and a few other side characters. Akane was struggling to make an impact on screen and so she decided to be more forceful and assertive, and during a confrontation she has with a character named Yuki after she "steals her man" so to speak, she accidentally scratches Yuki. While this was obviously an accident and the characters didn't have any actual beef with each other, Yuki's fans and other people on the internet relentlessly attacked her online and it got so bad to the point that Akane attempted to suicide. I understand what they were trying to portray here in this episode, and for the most part they handled it well and with class, but I found the whole "internet freaks out because girl scratches another girl by accident in reality show drama" a little strange. Now people on the internet will look for anything to complain about, that's just how it is, but I thought that Akane receiving that level of hate over something like that was unrealistic to me. Now I'm not educated on reality dating shows and how they're viewed in Japan, but at least from a western perspective, I don't think this really would've happened if it happened in a western setting. I mean yeah the diehards of Yuki would probably be nasty but for the most part I'd expect that the vast majority of people would know that "reality tv" is more less ad-libbed action. Again, maybe in Japan those kinds of shows are taken to that level of seriousness but I personally think they should've changed the situation in which Akane received that level of hate. But that might be the whole point: it was a silly situation and there was no justification for it in the first place and there's just a group of people on the internet who live and by their celebrities. All the same, I think it would've been better if they changed the situation up. I also do find it somewhat ironic: the situation could've been avoided had Yuki or the show's official account just put out a statement asking fans to chill out. It might not have solved the problem entirely but probably would've at least blunted it a little. I don't know, I'm just a westerner talking out of his ass here. Aside from those points, the story of Oshi No Ko was solid and very enjoyable to watch unfold. The anime does a great job highlighting the dirty underbelly of the entertainment industry and the harsh realities of that business. It also makes some great points about mental health and the toll that it takes on the people in the entertainment industries about what they have to put up with. It was great watching Ruby pursue her dream of being an idol and Aqua moving along in his quest to find their father. It balanced detective-level thrill with cute girl trying to do cute things pretty well and it's hard to strike a balance between those two. Before I finish this out I'll run through my thoughts on the characters: Aqua/Dr. Gorou: When he was Dr. Gorou, I thought he was a bit weird. I didn't mind that he was an idol fan, there's really nothing wrong with that, but he definitely took his fandom to fanatic levels (which is something called out by his coworker, more specifically when she calls him a lolicon which was a hilarious joke in the first episode). I can respect the fact that he carried on his interest out of respect for Sarina's memory, which is sweet, but like I said he took it to levels of weird. When Ai did meet him for the first time, he was pretty cool and respectable around her for the most part, but he clearly had conflicted feelings about her whether he liked her as a person or just as a typical fan-celebrity kind of admiration. When he comes to Aqua he takes on a more sinister and dark personality especially after the death of Ai and his quest for revenge is very compelling and fun to watch. I also liked the detail of whenever he's in his "bloodlust" kind of state, the star in his eye dims. I think that's an incredible attention to detail. He does maintain his level of love and admiration for Ai long after her death but with the whole reincarnation aspect thrown in, it's really weird on how to properly categorize Aqua on the weirdness scale (I guess this is where a lot of the incest comments from but I haven't read the manga and I think all that kind of stuff happens later on, I'm not sure). But aside from that, his dark personality makes for some great moments on screen and he is willing to put aside some of his vengeful feelings to help out his sister pursue her dreams of becoming an idol despite his reservations. He also did save Akane's life and helped Kana with regaining at least some of her self-confidence. Aqua isn't totally heartless, and the anime does seem to be teasing him being paired with either Akane or Kana but we'll see where that goes. Ruby/Sarina: I liked her character. In both of her lives, she was sweet, high energy and pure. She definitely brought the wholesomeness to the show and she had some pretty funny moments on screen. After her first performance, I think she's definitely made a compelling case for why she is Ai's successor. I do wonder if she's ultimately going to keep the secret of who she was in her past life to Aqua but she's not definitely not shy about sharing at least some details of her past life to others (even though she obviously doesn't say that this was in her past life). She's a very sympathetic character and it's hard not to root for her, but one has to wonder if she can keep that kind of resolve as she gets further into the entertainment industry and the anime does a good job of showing how much of an unkind place it can be to a girl like her. I also did like for the most part how Ruby's star is always shining. I think there was a couple of times where her star was dimmed black like Aqua (mostly when Kana talked smack about Ai to her and Aqua's face in Ep 1), but she is definitely the opposite to Aqua in terms of personality, goals and life outlook, and I don't think it was unintentional that the stars in their eyes are opposite to each other. I had watched a YouTube review before writing this and the guy said that it was because "they don't see eye to eye" which I think is a great way to sum it up their dynamic. Oshi No Ko has a great level of attention to detail and you don't have to look far for it: just look at the main characters. Ai: I liked her character. She always had a solid presence on screen and off screen her presence can still be felt. She was always wholesome, caring, sweet and was a bit of an airhead. Even though we only got her for one episode (granted it was a long one), she was a super impactful and important character for the story and she fulfilled her part very well. Ai definitely got the right amount of screentime and left the impact she needed for the story to succeed. I also noticed that as a character that she was hard on herself. At least prior to becoming an idol she didn't have much going for her (and at one point when she was trying to wave off Ichigo by talking about how bad she was as a person), but at least by the time we first meet her she has self-confidence and is still a bubbly airhead. Even though that's largely the persona she had as an idol in the public eye, it seems like she kept that up even in her personal and private moments behind closed doors. I think she was genuinely that way and though I wouldn't go as far as to call her "mother of the year" she clearly loved her children and cared about her coworkers. Even though Ai might have struggled with the concept of love because she might not have known what it really was throughout her life, her actions speak for themselves. If Ai had lived she definitely would've been very successful and was on the path to do so before her life was tragically cut short. I do wonder if she reincarnated or if she's somehow staying in heaven, the anime is unclear on that. Kana: At first I wasn't a huge fan of her character, mostly because she came across as arrogant, stuck-up and mean, but as it turned out that's sort of the point of her character and as you might expect, there's more to her "tsundere" exterior. When we first meet her as a child, yeah, she's everything I just mentioned but after the time skip she's clearly learned from her shortcomings. Even though she has flashes of her old-self from time to time, she's at least matured and harbors a deep insecurity in which she worries that she's now a washed child actor and has justified concerns about being successful as an idol. Though she does become one after some convincing by Aqua and Ruby, and she's pretty talented. I do find it pretty funny that she's fallen for Aqua considering as a kid she was incredibly jealous of him, but obviously that jealousy turned into admiration and the anime has been teasing the Aqua X Kana ship. I usually found their moments together pretty hilarious and they had some good moments together. I just wonder how long it'll be before Kana tries asking Aqua out. Though I'm a little uncertain on Aqua's feeling for Kana but it seems like there could be something there since he was a little put off by Kana not wanting to talk to him after he kissed Akane on the reality tv show. But I'm also equally as surprised as someone as smart as Aqua, he can't tell that Kana is into him. Ah well I guess he can't be brilliant on everything, typical rom-com kind of stuff. But all in all, she's the kind of character that you come to like even if she's on the feisty side. Her coming battle with Akane in season 2 will be one to watch. Akane: I liked her character. She was the sweet and reserved kind of character who is also pretty hard working. It's hard not to root for her and it was heartbreaking to watch her struggle mentally as she was getting flamed online for something that was pretty stupid. She's a likable character and the season finale sets her up for a bigger role next season in which she'll not so subtly be competing for Aqua's heart against Kana. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for on that but her and Kana are polar opposites so it should be interesting. Mem-Cho: We couldn't have an anime focused on the modern state of the entertainment industry without a streamer! In all seriousness I did like her character. Her and Ruby were almost made for each other and they became pretty fast friends from the looks of things given their similar personalities. Still Mem-Cho brings her own silliness and quirkiness to the anime and she's a likable character. She's actually older than her public persona would indicate (she deliberately lied about her age to the public, she's actually 25) so it'll be interesting to see if she's able to keep that secret hidden. Miyakio: Originally she was a bit of a rotten character just trying to ride on the fame of her husband but after Aqua and Ruby "omnipotently" intervened to prevent her from leaking Ai's secret of her having kids, she changed her ways and she stepped up to be a surrogate mother for Aqua and Ruby after Ai's death which is more than commendable. She functions as the mother role in the story post Ai and she's always looking out for the two. Not too much to say about her but she's a good supporting character in the story. Taishi: He's probably the closest thing to a father figure of Aqua and he gives him good advice and encouragement not to give up on being an actor (even though that's not Aqua's desires but still), but overall he seems like a genuinely good person who wants Aqua and ultimately Ruby to succeed. Ichigo: We only see him in the first episode but he was Strawberry Productions’s first president and Miyako’s husband who was Ai’s agent. He seemed like a generally alright guy and cared about Ai. Though he does mysteriously fall off the face of the Earth after Ai’s death but whether it was out of grief or there’s something more to it is something I think we’ll see explored next season! It wouldn’t surprise me if he had something to do with Ai’s death or he knows something. He did warn Ai not to contact her ex but by that point it was too late. Oshi No Ko made a pretty big splash in the anime world when it first aired, and although I'm late to the party, I will say that I ended up enjoying the anime more than I thought it would. It has a compelling story, great characters and great animation and music. This was a solid first season for the anime and it sets up for a very interesting season 2 as Aqua inches closer to finding his father while two girls are fighting over him and Ruby continues following in her mother's footsteps. I'm looking forward to season 2!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 20, 2024
Spy x Family Season 2
(Anime)
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Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
It's no secret that Spy X Family has made a name for itself since its grand debut on screen nearly 2 years ago. It's now probably among one of the more recognizable anime even in non-weeb circles. The first season was without a doubt a success, and I personally enjoyed both parts despite their tonal and stylistic differences. Granted, it's not uncommon for any show to go through tonal shifts during the course of its run. Spy X Family spent the first part of its first season more so showing off the "spy" and action aspects of the show, while the second half more ... so focused on the "family" and wholesome side of things. Now I personally preferred the first part, I did like the second half just as much and I liked the sweetness that was going on in the show. However, the shifts in tone and overall story direction between the two parts did raise some eyebrows for me. As I was working on this review, I decided to review my previous reviews for Spy X Family, as I often will do when covering a new addition to an anime. When I reviewed Part 2 of Season 1 back nearly a year ago now, I predicted 1 of 3 things would happen when predicting how things would go for Season 2: 1. Spy X Family will revert back to how it was in the first part while advancing the story. 2. Spy X Family will continue with its more wholesome, slice of life aspects, which are nice and all but it hasn’t moved the story as far along as the first part has and continuing that formula might cause some fatigue and other problems down the line. 3. Spy X Family is going to shift to a much more dark tone in Season 2 and/or Code White. Spy work is dangerous and does deal with a lot of the darker aspects of society, so this could be the show’s way of giving us the happy stuff here and now for more of an emotional gut punch down the line. So how did Season 2 pan out? Well the first prediction went by the wayside rather quickly, and the third prediction is still technically in play but it looks rather unlikely now that season 2 has concluded, so as you can guess season 2 took the second route that I laid out which I don't believe was necessarily the best choice for the story. Now to be clear: I did think Season 2 was good. It had a lot of great moments and plenty of what we've all come to love about Spy X Family. However, I do think this season (or part if they end up doing what they did for Season 1), was really carried by the Cruise Ship Arc that was in the middle of the season, so in a way the Cruise Ship Arc kind of props up my rating for it. If you were to take that away and keep everything else, it'd probably be in the 7 territory. The Cruise Ship Arc was by far the highlight of the season for me, and Yor as a character shined beautifully. It gave us a deeper look into her assassin side which hadn't received a whole lot of attention up to this point. We got to explore her inner thoughts and see her question herself on why she was still an assassin working for this organization called "The Garden". It's also the first time we ever really got to see her challenged. Actually we even rarely see her get injured (kudos to the first episode of the season for doing that, even though it's not a part of this arc). We're so used to seeing Yor just bulldoze over goons left and right. In this arc she had to face off against numerous highly-skilled assassins as she was trying to protect the sole surviving member of a mob family. It was full of exciting, thrilling action and there were a few times where it looked like Yor might've been cooked (or found out) but had a combination of luck and "divine" intervention from Anya. Yor was truly put to the test in this arc, as an assassin doing something that was clearly out of her depth while she was also questioning the very nature of why she was still an assassin and being reminded of her reasons for doing so (to provide a better future for her brother Yuri, which later evolved into providing a better future for all children and her love of her new family). It made for great storytelling and the fact that she came out of all that stronger, solidifies her as an excellent character (or waifu, if you prefer). If there was a "star of the season" award, Yor definitely deserves serious consideration. Other than The Cruise Ship Arc, I don't really know if you can say that there was really any other "arc" in this season. A majority of this season's episodes are largely one-off skits that are still loosely connected with the greater story which is essentially how season 1 part 2 was. Basically, all those episodes kind of felt like filler, but it's not to say that it was all for nothing! Actually some interesting and wholesome stuff happened during these episodes. The other character that really shined throughout this season was actually Bond! He had a lot of good and silly moments that really cemented his status as a member of the Forger family. From helping Loid out with a mission to retrieve a mysterious drug from a government laboratory early in the season to helping Loid catch a serial arsonist by the finale, he had a lot of good moments despite his rather limited screen time. Anytime he was on screen, he was impactful, loveable and just an overall good boy! The other characters this season largely stayed the same. Loid and Anya were pretty much their old selves but they had their fair share of good and funny moments throughout the season. Actually a little note about Loid: he felt a little grumpy this season, mostly towards Anya. Other than missions, when he was spending time with the rest of the Forgers it almost felt like he didn't want to be there. Now he had some moments where he loosened up (the finale with Bond comes to mind where we see him not be so stern towards him), but I guess the role of being a family man might be starting to get to him. I do get also Anya can be a bit of a handful and maybe he's just getting tired of her antics but perhaps this could be leading to something... Now one character that we did get to see some growth was surprisingly Damien. Though he still has his spoiled rotten moments and his attitude towards Anya (openly hostile, but definitely secretly liked her deep down as seen during their card match for the so called "Pastry of Knowledge"), he got a wholesome moment in the second episode where we went out on a little field trip with his two buddies. We got to see him loosen up at least a little bit and not be so stuffy. It even got him to drop his stella obsession for at least a brief moment to enjoy what life has to offer around him. One thing that I do want to take a moment to talk about was the episode in which Becky finally got to meet Loid. That was...a wild episode to say the least. Becky gassed herself up by watching some romcom, invites herself into Anya's house, tries to hit on Loid (which he didn't get at first and his reactions were pretty hilarious), tries to beef with Yor before witnessing her feat of strength and agreeing to be taught by her on how to get stronger so that she can "properly compete” for Loid's heart. It was funny that Loid seemed oblivious to Becky's crush on him while Yor seems like she knew what was going on with all this (though she did panic when Becky falsely proclaimed that she was "drunk" but it's classic Yor overthinking) Now the thing to remember is that the episode is generally through Becky's point of view and she's only 6 years old. Loid has to either be in his mid/late 20's if not early 30's (actually I don't even think his age is ever stated, and I even peeked the wiki for this!). The "scenarios'' that both Becky and Anya were dreaming up in their heads of Loid somehow agreeing to be with Becky so they can live in a fancy castle (because rich girl boss), was a little uncomfortable to watch as an outside observer but you can appreciate the humor and Becky's "crush" on Loid is meant to be taken from a comical standpoint. I don't know how I feel about this episode in particular but it was definitely the most wild thing I think I've seen from Spy X Family so far. Nothing seriously consequential might've happened during these more filler like episodes, but it did serve to develop the characters a little bit more and I can never fault a show for doing that. However, a show can be criticized for forgetting its main story and in the case of Spy X Family Season 2, I fear it may be starting to forget that. The main plotline of Spy X Family is for Loid to get closer to his target: Donovan Desmond (Damien's father), and for Anya to achieve stellas so that she can gain entry into an exclusive social club that Desmond regularly attends. Other than his grand debut in the finale of Season 1 and Anya getting her first stella back earlier in the first part of that season, not much has progressed since then in terms of the main story. For two major story installments now, Spy X Family has focused more on side quests and distantly connected subplots. While at face value that's not a bad thing, and some good stuff happens in those side quests and subplots that help grow the characters and allow for some wholesome or funny moments (like Franky once again striking out on romance or Yor and Loid going out to dinner even though she has an unfortunate wound on her butt that Loid obviously doesn't know and mistakes Yor's pain for a bad mood, heck even Fiona got a snippet of screen time!), if Spy X Family keeps this trend up things are going to start growing stale with the story. I was starting to feel the effects of that until The Cruise Ship Arc breathed some life into what had been a rather middling season by that point. But even then, I do wonder if the Cruise Ship Arc will have a long term impact on the story considering Yor seemed to have double downed on her commitment to being an assassin, though whether it was just to get her through the fight and she still has doubts about wanting to continue or her commitment is steadfast remains to be seen. As far as story goes: The Cruise Ship Arc was phenomenal and great content, the more "filler" episodes, which make up a majority of this season (or part) are enjoyable and wholesome to watch but don't really advance the main story at all. While I take issue with the story direction that Spy X Family appears to be going in, I do not have an issue with the production value at all. Season 2 delivered yet another amazing OP and outro. Both the OP song: "Kura Kura" and outro song "Todome no Ichigeki" are great pieces of music to listen to. The animation for both were outstanding. The intro was action packed and I really loved the silhouette bit of Yor and Loid stabbing, slashing and shooting around. It got me excited for the season when I first saw it. The animation for the outro was sweet and wholesome showing the Forgers altogether and ending with Anya's attempt at drawing a family portrait of them as Yor gives her usual applause for her effort while Loid gives the most "bruh" expression ever. Both animations were great to watch and Spy X Family is 3 for 3 on both intros and outros. Spy X Family Season 2 was enjoyable to watch and it was great to see our favorite "fake" family on screen again. However, despite the glamor of the intro and outro and the only actual arc in the season (which was solid), the season largely felt like filler and it's starting to feel like the anime is starting to get too far away from its main story. I'm not saying the filler we got was bad or even wasteful, but I do think it's getting to the point where it's too much. I get that Spy X Family wants to spend time developing the characters and even give some of the minor ones like Franky or Becky a moment in the spotlight, that's all well and good, but you can't forget your main story. If it continues doing things in this way, no amount of one-off great arcs are going to be enough to turn things around. Now I haven't read the manga but I do know that the upcoming movie, Code White, is an anime original to the story. With how season 2 went, I'm not sure how to set my expectations for the movie but I think it'll serve as an indication for the direction of the next installment of the anime. I could be wrong though. Even though this may look like I'm bashing the season, I'm not really trying to. If you liked the first season and you're totally fine with the wholesome, slice-of-life, goofy moments, then there's no reason why I don't think you'd like this season. I'm just personally hoping that they get around with returning to the main story before things start to feel very stale. For me personally, this season felt like a step down from what we got previously. However, this season did not change my overall feelings about the anime and it still remains one of my favorites (at least as of this writing).
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 5, 2024 Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
It's pretty common to come across and get into an anime with an intriguing premise, good story, likeable characters, incredible action and at a minimum a satisfying ending. However, it's extremely rare to come across an anime that has all the qualities I just mentioned that somehow manages to elevate it to the highest degree while maintaining consistent quality across multiple seasons (even surviving a studio change). Attack on Titan is one of those extremely rare anime that had an incredible start and maintained its quality of storytelling and action all the way through to the end. The finale satisfyingly and almost perfectly finished ... the story of Attack on Titan to solidify an anime that I hope to remember for the rest of my life. Though I read the manga far in advance to the finale airing, the adaptation exceeded all of my expectations and helped strengthened the weak points of the manga's final chapters. I remember a lot of people criticizing and outright hating the ending of the manga, and while I agree it wasn't perfect and certain things could've been handled better, the anime version adds a lot more context to things and better explains stuff than the manga did. Very little was ultimately changed and I'd say those changes were for the better. From what I've see from the online discourse reflects this belief. I was personally surprised that aside from a few unexpected anime-only scenes, it largely stayed true to the manga a lot more than I was expecting even if I didn't really believe there would be an "anime only ending" (all signs had pointed to staying true to the manga ending after the first part aired). I had high expectations for the finale of AOT, and Studio Mappa did not disappoint! The production quality for the AOT finale was excellent. You can see why Studio Mappa took so long to release the finale and it shows. The animation and the battle sequences were truly epic from seeing the full scope of The Rumbling to all the battle scenes, the hard work on the part of the animators truly showed and it was what AOT truly deserved. The music was exceptional as always, and it was nice that they brought back some "classic" soundtracks that we haven't heard in a while. Two notable cases was Bauklotze and War Dogs, both which played during Hange's last stand and Levi's final salute scenes respectively. Though I personally may have gone with different tracks for those two scenes (I was really hoping they'd play T-KT for Levi's salute, the TikTok edits I've seen animating that scene really won me over) I ultimately found that both tracks fit their scenes. I've gained a new sense of respect for both songs, especially War Dogs as the Levi salute is one of my top 10 moments in all of anime. The ending also produced one of my current favorite songs: "Under The Tree". It really captures the mood of AOT at this point of the story and the fact that it's also supposed to be Mikasa's song (one of my favorite characters of all time), makes me appreciate it a lot more. It's not what I'd call a happy song but it's an absolute banger that you could unironically jam out to. The end credits song, "To You in 2,000...or 20,000" was also a great song. It was a solemn but appropriate goodbye kind of song not only from Mikasa to Eren as she begins the next chapter of her life in the post-Titan world, but a goodbye from the show to the audience. AOT also had a special intro and outro for the episodic releases which I watched on YouTube after the finale aired. I liked the intro, it had a very good animation for it (especially since it recreated vol 33's cover) and I also liked that it was sung by Linked Horizon who also did the very first intro for AOT so it really brings everything full circle. The outro song, "Itterasshai"...man that hit different, especially after what happened. It was beautiful animation of Mikasa and Eren reuniting (presumably in the paths) and finally living the lives they always wanted to live together. It's a sweet, beautiful and emotional song and I wished that it made its appearance in the anime somehow. It's safe to say that production wise, all cylinders were firing off and Studio Mappa excelled in every metric here. The story's conclusion has been subject to some pretty intense debate since the final volume was released a few years ago. As I mentioned above: I personally didn't hate the ending but felt that it could've been handled better. The anime generally improves it but it doesn't fix every flaw. It doesn't so much course correct as one would hope but it helps fill in the gaps in certain scenes and generally improve them, especially during Armin and Eren's final conversation when Eren explains why he decided to go through with The Rumbling. Although some people still take issue with Eren's reasoning, his explanation essentially boils down to "I was an idiot who got his hands on God-like power and I was pretty much born to do all this for some reason". In the manga it was pretty much "I don't know lol". I found this to be a more reasonable answer for Eren because it really does sum up his character. I think a lot of lot of criticism comes from people overly buying into Eren's "alpha chad" kind of persona when goes rogue. That was all an act which he even admits himself to Armin. I never personally liked Eren. While I always thought he was a well written character and he generally meant well, I always saw him as kind of an idiot who acted on impulse, and I felt pretty vindicated by the anime changes. Armin's reaction to all this is also greatly improved. Armin gives Eren a lot of (justified) crap for doing this but ultimately concludes that he shares the burden as well as he was the one that technically put the idea of "freedom" in Eren's head by showing him that book that talked about the world outside the walls. I personally feel that Eren did The Rumbling for a number of different reasons aside from fate: he truly believed he was doing the right thing for his friends and his people in giving them the best chance of survival long-term, he has an unquenchable bloodlust, and because he was disappointed that humanity was alive beyond the walls and that he wanted to see the world as it was in Armin's book. Now I don't believe Eren is right for doing The Rumbling but if he was fated to do it, well not much you can do and in the AOT world it seems like things are on a very circular path and things are ultimately doomed to repeat (more on that later). Also Eren was slated to die in 4 years due to the curse of Ymir so he really was in a jam as well. The manga didn't really go into everything I just talked about as deeply as the anime did but Armin thanks Eren for his efforts and promises to make good on his sacrifice and for him "becoming a mass murder for our sake". Yeah, it was pretty wild and that's one thing I will criticize the manga on. It handled that whole last conversation very poorly. Both the anime and manga don't really go into too deeply why Ymir decided to stay loyal to King Fritz and write it off as "she loved him". Basically, it's the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome I think I've ever seen in fiction, but that's essentially what I feel like the manga and anime are basically saying. Whether you ultimately buy that explanation is really up to the reader's interpretation but that's mine. There was a few scenes that I wasn't ever big on in the manga and I'm surprised they stuck to it in the anime with little to no changes. One of these instances is the whole Armin-Annie ship, which to me kind of came out of left field. Now whether Eren was telling the truth that when Armin got the Colossal Titan from Berthold that in addition to inheriting memories you also inherit feelings is something I'm personally not sure of, but it still felt forced. Armin and Annie never really interacted in season 1 and the few times they did, it never really seemed like their was romantic feelings involved. It was introduced suddenly at the end and it honestly still confuses me trying to wrap my head around it. The other instance was Eren's infamous "I DON'T WANT THAT!". I was actually surprised they kept that in there. Now I can believe that Eren developed feelings for Mikasa late or didn't fully realize his feelings for her until the end, but throughout the entire story, Eren constantly curves Mikasa (which is another reason why I don't like Eren as a person) and it felt like the Eren-Mikasa ship was never going to sail. In a way, it never did but Eren admitting that he liked Mikasa felt like a "what the hell you couldn't have said this 5 minutes ago?" kind of deal. Now as ironically those two were just never meant to be, it really felt like Eren didn't ever see Mikasa like that and perhaps for the longest time he didn't. People change and these aren't static characters, so I can buy into the idea that Eren developed feelings for Mikasa at some point but that also felt a little forced. I could've believed Eren saying he never viewed her like that or something, that would've felt more natural and would explain his behavior towards Mikasa for a majority of the show. But it is what it is. Another thing that the anime stuck with wasn't something I even hated or disliked, but was that they stuck with Paradis being destroyed presumably by Marley. Now they did change it to where it seems like its far into the future as opposed to in the manga where it seems like it's only about a generation's worth of piece. Both the manga and anime kept the boy with his dog coming across Eren's grave where the power of the titans possibly returns, keeping the whole never ending cycle of hatred and killing alive, and the belief of "kill or be killed" alive which was what AOT has been all about. It's not a happy story, it never was presented to be, so the ending being bittersweet with short-lived happiness is par for the course with AOT. The anime did expand upon several scenes which I really liked. They showed more footage of The Rumbling around the world which gave it a real sense of scale which was a nice touch. The battle scenes were extended which I'm always for. They also did Hange's sacrifice major justice. In the manga she took down 4 titans before succumbing to her wounds, while in the anime she probably takes out a dozen or so and it was beautifully animated scene. It even got me doing the AOT salute to her when she finally died. She was a badass character and her sacrifice was did the justice it deserved. Mikasa killing Eren was also a beautifully animated scene with the final ODM sequence (which was not in the manga) was very cool and added weight to the moment. I do wish they extended Armin's and Eren's colossal titan battle, I felt that it was a little short for what it was but they added more to it than they did in the manga so I'll take what they gave us. Eren's Freedom Speech was great to see in anime form. Levi's execution of Zeke was also a beautifully animated scene as well. Speaking of Levi, the scene that I was looking forward to seeing animated the most was his final salute. When I read it in the manga, I thought was easily one of the most powerful moments in the whole story and though I never went through anything like Levi did, I definitely understand and can relate to some extent what he went through. So when that scene was animated I had high expectations, and it didn't disappoint. It even got a tear out of me. I also really felt for Mikasa having to kill Eren, it really wasn't easy for her and seeing her mourn him for years after his death was hard hitting. Poor Ackermans, they really didn't deserve anything they went through. Though it seems like they did find happiness in their own way as well as the rest of the cast. I was surprised that they stuck with Mikasa eventually marrying a man and starting a family as shown in the post-credits, but like in the manga its ambiguous as to who it is she married. The manga seems to imply it's Jean given his rear profile, but in the anime the shot is it too far to clearly make out, and perhaps that was for the best. I wouldn't have really bought Mikasa ending up with Jean personally. I did it find it surprising that they switched up Levi's fate though this was a move for the better for his character. While he is still partially blind and now crippled because of his injuries, he instead is helping out the kids orphaned from The Rumbling as opposed to being attended to by Gabi and Falco. Though I did like the shot that we got of him in the manga looking up at an airplane and seemingly being reminded of Hange, but I did generally like the anime only change more. I'll also give further praise for the anime adaptation for addressing the fates of certain minor characters which was a cool touch. It confirmed that Yelena survived and was helping (probably forced to) humanity rebuild. It also addressed what happened to Eren and Zeke's grandparents in which they were killed in The Rumbling, which was a bit of a poetic fate for them. The manga left all their fates rather ambiguous. The anime also improved upon a lot of scenes by making them cooler/more dramatic such as the final colossal titan battle and the Alliance arriving to stop Eren. I'll also say from a story perspective I was surprised Floch survived at the end of Season 4 when Gabi shot him and it was satisfying to see him killed by Mikasa as his corpse was buried by The Rumbling. Again, there's something poetic about that. The AOT Finale was an awesome and well executed conclusion to a phenomenal story. It was a pleasure to get invested into it and though I was late to the party, I was glad to be there when it finished. The finale did the story justice and both parts were great. It generally improved the flaws from the manga while also adding exclusive bits that made the best moments that much better. AOT is a one of a kind show and though the ending isn't 100% perfect, I can say I'm happy with the ending we got and I feel like it stays true to the message that the anime has been trying to tell us: "War and conflict are a constant". It's not a happy message by any means but it's the dark, grim messages that stick with us more at the end of the day. I personally have a lot to thank AOT for. A lot of scenes, music tracks and characters were truly memorable and made the watch experience that much better. AOT also gave me my personal favorite character, Mikasa, so it's an anime that is going to stick with me for a very long time. It's been solidified for me as one of my all time favorite shows. Itterasshai, Attack on Titan.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 3, 2024 Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
If someone asked me what "peak" Love is War content is, I would easily say that it would be The First Kiss That Never Ends. It perfectly brings the main storyline between Kaguya and Shirogane that had been building for 3 seasons to a satisfying and heart-warming conclusion where they finally become an official couple. Even though this wasn't the series finale, I can't help but think that even if it was, I would've honestly been ok with it. As I watching, it really did feel like there was a sense of finality as Kaguya and Shirogane were truly at a crossroads with ... their fledgling relationship: were they actually going to be a couple, or was the kiss they shared at the end of the season 3 finale a simple heat of the moment (though it does seem that the little post-credits scene after is retconned). The question of would Kaguya or Shirogane confess first and would they ultimately get together in the first place was finally answered, which was the basis of the entire show. It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot left to explore even though there's still some unresolved questions and a key moment at the end feels like it sets up an important plotline with Ishigami. So whether the story now shifts to what Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship becomes and how they deal with each other officially as a couple along with the challenges they'll have to face, or to hand off the focus to another character like Ishigami, remains to be seen but this movie did feel like it largely brought the main story to a close. I'm not sure how much content is left out of the manga but I do hope the other characters are able to find their own satisfying endings. As usual, the production quality was well done as just as good, if not better, than it was in the previous seasons though. They certainly upped their game for this installment of the anime. It especially showed in the intro, which went all in on the "Christmas/New Years" kind of vibe (coincidentally the events of this movie take place during that time anyway) with Shirogane and Kaguya dancing with each other with the rest of the cast in some kind of musical setting. The designs of the characters were excellent and the dance between Shirogane and Kaguya was very fluid and adorable. The music itself, "Love is Show" was also very enjoyable to listen to. Honestly, I think this intro is probably the best we've gotten from the whole series as of now which is quite a drastic reversal from the intro we got for season 3 which I considered it to be my least favorite (though I did enjoy the song itself, the animation that went with it was a little weird for my tastes). The outro song, "Heart Notes" struck a very different tone than the intro as it's more somber and emotional since it focuses more so on Kaguya and her inner personality struggles while she presumably goes to meet Shirogane in America. I think this outro is one of the best that we've gotten from the anime to date as well, this installment should do nothing but impress with you on its production quality. The story for The First Kiss That Never Ends was also very well written and strongly executed. It was enjoyable and emotional, even if it had a fairly predictable ending. As I've mentioned above, the story centers on Kaguya and Shirogane as they deal with the aftermath of their first kiss at the end of season 3's finale. Kaguya realizes she accidentally went a little too far with the kissing and goes through some emotional turmoil as she begins to overthink the situation in classic Kaguya fashion. Her persona is briefly overtaken by her adorable and funny chibi form "Little Kaguya" (or Kaguya-chan for the sub connoisseurs) which was was honestly made for some of the movie's cutest and funniest moments. It doesn't last too long as her personalities go to "trial" which happened way back early in season 2. Kaguya's cold and calculating personality (I guess you could almost call it her Yandere personality, though I personally wouldn't say she's a yandere herself but she definitely could if she really wanted to) decides to take over in an effort to "correct" her more ditzy side's "mistake" and truly bring Shirogane to heel. I also really liked how they symbolized the take over with Kaguya no longer wearing her bow and instead letting her hair down like it was in earlier flashbacks prior to the events of the anime. Instead she ends up giving off mixed signals to Shirogane as she essentially plays a "hot and cold" game with him in an effort to make him kiss her, and there's time where she comes on *really strong*. This stresses poor Shirogane out to the point where he collapses from exhaustion. Now what I found to be the true highlight of this movie, and the anime itself, is how Kaguya and Shirogane both open up to themselves about their insecurities and how they've both essentially worn masks their entire lives by pretending to be a glossy version of themselves which they really aren't. Shirogane fears that if he's not good enough then everyone will leave him just as his mother did when he was young. He feels that he needs to reach what is largely an unattainable standard of greatness to be able to be Kaguya's "equal". On the other hand, Kaguya wants to not view people as tools and to be truly loved and love someone for who they are and her thought process largely stem from her rigid and elitist upbringing. This was really highlighted when Kaguya was grieving over the fact that she essentially sent Shirogane to the hospital and her cold side internally begged her ditzy, more "likeable" personality to take over, but refused. It was a truly emotional moment in the movie, and it even struck a chord with me in the moment. Ultimately, Kaguya and Shirogane are able to reach an understanding with each other through a bit of a goofy and dramatic gift exchange with each other at a Christmas party and agree to go out. They share a less dramatic and aggressive kiss, and Kaguya's personality merges back into the character that we've all come to know and even appreciate as she uses Shirogane's gift wrap to tie her hair back up which made for some pretty good symbolism that she was back to normal. At the end Kaguya officially asks Shirogane to be her boyfriend to which he accepts, capping off the long and dramatic war. Now what was really interesting was during the little montage of Shirogane's and Kaguya's date at the end, Tsubame, who is Ishigami's crush, consults Shirogane's father who is playing the role of a psychic, about love and there's a brief moment of where Ishigami is with Tsubame and there's very little context given but it seems like Ishigami tried to confess to Tsubame and things didn't go well. So there's at least one plot thread still alive in the story, and it is a bit of an open question on how Kaguya and Shirogane will navigate their now official relationship going forward since Shirogane will be leaving for America to study and Kaguya's father likely won't be in favor of her going for an ol' commoner boy like Shirogane. I would argue there's still stuff that can be done with Chika, Hayasaka, Miko and even more minor characters like Kei if they wanted to. I'm not entirely sure where they take the story from here, but this has been a story that has continued to improve for me with every passing season and installment, and they really knocked it out of the park with First Kiss That Never Ends. It really made the payoff of watching 3 seasons of these goofy characters, through their occasional moments of cringe, finally drop their dramatic theatrics and finally be honest with their feelings. A lot of good moments came from this movie from Kaguya's internal turmoil, especially when her icy cold persona begged her ditzy, likeable side to take back over, and Kaguya's conversation with Shirogane after they finally exchanged gifts. As of now, they should be in the discussion for top 5 moments of the whole anime. I'm not sure when we'll get a season 4, but I imagine given the success of the last 3 seasons and this movie, plus the fact that there are still more manga chapters to cover, I'm sure we're due for some more content soon. I'll be eagerly looking forward to the next season of an anime that has slowly but surely won me over.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 1, 2024 Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
Out of Love is War's 3 seasons, Season 3 has to be the one that I enjoyed the most. Not only did we finally get to see "the war" between Kaguya and Shirogane finally end with a sweet, passionate kiss on top of a clock tower by the school, but we got plenty of good moments from the rest of the cast from Ishigami, Hayasaka, Miko, and yes, especially Chika, that made this for a truly memorable and enjoyable watching experience across its 13 episodes. This anime has come a very long away from me, as back in Season 1 I had initial ... doubts that I would enjoy this anime before it finally settled in. Both seasons had their ups and downs, but I ended up enjoying both and consider seasons 1 and 2 to be good. While even this season had some weird moments, it didn't ever take me out of the moment and those moments weren't ever as jarring as they were in the earlier seasons. Season 3 started off a little bit skit heavy (which wasn't a bad thing), going back to Kaguya's and Shirogane's usual antics with some of the side characters, especially Kaguya's distant cousin Maki (who calls her "Auntie" for some reason) getting the limelight, before developing a main storyline around the midpoint in the season: Shirogane has decided to study abroad next semester and go to the U.S. (Ha! Ironic!). As such, Shirogane has to man up and confess his feelings to Kaguya or risk her being the one that got away. This plotline really elevated the story as "the war" between Kaguya and Shirogane pretty much goes back into stalemate territory despite Shirogane's best efforts to seal the deal before things get in the way and prevent it from actually going anywhere. Additionally, the love bug bites Ishigami as he begins to pine for Tsubame, a senior classmate that he met from cheering at the sports festival and was one of the people that got him out of his shell. Both Kaguya and Shirogane try to help out Ishigami which always ironically reflects back on them as they're both seemingly unable to confess their own love. It made for an entertaining time watching everything unfold, and seeing Shirogane's little "grand plan" of him confessing to Kaguya slowly take shape throughout the episodes was fun to watch as well, even if what he was doing didn't make sense until the end. So while the first few episodes of season 3 hold pretty true to what the anime had been about (granted there's some pressure on both Shirogane and Kaguya early on to just finally confess to each other, at least more so than usual this time around), by around the midway point of the season things actually begin to get serious and the payoff at the end truly makes watching the entire series worth it. We'll go more into plot details down below. From a production standpoint, the quality of Season 3 was pretty much the same as its predecessors. The animation, art style, voice acting and music all remained consistently good. I will comment on the season's intro a bit here. The song, "Giri Giri" sung by Masayuki Suzuki who had sung the intros in Seasons 1 and 2 as well (consistency is nice!), was great as always, but the animation we got for it was what I can best describe as "trippy". It's not that the animation was terrible by any means but it definitely wasn't my favorite. There's a moment where the frames "glitch" between Kaguya and Shirogane in the student council room and then there's a moment where Kaguya is running and it changes into different animation styles. The animation for this intro was very heavy on optical illusions and "glitch" effects which were hard on my eyes. Personally, I just wasn't particularly impressed by this intro in particular, even if the other two season intro animations weren't anything to write home about themselves. The weirdness also extended to the season outro as well. The outro's animation had a very heavy "Starship Troopers" vibe to it as Shirogane and his family, Miko, Ishigami and Hayasaka go off to some alien planet to rescue Kaguya. I thought the "Starship Troopers" vibe was an interesting choice and I wasn't expecting it, but I did like how it was all a dream by Shirogane and he gets woken up by Kaguya, which parallels the season 1 outro. I think the two outros are also connected because at the end some weird "angels" come to presumably abduct Kaguya and I guess in this outro's animation they go to get her back. If true, this was a pretty clever decision by the production committee and I gotta tip my hat off to them for it, even if I thought the whole Starship Troopers thing was a little goofy. The best song this season (and I believe an argument could be made for the whole anime) was the exclusive outro for episode 5 and its song: My Non Fiction, which is a literal rap battle between Chika and Shirogane. Even though the animation style is different in the outro than from the anime and it was a little jarring the first time, seeing Chika, Shirogane, Miko and Ishigami busting moves and rapping their absolute asses off is easily a top moment of the whole anime (even if it's technically not canon because its an anime outro, but still it was awesome!). Anytime Chika has an outro song or is featured in one, it's a certified banger. Her exclusive song in Season 1 was excellent and I'd say was better than the actual outro for Season 1. They let this girl cook, and I think they should continue to do so. Just let Chika do the outros from now on! The best moment of the season (and of course, probably the whole anime up to this point at least), was the kiss between Shirogane and Kaguya. Overall the Culture Festival Arc was certainly the best arc of the season as things had been building towards this arc for some time and a lot happens in this arc. It was a cute, sweet and overall rewarding scene, and it wasn't overly cliche! There wasn't a grand profession of love between the two characters which I'll admit I was somewhat expecting but I'm glad the moment played out the way that it did. I thought the whole act of Shirogane pretending to be this "Arsene" character who steals the school's dragon only to reveal it to be filled with love-shaped balloons made for a truly sweet scene. Speaking of the Culture Festival Arc, there was a lot that went down besides the big kiss: -Ishigami accidentally rizzes up Tsubame and what looked like a long shot for him, roughly has a 50-50 chance of her accepting. Frustratingly, he didn't pick up on what he was doing until after the fact and in my opinion should've just confessed to her, but I guess there's only room for 1 confession in this arc. -Some random guy tried confessing to Chika, but she rejected him via a riddle, which was weird (but on par for the character). Also, this was the first time an actual love interest was at least somewhat seriously explored for Chika outside the alternate-ship tease for Chika-Shirogane. -Granted this had been done throughout the season, but I found it very interesting how the relationship between Miko and Ishigami has changed and it's really highlighted in this arc how they've gone from enemies to basically friends. While Miko is all alone by herself patrolling the neighborhood, Ishigami tracks her down and shows her a video of the fire pit with all the balloons so she can feel like she was a part of it, which was a nice and sweet moment. Also, earlier Ishigami pretty much cockblocked a guy from going out with Miko to the festival and it looked like she was seriously considering it. Flash of jealousy there perhaps, Ishigami? I'm starting to think the idea of Miko and Ishigami actually winding up together isn't as far-fetched as it may seem... It was a pretty eventful finale for season 3, and I couldn't look away for a second! As I mentioned above, there was some odd moments in this season that I still didn't understand or could really make sense of: -The whole Shirogane-Hayaska (in her male disguise) skit was a little weird for me. Now Hayaska going rogue to trying to rizz up Shirogane was hilarious and I actually thought for a second she could pull it off (and it would've been hilarious if it worked, sorry Kaguya!), but Shirogane wanting to get her to open up more and experience life was a bit of an odd choice. Of course we wouldn't have gotten another training montage of Chika torturing herself to train Shirogane in the art of rap or the banger outro, so I guess it evens out. Plus Hayaska finding the inspiration to turn around and telling Kaguya she was fed up with her crap was downright inspirational and a highlight of her character. Now I don't know why they have to put up with the whole "Hayaska male disguise schtick" (even around Chika, which from my understanding Chika and Hayasaka are friends, though Chika doesn't know that Hayaska works for her best friend Kaguya, and the anime does this animal analogy that made it seem like Chika and Hayasaka don't get along? I don't know.) I think that would've been the perfect moment to end that whole charade, but alas. -I didn't find Maki (Kaguya's cousin) to be a particularly likable or compelling character, and maybe that's kind of the point. Maki pretty much spends the whole season coping with the fact that her best friend, who happens to be Nagisa, is dating the boy she likes, Tsubasa. Now while Nagisa and Tsubasa are essentially re-occurring side characters they're only ever brought in for the purposes of the skit for the episode and don't really change the plot that much, and this held pretty true for this season as well. Unless they wanted to show what a jealous, more impulsive Kaguya was like (which they succeeded, don't get me wrong), she didn't really add that much to the plot. She was entertaining in some bits but I'm kind of surprised none of the main cast took a solid stand to dissuade Maki's ambitions because all indications are Nagisa and Tsubasa are not splitting up anytime soon. So I'm not entirely sure where they're trying to go with this plotline but I can't say I find it enticing. Maybe it'll have relevance in a later season but Nagisa and Tsubasa just really aren't major characters like that. I'll also give this season praise for finally diving more in depth on how Kaguya and Shirogane came to like each other and a little bit more of their backstories prior to the events of the anime. While it seems that there never was an exact moment where the two fell in love with each other (there was no classic boy runs into girl with toast in her mouth outside as they were running to school type of moment), it can certainly be implied that the two saw what they like about the each other in big moments and came to appreciate them for who they were, which turned into love. I actually ended up liking that approach and it works well in a story like this. I'll close out this review by pointing out that aside from the many hilarious, entertaining and even emotionally-charged moments that we had throughout the season, part of the reason I enjoyed this season a lot more than the other two was because of the growth in some of the major characters. Shirogane and Kaguya finally got over themselves to express their feelings for one another (and all indications are in the last scene of the finale that they're a happy couple, though whether everyone else knows about them is unclear). Additionally, Shirogane eventually learned not to always rely on Chika for help on things he was less experienced in (highlighted by his initial inability to blow up balloons and do art stuff with them which he later used in his plan for Kaguya.) Kaguya also came a long way in her own right, being less cold and rude which had been an ongoing process but her attempts to always help Ishigami, especially with his efforts to win over Tsubame despite her own inability to confront her feelings about Shirogane, just goes to show how far she's come as a character. Speaking of Ishigami, dude has really blossomed over the last season and a half ever since the sports festival arc. He's a lot more open, outgoing and less jaded, and its thanks to his friends around him. Miko is always showing signs of being less rigid and more open to getting along with people as seen by her slowly warming friendship with Ishigami. Lastly, Hayasaka had a pretty big moment early on in the season when she got to finally stand up for herself and wanted Kaguya to treat her more fairly which I think I got through to Kaguya that time for good. I wish Chika would get her time to shine but the limelight can only touch so many characters. This was a great season for Love is War and I think it sets up for some interesting things to explore in the next additions: What does Kaguya's and Shirogane's new relationship look like? Will Ishigami end up winning over Tsubame? What'll happen with Hayaska, Chika and Miko? I'm sure all these questions and more will be answered sooner or later, but again, this was a phenomenal season of Love is War! *As a note: I did rate both Seasons 2 and 3 as 9's. I'd consider Season 2 to be a weak 9 while Season 3 is a strong 9.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 12, 2024
Kanojo, Okarishimasu 3rd Season
(Anime)
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Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
*Author's note: In the interest of not trying to procrastinate on these anymore and to move on to other anime, I'm going to try to cut down on the length of these reviews, as such from this point forward I won't really be doing deep dive plot summaries anymore. Also this is my 50th review and 1st review for the year! Yay!* Before we talk about Season 3, let's take a look back at Seasons 1 and 2 for a moment: The first couple of seasons of Rent-A-Girlfriend were a bit of a mixed bag for me: Season 1 struggled on some aspects ... of execution and had some cringe moments with Kazuya being a hard to like MC. However the reason I would rank Season 1 higher than Season 2 was that it had a lot of good, interesting and funny moments. It introduced a rather bizarre concept and ran with it pretty well and presents some interesting questions (can something that's fake become real?). Season 1 introduced a lot of intrigue into its story and though it struggled to deliver at times, it was genuinely interesting to watch unfold and would've ended on a really good cliffhanger had they not bungled it by having a post-credit scene. Overall, Season 1 was truly a fun watch. While Season 2 had its good moments, it had all of the same problems that Season 1 did and handled it worse. While by the end of the season the story did manage to get back on track, the first half of this season was very hard to watch with the episodes being hit or miss between actually advancing the story or them being a complete cringe fest brought on by Kazuya being Kazuya. Towards the middle things started improving but the first half of Season 2 was an absolute wreck to watch. So how does Season 3 hold up? Honestly, surprisingly well. While I don't know if I would rank it higher than Season 1, it was a definite improvement over Season 2. I didn't even go in with high expectations into watching this season, so it's always nice to be surprised! What I believe this sets this season apart from its predecessors is that we actually got to see some quality character development (and improvement) from Kazuya. While he still has his flaws and moments of cringe, they weren't as many when you compare it to the last two seasons. As a matter of fact, there's a few times this season that I actually applauded him for pulling some good, even Chad-like moves. One example that comes to mind is when Chizuru's Grandmother is about to pass on and Kazuya barges in and plays the full movie for Chizuru's Grandmother to see, thereby fulfilling Chizuru's wish of having her Grandmother seeing her on the big screen (even if it wasn't quite that, it was honestly a heartwarming moment and the definite highlight of the whole season). There's multiple times that he powers through his moments of self-doubt and social awkwardness and is able to move forward by helping Chizuru achieve her dream and helping her through a rather tumultuous period of her life. Additionally, we get to see Chizuru grappling with her feelings for Kazuya. While she assures the other characters such as Ruka, Kazuya himself and a new member of the cast: Mini, that her feelings for purely platonic and professional, in her private moments we can tell she seems genuinely conflicted about how she feels. She's even still emotional about the prospect of ending their "rental agreement" and telling Chizuru's Grandmother the truth right before she passes, but ultimately elect not to (though she does admit the truth to her now deceased Grandparents at the funeral but her Grandmother died seemingly believing that they were together, though there's some inkling that she may have known the truth but wouldn't have really cared either way in their final moment together). I would say Chizuru is in denial about how she truly feels about Kazuya as she tries her hardest to keep things on task by making the movie. Which would also help explain why she seems blind to the obvious signs that Kazuya likes her. Though considering Chizuru's Grandmother dies towards the latter half of Season 3, it might take for her to fully sort her emotions. Still, Mini catches on pretty quickly about their mutual feelings and Ruka obviously suspects it, so I do feel like this season really moved the Kazuya-Chizuru train along and hopefully brings us closer to them actually becoming an official couple. Additionally, if you take a step back and look at the whole story, you can see how Chizuru has clearly warmed up to Kazuya and how she acts around them. I'd say you can call them genuine friends by the time the season ends, which just goes to show just how far their relationship has come. The story for this season was well written and had solid execution. There was a central plot in which Kazuya was helping Chizuru make her movie and all the work that goes into that. It was genuinely fun to see it all come together, though one thing I personally would've loved to seen was more of the recording phase of movie making. After the movie is finished and Chizuru's Grandmother passes, the story shifts towards Kazuya trying to help a grieving Chizuru through the pain of losing her last family member, though she puts on a brave face and says she's fine, save for firework scene in Episode 11/12 where she drops the persona for a moment, which was for sure a heavily emotional scene to watch. At least looking at all 3 seasons of the show, I would say Season 3 handled its story the best, though Season 1 made its story more comical and enjoyable while Season 2 really struggled until the end when it coincidentally introduced the plot for Season 3. It was a more serious story than that of the last 2 seasons, and while it continued some of the flaws that have been present in the show, it generally handled things well. Though with how Season 3 ends, it doesn't offer a clear direction for what would be in store for Season 4 (assuming they do it which I believe they will), but I believe it'll probably deal with Chizuru dealing with her emotions and settling on how she truly feels about Chizuru. So we may see a return to the overly-dramatic and endearing at times moments that plagued Season 2, but we'll see how it goes. On the production side of things, Season 3 was just as good as the other seasons. The animation, art style, voice acting and music all stayed consistently good. The season's intro, Renai Miri Film, was a good and enjoyable song to listen to and reminded me of the first season intro in some ways. I'd probably rank this above the Season 2 intro but below the Season 1 intro. Additionally, the visuals for pretty fitting for the season by making it all "movie-themed". I do think the last 10 seconds of the intro were pretty interesting from a story perspective: Kazuya helps Chizuru up from sitting down, but grabs her by the wrist, as the shot pans out of them staring at a heart made of these twisted iron (or metal, who really knows?) bars. It's certainly symbolism, and if I had to take a shot at it, it would probably be Kazuya putting aside his more lustful thoughts to genuinely help Chizuru through her struggles as they stare at what's looming question for both of them: do they love each other? It's a question they can't run forever from. The Outro song, End Roll, wasn't anything super special but it was a nice song to listen to. The visuals for it are largely a recap of moments from Chizuru throughout the anime (which is on brand considering how much of a focus she is this season in particular). The last 10 seconds are so her and Kazuya sharing a moment on their respective balconies which was funny and wholesome. Interestingly, there was also a ballad version of the outro song that played at the end of episodes 8-9 as it was clear that Chizuru's Grandmother's death was upon us. It was a perfect fit that captured the mood of the story and it was sad but beautiful song to listen to. There's really not a whole lot to criticize this season over, but there's two things I believe are worth bringing up and it's more of a criticism of the overarching story rather than the season as a whole. First thing, they really need to stop this whole farce of a relationship between Kazuya and Ruka. It's just getting sad to watch at this point. At first, I genuinely felt sorry for Ruka and thought Kazuya was being extremely disingenuous by putting up with this "trial relationship" that's gone on for who knows how long by the story at this point, but now I really don't feel sorry for Ruka. Just about everyone can see that Kazuya is not into Ruka and the only person trying at this point is her. While I can understand and respect that Kazuya doesn't want to hurt Ruka's feelings by ending things with her, if he's going to actually get with Chizuru, he's going to have to "break up" with her. Personally, it's just better to get it over with now rather than dragging it on. Maybe they'll end it in Season 4, but they've kept it up this long without any signs of resolution.... Secondly, I'm baffled by the lack of screentime Mami has. Other than appearing in the intro and a few cameo appearances in thought bubbles, we literally don't see her until the last scene when Kibe meets up with her and Kazuya's Grandmother for some reason. That scene left me with more questions about what's going on with her, and more importantly, why are those characters together? Considering Mami has been consistently billed as one of the major characters in each season, we've seen by far the least from her and know next to nothing about her. I would hope that Season 4 gives her screentime so we can finally understand why she decided to dump Kazuya, but it's starting to look like more wishful thinking on my part at this point considering I said the same thing back in my Season 2 review. So I don't know if she's just a sidelines character or what, but they haven't handled her character very well at all (well, they haven't done anything with her!) On the other hand, I was glad that Sumi had some more screentime and she consistently delivered powerful moments in throughout her appearances from helping Kazuya to the fliers, to giving him advice on how to help Chizuru. She's always a sweet, shy little bundle of joy and anytime she was on screen, I knew things were going to be great in the episode! The season also did a great job with Chizuru in showing her struggles throughout the season of trying to get the movie done in time to dealing with the loss of her Grandmother and dealing with her emotions to Kazuya. She's by far the best written character in the season, and they've done a good job layering her. Also to weigh in on the new character: Mini. I'll be honest when I first saw her character in the trailer I was thinking: "Good God, the last thing this anime needs is another rental girlfriend". Suffice to say I was wrong and I'm glad I was. While Mini does oddly view Kazuya as her "master" for some reason (despite her giving him all the advice on what to do?), I actually liked her character. Yes, she's quirky and is probably the first real "zoomer" anime character I've come across and I had to put up with the cringe that came with all that, I believe the point of her character is to drive Kazuya and Chizuru together. She's the third party that was needed to bring them closer together, and for the most part her schemes in this season were successful. Now she has yet to seal the deal but I think that if Kazuya and Chizuru do end up getting together like I expect them to, it'll largely be because of Mini's efforts. I hope that she doesn't fall in love with Kazuya by accident or something because that would add another layer of drama that this anime quite frankly doesn't need. But throughout their interactions I didn't sense anything like that between them. I do have high hopes for Mini's character and I think she's a fresh breath of air into this anime which was starting to grow stale from the merry-go-round of Kazuya simping for Chizuru. I believe that Season 3 was solid and largely on par with Season 1, which for me represents an improvement from Season 2. It offered the most character development we've seen yet and a more centralized story with some great moments from Kazuya, Chizuru and Sumi that made this season surprisingly emotionally-charged, but a well-done. The addition of Mini's character freshens the story and hopefully drives things to a conclusion. There's still plenty of story left to be told for Rent A Girlfriend, and I hope in the next season it continues to move forward rather than taking a step back.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 6, 2023 Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
My experience with Love is War's 2nd season was a bit topsy-turvy compared to my watch of its 1st season. I felt that the 1st season had a rather rough start before steadily improving. The 2nd season, on the other hand, had a rather exceptionally strong start and was very enjoyable until towards the end of the season where the skits started getting weird (even by rom-com standards). The season did conclude on a solid note as the skit in the final episodes were enjoyable. In the end, the anime largely affirms the antebellum situation that Shirogane and Kaguya currently find themselves locked ... in. Though, I do think there was plenty of progress made in their blossoming romance and it feels like the two of them have undoubtedly grown closer. I also did appreciate there being more of a centralized plot this time around with the Student Council elections storyline making up most of the screen time. It gave some better structure and focus to the story while also still keeping it relatively free wheeling like how it was in the first season. Overall, the 2nd season felt like it was a better watching experience than I had with the 1st season. The highlight of this season for me, and what also turned around the middle portion of this second act, was the dive-into Ishigami's backstory. He has played the role of the gloomy side character since his introduction in the second half of season 1, but I was interested in his character and why he carries himself the way he did. Once the full backstory was explained, he instantly became one of my favorite characters. His backstory was tragic yet explains very well why he's jaded (particularly when it comes to relationships, something I can personally relate to), and how at the end of the day how he truly does mean well and is a nice person. We also get to see him overcome his guilt and become more sociable as a person which was heartwarming to see and has been the biggest example of character development we've seen in this anime so far. This season also made me warm up to Hayasaka a lot more as well and she had plenty of great moments. I'll also give kudos to the season for maintaining a good balance on the use of the narrator and the times he did jump in were very well timed. My personal favorite would have to be the time where he said in reference to Hayasaka: "And that's why she's best girl!" It got a good laugh out of me! While the season has its ups and downs, I also did think there were some missed opportunities. If there was one major thing I found disappointing with this season, I would say that it'd have to be the lack of exploration into Chika's character. For now, the anime seems to be keeping her in her role as "comic relief side character". However, I understand that given that there's only 12 episodes, there's only so much story to cover. Perhaps they'll go deeper into her character in season 3. I'm also still confused where this "Love Detective" Chika persona comes into play. Whether it's just a staple of her character that the fandom loves or it comes into play in the next season remains to be seen for me, but so far she hasn't really done anything in that department yet. The season also introduced a new character: Miko. Initially, she was Shirogane's opponent in the student council election and was originally an unlikeable, wannabe-dictator, but Shirogane invites her to join the student council out of the kindness of his heart and she slowly but surely drops her "ice queen" persona to become a more likable and understandable character. For the most part, I felt that the 2nd season did a good job in moving the plot along as we steadily march on towards what I assume to be the inevitable conclusion, in which our two co-protagonists will ultimately get together. How that will happen is still very much in the air, though it was interesting to see how the whole game shifted this season: in the 1st season, Shirogane and Kaguya were largely operating on equal footing and each had some pretty impressive schemes that they pulled on each other. For a while, it seemed like it could go either way in who would win their "war" in their effort to get the other person to confess their love. This season, Shirogane largely dominated Kaguya and she seemed like she was going to break several times especially early on in the first half. Though Shirogane has yet to close the deal, he did (unknowingly) come close several times though this momentum largely stalled by the end. Whether he can pick up where he left off or if it's Kaguya's turn to run circles around him remains to be seen, but I'm invested to see how it pans out! The production value of this season was about the same as it was in the 1st season. The animation, art style, voice acting and music all remained solid. However, I do think I liked this season's intro and outro songs more than I did the first season's. This season's intro was "Daddy! Daddy! Doo!" sung by Masayuki Suzuki who also did the intro for last season. It was a very catchy song and I loved the animation for it. It was also the first time we got to really see Kaguya being an archer, which is really only ever talked about in the actual anime and never really displayed. The scenes that the animation depicted were funny and enjoyable and really helped sell me on what I was watching. I also enjoyed this season's outro a lot more as well, with the song being "Kaze ni Fukarete". Mirroring the dynamic between the intro and outro in the 1st season, the intro is the more catchy and goofy song while the outro is the more emotionally heavy one. However, this season's outro proved to be more to my taste as it has a bit of a more uplifting tone and I really enjoyed the animation and instruments used. I think they were trying to depict Kaguya's growth as a character and how much closer she's come with her characters and I think that was a great use of symbolism. The outro also displayed Miko's growth as a character as well. We only see her back turned to the audience until she's introduced, and when she is, she has her signature scolding look until it turns into a warm smile in the last few episodes when she arguably becomes friends with her fellow student council members. Both songs were very well done and while I did enjoy the intro and outro in the 1st season, I think I prefer both the intro and outro for this season over it. As far as English covers for the intro are concerned: Mr. Goatee has a great cover out and sounds like just the singer would if he spoke English (maybe he does, I don't know, but Mr. Goatee replicates his voice insanely well). AmaLee, Studio Yuraki and pelleko also have a solid cover worth checking out. For the outros, Mewmusic and Nordex have also very good covers. I would also say the English covers help affirm my belief that the intro and outro songs about their intended meanings. The plot of Love is War Season 2 pretty much picks up right where Season 1 left off and there's a natural continuation. So let's dive into round 2 of this battle! After opening up with the last scene in Season 1, the anime cuts ahead a bit with the usual "some time passes and nothing happens' ' schtick into the opening salvo of round 2. Kaguya takes the offensive and her first scheme is to get the president to fall asleep to obtain some sort of measurements. To do this, she has Hayasaka switch out Shirogane's coffee with decaffeinated (as the poor guy relies on coffee to function, given that he averages 3 hours of sleep a day), and as such Shirogane is pretty much knocked out immediately. The real kicker here is that he falls asleep on Kaguaya, which flusters to her and causes Kaguaya.Exe has stopped working. She then tasks Hayasaka with keeping everyone out of the student council room so that she can figure out how to obtain her measurements. Hayaska goes full special ops and manages to turn everyone away as she stands guard. However, at the end of the skit she goes to check to see if Kaguaya had done her objective and she finds them in the exact same position as before. Tsubasa then drops by the student council to ask Shirogane and Ishigami for more love advice, though the two quickly begin to suspect that Tsubasa is just here to gloat. Tsubasa has also adopted a whole new look, going from generic and bland looking background character to a more punk rock version (as his girlfriend, Nagasia is apparently into bad boys). Chika and Kaguaya later drop by and spy on Nagaisa (who drops by earlier looking for Kaguaya) and Tsubasa with Shirogane and Ishigami, watching them seemingly getting it on before later revealing that they were not only trolling them, but knew they were all virgins (lol). In the next skit, Chika breaks out another board game that's very similar to The Game of Life and has her fellow student council members try out her club's prototype version of it. The whole thing predictably goes wayside: Ishigami dies within his first move (lol), Chika marries and have kids with Shirogane while Kaguya pursues a highly successful but soul crushing career. However, Chika later divorces Shirogane and Kaguya briefly marries Shirogane before it being undone by a technicality in the rules, making Chika marry Kaguya instead. The looks on Shirogane and Kaguya and the not so subtle meaning behind the game definitely made this for the highlight of the episode. In the final skit for this episode, it's revealed that Shirogane's birthday is on the horizon. Kaguaya doesn't want to bring up that fact as she fears that'd be a give away that she likes Shirogane. As such, she tries to get him to reveal his birthday in a roundabout away by having everybody do horoscopes. Shirogane decides not to play along, writing off the whole thing as "superstitious". However in actuality, he used the same horoscope at some point to determine if he was "compatible" with Kaguya and the results pinned it at 50-50. We're also greeted to a flashback in which Kaguya once told Shirogane that she would never celebrate his birthday with him (again, I'm waiting for the epic backstory in what made Kaguya change her mind on him as it appears when they first met, she very clearly did not like him). Eventually, Kaguya comes to the conclusion that Shirogane has only ever told Kaguya his birthday and as such, only wants to celebrate it with her, which makes Kaguya all giddy. Kaguya then tries again to grow closer to Shriogane's sister, Kei, as the two tag along with the Fujiwara sisters as they do their long awaited shopping trip. With Shirogane's birthday coming up, Kaguya hopes to gain some insight into what to get him for his birthday. Unfortunately for Kaguya, Chika hangs out with Kei as she's paired with Chika's younger sister, Moeha. Kaguya spends most of the outing trying to hang out with Kai but she's inadvertently blocked by the two Fujiwara sisters. However, she finally catches a break during a visit to a clothing store. After some initial awkwardness, Kaguya asks Kei what to get Shirogane in a roundabout way by asking about their Christmas gift practices. Kei instead reveals that her family really doesn't celebrate the holidays much at all and as such don't really get gifts for each other, no matter the occasion. Kei then goes into how her brother tries to spoil her by giving her money on her birthday which she dislikes for some reason (I'm just saying, getting money for your birthday is quite possibly the best gift ever, but that's just me), but part of that dislike is why she has a fraught relationship with her brother. Kaguya then realizes that Shirogane is exactly the same way at home as he is in school which causes Kaguya to fall for him even harder. We also get to see that despite their completely different attitudes, Kei and Shirogane have plenty of similarities. During their talk, a little girl trips and falls and Kei quickly springs into action to prevent her from serious injury and also tends to her knee, which mesmerizes Kaguya and makes her feel like she's on a date with Shirogane himself (I guess Kaguya has a backup option lol). The outing ends up being a success as Kei expresses a desire to hangout with Kaguya some time. Kaguya then discusses with Hayasaka what to get Shirogane for his birthday, realizing that he wouldn't take an expensive gift. Hayasaka pulls a hilarious troll and ties a bow around Kaguya's body, suggesting she present herself as a gift to Shirogane, which triggers Kaguya. Ultimately, Kaguya settles on baking Shirogane a cake. While that's "quite cute", Kaguya in typical Kaguya fashion overdoes it. She ends up baking a yuuuuuuuuge birthday cake for him. Hayasaka says the quiet part out loud and calls Kaguya an idiot. As Kaguya prepares to give Shirogane her cake (which she secretly stashed in the closet of the Student Council room), she begins to second guess herself which leads to a conflict with her two personas: her sweet and wholesome side and her ice-cold, yandere side. This cleverly plays out in a courtroom kind of scenario, with Kaguya's childlike persona "presiding" over the "trial" as Kaguya internally debates about what to do. Her wholesome side argues for it, noting that Kaguya genuinely does like seeing Shirogane happy, while her icy side points out how ridiculous she would look giving him a whole-ass cake. Interestingly, as her child-like persona asks Kaguya about her intentions, Kaguya herself tries to deny that she loves Shirogane and seems to be implying that she's only doing this for his attention and to get him to confess (which I don't believe for a second, and if it was true, it wouldn't make sense given everything that's happened up to this point). Ultimately, the personalities vanish as the child-like persona tells Kaguya that ultimately the decision is up to her (which I found to be a powerful moment personally). Kaguya ultimately makes the decision to give Shirogane the cake, with a twist: giving him a single slice as well as a fan with some calligraphy. The moment leaves the two incredibly flustered as Kaguya runs out of the room and to Hayasaka who congratulates her on the job well done. Meanwhile Shirogane graciously enjoys his new gift. I found the little aftermath scene hilarious as Hayasaka and Kaguya were eating cake that she had baked for Shirogane (though I do suppose it would've been a waste to just throw it away, though I do question if that's enough for just 2 people). That all being said, despite Shirogane being appreciative of Kaguya's gesture, he wonders why Kaguya pulled a 180 after previously saying she'd never celebrate his birthday (because she likes you, dumbass). As Shirogane shows off his new fan, Chika notices his fan and asks about it. He refrains from outing Kaguya and instead gives the "it was from a friend" excuse. However, this doesn't have the intended effect as Chika (perhaps somewhat unintentionally) accuses him of having a crush on Kaguya, which greatly flusters him. This ended up being a 4-D chess move by Kaguya to use Chika to have Shirogane confess his crush. Kaguya had also told Chika earlier than she had celebrated Shirogane's birthday and Chika was none the wiser (to which she was upset about, poor best girl). Shirogane gets a cruel reminder that despite the fact that he had avoided outing Kaguya's kindness to him because he didn't want to weaponize it, Kaguya does not operate by those rules (She has no rules, no boundaries, she doesn't flinch at torture, human trafficking, or genocide. She's not loyal to a flag or a country or any set of ideals. She trades blood for money.) Shirogane then pulls out a trump card and says he never told anyone his birthday and says Kaguya found out on her own filiation and accuses her of being the one hiding it. Chika then turns her guns on Kaguya and Kaguya.EXE stops working when she becomes flustered over seeing Shirogane using her fan (which honestly should've been it for her right then and there). Shirogane does press his advantage, but Ishigami reveals that he also knew Shirogane's birthday given by the fact that he's using the fountain pen he got him. Kaguya recovers and uses her newfound momentum to fend off the allegations and point out that she's the only one who didn't know. Chika becomes distraught and runs out of the room and Kaguya thanks the bemused Ishigami for the save. We then come to a point in the story where the student council's term is coming to an end, and with their own busy lives and schedules, student council was the only thing keeping them together. This fact is not lost on our cast of characters so they decide to spend the last night of their term together by doing some good ol' fashioned star gazing. Kaguya hopes to use this as an opportunity to get Shirogane to finally confess, but uh...he's a big astronomy nerd. Even her subtle tricks are no match to break his resolve, and actually backfire. In one such instance, she does the classic "I'm cold" maneuver to which Shirogane hands her his jacket without so much as a second thought, which makes Kaguya.EXE stop working. It happens again through an indirect kiss as well. Kaguya then tries to shift things in her favor by trying to get Shirogane to talk about the constellations, hoping to eventually trip him up by complimenting him, but Shirogane not only takes the attempted bait, he takes Kaguya's whole fishing rod away by pulling her close and going into detail. 0-3 on that one Kaguya. Shirogane then does get serious and asks Kaguya about the story about her namesake, which is apparent some old folklore tale about how a princess of the same name became the moon. I think the folklore tale is supposed to somewhat mirror the whole dynamic between Kaguya and Shirogane in a way, and Shirogane goes a little corny by saying that he wouldn't have given up on Princess Kaguya if he was the bamboo cutter in the story, which embarrasses Kaguya and makes her run away. Only later does Shirogane realize the cringe that he said. It then comes time for the student council to officially dissolve, and the characters clean out the room, coming across old stuff and reliving memories of their time together (pretty much this whole skit is a highlight reel from season 1). The one cool thing that gets revealed is that there's a classic secret room behind the bookshelves. Chika, and later Kaguya, bid an emotional farewell to the student council room as it seems like this could be the last time they ever set foot in there. Afterwards, they go out to have a more formal celebration, and Kaguya becomes flustered when she finds herself unable to say Shirogane's first name. The topic of Shirogane running again comes up and earlier in one of the episodes we did see him holding onto a campaign form so he was thinking about it at the time. Chika floats the idea but Kaguya states that it'd be selfish given how much time Shirogane devotes to it. She even privately muses the idea of her running for president herself and put Shirogane as the VP, but she realized he'd overwork himself somehow. A Chika presidency gets shot down faster than it gets floated (poor Chika!). Shirogane walks with Kaguya back to her place and Kaguya breaks and asks Shirogane to consider running again. Shirogane then reveals he was planning on running again anyway (though Shirogane was somewhat bluffing himself as he wasn't going to run again unless Kaguya asked him to). Now while I do believe Kaguya has made general progress in becoming a better person (minus a few mental thoughts she's had in this season up to this point, which we all have and can be chalked up to as intrusive), there are times that do have me question if she's truly a good person and right for someone like Shirogane. While nobody is perfect and Kaguya is certainly a competitive person (as she may sometimes see Chika as a rival for Shirogane's affection, though Chika-Shirogane has only been teased at the surface level up to this point), this particular skit gave me some pause regarding Kaguya and her progress. The skit begins with her usual schoolgirl level pouting over her lack of progress on getting Shirogane to confess (and so far this season Shirogane arguably has the upper hand here), and Hayasaka is giving her usual "stop fussing and make a move already" speech. Kaguya then interestingly challenges Hayasaka to see if she can make Shirogane fall in love with her, accusing her of making it sound easy. Though Hayasaka cautions that it wouldn't be easy (remember this detail for later), she nevertheless takes Kaguya up on her challenge. She runs into Shirogane at a bookstore and proceeds to rather easily rizz him up over the course of their time together as Kaguya secretly watches them. Hayasaka then eventually drops the bomb and asks Shirogane out, even going so far as to say she'd be a "side chick" for him. Shirogane seems to genuinely contemplate this before sticking to his principles and turning Hayasaka down, stating he was interested in someone else. Hayasaka takes the L well and wishes him luck and leaves. In the aftermath, Kaguya gloats to Hayasaka about her failure and tells her it's not as easy as she made it sound, to which Hayasaka snaps at Kaguya and actually breaks down a little bit here, saying it's not easy and how she could sway him if she had more time. Kaguya seems to realize she went too far, but I actually felt bad for Hayasaka here and angry at Kaguya here as well. Which also makes me wonder to what extent Hayasaka is interested in Shirogane as that's a new ship that had never really been teased before so that came slightly out of left field for me. Shirogane begins his campaign for re-election and Chika pans a draft for a speech he plans to give. The need for a speech writer comes up and Shirogane suggests Kaguya. Shirogane then goes to talk to Kaguya to offer her the post, but gets embarrassed. He then, funnily enough, runs into Hayasaka again asking what he's doing. Shirogane almost recognizes her but tells her that he wishes to talk to Kaguya, which Hayasaka happily tells him he'll pass along the message. In her famous "HEY HEY!" line, she tells Kaguya in front of her whole class that Shirogane wants to speak with her, and immediately everyone in the class thinks he's going to confess to her (I like to think Hayasaka did it in this way to get back at Kaguya). The whole school then pulls up to watch Shirogane talk to Kaguya, and I won't lie it does have all the makings of a love confession scene. Shirogane, through his flushed expression, offers Kaguya the job as speech writer to which Kaguya accepts. However there's a double meaning in her answer as she tells him essentially "anything you ask of me, the answer is yes", which I take as a subtle confession. We're then introduced to Shirogane's primary opponent: Miko Iino, who is a first year. From the outset, it seems that there seems to be some kind of history between Ishigami and Miko as the two plainly don't like each other and how Ishigami spends the whole election arc wanting to viciously crush Miko's campaign. Shirogane introduces himself to Miko, and she gets into a back and forth with him and Ishigami. A betrayal by Chika is briefly teased as Miko hypes her up as a potential VP pick to which Shirogane and Ishigami laugh off, but Chika comes to her senses. Shirogane initially seems concerned by Miko but after taking a look at the poor quality of Miko's campaign flier as well as her platform (basically, stricter rules and an emphasis on morals, which uhhh isn't the best campaign strategy when it comes to appealing to highschoolers), the concerns are largely assuaged. As the campaign kicks into high gear, Shirogane manages to clock in a full night's rest for once and looks fresh. This has the unintentional side effect of making all the girls at school (even Chika) swoon over him. However, as per Newton's 3rd Law of Physics: For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So while pretty much every girl in school is fawning over Shirogane, the only person who is actually put off by it is...Kaguya! Shirogane figured that if everyone was fawning over him, Kaguya certainly would as well and attempts to rizz her up during a talk over his campaign speech, but she was actually put off by his new look (I guess Kaguya's type of guy is the sleep deprived and edgy looking variety). Kaguya's sudden loss of interest in Shirogane causes her to have an existential crisis and she appeals to Nagisa for help to see if she was ever truly in love with Shirogane. As Hayasaka would know, being Kaguya's therapist isn't easy and since she's light on specifics, Nagisa can't really advise her on what to do aside from offering general advice. Chika happens to overhear their conversation about true love and drops a truth bomb that if love is swayed by looks alone then it's not real. Ishigami also offers his two cents in saying that there's no such thing as true love but the love in one's heart is always real. Kaguya seems to buy into the advice and Nagisa, though disturbed by their advice, goes along with it. We're then treated to another "Chika helps Shirogane" skit as Chika discovers that Shirogane is lip-syncing during the singing of the school anthem, and the reason being is that he's tone-deaf. After much trial, error and frustration, Chika manages to whip Shirogane into shape yet again and make him into a decent singer, which moves Chika to the point of tears during the next signing of the school anthem. We're then treated to an exercise in dirty politics as Kaguya and Hayasaka have been quietly gathering dirt and pushing out the other candidates in the race. Hayasaka warns Kaguya that Miko might not budge, but Kaguya decides to try anyway. Kaguya tries to pressure Miko to quit, but she holds firm and comments how Kaguya is "perfect for Shirogane" which gets her flustered. Election Day finally comes. Ishigami is egging on Shirogane to crush Miko by an epic landslide and the cast seems assured that they'll win easily. Miko's best friend Osaragi is up first for the campaign speeches. She manages to give a well delivered speech and makes a decent case for Miko, but Kaguya manages to blow her out of the water (and also pulling some other shenanigans with Chika and Hayasaka) with her own stellar speech. Miko, ironically, has a fear of public speaking, and bombs in her speech which all but ends her underdog bid. It's then revealed through Osaragi that Miko has always had a desire to be on student council and she had similar failed experiences running in elementary and middle school because she froze up during her speeches which would lead to her getting ridiculed and made fun of. Additionally, Miko's generally stubborn personality and strong personal ethics always clashed with her peers and nobody other than Osaragi (and Ishigami) ever seemed to understand her. Osaragi could only watch in despair as Miko's third campaign crashed and burned yet again before her eyes. Ishigami then reveals the reason he wanted Shirogane to crush Miko so badly was so that Miko would finally stop running and losing. Through the perspective of both Osaragi and Ishigami, losing Miko truly does hurt her to the core even if she doesn't show it on the outside and both want what's best for her (in their own way). Shirogane then pulls an MVP move and interrupts her trainwreck of a speech and gets into a debate over Miko's policy proposals (one of them being her desire to have the guys get forced hair cuts). I will give mad props to Shirogane for doing this, it's one of the kindest things I've seen in fiction in giving someone a chance to voice their beliefs (even if they're not something I even agree with) in an articulate and honest manner. Honestly it makes the political science major in me giddy. Though Shirogane's kindness nearly cost him the election as he ended up winning by a far smaller margin (insert House of Cards quote as to how people really just want security, not freedom) than expected and sent all his friends into a fuss or in Kaguya's case, a full blown panic attack. Kaguya worries that Shirogane won't re-select her as VP, but her worries are misplaced as Shirogane drops by to check in on her, apologizes for his nearly throwing the race and offers her to be VP again which she accepts. Hayaska sighs at Kaguya overthinking and this is where the narrator's famous "that's why she's best girl" line is dropped. Shirogane also offers Miko to join the student council as well and she does eventually show up to accept the offer, or at least try to (more on this later). Season 2 had been pretty solid and enjoyable up to this point, but unfortunately this was where things kind of took a dive for me. So in the next skit, with Shirogane and company back in their old positions, they are back to their old shenanigans. Chika and Kaguya accidentally walk in on Ishigami changing in the student council room. Ishigami explains he hadn't had the time to properly change since he had gym beforehand. Chika, having noticed that Ishigami is a briefs man rather than a boxer's man and a whole underwear debate ensues. This of course, causes Kaguya to wonder what Shirogane's preference is and concocts a plan to find out but thankfully decides against it. Kaguya ends up casually slipping it into a conversation that she has with him and Shirogane inadvertently reveals his preference. Shirogane then begins second-guessing himself as he had realized what he had just sent and got some...well let's just say "impure thoughts". It feels weird to explain this any further so I'll just cut to the chase and say Kaguya freaks out because she thinks Shirogane likes to wear boxers and she calls him a man whore and Shirogane tries to correct himself. Miko, who had walked in to formally accept Shirogane's offer, witnesses all this and freaks out herself and leaves (this becomes somewhat of a running gag for a bit). The next day, Kaguya apologizes and offers to give Shirogane a hand massage. Why that? Well, Kaguya becomes worried that she'll lose Shirogane to another girl, and Hayasaka (I can't tell if she's either ballsy or a grade A troll) recommends that she "sleeps" with him. Kaguya can't fathom doing that so the compromise is a massage because it somehow reduces the risk of cheating (I gotta be honest I wasn't buying the anime's explanation for why, but I will say those back rubs are dangerous). Shirogane, wanting to hold Kaguya's hands, accepts the offer, but unfortunately for him (it burns!), she's not exactly gentle and it becomes more of a torture session than anything else for him while Kaguya is floating on cloud 9. Miko, trying to get over her first awkward experience with her would-be colleagues tries to go in for a second chance and is greeted to Kaguya and Shirogane seemingly doing something questionable on the sofa. Hilariously, Kaguya offers Miko to join them, making her flustered and causing her to run out again. Shirogane then gets into reading a super emotional manga by his sister. Shirogane ends up liking the manga (and it has its intended effect), and convinces Ishigami to read it as well and he ends up enjoying it too. Chika already read the manga and the trio try to convince Kaguya to read it but she's initially not interested. Chika then begins to accidentally spoil some plot details, which causes Shirogane and Ishigami to duct tape her mouth shut (lol). Miko, who has developed impeccable timing skills, walks in on seeing Chika getting duct taped, is horrified by the sight and runs away once more. Shirogane and Ishigami try again to convince Kaguya to read it but they accidentally spoil some major plot details as well. As a result, they gets their mouths duct taped shut by Chika. Miko comes back to save Chika, only to walk in on the confusing sight. In a post credits scene, Kaguya and Hayasaka end up reading the manga. This next skit in particular threw for a loop: after the characters had read the manga, the anime goes all in on this "romance, slice of life manga" or as the anime calls it: "Shojo manga brain syndrome”. I don't really know how else to describe it but the colors are brighter, the characters talk differently and the art style is slightly altered. The only person who acts like their normal self is Chika. I thought I was having a fever dream when I was watching this skit. Kaguya, Shirogane and Ishigami all act more "romantic" and Shirogane and Ishigami try to make a move on Kaguya by asking her out to the aquarium. Kaguya even seemed to contemplate Ishigami's offer, which was surprising as she had expressed and shown no interest in him prior. Eventually, Kaguya gets all hot and bothered by the two boys' competing affection and Shirogane rushes her to the infirmary to get checked out. Shirogane then asks Kaguya out, but she accidentally and shockingly rejects him as her head is too far into the clouds. Now I was wondering to what extent this skit was cannon, but everything reverts back to normal in the final scene with Shirogane and Ishigami ending up visiting the aquarium together and remarking how the two of them are actually having fun. So I guess it was cannon in the end which I found to be weird and disappointing, and unfortunately the next few episodes get into weird semantics as well which was a shame considering that the season was having a strong run up to this point. While this can all be chalked up to not vibing with the joke (this is a rom-com at the end of the day), I just felt that this skit was a little disjointed and wasn't really necessary. Miko is finally able to formally join the student council, but her head-strong and rigid personality clashes with her colleagues. She tries to be a check on everyone's "rule breaking behavior", but she gets encouraged by Chika and Ishigami to not be so stuffy (as a side note here, we get a cute scene with Chika and her table top taming clubmates who are LARPING and they cheer when they roll the dice to "avoid getting in trouble with the student council". The little cheer the 3 of them do is honestly adorable and one of my favorite moments of the season, maybe of the whole anime so far). To do this, they have her practice maintaining her composure as they break some school rules in front of her and get her to loosen up a tad bit. Shirogane and Kaguya then get trapped in the old sports equipment storage shed after the door gets stuck. Both of them believe this is all a ploy by the other to get closer to the other, when in actuality the door is legitimately stuck. The two do end up having a *spicy* moment when Shirogane accidentally finds himself on top of Kaguya, and it seems like they're actually about to go for the kiss when Miko frees from their predicament. Kaguya then rushes out and hugs Miko, thanking her for the rescue, to which Miko immediately misinterprets the situation and views Shirogane as a pervert. The next day, Kaguya suddenly collapses and is taken to the hospital to be evaluated, with the cause of her ordeal being "lovesickness" (yeah this is when you know you're watching a romcom). Though Kaguya disagrees and begs for a second opinion despite her docotor being among the very best in the world, he proves his point when Kaguya's heart accelerates massively when thinking of Shirogane. Miko then vents to Osaragi about how everyone else is "so thirsty for each other" (and she's not exactly wrong!) and how she's already contemplating leaving the student council. However, Osaragi is able to dissuade her from leaving and somewhat successfully convinces her to look at things from a different angle. Miko then jumps the gun and pins all the weirdness and supposed wrongdoing on Kaguya believing that she's some sort of dominatrix (which she might not actually be wrong about), and Osaragi is helpless to dissuade Miko from that opinion. Perhaps finally realizing that she's really losing her footing in her "war" against Shirogane, Hayasaka helps Kaguya develop a calming ritual which she places her right hand on her left cheek. It actually works wonders until Shirogane goes to confront her about her medical episode. Kaguya gets all flustered when Shirogane is in her personal space and tries to use her little ritual, but Shirogane was holding onto her right hand. In a funny little Mortal Combat style skit, Shirogane expresses his concern for Kaguya and she progressively becomes more flustered which she she ends up having to throw Shirogane off of her (she does martial arts, and its surprising how much strength she actually has) in order to use her technique. Though, the next day Shirogane goes to apologize for being too forward and she accepts the apology as they walk to the student council room together. We then get some focus on Ishigami as he decides to try to open up more by joining the school's cheerleading squad. Though he seems like a horrible fit given that he's the polar opposite of everybody else as they're all preppy and cheerful, Ishigami contemplates leaving before deciding to stick it out. As part of their routine for the upcoming sports festival, the squad members will be wearing the opposite gender's uniform, meaning Ishigami needs to find a girl to trade uniforms with. Kaguya agrees to help Ishigami and he's somehow able to fit in her uniform despite the size (he does hilariously complain about the tightness in the chest area). Kaguya even goes as far as to put makeup on him. Shirogane secretly witnesses all this and becomes jealous, worrying that Kaguya has started falling for Ishigami. Shirogane's change in behavior over this is noticed by Kei. She deduces that Shirogane is in love with someone, but wants to find out the juicy details without being prying (as it turns out, Kei is also a tsundere). Kei tries to talk to Shirogane but is largely turned away. That's when their father, Mr. Shirogane intervenes. He tries to offer his son some advice but it's not exactly helpful as he begins going in to how his wife (Shirogane and Kei's mother) left him. Kei excuses her out of the conversation but does end up offering some meaningful advice in to just wait the situation out, which I think marks a turning point in the siblings' relationship. Shirogane then once again turns to Chika for help in learning the Soran Bushi dance for the upcoming sports festival, and Chika's finally at her limit with helping him, forcing him to turn to Kaguya. Chika, however, immediately gets jealous and takes issue to Kaguya's approach (Chika being a more of the "feel the music and dance" person, chalking that up to her previous experience as a dancer in her younger years while Kaguya is all about just mimicking the movements), needless to say Kaguya and Chika end up fighting over Shirogane and I can't help but feel a little envious of the guy. Shirogane does end up learning the dance successfully. The anime then finally begins to shed light on Ishigami's dark and troubled past which is revealed in doses over this arc. As Osaragi observes the unenergetic Ishigami practicing with the cheer squad, she reveals in her internal monologue that back in their middle school years, Ishigami had a crush on a girl named Kyoko. He fell in love with her via the classic "because you were nice to me" trope but she was the only person who ever gave him the time of day. Ishigami fell in love with her and vowed to do everything he could to make her happy, even after Kyoko got a boyfriend. At some point Ishigami found out that Kyoko's boyfriend was cheating on her and went to confront him about it, saying that while he wouldn't rat him out to her, asked him to stop cheating. The boyfriend sarcastically says that he could have Kyoko, then shows him what's presumed to be an NSFW image of Kyoko. Ishigami loses his cool and (rightfully) beats the crap out of him. Unfortunately for him, it looks to the whole school (and especially Kyoko) that Ishigami is beating up the boyfriend out of some jealously-fueled rage. Ishigami tries to tell Kyoko the truth but after the boyfriend (who is also in theatre) plays to the crowd and professes his supposed love for Kyoko, she and everyone shuns Ishigami. Ishigami was also indefinitely suspended from school but later was allowed to come back on the condition that he write a written apology to the boyfriend. Ishigami ultimately held firm and refused to do so. Miko, who despite always being at odds with Ishigami, actually stood up for him at the time to the principal arguing that the sentencing was too harsh and it's revealed that the two have always secretly helped each other (though it's not clear, at least to me, whether they knew about it). Ishigami is later exonerated and permitted to go to high school after Shirogane conducted an investigation and found that while Ishigami's actions weren't ideal, his intentions were pure and that he was exonerated. A tearful Ishigami thanked Shirogane. Overall this whole backstory was moving and it explains a lot to why Ishigami is the way that he is and I give him mad respect. I also have to give props to Shirogane and I could even see why someone like Kaguya could also fall for him. As the sports festival begins, Shirogane does the dance successfully and his dad attends. Shirogane does his best to steer him away from Kaguya, but the two ultimately cross paths to begin with. Shirogane's dad decides to troll Kaguya by talking smack about his boy which causes Kaguya to vigorously defend him, and when Shirogane runs into the two talking, it makes for a pretty funny reveal. Ishigami is then tapped to participate in the relay race, and it's here where he comes face-to-face with his old ghost: Kyoko herself. As it turns out Kyoko had eventually transferred to a different school and her relationship with her boyfriend had ended, and she had stopped by to visit some old friends. Upon seeing her, Ishigami, who had been slowly opening up to his new friends, immediately reverts to how he was during his isolation and becomes despondent. However, upon seeing his friends on the student council cheering him on, he's brought out of his funk. As he gets ready to participate in the race, Kyoko heckles him from the sidelines. Here, Ishigami delivers probably one of my favorite one-liners in all of anime, and quotes what Shirogane had written on Ishigami's half written apology letter: "Shut up, dumbass!". Honestly, this had me cheering for him. Ishigami ultimately doesn't win the relay race, but his support from his new friends on the cheer squad allows him to finally open his eyes and heart to other people. This scene honestly reminded me of Shoya from A Silent Voice as the ending of that anime plays out somewhat similarly to this moment here, and it was heart warming to see. In the final episode of the season, the headmaster of the school is gathering photos for a pamphlet promoting the school. Kaguya is unable to participate as her family has a rule in not appearing in any media that doesn't have their approval, so she's forced to watch as Shirogane, Ishigami, Chika and Miko all pose for pictures. Hilariously, the Shirogane-Chika and Ishigami-Miko ships are teased here. Ultimately, the headmaster gets Kaguya in for a keepsake photo, and asks him to use her flip phone, but she accidentally drops it off the roof, destroying it. Kaguya is unable to retrieve the old photos she had on her phone and while she gets an upgrade to the modern era, she's rather despondent that she had lost everything on her old phone. However, her student council friends are able to cheer up when they make a group cloud where they upload all their photos together, which made for a wholesome scene and brought Kaguya out of her mood. In the final skit, the student council plays a game where they need to inflate a balloon as big as possible without making it explode (the way Chika explains it though is hilarious as it...gives a certain connotation to it...). The student council turns into a bunch of scaredy cats as they want to avoid it having the balloon explode in their faces. Ultimately, the balloon explodes due to acid from an orange that Chika was eating falls onto the balloon, making the whole school explode. Shirogane helps Kaguya up from the ruble and the two stare into each other's eyes, ending the season as the intro music plays softly in the background. *Whew* that wasn't a whole lot, was it? Overall, I liked season 2 and I'd consider it an improvement over the previous season. It had a lot of great moments ranging from hilarious, to wholesome and even some downright emotional moments. My opinions on Shirogane, Ishigami and Hayasaka improved a lot and Ishigami managed to become one of my favorite characters because of his arc. I thought Miko was a fine addition and helps add a little of a "law and order" character to the cast of unruly characters and I like the dynamic she has. I didn't even initially like her but after a few episodes I certainly warmed up to her. I still have mixed feelings on Kaguya. On one hand, I don't think she's a bad person and she's certainly a character you can feel emphatic towards. But she still pulls stuff like she did with Hayasaka and some of her mental comments towards Chika do give me pause. Progress towards being a better person is always slow and steady sometimes you backslide a bit, and I can understand after this season how Kaguya could fall for Shirogane but I'm still interested in seeing how it happened and perhaps that will get shown in the next season. To share some predictions and observations: I still think we're on track for a Kaguya-Shirogane confession, not sure when or how it'll play out but this season definitely made them feel more like a couple and less about them being frenemies trying to get the other to confess their feelings for each other (though there was still plenty of that happening). With the introduction of Miko's character and her dynamic with Ishigami, I feel like they're setting up those two to eventually get together. I'd argue that Miko-Ishigami are even more polar opposites than Kaguya-Shirogane are (and I wouldn't even say that they're super different from each other either). I'm not sure if they're going to do anything special with Chika's and Hayasaka's characters or if they're just going to stay within their roles in the story but I do hope we get to learn more about them! Kaguya arguably spent a lot of this season on the back pedal and Shirogane generally had the advantage this season before somewhat losing his momentum. I'm not sure if season 3 will be Kaguya's turn to dominate or Shirogane will press forward. This season felt like the battle lines had shifted and we're getting closer to our ultimate conclusion! I'm looking forward to watching season 3!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 18, 2023 Recommended Spoiler
*Spoiler Warning*
It's not too often that when I watch a show, it starts off leaving me with a bad impression but gets significantly better by the end. That can best sum up my experience with watching Love is War's first season: a very rocky start but a solid finish. While this wasn't my first time watching a romance anime, I had heard and seen people call this the "Death Note of romance anime", so I went in with fairly high expectations that this anime was going to blow me away. Though it didn't quite live up to the expectations I set out for it, ... by the end of the season I found it to be very enjoyable and funny as well as coming around to getting a good grasp on each of the characters. At the end of the day, Love is War can be best described as a bit of a melodramatic tale between two frenemies trying to get the other to admit their feelings for each other as they engage in complex schemes in order to do so while their friends are either blissfully or painfully aware of their antics. However the characters are in high school, and I'll admit that yours truly may or may not have once thought along similar lines as the two main characters: Shirogane and Kaguya so after a point I was able to relate the characters and the shenanigans they'd get themselves into. It may be a bit of an acquired taste, but it's a truly entertaining and even heartwarming story. The production work on Love is War was solid. I enjoyed the animation and the art style. I really liked the character designs, especially with Kaguya and Chika. Kaguya really struck me as a yandere type of character early on while Chika was the classic "bubbly and wholesome best friend" and I found their hair accessories to be as the anime likes to say "quite cute". I thought while Shirogane's design was ultimately nothing special, his sharp features really reminded me of Ryuuji from Toradora. Background design was always good. I watched this anime in dubbed and I thought the voice actors all did a phenomenal job to the roles they were given. I will admit that while I expected Kaguya to have a deeper voice (at least compared to most other girls), but it was deeper than I expected. Still, Kana Hashimoto did a great job and really breathed life into her character (I also just found out that she voiced Ritsu from Assassination Classroom so like I've said in previous reviews: small world in the English Dubbing community). If there's one thing that stood out to me during the entire anime was the music. It was always nothing short of phenomenal and always added to the scene as music always should. I really loved the intro: "Love Dramatic feat" and the visuals did a really job of selling me on the show and the humorous antics our main characters were set to engage in. Both Shirogane and Kaguya lining up facing each other with a various assortment of weapons and how they destroy the school during their "war" to a very catchy beat will never not be funny to me. I've also come across some great English covers of the song: Caitlin Myers, AmaLee and Studio Yuraki all did phenomenal jobs and are covers I'm still listening to. Just check them out, you won't be disappointed! Love is War has 2 outros, one primary outro: "Sentimental Crisis" and one special outro that's only played once in episode 3 exclusively "Chikatto Chika Chika" (or as I'll just simply call it the Chika Dance Song). While both outros were good, I have to pick the Chika Dance Song. It was adorable and cemented her status for me as best girl. If there's ever been a song that sums up a character perfectly, it's this one. The dance was adorable and wholesome and the beat was really catchy. I will praise the visuals for Sentimental Crisis, even though it's Kaguya's dream of her friends heroically saving her, if there was ever an anime that was based on those events in her dream, I think it could be a top 10 anime of all time. It was *that good*. I'm not the biggest fan of slow and more emotional songs, but as far as they go Sentimental Crisis was very good. The plot of Love is War's first season is essentially structured to be a series of skits that are canonically tied together in sequential order. It's not structured to be like a 90's romcom where all the events happen independently of each other with little to no bearing on the overall story, there is rhyme and reason to everything. I had no issues with the episode format and I thought it suited the show. Now the actual story itself... The opening scene is narrated by a character quite literally known as "The Narrator". He describes to us how falling in love is a special thing and all that, but one very interesting thing he points out is power dynamics in a relationship. This piqued my curiosity instantly as this is the first time I've ever scene a romcom anime talk about something like that (I've watched a few harems like RAG, Girlfriend Girlfriend, and some others such as Toradora, My Dress-Up Darling, Your Lie in April, Weathering with You and Shikimori and I was watching Darling in The Franxx alongside Love is War, and none of them ever directly tackled this topic. At least not in the same way Love is War approached it). The narrator goes on to tell us that whoever confesses their love to their crush is seen as the "weaker" and "submissive" partner in the relationship. Now I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing but uh...it's interesting that they kind of veered off in that direction so suddenly but I rolled with it. We're then greeted to a shot of Shirogane and Kaguya with a heart eyes for each other as they aim their pistols at each other and destroy the school as the opening logo fades onto screen. The story itself takes place at Shuchiin Academy, which is one of the best schools in the entire country and where essentially all the smart and rich kids go to. We're then introduced to our main characters: Shirogane, who is the president of the student council and hails from a humble background, and Kaguya, the vice president of the student council whose parents run the business conglomerate known as the Shinomiya Group. We're also introduced to the student council secretary (and best girl): Chika Fujiwara, who is the daughter of a politician (and as a political science major myself, this made me like her even more). Both Shirogane and Kaguya are idols at their school and are considered to be an ideal couple, with many of their peers even speculating that they've already together. While it is true that they have both fallen for each other at some presently unknown point, both of them are extremely prideful individuals and are determined to have the other break and confess their feelings for each other so that they could be "the dominate partner". Thus begins a great psychological war of attrition and wits to get the other to confess. Each action the characters take are analyzed by the other (to a humorous and melodramatic degree) in an attempt to see through their intentions and properly counter it with their own move, a real cat and mouse type scenario. At the end of each episode, a "winner" is declared for the battle that happened with the victors usually being either Shirogane or Kaguya, but sometimes there's no winner or another character wins which is funny when it happens. After a time skip of nothing happening (according to the narrator), the first shots are finally fired in this "war": the first scheme that Kaguya cooks up is that she had secretly bought Chika movie tickets for a romantic movie. Chika, who is conveniently unable to attend, gives the two tickets to Shirogane. Kaguya's plan is to try to get him to invite her to go see the movie. However that scheme falls through. She then resorts to writing a fake love letter to herself and claims she received it from some boy asking her out. Shirogane protests and goes as far to say that she would be removed from the student council (implying that somehow a student council member can't have a relationship with another student, which if true, would make Shirogane and Kaguya both in violation of the rules if they got together). Kaguya obviously protests at Shirogane's absurdity, but the matter is later dropped. In the final skit of the first episode, the three student council members have lunch together with Shirogane showing off his homemade meal. Kaguya tries to do the whole "indirect kiss" thing with Shirogane, but Chika unknowingly upstages her as she copes and seethes in the background as the two enjoy their meal together. I have to say, the first episode did not give me the best impression of Kaguya at first. While early on its hinted that she has a "dark side", she really came across as a crass, elitist and rude individual (which while she is a bit of a stereotypical rich girl, she's the main heroine so...isn't the show supposed to sell us on liking her? Or just something to her root for her on? The first episode didn't give me anything). She also made some very rude comments about Chika in her inner monologue, and while it's all for comedic effect and I'm sure she didn't actually mean it, Chika is supposed to be her best friend and uh...wow just hearing some of the comments she made about her had me questioning the kind of person she was. She also really came out the loser in that whole lunch scenario, she even came across as judging Shirogane's more humble meal compared to her 5 star chef cooked meal. All in all, Kaguya didn't exactly leave me with the best impression of her character, and I was wondering at that point if the way the show would go was that Chika would end up stealing Shirogane away from Kaguya (which is joked about on several occasions throughout the season). Another thing that left a very sour taste in my mouth about the first episode was the narrator. Now he did crack a lot of good jokes, but in the first episode, he was needlessly injecting himself into the story with his commentary. I didn't need to be told what the characters were thinking when I can clearly see it for myself and it felt like he had more dialogue than the actual characters in some scenes. It was funny at first but the act wore thin real quick. Fortunately in later episodes he's better utilized. Despite my relative sour experience with the first episode, I decided to keep watching the anime to see where things would go. In the next set of skits: Shirogane finally gets a new and modern cellphone after weeks of subliminal messaging secretly arranged by Kaguya to get him to finally upgrade. The two later engage in some elaborate charades to get the other to give them their number, further exasperated by Chika effortlessly getting Shirogane's number (the girl as immeasurable rizz). In a hilarious reveal by the end of this skit its revealed that Kaguya has a flip phone. Chika then proposes a summer vacation destination for the student council to do. Shirogane proposes going to the ocean and Kaguya proposes going to the mountains. Unfortunately they reach an impasse and have Chika choose. As Chika mulls over the options, Shirogane and Kaguya actually flip their positions as they realize they have better strengths and less weaknesses in the other locations. Eventually they decide to table the decision for another time after Chika.exe stops working. Kaguya then overhears a boy asking Shirogane for love advice on asking out his crush, which Kaguya uses as an opportunity to gain insight into Shirogane's thinking. Shirogane, who has never had a girlfriend himself but for whatever reason people believe he is a chick magnet, gives the boy some...questionable advice. We also learn what he sees in Kaguya. Though he does hilariously roast her (at one point she says she's flatter than a world map, and I hadn't laughed that hard in a good while when I heard that), he did admit that he admired her determination and dedication, which was sweet and makes sense. The next skit was...interesting. Shirogane gets asked to throw out an adult magazine that was confiscated by the principal, but naturally they look through it out of curiosity. In this magazine it contained a statistic about the percentage of high schoolers who had well...done it...After debating if the statistic seemed reasonable, Shirogane and Chika admit that they're clean but Kaguya well...she's had experience (which for some reason I did not find all that surprising), and said that her first experience was...*with her fucking baby nephew and farm animals*. I had to rewind this section a few times just to make sure I was hearing it right and cracked so many "Sweet Home Alabama" jokes until she mentioned that her nephew was a kid. Which uh...*FBI OPEN UP*. However as it turns out, Kaguya thought that "doing it" had just meant a kiss (and quite literally nothing else, which was a relief), and Chika had to explain to her what it actually meant. Chika is not so innocent as she seems (and she has her own dark side that really surprised me, gave me Sayori from DDLC vibes). Shirogane and Kaguya engage in a game of 20 questions in an effort to try to trick the other in admitting their feelings for each other, but it ultimately goes no where. In the final skit for this episode, they finally start making an effort to develop Kaguya's character. She decides to walk to school one day after her car gets a flat tire (which she did herself), in the hopes that she'd cross paths with Shirogane. However, while walking, she comes across a crying little kid on her way to go meet him and she makes the choice to help the kid walk to school safely. This was a nice moment for her character and does show she has a genuine nice side. No good deed goes unpunished in this anime as she does end up meeting Shirogane on the way to school and she hops on his bike with him as they race to school before the bell rings. The anime then dives into neko territory as there's a whole skit involving Shirogane and Kaguya putting on cat ears as they try to come up with ways to properly greet a visiting delegation from their school's sister academy in France. The three student council members then engage in a "forbidden word game" in an effort to determine who will go shopping for the needed supplies for the welcome gathering. Shirogane and Kaguya each plot to throw the game so that they can go shopping with each other (being the winner means you don't have to go shopping). In this particular skit, Chika shows a shockingly dark and deceptive side to her otherwise cheerful, bubbly and *mostly* innocent persona: she skillfully plays her two friends into saying their forbidden word by supposedly revealing how she feels left out when her friends tell secrets to each other and how much it hurts her to not feel included (Shirogane got her along this line of thought by asking her what she disliked in an effort for her to say her forbidden word). Chika ends up winning meaning the two love birds are slated for a little shopping date. Prior to this, there's a weird skit where Kaguya hews and haws on texting Shirogane, and Hayasaka hilariously forces the issue by having her call him. Shirogane answers but he's in the tub and Hayaska tries to force Kaguya to picture him in that setting. They confirm their plans, however it rains and Kaguya is forced to cancel (nothing seems to go right in terms of meaningful progress). They then host the French students, but as it turns out Shirogane is rather light on his French and can barley get past basic conversation while Kaguya and Chika are pretty much fluent (I have to say I took French back in grade school myself so I found this skit enjoyable). One of the French students goes over to him and heavily insults him (to somehow test his resolve), but this painfully doesn't work as Shirogane knows very little. Kaguya then deep fries the girl with her own verbal slavo, and I wish it we got a translation fort it. It would've been good. But this also hints at what I believe is Kaguya's troubled past and her former persona in which she was cold and mean to basically everyone which we've seen bits and pieces of that throughout the episodes. Afterwards, Shirogane thanks Kaguya for sticking up for him as he put 2 and 2 together that the girl was roasting him. It's then Kaguya's turn to offer romantic advice as Nagisa goes to her for advice on how to break up with her boyfriend, who Shirogane helped encourage to ask her out in the first place. Like Shirogane, Kaguya has no romantic experience either, but she does offer her some good advice on being patient and seeing the finer qualities in him. However, in doing so we get a glimpse into Kaguya's worldview and reveals the reasons she has fallen in love with Shirogane, in which she admires how hardworking he is, which is nice. We then get some more Chika-Shirogane time as Shirogane tries to train for the school's upcoming volleyball tournament but epically fails. Chika, through back-breaking and hilarious shenanigans, is eventually able to train Shirogane to be a half-decent player so he doesn't embarrass himself in front of the whole school (and Kaguya of course). I was still musing that it'd be funny if Chika and Shirogane ended up together, and this skit didn't do anything to pour water on the idea for me, but I know it won't happen (probably). Later Shirogane and Kaguya actually seem to make some decent progress towards getting together after they agree to walk together under an umbrella during a rainstorm when Kaguya doesn't have a ride. After the shenanigans part of them trying to manipulate the other into opening their umbrella for the other (which the whole situation is resolved by Chika just handing them a spare, and it's in this episode where we get the funny yet scary scene where Chika jump scares Kaguya), it was honestly a cute scene. Halfway into the anime we're introduced to what I believe to be the final member of the student council: Ishigami, who is the council's treasurer. While he did make an appearance in the anime earlier, it was rather brief and we didn't even get to see his face. He's a hardcore introvert and *deathly* afraid of Kaguya as he believes she's going to kill him (I honestly can't blame him, Kaguya does seem like she's one bad day away from stabbing someone. Funny enough there is a little skit about this when Kaguya and Chika prank them). Reason being revealed to us the audience was that he picked up on Kaguya's crush on Shirogane. Despite her feeble attempts to deny it, she forces his silence through her yandere-like stare. Ishigami goes to ask Shirogane if he can resign from his position since he fears for his life, but Shirogane talks him out of it, though he still suspects Kaguya has it out for him as she does subtlety threaten him to not resign. Chika tries to do a group activity with everyone by having them a psyche test which is supposed to reveal what a person likes (or in this case, *who* they like). Shirogane and Kaguya try to use it as an opportunity to extract a confession from the other, but it really goes no where as Shirogane lies and apparently reveals that he has a "little sister complex", Ishigami supposedly has a crush on Kaguya (which Kaguya seems to entertain for a brief moment before ruling it out. Ouch), and Kaguya of course also lying about her answer. Then there's a whole quiz that's supposed to reveal how much flowers you'd get someone, with Shirogane saying he'd get a truckload and Kaguya answers a bouquet. Oof on Shirogane's part. Kaguya then tries to get her senpai to notice her and so she employees the aid of her assistant, Hayasaka, to do her nails. Shirogane goes pretty much the whole day without saying anything, leaving Kaguya disheartened, but he tries to complement her nails but fails to find the words. Kaguya still takes the W in this situation. Nagisa's boyfriend, Tsubasa, returns to ask advice on how to hold Nagisa's hand. Shirogane gives him a long winded and complex proposal, but Chika overhears and gives him the advice he needs which is to just let it happen which works out well. Shirogane and Ishigami then discuss budgeting for the other student clubs, and Ishigami becomes *extremely based* and proposes brutal budget cuts on the clubs as a means for punishing the guys in the clubs for splitting their time away from their girlfriends. Shirogane suggests Ishigami join another club, as Kaguya is in archery and Chika in table top. This leads Ishigami to hilariously roasting them, in which they overhear. In the iconic scene, Chika hits Ishigami over the head with a newspaper repeatedly while Kaguya roasts him back, leaving poor Ishigami emotionally distraught as he checks out for the day. There's also a whole skit where Kaguya discovers she has the sense of humor of someone from elementary school as she laughs hysterically at the word "weiner" which Chika unexpectedly uses for a bit of fun herself as she tries to get her to laugh in front of Shirogane. Kaguya dodges the attempts pretty well until Chika gets frustrated and just says it. I'll admit, I too find the word "weiner" funny and was laughing throughout this whole skit as well. Kaguya then tries to pull a power move by befriending Shirogane's younger sister, Kei. Though Kei seems to not really like her brother all that much (but I suppose its par for the course as far as siblings go. No, not the Alabama kind!). Kaguya tries to befriend her but she gets along far better with Ishigami (who is no social butterfly himself either) and Chika (who is best girl). As midterms roll around, Shirogane and Kaguya then compete against each other for the top scoring spot, and both really have their pride riding on this. During this time, Kaguya sees that Ishigami is struggling in his classes and really has no intention of taking the midterms seriously. I wasn't personally expecting this but Kaguya (forcibly) sits him down and makes him study, and as a result he marginally improves and barely passes while Shirogane retains his #1 spot. In what was initially a very cool scene, while Kaguya was clearly swallowing her pride, Shirogane played the whole thing off as it was no big deal and said that him finishing first just made him feel more relieved than anything and that the whole thing doesn't excite him anymore before walking off. I gotta say, that made me gain respect for him but it was somewhat scuttled when he had has little celebration scene (not saying that ruined the moment and it was totally fine but his initial cool reaction unintentionally made me gain respect for him). Kaguya then has a tearful coping session with Hayasaka as she comforts her for not surpassing Shirogane. Meanwhile poor Chika slipped in her ranking. By this point in the anime, it had done everything it can to make me like and appreciate Kaguya more, but it backpedals as there's this whole charade when a big rainstorm hits. Shirogane desperately needs to get to work and Kaguya hews and haws on the prospect of offering him a ride and if she supposedly offered him one, it'd supposedly give him a leg up in their little "war". Shirogane is too prideful to ask for help and Chika being eliminated as a resolution option fairly early on. Eventually Shirogane decides to power through the rainstorm on his bike in an effort to get to work on time. Honestly, Kaguya should've just offered him the ride and the whole skit made her come across as still petulant despite her meaningful character growth over the last few episodes. Then things...really take a turn downhill. So Kaguya gets sick and Chika proposes the student council paying her a visit to check up on her. It gets decided that really only of them should go. Ishigami plainly doesn't want to go while Chika and Shirogane do, and they do a card game called "concentration" (basically you try to guess the right card that's faced down on the table). Shirogane picks up on Chika's underhanded tactics in which they're using a marked deck so she can better keep track of them, and Shirogane ends up winning and earning the right to visit Kaguya. Hayaska adopts this dubious Scottish accent and shows her to Kaguya's room, the whole time she makes it patently clear that Shirogane could...uh...take advantage of her....not sure why that's being brought up and Shirogane honestly does not seem to be that kind of character 9 episodes in. Were then shown Kaguya in which she has essentially degenerated to the mentality of a 5 year old (she's literally baby). Hayasaka leaves and Shiroganes tries to just give Kaguya her present in leave (like a normal person would), but Kaguya, in her feverish state, uh...tries to pull the move herself and ends up snoozing with Shirogane...in her bed...while she's sick...(now they don't smash and nothing sexual happens, but the insinuation of the whole scene is...uncomfortable to say the least). Kaguya wakes up, recovered from her fever, and she freaks out when she sees Shirogane in bed with her. After trying to explain the situation to her, Kaguya throws everything in her bedroom at him and he frantically leaves. Things are rightfully awkward between the two and on the surface they try to move past it, but deep down they're both seething about the issue. Kaguya is mad...that Shirogane didn't pull a move back when she was sick...while Shirogane is mad at Kaguya because he doesn't get why she's mad (I'm 100% on Shirogane's side on this). This manifests when there's a whole debate about who should eat the last slice of cake, and Shirogane and Kaguya try to get the other to eat it. Kaguya goes to Nagisa and Shirogane goes to Ishigami for advice on how to resolve the situation, with the debate falling along the usual boys vs girls line. I have to say, Ishigami is based again with the advice he gives Shirogane. Eventually, the two resolve their differences when Shirogane admits that he did touch Kaguya on the lips with his finger and Kaguya does it back to him, calling the two even. The Student Council then decides to that their activity to do this summer is watch the summer festival fireworks. However, it could prove difficult for them to get together as Chika has travel plans. After realizing Shirogane has Twitter (pre Elon Musk here), Kaguya joins it and spends the whole skit asking Hayaska basic Twitter questions as she's just trying to take a bath and relax (tending to a rich girl like Kaguya's every whim can get stressful, poor Hayasaka). There's another weird skit thrown in when Chika returns home to Japan and enters a ramen shop. There's some "Ramen Connoisseur" who is also there and just internally roasts Chika until she eats her ramen, praising her for her "exquisite taste". I'm honestly not sure what the point of this was but yeah that happened. Shirogane and Kaguya spend the whole summer trying to invite each other but play chicken on trying to make the first move. We then get some further insight into Kaguya's life in which she was neglected by her father and had high expectations placed upon her, which really did make he feel sorry for her. This continues on into the season finale. The Summer Festival is around the corner and Kaguya's father summons Kaguya to his estate and forbids her from leaving for unknown reasons. Kaguya, who was seriously looking forward to the outing with her friends, sends out a depressing tweet wishing she could see the fireworiks. Hayaska teams up with the rest of the student council and rescues Kaguya from the compound and tries to get her to meet with the rest of the group, but she just barely misses the firework show. Shirogane finds a despondent Kaguya in an alleyway, and the student council crams in a cab as they race toward a firework show across town, and on the way across the bridge they see the show, fufilling Kaguya's wish. While Kaguya is extremely grateful for Shirogane pulling an MVP move with the cab, she is too flustered to say anything. Shirogane is also equally flustered, for the fact that during the whole episode, he was actually a lot more cringeworthy. Kaguya tries to chase Shirogane down to get him to talk and that's the final scene when she finally catches up to him as a crowd of our favorite side characters and other randoms forms behind them. Ok, now for the characters! (largely sticking to the main cast). Kaguya: At first, I didn't particularly like her character. Early on she was billed as the co-star of the show and we're supposed to want her to get with Shirogane (and vice versa), however her performance in the first episode really made her unlikeable and I was on the Chika-Shirogane train (which I sort of still am, but purely because I think it'd be funny). However, as we get to know her and some of her backstory, I did find myself feeling sympathetic for her and she does a number of good and wholesome things that really warm me up to her. She does veer off and do something stupid or questionable that sours my view on her for the episode from time to time, but she makes up for it by the next episode. I understand that nobody is perfect and I think that's a big thing the anime tries to get at, so seeing Kaguya's journey into being a better person does have me rooting for her. She does have a sinister dark side and I imagine it'll get explored down the line as we've gotten bits and pieces about her upbringing which explains her character. Essentially: she was rough around the edges, but by the end I've softened my view towards her significantly. Shirogane: I liked his character. He's a hardworking, ordinary guy who worked his ass off to be successful and he's honestly a kind person at heart. Especially in the final episode when he helped Kaguya fulfil her wish of seeing the fire works. It was certainly his finest moment of the season. He always means well and he's a character you can root for. I did question for a while what he saw in Kaguya but after hearing his reasoning it does make sense and I can see how it happened. I do wish we get a scene where they realize they have feelings for each other. But as far as other anime protagonists go, he's rather on the bland side, but he's certainly a likeable character. He's not overpowered or some Gary Stu and he generally struggles in some areas but he's able to have the support of his friends to overcome his challenges. Chika: Best girl of the anime. She's sweet, wholesome, funny and just an all around bundle of joy. Some of the most hilarious moments in the anime are because of her. Now she does have something devious, dark and maybe even tragic lurking beneath the surface. There's a couple of times in the anime (and even during her special outro in the third episode) where she talks about the flaws of society and has a rather dark view on it (which don't get me wrong, is certainly justified), and during the forbidden word skit she does open up about how she feels left out at times, though whether this was a skillfully crafted front in order to win or she was being genuine is kind of hard to tell. However, she is certainly an underrated genius when it comes to games and uses a lot of clever and dirty tactics in order to win. Ishigami: I really liked him! He had some pretty based takes and I found him to be hilarious. He also had a lot of great and funny moments throughout the show. However, he certainly has some pent-up anger and rage particularly towards relationships (and that's another reason why I like his character, I can empathize with him on a level) and I'm curious why he's that way. It is my understanding that gets dived into in the next season, so I'll eagerly await what started this man's villain arc! Hayasaka: She's pretty goated. She puts up with a lot of Kaguya's crap but comes through for her a lot. Hayasaka maybe Kaguya's maid but she really is a lot more then that. She's essentially the only family that Kaguya has and she really does come across as a big sister to her. It also seems that she goes to school herself so I'm curious to how this whole arrangement works out between them. Maybe it'll get explored but I think she's an interesting character and she has a lot of good moments. My journey watching Love is War got off to a rough start, but despite that I generally found myself enjoying most of the anime. There were a few times watching that had me genuinely confused or weirded out but those moments were few and far between. I do think the whole premise of Shirogane and Kaguya trying to get the other to confess their feelings for each other is a very interesting premise, and though they both engage in some stupid charades with each other at times, I can understand why they think like that as I myself once thought along similar lines. We were all young once too, and these two characters are blatantly inexperienced when it comes to romance and I do think in their quest to get them to confess their feelings, they are becoming better people especially Kaguya. It also made for some good comedy and had a wholesome moment thrown in here and there. I'll also say that while I found the narrator to be funny, early on I did not as he felt a little overpowering when I was trying to focus in on the characters, but his footprint in the anime does slowly decrease. I'm not sure if they're trying to copy off how it was done in the manga, I haven't read it, but I can't say the narrator schtick was my personal cup of tea. They took a more measured approach to his commentary in the later episodes and that felt like the right thing for the narrator. I do find this whole notion that if whoever confesses their love is the "submissive" partner to be interesting. Clearly, Shirogane and Kaguya are not like that. They're more...dominant for a lack of a better word. So if I had to predict how this whole series ends, unless one of them breaks or gets their secret outed, I think they'll both confess at the same time and write it off as being equals as I think the show is trying to subtlety have the moral be about balance in relationships while making fun of how silly young people are in winning over their crush. Love is a battlefield. One which yours's truly has bled and lost out on many times, but seeing Kaguya and Shirogane's shenanigans reminded me of a time when life was simpler. It reminded me of when I waged my own battles for similar causes. There were aspects of the show that reminded me of myself, and if an anime can do that, it has my respect. Love is War isn't a perfect anime and it has some weird and strange moments. It can get a little frustrating with the characters sometimes, but the battlefield of love is often unpredictable...and frustrating. That all being said, I'm eager to keep watching and see what happens in the next season! I really got into it after a point and I truly enjoyed the season!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 11, 2023
Darling in the FranXX
(Anime)
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*Spoiler Warning*
Continuing my little trend of checking out anime with "divisive" reputations, I decided to check out Darling In The Franxx to see if it too was worthy of praise or scorn. This was my first mecha anime, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but I went in with an open mind and willing to let Darling In The Franxx take me on the ride it was promising. So how was it? For the most part, I enjoyed it! It was certainly a "horny" anime but the story was very well crafted. The execution at the end did falter a little bit ... but I thought that it ultimately concluded everything nicely. Darling In The Franxx was an interesting anime that blended action, drama, romcom and sci-fi all together into one. It was an anime that had what I thought was a really good "coming of age story". It honed in on exploring human relationships and this whole concept of "soulmates” within a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world overrun by massive robotic aliens known as "Klaxosaurs". I would actually argue that the anime was at its best when it was focusing on these elements. While I thought the animation was good (if not pretty standard for what I've seen thus far), I felt that a lot of action sequences were a little too fast paced for me (and I say this as an action lover). I had to re-watch certain bits here and there just so I could properly process what had happened. It has also that one sort of typical action trope where there's a character that does one move and takes out two dozen enemies in one hit. While it was certainly a beautiful spectacle to see, this felt overused at times and there wasn't a whole lot of 1 on 1 "Franxx Vs Klaxosaur" action unless it was one of the characters trying to take on a massive Klaxosaur. The final fight in the anime also did this "one hit" thing a lot in which they would just take out dozens of VIRM's spaceships out with one hit, but I digress. There were plenty of good action scenes throughout the show that were certainly enjoyable but they did this "one hit" routine a lot throughout the first 6 episodes and the show was kind of dragging for me until they started focusing on the more "slice of life" elements. The character designs were cool. I liked the designs of the characters and their Franxxs which really did serve to be a visual symbol of the two pilots together as one, which I liked. The only design that is worth criticizing was "Strelizia's final form" which was essentially a giant version of Zero Two as her own Franxx Suit (I'll go more into the plot elements of this later in the review.) While I don't think the design was necessarily bad it was a little goofy. Just seeing a giant metal Zero Two flying through space was weird but I came to just accept it and moved on. I wish they could've done something more with it and considering how the Franxxs are supposed to symbolize the two pilots together as one, the "final form" should've been something profound and something that incorporated both Hiro and Zero Two together in someway rather than it just entirely being Zero Two. I was a little disappointed when I saw it honestly but it didn't kill the show for me like how it did for some people. The music in Darling In The Franxx is nothing short of exceptional. It has a phenomenal intro: "Kiss of Death". It's a great somber and melodic song and it does a great job of setting the tone for the show. It has a great beat which is carried by the electronic music that breaks out towards the middle and it's just a great banger of a song after that. The visuals also do a very good job of complimenting the intro and conveying what the show is going to be about, though I did pick up on their not so subtle clues regarding Hiro's and Zero Two's fates (While I expected Zero Two to die, I was 50-50 on Hiro until they changed the visuals halfway through the show). The song is also a great metaphor for the story of the anime ironically enough if you decide to look up the lyrics and understand their meaning. AmaLee and Studio Yuraki did their own covers on Kiss of Death and I encourage you to give it a listen. You won't be disappointed. Darling In The Franxx has 4 outros: Torikago, Manatsu no Setsuna, Hitori and Escape. I personally liked Torikago the most, it has a catchy and emotional beat and I loved the guitar and drums in it. It also does a good job of hinting at the rivalry between Ichigo and Zero Two. What I found interesting was that other than Hitori, the other 3 outros exclusively focused on the girls of squad 13, with them in school girl outfits doing various things. In the second outro they're all kids just goofing around which was wholesome. Hitori, on the other hand, finally shows us the full story of The Beast and the Prince, a picture book that plays a major role in the story of Darling In The Franxx (it basically is the story of the anime!). Overall the visuals for the intro and outros were good and enjoyable. Now going into the story of Darling In The Franxx...and given that it's 24 episode, there's quite a bit of ground to cover so if you don't want to read the plot summarization and commentary, just scroll down a bit. The opening scene itself is very important for the context of the whole story. It opens with Hiro and Zero Two narrating to us about the jian bird, a one-winged bird that must find a partner in order to be complete so that it can fly. We're then shown a cloaked figure standing in front of a large tree in the middle of winter before we're taken to the story's present day. Now an overview on the world of Darling In The Franxx: in the distant future, humanity has been forced to the brink of extinction by an invasion of these titanic-sized robotic aliens known as "Klaxosaurs". They are forced to hide in these domed cities called "plantations" and the only means of fighting them is by sending out these units known as "parasites" who operate these mecha suits called "Franxxs". The parasites themselves are...you guessed it: teenagers! (Now the set up sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? I didn't drop the word "titanic" on accident). What's an interesting twist to the set up and where the horny elements start coming in is that these Franxxs can only be piloted in a boy-girl pair working in unison. Okay fair enough. However the actual cockpit set up is uh...interesting. Basically, it looks like its doggy style sex. I'm not making this up. The show actually addresses why the Franxxs need a boy-girl pair to operate but the specifics of the positioning is essentially left to be implied and we'll get into that later. We're first introduced to Zero Two, who is being escorted to Plantation 13 along with Dr. Franxx, the inventor of the mecha suites of the same name. We're quickly shown that Zero Two is a bit on the snarky and rebellious side as she quickly runs off on her own, much to the chagrin of her handler, "Nana '', and Zero Two's heavily wounded partner. We're then introduced to Hiro, who is coping with his failure of an aptitude test to determine his ability to become a Franxx pilot. He had failed to "connect" with his partner, Naomi. Hiro had run off on his own, skipping out on his fellow classmates' graduation ceremony. He goes to a lake where he crosses paths with Zero Two, who is swimming nude in the water. After a bit of an awkward first encounter (largely on Hiro's part, Zero Two does not seem to be embarrassed in the slightest), we're also shown that Zero Two does not appear to be exactly human. She looks like an ordinary girl for the most part...except that she has horns (so she's literally horny! *Ba dum tss*). Hiro doesn't seem to mind her horns and Zero Two tries to rizz him up before her escort catches up to them. Zero Two's partner tells Hiro to stay away from her as she's literally dangerous. Hiro reflects on the encounter and goes to leave the plantation. He runs into Naomi who is also leaving for parts unknown. She kind of goes off on Hiro for being down the dumps and throws her stuff at him, saying she won't need it. She wishes him the best and boards the transport out of the plantation. As Hiro debates about whether to get on the next transport out, a giant Klaxosaur attacks and seemingly kills Naomi (though in the next episode we are told that she supposedly survived). The graduation ceremony gets disrupted and Zero Two and her partner in Strelizia get dispatched to face the Klaxosaur as Hiro tries to outrun the battle. He runs into the downed Strelizia and sees Zero Two's partner dead. Zero Two is wounded as well and though she seems unconcerned about the loss of her partner, she vows to kill the Klaxosaur. Hiro volunteers himself as Zero Two's newest partner. She declares Hiro to be her new "darling" and kisses him, activating Strelizia as it easily defeats the Klaxosaur as everyone watches on in amazement. Meanwhile, Dr. Franxx reveals that Zero Two is unique and has gained a reputation as a "partner killer" as no partner that she's ever been with has ridden with her more than 3 times before their death. Even though Hiro piloted with Zero Two in Strelizia, the first time he had been able to pilot ever, he has no memory of actually piloting it. Many of Hiro's squamates (mostly Zorome, who seems to be billed as the "rival" character early on") are skeptical that Hiro also piloted since they know he hasn't been able to pair up with anyone before and that Zero Two is apparently strong enough to pilot a Franxx on her own. Zero Two gets assigned to stay with squad 13 in their dorm for the time being, and mostly everyone except Hiro are wary of her. Ichigo, the squad leader, also seems to particularly dislike her because of her not-so-subtle crush on Hiro and the fact that Zero Two blatantly rizzes him up in front of everyone (which is entertaining to see, don't get me wrong!). Though given Zero Two's horned appearance and colorful personality, along with her reputation as a "partner killer", everyone has their own reasons to be rightfully suspicious of her. Nana and Hachi, the caretakers and supervisors for squad 13, decide to give Hiro another chance to prove himself as a Franxx pilot, but turn down his request to ride again with Zero Two. Ichigo promptly volunteers to pair up with Hiro, and Zorome volunteers himself and his partner, Miku, for a mock battle. Though Hiro and Ichigo are able to connect at first, the connection falters and they force a timeout. Hiro tells Ichigo what he last remembers before he got into Strelizia , he tells Ichigo that he kissed Zero Two and that it seemed to have worked afterwards. Somewhat embarrassingly, Ichigo decides to kiss Hiro herself, but nothing happens. Zorome and Miku start bickering while Hiro loses his confidence altogether and Ichigo briefly takes control of the Franxx to end the mock battle in a draw. Though Hiro tearfully apologizes to Ichigo for failing her, she roasts him saying that his performance was "awful" (damn...). Following the mock battle, Hiro's fate is still left up in the air as his squad mates are assigned their first mission: clear out a group of Klaxosaurs that have infested a magma energy mine. Prior to embarking on the mission, Mitsuru and Ikuno's connection falters and they're unable to start up their Franxx (mostly caused by Ikuno apparently not "feeling well"). It seems that the two don't quite have the best relationship as Mitsuru muses that they're not "compatible" (though they would've gone through the same tests that Hiro went through so if they were paired with each other they're clearly compatible to some degree. It just seems that Mitsuru is being a dick, which he kind of is). The rest of the squad descends down into the mine and things go well at first until they are eventually surrounded and pinned down. Zero Two asks to assist Hiro as her pilot, but Nana and Hachi refuse to pair her with Hiro. Mitsuru, who has his own ax to grind with Hiro for some reason, offers to pilot with Zero Two. Though Zero Two ominously warns Mitsuru that only her darling Hiro is the one who can properly ride with her, Mitsuru nevertheless presses forward. Mitsuru and Zero Two easily sweep aside the Klaxosaurs and saves their squad, but when Mitsuru experiences an apparent adrenaline rush and wants Zero Two to kick it up a notch...she obliges and delivers on that request...with the result nearly killing Mutsuru which puts forth the idea that Hiro may be the only one to ride with Zero Two and emerged unscathed (though he has two more rides to go in this three ride curse). As a result of Zero Two's actions with Mitsuru who slowly recovers, Nana and Hachi order Zero Two to go back to the front lines. Zero Two prepares to leave, seemingly shelving Hiro's dream of being a Franxx pilot for good. Another Klaxosaur attacks plantation 13 and the remaining squad members are dispatched to face it, but they're left no match for it. Hiro decides to risk it all and decides to commit to being Zero Two's partners despite everyone's warnings. He catches up to Zero Two and pledges to be her co-pilot. The two evade the guards and pilot Strelizia and kill the Klaxosaur, saving the day and affirming to everyone that Hiro can indeed pilot with Zero Two. Hiro then affirms that he'll continue to pilot with Zero Two until he dies, much to the disapproval of his squadmates. Plantation 13 is then set to rendezvous with Plantation 26 for a "kiss" which is just a transfer of magma energy. However, as Klaxosaurs are attracted to this energy, this will make the plantations a beacon for them. Hiro is finally accepted as a member of squad 13 and begins to fit in, but his friend and bunkmate, Goro, has begun to notice Hiro's deteriorating health and a mysterious blue tumor that has been growing on his chest since he began riding with Zero Two. Hiro begs Goro to keep quiet about this condition and reluctantly agrees. Plantation 13 "kisses" with Plantation 26 and the two squads team up to form a defense, though squad 26 has misgivings due to prior mission experiences with Zero Two going off the rails and incurring unnecessary casualties. The night before the mission, Ichigo confronts Zero Two and asks her to take it easy with Hiro, though she nonchalantly shrugs her off which earns her a slap from Ichigo, who accuses her of not being human. Zero Two's eyes then flash red as her horns and asks Ichigo what being human means to her. Ichigo defeatedly walks off where she runs into Goro where she vents her frustration to him and continues to fear for Hiro's safety. As Ichigo breaks down crying, Goro seems at a loss at what to do, as it's been subtly shown that he may be interested in Ichigo himself. Despite all the warnings and the fact that Zero Two is essentially a walking red flag and this would be the deathly magical "third ride", Hiro affirms his desire to ride with Zero Two. The Klaxosaurs attack during the energy transfer and do battle with Squads 13 and 26. Though the minor Klaxosaurs are dispatched easily enough, a giant Klaxosaur is formed that overpowers Squad 26. Squad 13 rescues Squad 26 and sets up Strelizia for the final blow, but they fail and Hiro collapses from exhaustion. Just as the curse of the third ride seems to claim Hiro, he sees how Zero Two desperately continues on fighting. This stirs Hiro and motivates to come back from the brink of death, purging his tumor and helping defeat the giant Klaxosaur, saving the day once again. Dr. Franxx, who was observing everything, muses that Hiro may finally be able to give Zero Two what she has always wanted, though Zero Two bitterly replies that she has to kill more Klaxosaurs in order to obtain it. With the first six episodes out of the way, we tend to get out of the "squad 13 fights together against giant Klaxosaurs to save the day" formula and more into the "slice of life" stuff where I believed this anime was at its strength. We get our token "beach episode" as Squad 13 is rewarded with some time off for their heroics. Zero Two also officially joins Squad 13. They have their outing at the beach and everyone observes how physically intimate Zero Two is with Hiro. The guys pull Hiro aside and ask him what the deal is about "love" and "kissing" as Zero Two always talks about it, especially around Hiro. The squad then stumbles upon the ruins of an old town from around the time modern civilization collapsed. This confused the squad (except for Zero Two) as they had always thought civilization had existed in the plantations. Zero Two then explains that humanity lived on the surface of the Earth prior to the Klaxosaurs. Overall it seems that Zero Two shockingly knows a lot about the world while the rest of the squad knows very little, but then again they were bred to be just Franxx pilots and nothing more. Literally. During the exploration, Kokoro finds a book about babies (something that will become relevant later on). Ichigo and Hiro then go for a semi-romantic walk on the beach at night as Ichigo almost confesses her love to Hiro, but the shooting stars cut her confession short. We then get into some shenanigans between the boy and girl members of the squad as they have a falling out after the girl's get their uniforms destroyed by Klaxosaur acid during a battle. Miku puts forth the idea that the boys and girls should live separately and eventually the girls run with the idea, splitting their dorm in half with there being a boy's and girl's side. During the feud, Kokoro bumps into Mitsuru and tries to connect with him, but he generally brushes her off. After some juvenile back and forth trolling, Zero Two steps in and epically pranks both sides which leads to the situation getting a little out of control and the adults needing to step in. Miku runs off to a sealed part of the dorm and comes across the old bunkbeds of the last squad 13 who were presumably killed in battle a long time ago. The gravity of the situation hits them and the boys and girls make up, ending the great gender feud. Squad 13 is then tasked yet again with taking on a giant Klaxosaur that threatens the plantation. They take on the Klaxosaur, but Ichigo and Goro are caught by it. Goro ejects Ichigo to safety and becomes trapped within the Klaxosaur as he weighs his options. We also get into Goro's backstory, in which he had been friends with Hiro and Ichigo since they were kids. Goro wished to be alone and often fought with the other kids (and by the looks of things, routinely got his ass kicked). That was when he met Ichigo who offered to team up and stand by his side. Since then Goro had indeed developed feelings for Ichigo and has watched from the sidelines as she hopelessly pursued Hiro. Goro then resolves that in order to destroy the Klaxosaur, he needs to self-destruct his Franxx. He implies his plan to the rest of squad 13, who rush in to try to save him. Ichigo convinces her squad to bring her along and is able to get into the Klaxosaur, swimming through its blood to reach Goro and get into the Franxx, forcing Goro to turn off the self-destruct sequence. Goro and Ichigo are able to pilot their Franxx out of the Klaxosaur and jettison the spare energy tanks, exploding the Klaxosaur. In the aftermath, Goro confesses to Ichigo, who doesn't know how to take his confession. Goro plays it cool and says he doesn't expect an answer right away. Following Squad 13's repeated victories, The Seven Sages (the people who run human society from their space station in Earth's upper atmosphere who we've seen occasionally throughout the anime scheming and plotting, led by a figure called "Papa"), decide to award them again by allowing them into the city to be given medals. This is a huge honor for them as the city is off limits to them. The squad takes their trip into the city, get their medals from one of the adults representing the sages. After the ceremony, the girls convince Nana to let them walk around for a bit, and the city is largely a ghost town. Zorome wanders off on his own and runs into an adult who recovers him after he falls off a building. Zorome seems to recognize the old woman in some way and she gets a glimpse into the life that he and his other squadmates have always fantasized about, and it's not quite what he was expecting. For a character that you're not supposed to like at first, this episode did a good job in giving him some character development as he reflects on his life and his partnership with Miku. The woman also implies that Zorome and the others won't ever grow to be adults. One of the creepiest things about the episode was that the woman's partner and her never interact "because their no need to", and that to experience emotions like happiness, they put themselves in this tanning bed like device. That weirded me out for whatever reason (though it is a shockingly accurate portrayal of adulthood. I kid, I kid). The authorities arrive to pick up Zorome and they suspiciously treat him like he has the black death and the experience fades from Zorome's mind over time. In Squad 13's next mission, Mitsuru gets his turn in the spotlight as the anime begins to shine light on his character and why he's so moody and seems to have it out for Hiro. During their mission to safeguard a base, Mitsuru passes out, which breaks his connection with Ikuno and requiring the rest of the squad to save them. His condition is partly attributed to his past traumatic ride with Zero Two and the side effects of a surgery he had underwent when he was a child to boost his prospects of being a more capable parasite. We get Mitsuru's backstory in which he was the total opposite of the brooding and anti-social character we've come to know, but he was actually quite social and even nice. He idolized Hiro (like fanboyed over him, hard) and he made a promise with Hiro that they would ride together when they were older and Mitsuru did the surgery in hopes of being better compatible despite its low survival rate. After Mitsuru came out of the surgery, Hiro had apparently forgotten their promise which shattered Mitsuru's worldview on him and slowly turned him bitter and anti-social. In keeping with the theme of broken promises in this particular episode, due to Mitsuru's increasing issues with Ikuno, Nana proposes a partner switch. Kokoro, the sweet bubbly pretty girl who is paired with Futoshi, also a sweet bubbly, but a chubby guy, decides to go back on her promise to always be with Futoshi and go with bad boy Mitsuru, which breaks poor Futoshi's heart (it's an evil world we live in man!). This was a bit surprising as I always considered Futoshi and Kokoro to be a good pair together (and even seemed to like his attempts at flirting). Also an important plot point that I didn't pay much mind to at the time that ends up becoming relevant later is that Ikuno asks to pair up with Ichigo for a simulated ride, but it is ultimately unsuccessful. Squad 13 does battle with another big Klaxosaur with Futoshi being paired with Ikuno and Kokoro with Mitsuru. While Ikuno and Futoshi seem to get along well enough, Mitsuru has hard time maintaining his connection with Kokoro, so much so that when the pair fail to reach the core of the Klaxosaur, Mitsuru gives up, partly because he's still reeling from his shattered promise with Hiro which is why he has a problem with connecting with his partners. Kokoro gives him a good motivational "get your shit together" speech and tries to pilot their Franxx solo until Mitsuru reconnects, providing the opening to the Klaxosaur core for Strelizia to destroy. Afterwards, Futoshi throws hands with Mitsuru for putting her in danger, but Mitsuru pledges to protect Kokoro, mostly assuaging his feelings. What's a nice touch in the episodes afterwards until they change the intro up, when they show you the partner pairs for each of the Franxx, they update it to show Kokoro with Mitsuru and Ikuno with Futoshi which I thought was a nice touch. Squad 13 is then sent back to their old home: The Garden, to run some "tests", though it quickly becomes apparent that it's to test Zero Two, who has been noticeably become increasingly moody over the lasts few episodes: going from borderline ignoring Hiro to being all lovey dovey (essentially giving him the toxic girlfriend treatment). While at The Garden, they run into a squad known as "The Nines" who bare a striking similarity to Zero Two. Ironic enough, Zero Two used to be a member of their squad. As it also turns out, their squad leader "Nine Alpha" taunts Squad 13 and talks smack about Zero Two to them. He dangles some juicy information in front of Ichigo about Zero Two, which is shown to later take him up on his offer to hear him out in which he again warns that Zero Two is not to be trusted and is dangerous. Hiro and the others wander the facility in an attempt to locate Naomi, who supposedly survived the Klaxosaur attack in Episode 1 but suspiciously hasn't been heard from since. We then get flashbacks throughout the episode about how Hiro was more of a "free-thinker" and asked questions about the world and why other children would often disappear and never be heard from again as he was growing up, only be shut down and ignored and receiving candies for participating in the adults' various tests that they would preform on him, which only serves to further question the adults' motives and continues to reinforce that we're not seeing the full truth here (which we aren't). A group of Klaxosaurs attack and Squad 13 is sent out to face them. This is when Zero Two, who again has been increasingly unstable over the last few episodes, completely goes off the rails and begins going berzerk attacking the Klaxosaurs as she goes on about the need to kill more of them in order to somehow become human. They defeat the Klaxosaurs and Hiro attempts to ask Zero Two what she was talking about, but she goes back to giving him the cold shoulder. Ichigo learns by eavesdropping on Nana and Hachi that something called the "Saurification" process between Zero Two and Hiro has intensified, meaning Hiro's "yellow blood cell" count which helps determine one's ability to pilot a Franxx (think Midichlorians from Star Wars) has increased to dangerous levels. Another wave of Kalxosaurs attack and Squad 13 is sent out to head them off once more. A rabid Zero Two begins to push further and exert more control on the Franxx, and attacks Hiro when he tries to calm her down as she proclaims that she was using Hiro as a tool to achieve her dream of truly becoming human (ouch! Though in fairness she has also basically said this to Ichigo a few episodes before, by saying whether Hiro ultimately lives up to being her partner is really up to him and she generally seems indifferent towards his fate). However as she tries to devour Hiro (presumably how she has devoured her other partners in the past), some of Hiro's old memories are unlocked and this finally begins to answer some burning questions you may have had up to this point in the show. As it turns out, Hiro and Zero Two met a long time ago when they were little kids. Both were raised in The Garden. Hiro was a successful test subject of the Parasite program and had become friends with most of his peers, Ichigo and Goro among them. It's revealed that the children were only referred to their code names and Hiro had given everyone's names. We're also shown Hiro's side of his falling out with Mitsuru, in which Hiro did indeed make a promise to pilot a Franxx with him one day. However, Hiro's questions about what happened to certain kids disappearing, certain concepts and questions about the outside world were often shutdown or ignored. One day, Hiro witnesses a red-skinned, horned-headed girl undergoing painful surgeries in a laboratory next to him as he undergoes his tests. This turns out to be Zero Two, and unfortunately these painful and abusive tests administered by Dr. Franxx himself are used to study here astonishing regenerative abilities and are a constant routine for her. Her only source of comfort is a picture book called "The Beast and The Prince", which tells the story of a beast princess desiring to become human to be with her "darling" and one true love, the human prince. A witch grants this request, but with the prophecy that one day the princess's beast tendencies will take over and she will devour her lover. The prophecy mostly comes to pass, but just as the princess goes to devour the prince, she has an epiphany and decides to disappear, never to be found again. We get to see the full story in its picture book form play out in the Hitori outro in Episode 13. Hiro decides to break Zero Two out and they manage to break out of The Garden into the frozen wilderness, taking shelter in a forest. Hiro reads The Beast and The Prince as Zero Two had brought the book along with them, and Zero Two sees a parallel between their situation and the couple in the book and the two of them. Though she doesn't seem to understand English (yes I watched it dubbed), let alone really speak it, but Hiro calls Zero Two his "darling" like the couple does in the book, which makes Zero Two emotional and that is her first spoken word (that we know of). Additionally, Zero Two is wounded during their escape and in an effort to help tend to her wounds, Hiro...licks Zero Two's cut (again they were like like ten if not younger so you can't really fault them for this). Their time together is short-lived as they are later found and captured, with Hiro and Zero Two having their memories wiped, including his promise to Mitsuru about one day riding a Franxx with him. It was nice to get both character's perspectives on this particular matter and the heartbreaking circumstances meaning that neither one of them is at particular fault. This episode was probably one of the best in the whole series: it explains a lot about Zero Two's character, the fact that Hiro ingested Zero Two's blood when he licked her cut means he is now only compatible to ride with her as his compatibility to ride, while initially very good, declined over the years leading to the events of the present time. It was a very nice way to tie everything together and it was certainly an emotional episode. After seeing Zero Two's side of those memories and coming to realize that Hiro was her "darling" from the time they were kids, she stops trying to kill him but the damage to him as done as the rest of squad 13 separates them. Hiro is hospitalized and Ichigo forbids the two from seeing each other. Pretty much the rest of Squad 13 also turns against Zero Two as they block the two from seeing each other, despite their insistent requests to see each other, and Ichigo tries to get Zero Two off the squad entirely. Eventually the adults decide to transfer Zero Two back to her old squad to the nines. It's also revealed that there's going to be a massive operation taking place that Squad 13 will be involved in, so time is also a factor for Zero Two in her now flailing quest to see Hiro. Eventually, the rest of the squad comes to feel guilty about preventing Hiro and Zero Two from seeing each other, and Ichigo eventually relents and allows the two to talk (provided that they are there as well) to which Zero Two finds amicable. One problem for them though: Hiro decided to break out of his hospital room to try to go see her on his own, so when they bring Zero Two to Hiro's hospital room...well...she doesn't take it too well. When Hiro races back once he realizes Zero Two probably went looking for him, he finds Zero Two choking out Ichigo with the rest of the squad beat up. Hiro calls Zero Two a monster which seems to end their relationship as she goes back to ignoring him and leaves the squad. Hiro, visibly heartbroken, goes to talk to her one more time but is held back by Ichigo, who kisses him and confesses her own feelings for him finally, though Hiro doesn't seem to feel the same way (ouch...). Without a partner to ride with, Hiro stays behind as Squad 13 partakes in an operation to assault a place called "The Grand Crevasse" where a large number of Klaxosaurs are living. Zero Two operates Strelizia alone and operates as something as a berserker. Thanks to Squad 13's efforts as well as The Nines pulling off some MVP-level stuff, they're able to make headway against the seemingly endless horde of Klaxosaurs until a giant Klaxosaur arrives and annihilates planation 26. Squad 26 somewhat reluctantly make a suicide charge against the monster on Papa's orders, but fail to stop the Klaxosaur. The Klaxosaur makes it ways to Planation 13 and floods the interior with smaller Klaxosaurs that Squad 13 and Strelizia goes in to fight against. Things seem pretty bleak until Hiro arrives in a training Franxx. Ichigo, forcing her feelings aside, helps Hiro reach Zero Two to save her when she gets swamped by Klaxosaurs. Hiro makes his way to Zero Two and climbs into the cockpit and fits a feral Zero on the brink of full on insanity due to the stress of piloting a Franxx alone. Hiro and Zero Two have their heart to heart and confess their feelings for each other in a powerful and emotional scene, allowing them to power up their Franxx and defeat the Klaxosaur. They also break the door way into the Grand Crevasse with an assist from The Nines. However, the cores from the giant Klaxosaur are still active and explode, effectively destroying planation 13. A giant hand then emerges from the Grand Crevasse and collects the cores, saving squad 13. From this point onward, things continue to get increasingly interesting as the backstory for several characters and lore for the world are revealed to us. Following the battle of the Grand Crevease, squad 13 is mysteriously left to fend for themselves in the ruins of planation 13 as their adult handlers cease contact with them aside from the weekly supply drop. Unknown to them, this is essentially a social experiment being conducted by Dr. Franxx to see how the parasites would handle themselves. As squad 13 begins to adapt to their new circumstances, despite some hardships and emotional moments (such as Futoshi forcing himself not eat, among other times the characters butt heads with each other), squad 13 is able to do pretty well for themselves and thrive together. Zero Two, now more calm and bubbly, reveals to Hiro that she's re-creating the picture book that they read together when they were kids with the intent of making her own ending. Astonishingly, Zero Two is able to perfectly re-create the pictures. However all the happiness does seem to be endanger as sinister forces continue to lurk beyond the ruins of the plantation. It's revealed that much like Zero Two, Hiro has slowly begun growing horns of his own (though they are blue). Only Goro seems to know about this and Hiro convinces him to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Kokoro decides to rizz up Mitsuru as the two spend more time together, such as Kokoro giving him haircuts and other things. After reading that baby book that she had gotten from the ruins of the old city during the beach episode, she tries to literally have sex with Mitsuru after one of their haircut sessions (it's always the quiet and nice girls that are the biggest freaks, ain't it?), but they are stopped by Zorome, who asks them if they're "going to put their bodies together". Kokoro eventually realizes that she's in love with Mitsuru. The Nines then pay squad 13 a visit to check up on them, and they discover Kokoro's book, which is considered to be "forbidden knowledge" (no sex in this christian minecraft server!). Kokoro then puts forth the idea that maybe they're not actually creations of Papa and were created naturally (and whether or not they're lab-grown or were born naturally is never clearly answered from what I can remember through my watch and further research). Kokoro suggests that there's more to life than fighting the Klaxosaurs and it's up to them to continue on their species by bearing the next generation. Kokoro is disciplined by Hachi and Nana for having illegal material, but Nana collapses which Nine Alpha believes is caused by her "regressing into puberty" (apparently that's a thing in this universe and it's bad for the characters in this instance). The social experiment ends and contact resumes as normal between squad 13 and the adults. Meanwhile, two of the seven sages goes to meet with the Klaxosaur princess to demand her surrender, but she kills them and suspiciously calls them "human wannabees". The Sages also reveal in their usual scheming sessions that their mysterious new super weapon is near completion. Nina Alpha goes to report on what happened with Squad 13 as Kokoro and Mitsuru hook up (yep, they did it.) Squad 13 then learns that they're going to be moved to a new facility with the remaining parasites. Kokoro and Mitsuru decide that they want to get married and everyone decides to hold a little ceremony before they go. I have to hand it to Futoshi, though he's clearly hurt by seeing his old crush getting married with another guy (been there, done that), he's able to put his emotions aside and even officiates it. A big reveal in this episode is that Ikuno is actually a lesbian and tries to put a move on Ichigo (won't lie, that scene was kind of hot). Though Ichigo doesn't swing that way, she nevertheless comforts Ikuno who was clearly conflicted about coming out to her and makes her feel accepted. Mitsuru and Kokoro have their ceremony, and right before the big kiss The Nines crash the wedding and take them into custody, whisking them away. Squad 13 gets transferred to their new facility and are assigned to a new nana. Mitsuru and Kokoro reunite with them, but have no recollection of what had happened, leading Hiro and Zero Two along with everyone else to conclude that they got their memories wiped. Meanwhile, Hachi visits Nana who is in some kind of rehab, and its revealed that they were both former Franxx pilots. Squad 13 goes to complain to Papa and the other sages about their wiping of Mitsuru and Kokoro's memories, but Papa justifies it saying it was necessary to defeat the Klaxosaurs as they can't afford to be distracted. Once they realize that they'll never get to be adults, squad 13 impressively puts their foot down and say they're only doing this one last mission (which is supposedly to defeat the Klaxosaurs once and for all) and that afterwards they will no longer serve them. Surprisingly, Papa seems to allow this (though in all actuality, I would've expected him to try to kill them off as they had outlived their usefulness by that point). We then get Dr. Franxx's backstory in which he was hired by APE (the organization that governs humanity and is run by the Seven Sages) to research immortality back when he was Werner Frank, a scientist with a...questionable track record to say the least. He was able to successfully discover the secret to immortality through the use of magma energy found underneath the surface of the Earth. However there were two big costs: becoming immortal made humanity lose their reproductive functions and the mining of magma energy caused the appearance of the Klaxosaurs who laid waste to humanity and caused humanity to hide in these mobile domes called plantations. To combat them, Dr. Franxx developed the mech walkers that we know as Franxxs, but the early trials were not too kind to him, as his fiancé was killed during one of the tests. Eventually, they figured out that since the walkers ran on magma energy, they needed two people to pilot and they figured out they best operated with male-female pairs. As it turns out, this has to do with the origins of the Klaxosaurs which we'll cover in a little bit. Dr. Franxx was later sent on an expedition to meet the Klaxosaur princess, and lost his arm as punishment for killing her Klaxosaurs. However, she managed to collect a stand of her hair which he was able to extract her DNA to create Zero Two and the nines, who're essentially clones of Zero Two, who is a clone of the Klaxosaur Princess (still following me?). The stage for the final battle between humanity and the Klaxosaurs is set, with Hiro and Zero Two being tasked with gaining control of a special weapon known as the "Star Entity" which is stored inside the Grand Crevasse. Kokoro tries to partner with Futoshi again, but he refuses and forces her to partner with Mitsuru in hopes that they perhaps regain their lost memories. Interestingly, for a while they didn't take off the crude rings they had made for each other so the story certainly suggests that there's still potential for this ship to get back on course. During the battle, they're both stricken with pain when they say each other's names. Dr. Franxx and Hachi accompany Hiro and Zero Two to Star Entity. The Klaxosaur Princess makes a grand appearance during the battle and hijacks Strelizia by throwing out Zero Two and syncing up with Hiro, who takes him to Star Entity where the Klaxosaur Princess takes control of it. It's here we learn about the origins of the Klaxosaurs: millions of years ago, they were the dominant species of Earth and had more human like appearances. They were approached by Virm to join their collective hive mind but refused, and thus started the great Virm-Klaxosaur war. Klaxosaurs who were strong transformed themselves into the fighting beasts that we have seen throughout the show, while those who were not as strong converted themselves into magma energy through a bond with a partner which fueled these war machines. If you remember earlier in the anime after one of the battles, you might've noticed that there was an odd human like figure left in the remains of one of the klaxosaurs. This is exactly why, because the magma energy is quite literally the klaxosaurs. Because the bond is intimate and involves a deep connection, it's sort of similar to actual sex, so hence the reason for the...cockpit layout...and why they're operated in boy-girl duos (this isn't exactly outright said but you can put two and two together and draw that conclusion). For a lot of critics of the anime, this is the moment when things went off the rails as the anime begins to drastically shift gears... Upon syncing up with Star Entity, a massive armada of alien ships emerges, and the Klaxosaurs stop fighting the humans and begin battling the aliens. Papa and a couple of the other sages reveal that they're actually an alien species called "Virm" that had attacked Earth during the time the Klaxosaurs were the dominant species on Earth for their refusal to join their collective hive mind, and had wanted to use humanity to destroy the Klaxosaurs for them. Papa and the alien sages kill the two human sages. Fearing that the princess would gain control of Star Entity, Papa activates a self-destruct mechanism that would destroy all life on Earth. A lot of parasites, such as Zorome, that had remained relatively loyal to Papa and the Nines who were by far the most obedient to him, are left conflicted by these turn of events. However, Nine Alpha chooses his side once he sees two of his comrades slain by Virm as they deploy their own beasts to join the battle. Hiro and the Klaxosaur Princess use their connection to stall the self-destruct, but Hiro is slowly being consumed by the Klaxosaur Princess. Dr. Franxx rescues a wounded Zero Two and tells her that she and the nines were cloned from the Klaxosaur Princess. With the help of Dr. Franxx, Hachi and the rest of squad 13 (with Ikuno briefly having to take full control of her Klaxosaur to blast through debris, turning her black hair to white), Zero Two reaches Strelizia and then reunites with Hiro, freeing him from the Klaxosaur Princess and stopping the self-destruct countdown. Trusting Earth's fate to them, The Klaxosaur Princess gives Zero Two and Hiro her powers, and Strelizia merges with Star Entity, transforming Strelizia into Strelizia Apus and drives Virm's forces of the planet. Dr. Franxx marvels at his creation just before he is crushed to death by the rubble caused by the transformation. Virm retreats into space and the Klaxosaurs launch their own ships to go after them. Hiro then finds Zero Two to be physically unresponsive. As the Klaxosaurs go into space, they take Strelizia Apus with them. All that remains of humanity are the surviving parasites from various plantations. Zero Two is left in a catatonic state and receives various mysterious wounds throughout her body. Squad 13 leads the effort for humanity's survivor as they try to cultivate the soil which had been barren for over a century. Hachi brings the original Nana back and they locate a facility where the discarded parasites, including Naomi (which I was surprised, I thought they were lying about her being alive), who are being contained in cryostasis. They come across a message left by the now late Dr. Franxx asking them to take care of the former parasites, and the two commit themselves to looking after them. Meanwhile, Kokoro is revealed to be pregnant with Mitsuru's child (first indication of this was when she came back and would have meals with the squad, she would be nauseous and vomit and this has happened several times before this reveal. Mitsuru really didn't pull out here). Upon this revelation, despite having forgotten their past memories, Mitsuru begins to develop feelings for Kokoro again. As Squad 13 busts their ass working in the fields (with Ichigo literally fainting from overexertion at one point) and trying to help humanity survive, Hiro constantly tends to Zero Two, which causes friction between Hiro and Goro. Hiro then realizes that Zero Two's mind is up in space and fighting Virm with the Klaxosaurs. Hiro tells his squad he wants to leave for space, but Goro punches him and causes him out for being selfish while Ichigo looks heartbroken all over again. Eventually they come together and the squad agrees to help Hiro get back to Zero Two one last time. The surviving Nines agree to help as well, but Mitsuru and Kokoro decide to stay behind for the sake of their unborn child and to have someone watch over Zero Two's body. As their friends venture off into space, Mitsuru tries to get back with Kokoro, and though initially unsuccessful he is able to convince her that they share a bond through their unborn child despite having lost their memories. They get back together and Kokoro eventually has the child. Squad 13, The Nines, Hachi and Nana then go to space to join the epic battle raging between the Virm and Klaxosaur armadas over Mars (for some reason, guess it had to be somewhere in fairness). Hiro partners up with Nine Alpha to reach Strelizia Apus in their Franxx while Squad 13 covers for them (Given all the sex imagery in this show, I found it personally funny that Nine Alpha admits that he can be a pistil or stamen, so he literally is a switch But wait, since piloting is also akin to sex, does this mean Hiro is also bi?). Nine Alpha successfully gets Hiro to Zero Two by sacrificing himself. Papa tries to get humanity to surrender by offering "peace and tranquility" but Hachi and Nana refuse. The vessel that they are on is then attacked, with Hachi losing one of his eyes shielding Nana to protect her. Despite Hachi insisting Nana to leave him, they're able to board another ship to safety. Hiro reunites with Zero Two's consciousness and they agree to fight together one last time. This unlocks the final form of Strelizia: Strelizia True Apus (great name!) which is really just Zero Two's face on Strelizia (it does look goofy). Together they wipe out the Virm fleet and summon a warp gate that will take them to the Virm homeworld. Hiro and Zero Two carry a massive planet-destroying bomb with them made by the Klaxosaurs. Despite the emotional pleas from squad 13, Hiro and Zero Two vow to return to Earth someday as they bid their friends farewell and pass through the warp gate. Back on Earth, Zero Two's body becomes a stone statue. In the final episode, there's a few time skips that happen. As Hiro and Zero Two drift through space towards the Virm homeworld, squad 13 returns to Earth to rebuild humanity. Kokoro has her baby which she and Mitsuru name Ai. The missing parasites return, and Goro sets out on an adventure to explore the Earth and locate any other missing parasites. Before he leaves he pulls an epic chad move and kisses Ichigo. The first time skip, which is flash forward 2 years, Hiro and Zero Two have been drifting through space alone together which is what they always wanted. During this time, Hiro has taken on the appearance similar to that of Zero Two, with horns and blue sclera. They finally reach the Virm homeworld where their connection is interrupted by Virm, who launch a swarm of enemies in a last ditch attempt to stop Hiro and Zero Two. Back on Earth, Ai is hanging around Zero Two's statue where she mutters her first word "Darling". Kokoro and Mitsuru realize that there's no way she should know that word and the rest of humanity gathers around the statue to pray for their success. Their prayers reach Hiro which allows him to reconnect with Zero Two, and they're able to fight through the Virm swarm and destroy the Virm planet, though at the cost of their own lives as well. So quite literally, through the power of friendship, allows two horny teens to commit mass genocide. I honestly kinda found that funny, but regardless...despite the Virm planet being destroyed, Papa, who has no physical form, survives and vows to one day return for vengeance as Hiro and Zero Two's souls wander through space back towards Earth, vowing to always be together. Back on Earth, Zero Two's statue crumbles to ash and a cherry blossom tree begins to grow where she stood. Back on Earth, the Klaxosaurs return to Earth's underground which restores the planet's nature and energy, allowing humanity to properly thrive. 8 years later, humanity has made significant progress and squad 13 is in their mid/late 20's and doing very well for themselves: Ichigo and Goro get together, which Ichigo pregnant with their child. Zorome and Miku presumably got married and became teachers. Mitsuru and Kokoro on their fourth child. Futoshi ended up marrying an unnamed girl and has a family of his own. Ikuno ends up with Naomi. It's also revealed that Ikuno undid the accelerated aging process on the parasites, allowing them age naturally. However, Ikuno did not do this on herself and is shown to be rather old and frail as she's confined to a hospital bed. The former squad 13 members reunite by a cherry blossom tree, remembering Hiro and Zero Two and the sacrifice they made so that they can live a normal, happy life. We then see Hiro's and Zero Two's souls drifting towards Earth together, fulfilling their promise to return one day. In the final scene, a considerable amount of time later (according to the lore, a thousand years pass), we're shown that society has advanced quite a lot and the cherry blossom tree where Zero Two once stood has grown to be quite large. A reincarnation of Zero Two stumbles over one of the roots and meets a reincarnation of Hiro, with the final shot of them introducing themselves to each other. *Whew*, that was a lot. Kudos if you read all that. It took me a while to write all that. Alright...time to talk about the characters! Given that it's a sizeable cast, I'm just going to stick to talking about the main cast, which is Squad 13. Hiro: I thought he was a decent MC and he got a lot of good character development. We first met him when he was a depressed and hopeless hot mess but he later grew into someone that had self-confidence and a skilled pilot thanks to Zero Two. Though he always meant well, his actions often came across as exclusively prioritizing Zero Two. I'm not saying he never cared about his squad mates, he definitely cared about them, but there was a point that it definitely felt like he was always putting Zero Two first, sometimes at the expense of others like Ichigo and Goro. He's not a perfect person, and he did sacrifice himself with the goal in mind of also ensuring his friends' survival, but he also did it to be with Zero Two. Overall, I thought they handled his character arc well. He had good chemistry with Zero Two and they had a lot of sweet and heart-felt moments together. Zero Two: She was a very fun character to watch on-screen! Initially she was a wild and volatile character and has a lot of hilarious moments like licking Ichigo, being openly flirtatious with Hiro in front of everyone, and just having a larger-than-life personality, it made for a lot of great moments in the show. However, she's also a character I'd personally never want to piss off, when she gets angry she gets crazy. Early on, I did question her motives and I was wondering what her interest was in Hiro. While she seemed attracted to him to some degree early in the anime, it pretty much gets confirmed when Ichigo confronts Zero Two that she didn't really seem to care whether he died or not. While she seemed to have been hoping that Hiro would live and enjoyed riding with him, she wasn't exactly holding her breathe for it either. Towards the middle of the show leading up to Episode 13, she slowly becomes more violent and would go back and forth with showering Hiro with affection to just blatantly ignoring him. She was really pulling the toxic gf routine on him and didn't really snap out of it until she realized that Hiro was the boy who rescued her when they were little. After she lost her mind again when she thought Ichigo and the others were deceiving her, when she was confronted by Hiro who called her a monster, it was obvious that she was hurt by it. While she was certainly remorseful, she did seem like she was willing to swallow the bitter pill and move on with her quest to become "human". Once she reconciled with Hiro, she adopted a more wholesome and calm personality. So emotionally, she was definitely all over the place. By the end of the show, kind of like how Hiro did for her, she only really seemed to care for Hiro, but she had come to accept and befriend the rest of squad 13. Zero Two's character arc was handled well for the most part but I'll admit I enjoyed her wild side in the beginning than her docile side at the end. After the two reconciled, she didn't feel as interesting as a character anymore. However, she's definitely a character I'll remember for a while. Ichigo: If there's one hot take I have about this anime is that Ichigo is best girl. It may be because I'm a sucker for the "childhood friend" trope, but honestly, she got did dirty a lot in this anime. Though in the end, things did work out for her. She always there for Hiro and always believed in him. Even if her actions were questionable and morally wrong at times: such as preventing Zero Two and Hiro from seeing each other, as well as her general dislike towards Zero Two, and times where she put her feelings for Hiro first rather than the greater good, her actions are certainly understandable. Objectively she may have not been the best fit for a squad leader given her emotional instability, but she did her best in holding the group together and came in clutch with getting Hiro and Zero Two back together which saved everyone's collective necks on several occasions. She may be guided by her own feelings too much for her own good but she is someone who'll always try to do the right thing at the end of the day, and she did sacrifice her feelings to allow Hiro and Zero Two to be together because she also knew they were happy together. It's tough for someone to do that, and I can certainly relate to that all too well. I am happy she got with Goro though, those two were a good match for each other too. Goro: I liked him! He was certainly a nice guy, and for once, a nice guy didn't finish last! I'd also have to say if I had to personally pick who squad 13's leader should be, it'd probably be him. He was always grounded and reasonable, and was able to keep his emotions in check (mostly) as he had to watch Ichigo try to go for Hiro. That's a hard thing to do. I was surprised that they didn't kill him off when he was trapped alone inside the Klaxosaur, there were a million death flags for him in that episode. Granted the anime did not kill off too many characters, and if they did kill off Goro, it certainly would've made for an emotional scene. But I'm also glad they didn't kill him off as then Ichigo would either have to marry a random, unnamed npc or stay single. Zorome: Initially I thought he was a bit of a punk, but overtime I came to respect him. He was billed as Hiro's rival as he always clashed with him, but once Hiro fully realized his piloting abilities, the two put aside their differences and started getting along. He also did get an episode to himself and he got some decent character development out of it. While he generally plays the role of a side character for the rest of the show onward, he did have plenty of good and funny moments. He's definitely a perfect match for Miku and I wasn't surprised that they got together considering they often argued like an old married couple. Mitsuru: Initially I didn't have a strong opinion on him one way or the other since he usually just kept to himself and brooded in a dark corner, but they gave him a lot of character development through Hiro and Kokoro and I came to like him. He had an understandable backstory and his dislike of Hiro was understandable. It is a slight shame that we didn't get to see him pilot a Franxx with Hiro, it would've been nice to see that promise cashed in, but if he had taken the role of Nine Alpha and died, well, Ai would have to grow up without a father which would've been sad. He did make the right choice staying behind for Kokoro. Early on I never would've expected him to end up with Kokoro, he honestly did seem like a fine match for the equally brooding character, Ikuno, but this was a pleasant surprise. Kokoro: Though she didn't really get an episode to herself per se, she did get a lot of screentime towards the end. I was surprised that she ditched Futoshi and I never understood why she wanted to go for Mitsuru, but she's sweet, bubbly and kind, so opposites really do attract here. Overall I liked her character and she was able to get Mitsuru out of his shell and to become a better person as a result. I also wouldn't have been expecting her to be the one to have pushed the idea of marriage and having kids (would've expected that to be Ichigo or Zero Two given their attraction to Hiro, but I digress), but she played an important role in the anime and I think they handled her well. Ikuno: Overall I felt like she didn't get a whole lot of screentime, and when it seemed like each of the side characters were getting an episode mostly to themselves (Zorome and Goro had each gotten one), she didn't get that kind of development. Her big scene was when she came out to Ichigo and tried to put the moves on her, which explains why she couldn't connect with Mitsuru and they did foreshadow this when she wanted to try to connect with Ichigo. That was a certainly a powerful and emotionally charged moment in the show and it was pretty sudden too, which made it memorable. I wished they explored her character some more but they did well with her in the times she was involved. Miku: Kid of like Ikuno here: she didn't get any real kind of development, but she definitely had more of a presence due to her blunt and outspoken nature. She's definitely a perfect fit for Zorome and she had a lot of good and funny moments in the show in her own right. When Zero Two wasn't starting drama, it was usually her. In fact she was the driving force behind the whole "Boys Vs Girls" war early on in the anime. I wish she got an episode focused on her but she was involved enough in the show as a side character. Futoshi: I liked him. He was the sweet, funny fat guy. It sucks that Kokoro ditched him though, I felt for him in that moment. Much like Miku and Ikuno, he didn't get a whole lot of character development and was pretty much their for comic relief. He did have an emotional moment with Zorome when he got called out by him for not eating, but otherwise his character kind of felt left out too. Honorable mentions: I generally liked Nana and Hachi, I think they played their roles well as supporting characters. Dr. Franxx was certainly a sympathetic character but he definitely did a lot of horrible things as well through his experiments, so I personally have mixed feelings on him as a person but his role in the story was fine. Nine Alpha was a douche but he at least died with some dignity. I figured that Papa was going to be the final villain and I was somewhat thinking he was going to be an alien but they never really dived into his motivations or backstory beyond the surface level. Klaxosaur Princess was cool but she wasn't on screen for too long and I wish she did more. When I was going into Darling In The Franxx, I wasn't sure what to expect and I understood that the anime had a divisive reputation. I went in with an open mind, and I honestly enjoyed my time watching it. It's understandable why people didn't like it and I can see that this isn't an anime just anyone would enjoy, especially with its horniness. There are parts that are goofy and towards the end they certainly make some leaps in the story that you have to try to go with. That being said, while there were some goofy moments like with the whole "strelizia true apus" and "the power of friendship conquerors all" moment at the end. There were also times that I thought the Hiro-Zero Two relationship was getting a bit ridiculous and wondered why they'd still want to be together early on and in the middle of the anime, but I thought it was a fine and enjoyable story. I also really liked how they weaved plot points from early on in the show and how they become relevant at the end, it's a show you really have to pay attention to and I've watched anime long enough to where I can pick up on most of these kinds of subtleties. I personally did not mind the story shifting from fighting these alien robots to actual aliens in space, though there were aspects that were ridiculous or didn't make sense (like why would Virm have a warpgate above Mars which takes them to a place that's 2 years away from their planet?). I know it was a turn-off for a lot of the show's critics, but I felt that it progressed at a relatively natural pace to get there. For starters, Papa and the other sages always seemed distant from the rest of humanity. They wore these mysterious masks, always schemed and plotted, and with how they viewed the parasites as tools for the Klaxosaurs's destruction, I figured that Papa would've been the final boss of the show and that squad 13 would have to defeat them. I didn't trust those guys for a second. There was also the comment that the Klaxosaur Princess made when she killed two of the Sages and literally called them "human wannabees". That's a pretty big indicator that there's something more going on here. I did not find it all that surprising that they were aliens. I also suspected that the Klaxosaurs and Franxx had some human connection, though early on I was thinking that humanity had created the Klaxosaurs and this was a Terminator-style situation (which I guess to a point I was right about). In terms of the ending, I think the ending and its final moments itself was handled fine. I expected Zero Two to die but I was 50-50 on Hiro until the second version of the intro soft spoiled it for me. I think them always being together in life, death and reincarnation was fitting for their characters and very sweet, the other squad 13 members getting together or with others was a nice touch and how they helped humanity recover after being brought to the brink of extinction was fine. Though it did make Virm's threat seem empty as its really never addressed what happens to them after their planet gets destroyed. My personal takeaway on Darling In The Franxx is that it's an enjoyable and fun anime to watch. It has a deep and interesting plot, and though it gets a little weird at times, it's still a fun show that you can get invested in. I think that's also a commentary on human relationships itself, which is what I think the anime itself is all about in examining the complexities of romance and friendships. I'm glad I gave this anime a chance and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would've! I'd personally rank this just outside my top 10. Initially I gave this a 9, but after reviewing some stuff, I think an 8 is a more appropriate rating for the show. I truly enjoyed it but there are some goofy aspects that can take you out of it and some stuff that really doesn't make sense. But it is what it is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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