English Dub Review: Kaguya-sama: Love is War “Kei Shirogane Can’t Speak / Miyuki Shirogane Wants to Dance / Kobachi Osaragi Wants to Crack Down / Miyuki Shirogane’s Dad Wants to Find Out”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When Kei finds her big brother Shirogane moping in his room picking rose petals, she’s curious. But because of their souring relationship, she can’t bring herself to properly ask him who he’s crushing on. And when Shirogane tries confessing to his father, he finds the old man a subpar confidant.

Later on, he tries learning the dance for the school’s sports festival, but he’s not much of a natural talent. Fujiwara tries training him, but gives up. When Kaguya takes over, though, she’s eager to win back her student. The day of the festival arrives, and much to Shirogane’s dismay, his father is in the crowd watching. He tries to distract him, but in the end, his dad meets up with Kaguya and totally pranks her.

Our Take:

The tenth episode of Kaguya-sama is an interesting episode for a number of reasons. The first segment puts us into the mind of Shirogane’s little sister Kei in a way we haven’t seen before. It gives us our best look at his home life yet, and what we learn isn’t pretty. Then later on, the show invites us into Osaragi’s life and relays some backstory about Yu and why he’s such an outcast.

The start of the episode was definitely the part with perhaps the most potential. Getting to see the president in a whole new way through the eyes of his sister was fun, and really contrasts with the glowing view that Kaguya always casts his way. However, the segment didn’t last long enough to get into anything really worthwhile. Shirogane ends up confessing his feelings to his father, but that goes horribly wrong, and I came away just being very depressed about Shirogane and his family.

The next scene features Fujiwara trying to teach the President proper dancing technique. It tries to lighten the mood, and while it definitely does so, it’s not a very funny or exciting storyline. We’ve seen this plot before when she taught him to sing, and there’s not much new grounds to cover here, except for a briefly entertaining tug of war between Fujiwara and Kaguya with Shirogane in the middle.

Osaragi’s section of the episode is a step up over the dancing segment, but felt a little off. We’ve never really been in Osaragi’s head before either, and while it gives us a bit of new insight into how she feels about her duties on the disciplinary committee, it’s mostly just an excuse to tell the audience more about Yu and his strange backstory, which involves stalking a girl and beating up her boyfriend. While it’s hinted that the real story has more to it, this plot honestly made me more suspicious of Yu and his motives for joining cheer, not less.

The final segment dealing with Shirogane’s dad meeting up with Kaguya is a highlight for sure. The two of them are both great at scheming in their own ways, and the way the old man tries to get her to admit that she likes his son is fun to watch, even if it’s a bit uncomfortable by the end of things.

With only two episodes left, Kaguya-sama delivers an episode with some unique storytelling devices that make for an engaging episode for the most part, even if some bits like Fujiwara’s dance instruction don’t quite hang together with the best bits this week.