English Dub Review: Kaguya-sama: Love is War “Miko Iino Wants to Control Herself / Kaguya Doesn’t Scare Easily / Kaguya Wants to Be Examined”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Miko Iino may have joined the ranks of the student council now as the financial auditor, but that doesn’t mean she’s become best friends with her senior officers. When things start to tick her off too much, Fujiwara embarks on a quest to get her to break a rule herself.

Later on, Kaguya and the president get stuck inside a storage shed while inspecting equipment. They both think it’s some kind of scheme by the other, and the sticky situation lasts for a while before Miko comes and finds them. Some time later, the president finds a piece of lint stuck in Kaguya’s hair and takes it out, touching her cheek as he does so. This causes her to faint, and she goes to the hospital, only to be diagnosed with lovesickness.

Our Take:

This week’s episode of Kaguya is a good one. Complete with fun gags, plenty of the president and Kaguya getting closer to each other, and a whole lot of Miko Iino, Miko Iino Wants to Control Herself / Kaguya Doesn’t Scare Easily / Kaguya Wants to Be Examined is an excellent example of what this show does so well — putting these kids together in awkward situations and letting the comedy come from their dynamic.

The first third of the episode is the Miko Iino show. I’m not complaining, because I will never complain about getting to see more Miko. Having the goodie goodie classmate become a rule breaker for a day isn’t the most original storyline, but the way the series goes about it makes it entertaining. Miko rags on everyone in the room, causing Fujiwara to try and teach her a lesson about respecting and having empathy for her seniors.

She challenges her to not get angry for an entire hour — not an easy feat when Yu puts his foot on the table and has an impromptu feast and video game session.Then while Yu and Shinomiya play video games, Fujiwara gets Miko to break a school rule of her own: using her phone to take silly pictures and post them online. It’s a fun situation to see a stick-in-the-mud like Miko get thrown into, and I love the dynamic between the freshman with big dreams and Fujiwara.

The rest of the episode is concerned with the more traditional subject of Shinomiya and Kaguya being awkward around each other. It’s cool to see them get stuck in the supply room, because of the strange aspect where each thinks it’s the other’s doing. They get pretty close to kissing, and I was excited for the show to take a big step in that direction. It was 99% to getting there when who else but Miko had to come in and ruin the fun. After that, there’s a brief plot about Kaguya having to visit the doctor to find out she’s lovesick. It’s a cute gag, but goes on a bit too long and doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already.

We’re over halfway through season two of Kaguya-sama now, and it feels like the show is starting to hit its stride. The eighth episode does a great job combining newer developments like the introduction of Miko to the group, and the good ol’ standby of Shinomiya and Kaguya’s relationship. It may not reach entirely new heights, but it sure got close.