English Dub Season Review: Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season Two

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The student council at Shuchiin Academy is comprised of a goofball, a depressed dude, and two powerfully driven people who happen to be in love. But of course, they’d never admit it. Kaguya and Miyuki are both geniuses who can’t admit defeat, and neither one wants to be the first to give in to romance.

The two of them continually compete no matter what the occasion: games, life, and even extracurriculars. Throughout the season, they come close to finally confessing their feelings many times, but in the end, neither one of them is able to truly unburden their hearts. Meanwhile, a new girl called Miko Iino joins the council and Ishigami works past his past.

Our Take:

Kaguya-sama is the kind of show where the main storyline of pretty much every episode is the same at the base layer: Kaguya and Miyuki try to make each other confess their love. Since both of them freak out around the other, this can be funny, sweet, and sometimes even scary, but usually, that’s what every episode comes back to sooner or later. And since that’s such a big part of the show, there’s really never much of any forward progress made between them. The second season of Kaguya-sama is definitely more about the journey than the destination.

The characters themselves aren’t really changed from season one. Miyuki is the hardworking president with a sensitive side, Kaguya is standoffish and stiff on the outside but has a soft inside, and Ishigami and Fuijwara are the oddballs of the group. This season though, there are a few new characters introduced. Miko IIno comes in about halfway through the season and really adds a bit more spice into what otherwise might’ve been getting a little bland. Her self-righteous nature is fun to watch dissolve a bit as she blends into the group.

Aside from the usual cat and mouse plot lines between the president and the vice president, there are also a few unique storylines that run through the season. Miko Iino shows up in the election arc, which sees Miyuki, Kaguya, and the others fighting to reclaim their student council seats in an upcoming election. It’s an interesting story that gets into some deeper characterizations and was probably my favorite part of the season. It only lasts for two or three episodes, but they’re great. There’s also a long running plot about Ishigami’s past that I really didn’t enjoy, although if you’re a big fan of his, you might like it more.

The best parts of the show are definitely its humor and the style it presents itself in. There’s a narrator that provides exposition (sometimes helpful, more often humorous) throughout every episode, and each segment is framed as a completion of sorts between Miyuki and Kaguya, with the narrator announcing the results of the battle at the end. There’s some more heartwarming moments, but the show never becomes overly romantic, so this is completely more of a comedy — not something I’d recommend if you’re after a series that’s more mushy gushy.

The English dub does a fine job with the casting. All of the main characters play their roles well, and there aren’t any bad moments that break you out of the scenes. Where the dub does tread thin ice is in some of the choices it makes. The main one I’ve seen complaints about online is the narrator’s tone. In the original, he’s completely monotone, which lends the show a much different kind of comedy than the overly-emotive and dramatic English narration.

The second season of Kaguya-sama does a good job keeping around the parts that fans enjoyed from season one, like Kaguya and Miyuki’s constant battles and the weirdness of their side characters. But it also expands the territory a bit by exploring new themes surrounding elections and bullying, as well as introducing a new character to the mix in the form of Miko Iino. Overall, it’s a solid season that fans of the first will appreciate — and it might even draw in a few new viewers as well, since there really isn’t much narrative momentum you miss out on.