Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 28: Volume 28

I waited quite a while to read this last volume since I acquired volume 27 last year. In that time, I’ve had a very hard time in my life with my own relationships and miscommunications. But this story reminds me that one day, things can and will work out for the best as long as I never give up on my dreams, my passions, and I stay true to my core. I identify so much with Miyuki and Kaguya that sometimes, the things they went through hit a bit too close to home. I am not ashamed to say that this is one of my favorite series I’ve ever read, in my top 10 of all the books, movies, and shows I’ve ever delved into. No, it’s probably in the top 5. This send off was more sweet than bitter, and I will be following Asaka-san’s work from here on out. The charm and innocence captured in each and every installment of this series has truly made me happy to have been introduced to Kaguya-sama by my best friend. I’d like to thank her and the author. ありがとうございます。One day, I hope that I and you, reader of this review, find the sort of love Miyuki and Kaguya found in each other. Take care, until my next review.

Book came exactly as advertised

I have collected all the volumes and taking the chance to review the manga as a whole. Reading this manga, specifically the later half of it has been a very frustrating experience. You can easily argue that the first 160 chapters or so were nothing short of a masterpiece (although you'd have to be ignoring that the first couple of volumes were a bit directionless and it needed some time to brew into the premise we really love). The remaining chapters are just ok. There's nothing that's completely terrible. On the other hand, that's when I try to analyze it coldly. But in my case, the more I appreciate the first half, the more frustrated I get with the rest and the really dubious state of the ending. I'll try to be short. Kaguya: Kaguya's story was incredibly interesting, peaking with the Ice Kaguya arc. A very complex and cool character that kind of feels like an alien but she has a good heart. In the later half of the manga, she supposedly gets an arc, but it seems forced. Akasaka pretends that she has been working to become a normal girl. Ironic in that this route mirrors the way in which the manga went from being a masterpiece into a mediocre parody(?) of the princess Kaguya story. Shirogane: What have they done to my (former) boy? The hardworking fella that earned himself the love of THE Kaguya. And that through the Ice Kaguya arc showed us that he still had some very big weaknesses to overcome, specially a potential plot about overcoming his big-scale issues with his mother. He devolves into guy who makes a millionaire company somehow and that's his development. I used to joke about how he was going to go big by starting a crypto scam. But nowadays I guess an AI scam is a more modern reference. Chika: Unfortunate for Chika, she was designed as the perfect foil to Kaguya and Shirogane's love battles, introducing an element of chaos so that the outcomes of the battles can't be predicted. That's a bit of a problem, cause once the love battles end, she has nothing to do. Her potential to have interesting stories, specially for Hayasaka has gone quite wasted. Ishigami and Miko: Legitimately the only part of the second half that seemed like it could be an interesting plot. Akasaka never commits to it and puts their story in the fridge to do less interesting things. Culminating in what's honestly a huge bummer of a conclusion. There's zero room to interpretation, it's clear that they end together and the bios even go out of their way to say it's soon. But unfortunately we never see it. Akasaka is trying a whole new approach here which is to never give readers any catharsis whatsoever. Dare I remind you that Ishigami's story includes him being stigmatized socially in a traumatic way, that accident at the Christmas party and some other sad things affecting Miko, but we just can't afford to see a legitimate happy conclusion to their story. We just get told about it. Cool. I'd like to go with the most generous interpretation of the ending to this manga and say, that the ending was chapter 261. That's the "end of the final arc". The remaining chapters are really just an epilogue, that mostly goes nowhere. The Maki storiline being a huge exception. The 'war arc' is simply not good. It was risky from the beginning to make the climax of the story an external conflict rather than something internal. But even as a story of teenagers defeating adults, it doesn't really work. The first chapters are a slog, money has to just fall from the sky on Miyuki's hand and even then he needs all the arbitrary help he can get. At the end, Akasaka attempts to gaslight the readers into thinking that Kaguya and Shirogane planned the whole thing all along. Yeah no. There are interesting and very nice things about the later chapters. But overall, with that ending and the epilogues it really paints a pretty direction-less story. We are left having to speculate on what happened. Did Akasaka burn out on having to be an artist for this manga and rushed the ending of it so that he could move on to gigs that only involve writing? I think that the fact that this is such a widespread theory in the fandom really says it all. As for the English release, I do have complaints about it, even including the parts of the manga I like. The translation often has awkard language. The type setting is dull and sometimes text just fills text bubbles too much. There are outright mistakes like text being placed on wrong bubbles. And sometimes the TL goes weird places or destroys jokes. We also really have to mention that the release process was really slow. It's been 1.25 years since the last volume released in Japan.