Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (2019)

It is an adaptation, so don't set your expectation as high as you do for the manga/anime

Being an avid reader of the manga and a fan of the anime, I had some expectations for the film, that weren't fulfilled.

To start, both the manga and the anime have a great narrator, so the bar is already high in the first minute of the film and the one responsible for narrating the film isn't as "passionate" as the one in the manga/anime. Also there are cues in the manga/anime where the narrator participating makes the scene even funnier, which doesn't happen in the film. Shinomiya and Shirogane's voices are not what you would expect, Ishigami's lines are quite limited, but I am okay with how he sounded and Asakawa Nana impersonated Fujiwara quite close to how her voice actress, Kohara Konomi, sounds in the anime. However, personality-wise, Fujiwara was the worst written character, she is portrayed as stupid 99% of the time, when she is actually quite intelligent. Another problem is that Ishigami doesn't participate in the manga on most of the scenes the film adapted, so they had to include Ishigami in moments he wasn't supposed to be, and some of those moments just feel weird.

For the story itself, the writers did a fair job on connecting different moments, it is quite hard to adapt an episodic format for the silver screen, so at least here they did their best. However, some "free adaptations" and the original ending were lame, not only that didn't suit characters at all.

The references done were acceptable, too bad they missed a few details, like when Kaguya rides a taxi and leaves it, when she meets with her friends she takes the same taxi driver, which is part of a subplot on the manga. I mean, if they even walked an extra mile to have Koga Aoi, Kaguya's voice actress, in the film, couldn't they do the same thing for the driver?

Ah! Wanted to point out something about the music of the film, which is meh, but there is a specific song from the anime that the film didn't use, but they made a version, and it sounds like a bad copy, when the anime did it so much better.

Overall, I was disappointed, maybe I expected too much of it.

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I started watching this movie without any expectations whatsoever. I was kind of guessing it would be some kind of a cringey cheesy weird adaptation, but it totally changed my mind and got me hooked once I started.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (movie) was all sorts of cute, funny, and quirky at the same time. I appreciate how it was fast paced and on the spot with the storytelling for an adaptation. Also the ending was not what I expected but it was well wrapped up so the whole show was made to be a very easy and entertaining movie to watch. The actors chosen for the characters were also good looking especially the ML and the FL so it is an added bonus and why you should watch it!!

I am familiar with the original anime of this show and have watched a few episodes so I could definitely see the similarity among the characters and the story line, but for the rest of the show and the ending I have no idea if it had the same ending, so I dont know whether some would like it or not. I must say though, props to the scriptwriters for doing such a great job with the adaptation! They have made this a good stand alone movie without leaving the original story, and an easy watch for those who haven't watch the anime version. 9/10!!

Highly recommend this movie for people who are looking for something cute, light, funny, with a bit of romance to watch it is definitely refreshing, enjoyable and worth your time. ^^

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