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EP. REVIEW: Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2


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AmuroNT1



Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 106
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 6:45 pm Reply with quote
As good as this episode was, there were a couple of little bits that they cut from the manga version that leave holes. On a more comedic note, there was an entire chapter full of pesudo-4koma detailing little things that happened during the sports festival, like getting to meet all the members of Fujiwara's family. (Spoiler Alert: The big-boobs gene apparently comes from her father.)

Quote:
Not only did he refuse this request, Ogino offered Ishigami lewd photos or a sex tape of Kyoko in exchange for his silence, prompting Yu to pin him to the ground and unleash a savage beating.


It's worse than that; he tried to buy Ishigami's silence by offering to let him have sex with Kyoko.

Quote:
As Kyoko leaves the campus, she informs her friends that she was hoping today would have been her golden opportunity to reconnect with Ogino—but he's apparently transferred schools. (Hayasaka implies that Kaguya arranged this.)


Oh, Kaguya didn't lift a finger against Ogino...she just told the school's VIPs, the students whose parents are powerful and influential members of Japanese society, about what he had done.

Quote:
Also, now that both Kyoko and Ogino are attending different schools, the rest of the student body should know the truth—especially in light of the ongoing ostracization of Ishigami.


The reason the Student Council doesn't go spreading this around is out of respect for Ishigami's wishes. He believes "You do it because it's the right thing to do, not because you expect a reward", and throughout his character arc it's shown that he's totally fine being the pariah if the outcome benefits someone else, like Kyoko or a few other students. This has actually been coming up in a major way in the current manga arc, but that's a good hundred chapters off from where the anime is right now.
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Flü



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 164
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:32 pm Reply with quote
Ep11 might be one of the best anime episodes of the year and an extremely important one for the entire medium. Rarely has a story touched me as much as this did back then in the manga and the anime adapted it super well. An extremely good portrayal of anxiety.

Deducting points for not having enough funnies is quite frankly disrespectful towards the act of reviewing this kind of show.
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cchigu



Joined: 15 Feb 2020
Posts: 250
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:18 pm Reply with quote
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It's always a little jarring when an anything-goes comedy delivers a mostly joke-free installment
Sophistry. Gintama, have you heard of it?
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JaggedAuthor



Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Posts: 981
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:30 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Deducting points for not having enough funnies is quite frankly disrespectful towards the act of reviewing this kind of show.


"This kind of show" is predominantly an off-the-wall comedy whose central premise is built around the principal characters psychologically tormenting one another, so I fail to see how acknowledging that an episode of such a show is virtually bereft of humor is in any way disrespectful. At no point did the reviewer come down hard against the episode for its lack of "funnies." She essentially said that a little more comedy could have been comfortably inserted into the present-day segments, which is a fair point.

The review as a whole is very complimentary of the episode, and the fact that the reviewer didn't enjoy it on the same level as you doesn't equate to disrespect for the franchise.
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JaggedAuthor



Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Posts: 981
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:35 pm Reply with quote
cchigu wrote:
Quote:
It's always a little jarring when an anything-goes comedy delivers a mostly joke-free installment
Sophistry. Gintama, have you heard of it?


This is the same reviewer who covers Gintama, of which she's consistently spoken highly. "Jarring" doesn't mean "bad," and yes, Gintama's wildly fluctuating tones can be jarring, which, again, is not necessarily a bad thing.
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kinghumanity



Joined: 03 Nov 2014
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:09 pm Reply with quote
Is it normal for Japanese middle schoolers to have sex and send each other nude pictures....?

Or am I an old fart now?
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:12 pm Reply with quote
Flü wrote:
Ep11 might be one of the best anime episodes of the year and an extremely important one for the entire medium. Rarely has a story touched me as much as this did back then in the manga and the anime adapted it super well. An extremely good portrayal of anxiety.

Deducting points for not having enough funnies is quite frankly disrespectful towards the act of reviewing this kind of show.


Can't help but remember this meme from GoT final.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/the-game-of-thrones-film-study-class-meme.html

Laughing

Also isn't 1 month suspension incredibly light for beating the crap out of someone (and mentioning that his goal is to disfigure him). Would expect expulsion and going to a special school for that.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 998
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 11:52 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Also isn't 1 month suspension incredibly light for beating the crap out of someone (and mentioning that his goal is to disfigure him). Would expect expulsion and going to a special school for that.


He was originally gonna be held back as well, but Miko fought the administration to let him graduate onto high school, as shown in the previous episode, and they eventually relented.
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Kirki



Joined: 11 Jun 2019
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:25 am Reply with quote
kinghumanity wrote:
Is it normal for Japanese middle schoolers to have sex and send each other nude pictures....?

Or am I an old fart now?


You would be really surprised to find out what is going on in middle schools all over the world. To be honest, I don't find Ogino's character exaggerated. He might seem like a cartoonish villain, yes, but unfortunately, people like him exist more than we'd like to admit.

Ishigami did save the girl. She remained blissfully ignorant and never realized she had been victimized, and that was the best for her. To her, the entire ordeal was a simple middle school love quarrel. That is why she never actually realized how cruel her words were or the impact they had on Ishigami, who started flirting dangerously close to clinical depression.

It's also believable that he advanced in high school. He did think of disfiguring Ogino, but he didn't say it out loud or went through with it beyond a few punches. Actually, Japan has a very strict system not to allow him to come back based on the letter alone. In my country he would be back after a couple of weeks at most.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4064
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:42 am Reply with quote
Episode 11

I honestly don't like it when I have more to say about the review than the episode. My opinion on the episode: Great stuff and stuff that still fits in the "Love is war" theme but this is the point where the line is drawn on "all is fair in love and war". But then there's the review.

First off, let's assume Kyoko knew Ogino was taking nude pictures but everything falls apart immediately because while we don't know either way, she seems a little simple to me. I can see her having sex with Ogino, but I don't see her willingly having that sex filmed.

Quote:
Also, now that both Kyoko and Ogino are attending different schools, the rest of the student body should know the truth
Now that they're out of earshot and the truth will never reach her? Kyoko failed to pass her exams, she hasn't moved from where she lived. Also, you can't know some of the truth without out knowing all of the Truth otherwise you're just creating a different pariah.

Also, WHAT?! You really want to make a middle school sex scandal public? I probably should have lead with that.

There does seem to be some disagreement in what Ogino did and what he showed Ishigami. In my mind, Ogino's hunting trophies wouldn't be nude photos but a memento of the act itself. I mean, going by Ishigami's look, he saw a lot more than a nude picture of someone he knew. And upon being caught by Ishigami, Ogino threatened to release that video which would only ruin Kyoko's life after some light editing.

Does this make Ogino evil? Pawning off sex with Kyoko as a blackmail payment makes him evil, having sex with as many girls as he could makes him a player and filming those sex acts makes him a criminal... even in Japan I hope. Wait, yes, he's evil, that was the first one.

Quote:
Wouldn't being an object of pity be preferable to remaining in a relationship with an abusive, diabolical person?
EHHH?!! Oh right, the reviewer thought Ogino physically threatened Kyoko rather than releasing whatever he had on her publicly.

But still... EHHHH?!!
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JaggedAuthor



Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Posts: 981
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 6:41 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Also, WHAT?! You really want to make a middle school sex scandal public? I probably should have lead with that.


I think you're making a leap by positing that the reviewer wanted the explicit details of whatever Ogino had on Kyoko made public. "Knowing the truth" could entail offering up a sanitized version of events -- i.e., Ogino was a serial cheater who, after being caught by Ishigami, threatened to cause harm to Kyoko if exposed -- to other students.

Quote:
Does this make Ogino evil? Pawning off sex with Kyoko as a blackmail payment makes him evil, having sex with as many girls as he could makes him a player and filming those sex acts makes him a criminal... even in Japan I hope. Wait, yes, he's evil, that was the first one.


At no point did the reviewer state that Ogino wasn't evil, but rather that the level of villainy he displayed was over-the-top and somewhat credulity-straining -- an opinion I agree with.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2451
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 7:16 am Reply with quote
Yeah, having a woman not know her ex was a cheater and was showing off porn based on her/them, and also trying to whore her off, is obviously a good thing. Women don't need to know that, they need a guy to save their smiles.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23624
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:27 am Reply with quote
One hopes that if Ogino had not dumped Kyoko fairly soon after his beating, Ishigami would have actually said something to her. But yeah, the material is pretty invested in Ishigami's "I'll suffer hideous social trauma just so a girl who doesn't really deserve special consideration doesn't become an object of pity for the rest of the school" stance.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2240
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:43 am Reply with quote
killjoy_the wrote:
Yeah, having a woman not know her ex was a cheater and was showing off porn based on her/them, and also trying to whore her off, is obviously a good thing. Women don't need to know that, they need a guy to save their smiles.


/s, right? Anyways, this is giving me flashbacks to the Broadway Mean Girl's song "STOP", which does touch on how easy it is to fall pray to sexting, especially when you're young and inexperienced in relationships. That said, while I wouldn't broadcast her predicament to the school, doing so privately isn't out of the question--I feel like Ishigami should've at least tried to do that much in high school.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:15 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
One hopes that if Ogino had not dumped Kyoko fairly soon after his beating, Ishigami would have actually said something to her. But yeah, the material is pretty invested in Ishigami's "I'll suffer hideous social trauma just so a girl who doesn't really deserve special consideration doesn't become an object of pity for the rest of the school" stance.


He only learned she was dumped months afterwards, and he still hasn't told her when she could potentially try to get back with him. Without the student council intervention he probably would have never even seen her again. Ishigami had 0 intention of telling her, in his mind her reputation is more important than physical harm/potential whoring.
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