Kaguya-sama: Love is War (2019)
[ใใใๆงใฏๅใใใใ ๏ฝๅคฉๆใใกใฎๆๆ้ ญ่ณๆฆ๏ฝ]
Volume 15
Author/Artist: Aka Akasaka
Publisher: Young Jump Comics
Synopsis:
Shinomiya reverts to her former icy personality while Shirogane struggles to understand what went wrong.
Story/Characters:
Now, you may find the premise a bit contrived, but if we want to be charitable, psychological reversion can happen, though not usually in as extreme of a manner at this. Primarily, this serves as a way to provide a new obstacle for Shirogane and you feel bad for the guy as this switch gets flipped right when everything was going so well. We're able to contrast Shinomiya's old persona with the Shinomiya we've come to know, which highlights how much she's changed. After a couple failures, we have a discussion between Shinomiya and Kashiwagi and Shirogane and Maki that parallels the one following the home visit incident way back in Volume 4. We then parallel the "tako-san wiener" episode from Volume 1 as well as Shinomiya's hospitalization, which means the return of Dr. Tanuma, which is great. We get some good exploration of both Shirogane and Shinomiya's psychologies and how important they've been for each other's development. As they work through their problems, we get the fun of a Fujiwara Christmas party and culminate with the payoff for this arc.
Art:
The art continues to do its thing well. It's a bit different having Shinomiya locked in ice mode, but that means we see a range of expression we don't normally see. Perhaps the most striking panel is the view we get of Shirogane's room. It tells us so much about him in just that single shot.
Other:
We get profiles for Fool!Kaguya and Ice!Kaguya and the results of a contest to come up with an alternate subtitle for the series, as the original premise of a romantic battle of wits was kicked to the curb a long time ago (to the point where it's been made into a joke).
Conclusion:
Part of me felt the personality switch for Shinomiya was a bit contrived, but it's used to good effect and the sheer amount of insight we gain into our leads' characters makes it all quite worth it. I mentioned before that the big finale of the Culture Festival Arc could have been used to cap off the series, but there's a lot more that goes into a relationship than the first big step and this volume shows that there's plenty we can still do with these characters. Fans don't need to be told this, but this is one for the collection. Get it.
Rating:
Own It