Back when I was in High School myself,
a certain gym teacher presented what he called the “Circle of
Intelligence” or, depending on when he was talking, “Bad Synapse
Theory” The idea was that instead of the spectrum between the
genius gifted kids on one side and the complete morons on the other
being a straight line, it was an almost-complete circle, with only a
small gap between the poles. Someone who was average would be
average basically all the time, but the kids on the extremes (mostly
framed as the geniuses) could have one synapse fire wrong and
momentarily leap across the little gap to the other pole.
It’s a silly little picture born, no
doubt, of observing kids with perfect grades and limited practical
skills, but that does happen now and again, especially when someone
who is legitimately smart gets a little arrogant about it and trips
themselves up with their own brilliant plan. And, having seen “The
Geniuses’ War of Love and Brains” in Kaguya-sama, I’ve got to say
that gym teacher must have had fun watching it happen, because that’s
pretty much the premise that keeps the comedy going here.
Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane,
the vice-president and president of the student council at their
elite private school, are legitimately brilliant and talented. It’s
not just an informed attribute; we see them plot and maneuver like
every day life is a game of Chess, but it’s also their shared
downfall that they will overthink their situation and hatch
excessively complicated schemes – because, as big as their brains
are, their egos and misconceptions are larger and more prominent yet.
The shared, though unspoken (except by
the bombastic narrator) concept that they hold to is simple: the
person who confesses love to their prospective partner “loses”.
And neither Kaguya nor Miyuki are the kind of person who’s
comfortable with losing. Each episode is typically a series of
vignettes depicting the mental maneuvering of the characters as they
try to arrange their love interest/rival’s confession while avoiding
anything that might be taken as admitting to romantic feelings
themselves. Getting in the way is Chika Fujiwara, the secretary of
the Student Council, and later Yuu Ishigami, the treasurer. Chika in
particular is a comic foil to the genius protagonists, playing the
fool (natural or artificial is hard to say) and frequently acting as
the monkey wrench in their plans. Ishigami on the other hand is a
depressive and fearful underclassman who starts out thinking that
Kaguya is plotting to kill him. He serves, despite his own nerves,
mostly as the straight man in the show’s comedy once he appears. In
addition to the four members of the Student Council we also spend
some time with Ai Hayasaka, Kaguya’s personal maid and a more
traditional “straight man” role who knows all about the battle
Kaguya is waging and thinks it’s flagrantly foolish. Lastly, we have
the narrator. The narrator isn’t exactly a character, but presents a
bombastic, farcical look into what the characters are thinking and
displays how melodramatic the situation feels to those inside it.
I think the best way to describe
Kaguya-sama is as a farce: it’s a work that is comedic in how overly
serious it takes itself. However, this is in the sense of farce as
its own art form. From the writers, the comedy is intentional. The
narration is overly serious, the premise is overly serious, and the
two kids at the heart of it take themselves and their actions way,
way too seriously most of the time. And the result is comedy gold,
because the audience is privileged to see the events for what they
are, and understand that by in large mountains are being made out of
molehills.
If this was all there was to
Kaguya-sama, it would be on the pleasant end of average, but it does
go beyond the call of the farce in one respect. A classical farce is
noted for not relying on character development. In Kaguya-sama,
however, there is actually a lot of good character, and some of it
even veers out of the comedic to legitimate drama.
At the center of all of that is Kaguya
Shinomiya herself. Miyuki Shirogane is technically relevant on the
same level as Kaguya, and he does get his time in the sun so to
speak, but they’re not given equal weight. Kaguya is usually the one
‘on the attack’, and she’s also the one we see more of the inner
workings of. We come to understand her home life, her stakes, and
why she has the world view she does. And when the show shifts,
however mildly, to drama, it’s all drama surrounding Kaguya. This
is, really, her story.
In this season, at least (Kaguya-sama
is another show that’s been renewed) neither lead ‘wins’ (nor ‘loses’
of course) the core game of confession. Different little bouts may
be scored and rated, but the game overall continues. However, there
is still a dramatic conclusion: over summer break, Miyuki and Kaguya
aren’t able to see each other, given that both of them have hangups
keeping them from being the first to reach out. However, the Student
Council does have one scheduled event: going out as a group to see a
fireworks display. Feeling very low, especially when other possible
meet-ups get canceled, as well as lonely and isolated, Kaguya looks
forward to the fireworks viewing, a hint of the normal kind of life
and relationships that she’s never been allowed to have. The look
into Kaguya’s psyche as she copes with her deprived existence and the
whims of her distant father, the need to be a Shinomiya first and a
person second if at all, is done without any of the usual bombastic
nature. The dramatic shot framing, hyperbolic imagination sequences,
bombastic narrator – all gone for a moment.
And then it looks like the fireworks
viewing, Kaguya’s one little slice of hope that she’s been keeping it
together holding out for, is going to be snatched away as well. The
sequence that follows, where Kaguya and the Student Council (not just
Miyuki – even Ishigami is there!) work to try to get her out to her
manor and able to see some fireworks with her friends are still
overly dramatic, but not in a comedic way like usual.
Instead, the big arc at the end of
Kaguya-sama season 1 is a lesson in what it means to write low
stakes, and how low objective stakes don’t always translate to low
emotional stakes. At the end of the show, what’s at stake might be
even less than in most of the vignettes, at least in an objective
sense: Kaguya either gets to see the fireworks with her friends… or
she doesn’t and everything goes back to normal when summer break
ends. The getting there goes bigger (in an objective sense, again;
previous vignettes were mostly just talking, even if the shots and
narration made it feel like there was more going on), but really
Kaguya doesn’t stand to lose much, if anything, should this go badly
for her.
And yet, because it’s given the
dramatic treatment, and because the dramatic treatment is just as
effective as the farcical treatment of previous segments, you do very
much feel for Kaguya. You want her to be able to make it, and see
the fireworks, and feel legitimately good when she does. It’s a more
pronounced emotional experience than many cases of other shows where
there are vastly greater objective stakes. It doesn’t matter that
this is just about one girl being happy for an evening rather than a
horrible villain blowing up a city or planet or whatever you’d get
out of an action show, the secret is forming a connection and getting
the audience to care, not about making the threat intellectually
bigger or badder.
The fact that Kaguya-sama juggled this emotional drama perfectly with its comedic excessive drama drastically raises my opinion of it. Again, if it were just a farce, it would be kind of OK. But because you really get to know and like these characters, particularly Kaguya, the show ends up being a lot more. This is what Quintessential Quintuplets wishes it could have been. It’s something I’m looking forward to more of, something I’ve sought out the source material (mercifully localized this time) on, and ultimately an easy A.