I have never quite understood the hype behind Kaguya-sama.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great show. Actually, strike that; it's a fantastic show. It's one of the most consistently funny comedies of the past few years, and its clever character work and outrageous animation are more than deserving of their high praise. But whenever I hear people calling it the best rom com of all time, all I can think is, "Wow, y'all really are so young that you've never heard of Toradora, huh?" Never mind Kimi ni Todoke, Ore Monogatari, and countless other spectacular shoujo rom coms that people are all too quick to forget even exist. I love Kaguya-sama dearly, but I've never quite felt comfortable ranking it among the best of the best like so many others do.
At least, not until I watched this movie.
Now, though? I understand completely.
See, the reason I never rated this show as highly as other people is because to me, Kaguya and Shirogane's romance is the least interesting part of it all. Even after season 3 finally made me give a damn about them officially hooking up as a couple, Kaguya-sama is always at its most interesting to me when it's focused on anything other than its title character. Chika's insane wild card antics, Hayasaka's perfectly deadpan straight man routine, Ishigami's bizarrely endearing blend of misanthropy and sincerity... Kaguya's supporting cast has always been its biggest draw for me. Kaguya and Shirogane aren't bad by any means, and they've had plenty of great moments between them. But most of the time when Kaguya-sama is playing at being a straight romance, it just doesn't connect with me as strongly as it's trying to.
And that's why The First Kiss That Never Ends is so phenomenal. Because after four years of show, it finally, finally made me fall in love with the main romance of Kaguya-sama. After all this time, I get why these two crazy kids are so special to so many people. I get why countless adoring fans consider this their favorite rom com, even if it's still not my personal best. No longer am I standing on the sidelines in mild confusion; I am officially a full throated Kaguya-sama stan at last. And in accomplishing this feat, this movie finally helped me understand why these two weren't clicking for me before... and how I may not have been giving this show as much credit as it deserved.
You see, one of the central tropes in Kaguya-sama's romance is a trope that I have more bad experiences with than I can count: the Ice Queen. Kaguya is a frigid, closed-off girl who must learn to open her heart and be honest about her feelings over the course of the show. It's a character type I've seen a lot, and it's a character type that is dangerously easy to fuck up. Because if you don't treat this kind of story with care, it can very easily come off like the story sees her as a haughty bitch who needs to learn her place, stop being so stuck up, and let a man sweep her into his arms. And considering how many hang-ups a lot of male anime writers clearly have about writing female characters... yeah, let's just say I have enough nightmares of this trope being done wrong to last a lifetime.
And Kaguya's not even a bad example of the trope! She's always been a very well handled character, even as far back as season 1. But one always had this uncertainty in the back of my mind: how aware is this show of the gendered nature of the tropes it's playing with? There are countless times where either the narrator or the characters will make some sweeping statement about what girls are like, or what boys are like, or how relationships between men and women are "supposed" to work. And while they're always presented so absurdly that no rational person could take them seriously, it's never quite clear how unseriously we're supposed to take them. Cause, like... there's a lot of these moments for them to not be indicative of something.
So that's where I've been at with Kaguya the Ice Queen. A very loaded, very gendered trope in a series that has a very unclear stance of loaded, gendered tropes. Was it trying to say something? Did it have some grand thesis about the harmful nature of gendered expectations waiting in the wings? Or like so many anime before it, was it just uncritically parroting the same old tired expectations for good little boys and girls? Looking back, this was the sword of Damacles hanging over my head as I've watched and enjoyed Kaguya-sama, the uncertainty that kept me from opening my heart to it fully. Whether I could fully put it into words or not, I couldn't get past that question: is this show yet another victim of sexist stereotypes it doesn't fully understand?
Thank god, then, that The First Kiss Never Ends had finally proven the answer to be no.
Yes, if you thought the aftermath of Kaguya and Shirogane's first kiss was going to be smooth sailing for these two neurotic messes, you clearly don't know what show you're watching. They've taken the biggest step forward imaginable and brought their relationship right to the precipice of being official. Victory is so close they can taste it, but with that comes a terror the likes of which they've never felt before. Suddenly the reality of what their lives are about to become crashes up against their long standing hang-ups about love and self worth, and their mutual fear over thinking they aren't yet living up to the standard of what a Person In A Relationship is supposed to be leads to the biggest rift in their relationship yet. Neither understands what the other wants from them- hell, they don't even understand what they want from themselves. Which means after so many mental battles and false starts, it's time for Shirogane and Kaguya to rip off their masks and face each other's true selves once and for all, even if they can't bear the answers they think are waiting in the other's gaze.
And yes, in exposing themselves so completely, it makes clear just how inexorably their issues are bound up in gender. Kaguya's so obsessed with playing out the script of the submissive lady who lets the man make all the first moves that her spiraling self-loathing ends up hurting everyone who tries to get close to her. Miyuki's so wrapped up in the need to prove himself manly enough to be worthy of Kaguya that he loses the ability to connect with her on her own terms. And when these two deeply flawed approaches to romance collide with the heightened tension of two dumb kids desperate not to fuck everything up, they feed into each other in the worst way.
In other words, what this movie proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that Kaguya-sama fully understands the importance of leaving gender roles behind. The final boss of this show isn't just the inescapable fear of knowing and being known; it's also, explicitly, how that fear is made worse by gendered expectations that leave lost kids flailing in an attempt to live up to unhealthy notions of love and companionship. It's the kind of misunderstanding plot that actually makes sense and leaves you agonized because of how well it understands why their wires are getting crossed, as opposed to agonized because the writers are clearly dragging things out tortuously to avoid progressing the plot an inch further. For Kaguya and Shirogane to truly overcome their issues, they must leave behind their notions of who they're supposed to be, how they're supposed to act, and see each other as the people they are. Not a girl and guy following a pre-written script, but two complex human beings who make each other's lives that much brighter for being in them.
And in retrospect, that's always been what Kaguya-sama is about, hasn't it? All of this show's best non-comedic moments have been when it takes an ax to a restrictive gendered trope and lets the character behind it fly free. Miko's introductory arc was all about Shirogane realizing that this girl most people dismissed as a naggy bitch in need of an ego check was in fact one of the most passionate, dedicated people in the school, and doing his damndest to give her a chance to speak her truth. And hey, remember how Ishigami's rise from Reddit-pilled loner to someone who can embrace his place in the world without feeling like an incel involved him dressing in drag and feeling happy doing so? When you look back at the whole picture, Kaguya-sama has always been about breaking free of gendered expectations, in ways both big and small. And now that we've reached the climax of Kaguya and Shirogane's arc, it's finally time for them to break free just the same.
And my god, it is spectacular. It's an emotional payoff to years of slow-burn character work that makes look back and realize just how fucking good it’s been at laying the foundation for this moment. It bares Kaguya and Shirogane’s souls like never before, and it took me from being nominally interested in their antics to openly weeping over their attempts to understand each other. This isn't just a beautiful finale that washes away all my concerns, it's made me appreciate everything this show was doing so wonderfully before that I was too uncertain to pick up on. At last, I can see that Kaguya-sama IS as incredible as everyone says. It IS genuinely a masterpiece of rom com storytelling. It's an uproarious, beautiful tale about the importance of living true to yourself, even when you feel like yourself is something to run away from. And if this movie is the last part of the manga to be adapted, then it's as perfect a conclusion as I could hope for.
It's not a perfect movie overall, to be fair. It pretty much skips over an Ishigami/Miko subplot it starts building up, and there are points in the middle where the lighting is so dark it's almost impossible to see what's going on. Which is a weird misstep for a series that's always had such a strong visual identity. But as a climax to this war of hearts and minds that finally made me care about those hearts and minds, it's an unimpeachable triumph. The First Kiss That Never Ends made me believe the hype at last, and I can't wait to join the rest of the world in preaching the glories of the series it caps off so wonderfully.
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