Spoilers for the anime and manga, especially for the funny stuff

There are 2 ways to look at this special. On the one hand it is some of the highest quality adaptation we have seen from the anime, of some of the best scenes in the manga. Love is War's anime adaptation has always been very high quality, capturing the vibe of the manga and the absurd emotional states of the characters very well, but this special's animation felt especially high budget. Visually it might be the best part of the adaptation. The pacing was a bit too quick but I think that's mainly because of the time limitations and the sporadic nature of the special.

On the other hand for every peak scene adapted there are many skipped and glossed over. A lot of the things in the special like Hayasaka's arc, Miko's broken arm or Kaguya's abduction are merely mentioned and not expanded upon, which I assume would be very confusing for anime onlies. Yes the manga's second half isn't as good as the first half. Yes it has a rushed and unsatisfactory ending (although it is no disaster like Oshi no Ko). But by no means was it bad enough to skip 2 to 3 seasons worth of content, especially when it comes to comedic scenes and Ishigami x Iino shenanigans (anime onlies who love that dynamic are going to miss out on so much). When the manga did focus on Shinomiya family stuff it did suffer, but I don't think it was that bad, and we had at least a season worth of content before we got to that point.

Besides, all of that stuff could be fleshed out more with some anime original tweaks and additional scenes, as the biggest problem with these arcs were that they felt rushed and out of place. Worst case scenario they could have been cut or rewritten. Alas this is just the bargaining stage of grief, the reason why the manga was not adapted fully probably has other reasons.

I was so happy to see the chapters where Miyuki's father became a streamer, Kaguya and Miyuki's first "passionate hug", and even the references to Among Us which took me back half a decade to when I read the manga and was amused at the references to current pop culture (yes it has been that long since Among Us). But it pains me to know we will probably never see Miyuki's father teach Iino Apex Legends, or Maki's journey for enlightenment in India.

Overall I'm going to judge the special on its own and give it a pretty high score, but the wider implications this special had were very disappointing. All we can hope now is that maybe at least the anime special ending will give this series a more satisfactory ending than what we got in the manga (and remind ourselves yet again that for some reason everything Aka touches is cursed).