Kaguya-Sama's first season was a super enjoyable comedy with great animation, funny humor, and a lot of heart. Its second season is pretty much more of the same, but it executes all of these things even better than the first.
Similarly to Season 1, Kaguya-Sama's second season doesn't really have an overarching story, rather it continues to progress the main conflict between Kaguya and Miyuki. Even though we don't really get any resolutions here, you can tell that the two are starting to let their guards down, especially Kaguya who starts turning into a flustered idiot far more frequently. This season also starts to implement arc-driven storytelling, with stories involving Miyuki's birthday, Kaguya losing her cell phone, a big sports festival, and biggest of all, the election for the new student council president. This arc is especially big, spanning a whopping four episodes and introducing an entirely new member of the cast in Miko Iino. I really like Iino, her more rigid attitude serves as a nice foil for the other members of the Student Council (not unlike Asuka in K-On), and the running gag about her walking into the room at the wrong moment was hysterical. I also really liked the sports festival arc, which fleshes out Ishigami a lot more and revealing his backstory. I didn't like him much at first, but learning what he's had to deal with made me warm up to him a lot more, and his character development is genuinely great. I also like that his storyline was resolved in the penultimate episode so the finale can focus on Kaguya and Miyuki, along with the group as a whole.
The main reason why I like this season better though is definitely the character interactions. There are far more sketches in Season 2 which focus entirely on the cast just hanging out and goofing off together, along with plenty of sketches that focus more on the side characters. Hayasaka's increased role was definitely a pleasant surprise as well, with her having some of the funniest moments in the season. This was also the season that really made me aware of how much I love this show's running gags, from Chika's struggles to teach Miyuki basic life skills, to the aforementioned Miko gag. I'm a big fan of this type of humor and Kaguya-Sama executes it incredibly well. The animation is also willing to be a lot more experimental with split second gags and hilarious parodies becoming all the more frequent. There are also a ton of neat details like the camera fogging off if it gets too close to someone or the Mario Kart parody having music that uses the SNES soundfont. So not only is this season stronger in terms of its drama, it's stronger in terms of its humor as well.
Nearly every episode this season had at least one hilarious sketch, but these were my favorite episodes of the bunch:
Episode 1: This was a hilarious opener where nearly every single sketch was excellent, especially due to the strong character interactions within the student council. There's the council spying on Nagisa and her boyfriend, Chika's board game, and the horoscopes sketch, all of which are great. But the real highlight is the first of several Hayasaka-centric sketches which has her defend the council room by all means necessary.
Episode 3: While this whole episode was a strong start to the election arc which introduced the stakes and gave us a brief glimpse of Miko, the best sketch of this episode was easily "The 67th Student Council". An emotional and funny reflection of the past term which brings back many of the best jokes and running gags from Season 1.
Episode 6: This episode was the climactic finale to the election arc, and it was a ton of fun. Seeing the cast take the same tactical knowledge they use for the "love war" and use it for the debate was a ton of fun, and I like how the conflict shifted from winning the election to making Iino happy. The ending is really sweet and having Iino join the council adds an interesting new layer to the group dynamic.
Episode 10: This Shirogane-focused episode was just adorable. His family members got some sketches to themselves, I especially loved the one where Kaguya meets his father, but we also get a great Chika-teaches-Miyuki sketch that adds in Kaguya herself to shake things up. Add in a Kobachi sketch that reveals a bit of Ishigami's backstory and you get a really entertaining selection of sketches that focuses on the side characters a bit.
Episode 11: This penultimate episode felt like it belonged to Bojack Horseman rather than a comedy like Kaguya-Sama, and not in a bad way at all. The more serious tone and focus on Ishigami was a surprising and incredibly well-executed change of pace that did a good job at depicting his social anxiety with the seriousness it deserved. It wasn't all sad though, the second half was incredibly sweet and satisfying, from the reveal that Miyuki saved Ishigami, to the cheerleader squad embracing Ishigami, to that legendary "Go to hell, baka". This episode was unlike anything in the series to this point, and it genuinely showed me how much range it has. If only Season 3 was out...
Episode 12: While this wasn't as grandiose as the Season 1 finale, I thought it had this great sense of finality to it that might have made it even better! I like how this episode lended importance to Kaguya's cell phone and how it gives her a sense of normality, and was rivaled last episode in sheer emotional impact. I also love how even after the more serious phone storyline, we get a hilarious sketch to round off the season, probably one of the funniest in the season, and the way it gave every character something to do, brought together all of the major plot threads only to throw them out the window, and even showed off all the side characters at the very end just felt so masterful.
Overall, Kaguya-Sama's second season was excellent. It takes the strengths of the first season and elevates them all. The humor was funnier, the animation is wackier, the drama hits harder, and the characters got a lot more development and time to interact. This was already an excellent second season and I can only hope the show gets even better from here.
5/5 Stars
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