#kaguya having a mental battle between sides of herself where one says she loves shirogane more than the rest

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'I'd rather get my kisses stolen than do the stealing because it makes my heart beat faster' is.... LMAOOO

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Kaguya and Miyuki - One of My Favorite Manga Romances Ever

“Women often fell in love with someone who seems superhuman suddenly reveals their vulnerability.”

I haven’t found many fans who talked about this, but how the relationship between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War becomes truly official (Volumes 14-15 of the manga) is psychologically compelling. It’s one of the best portrayals of how romance realistically develops.

The whole premise of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is based around an ongoing battle of wits between Kaguya and Miyuki on who will get the other to confess their feelings towards them. Both have liked each other for a while, but resort to a bunch of wacky strategies throughout the series to force a confession. It isn’t until Volume 14 where Miyuki decides to do an elaborate confession during a school culture festival on his own terms. Kaguya takes the initiative in kissing Miyuki during that moment. However, a growing sense of awkwardness and tension occurs due to their relationship changing. Both parties become unsure on how to be comfortable around each other. This leads to Kaguya’s personality suddenly shifting to her “Ice Kaguya” persona (a very cold side of herself that developed due to her upbringing) and Miyuki developing a sense of insecurity over not being good enough for Kaguya. The situation is further complicated as Miyuki wants to go to America for college and Kaguya is willing to go with him. The tension hits a turning point when Miyuki is suddenly hospitalized for burnout. Kaguya realized that Miyuki is trying to do too much and wants to save him after accepting her own flaws.

After the first kiss, Kaguya starts to become emotionally unstable as she has a conversation with her maid, Ai Hayasaka, about what happened. Kaguya talks about how intimate and long the kiss was. Hayasaka scolds Kaguya a bit and tells her that the kiss was a French kiss. There’s jokes about a French kiss being compared to actual sexual intercourse. Kaguya freaks out and she becomes Foolish Kaguya, a child-like persona that emerges due to being emotionally overwhelmed, in school the next day.

We later take a look inside Kaguya’s head where all of her subconscious personas talk about Miyuki. She has Child Kaguya, Ice Kaguya, and Foolish Kaguya as a part of her. They represent the ego, superego and id respectively. Ice Kaguya takes charge in being the dominant persona as she proclaims that she had feelings for him first. What’s important about Ice Kaguya is that she represents the kind of mask we put on in order to justify being a part of a world that demands so much from us. The Shinomiya family is a rich family that wants to decide everything for Kaguya. Ice Kaguya is an “act” to not deal with conflicting emotions and shunning everyone around her in order to protect them from her terrible side.

Miyuki becomes frightened in how to respond around Ice Kaguya while Ice Kaguya doesn’t know how to talk to him. The hospitalization happens after Ice Kaguya tries to get Miyuki to kiss him and he collapses out of a fear of looking bad. A lot of times, we don’t see what happens after the first kiss happens in romance stories. It’s usually happily ever after. But things change. There’s a gap between friends and lovers. It’s hard to take further steps after taking a huge leap (which is hard enough). This is especially the case when both parties fear vulnerability so much after being known as successful to those around them.

There’s a nice look inside Kaguya’s mind where Ice Kaguya talks to Little Kaguya about how she was raised to not be nice towards people. Never rely on others, hinder your opinions, treat others as pawns, etc. Ice Kaguya berates herself as someone who hurts others and not worthy of Miyuki’s love. But the other personas tell her that she deserves love as much as they do. It reminds me of how uncomfortable we are with our dark sides. Yeah, we do have flaws and they’re sometimes ugly. But they’re a part of who we are. They’re us. Our dark sides, like Ice Kaguya, are defense mechanisms forced to emerge to protect us. If we have sympathy towards those who are forced to do something they don’t like, it’s possible to do the same for ourselves. Self-compassion is not weakness.

The doctor who sees Miyuki at the hospital proclaims that Miyuki is suffering from “lovesickness.” He says that Miyuki has a mental health issue. Miyuki proclaims that he’s forced to be a genius due to how bad his family situation is. He never got love from his mother (who would later leave his father) after failing exams in his early youth. Miyuki later reveals that he put on a confident act in order to become the student council president. He feels that he has to try really hard in order to be on equal footing with Kaguya. A nurse tells him that it’s okay to be vulnerable. But Miyuki believes Kaguya is perfect without any understanding of her true self and decides to stress himself to be the perfect man.

There’s a point to be made that men find it hard to talk about emotions when women find it easier to do so. Sometimes, it’s much harder for men due to the roles they have to take in order to be “competitive” enough to survive. Speaking through actions is what men are supposed to excel at. That’s the role/burden men like Miyuki are given.

The romantic tension finally comes to an end when Kaguya confronts Miyuki at Christmas Eve. Miyuki tries to find a good gift for Kaguya to impress her, but ends up with a “ball in a cup” toy. He tries not to give it to her due to his need to make things perfect, but she takes it and enjoys the gift. The two would get into a long conversation at a park about being an ordinary couple for a change after Kaguya admits that being around him is good enough for her. They have a kiss that feels more proper because now they truly know each other. Miyuki then finally realizes that Kaguya’s totally okay with him failing at things from time-to-time.

“It takes courage to be average.” is a saying I heard recently. Everyone is told they’re special and capable of doing whatever they want. However, there’s a huge price to pay to chase a kind of success that feels never-ending. I’m not saying we should stop working hard for what we want. It’s just that the grind is often very lonely. There’s no time for reflection. We also can’t realistically achieve every goal we have in mind. The best indicator of someone’s happiness and success is relationships. I think the beauty of the Kaguya/Miyuki romance is that it’s okay to be a boring, average couple deep down. That’s what real romance is anyway to me - to not have so much drama in your life. I think about this a lot. As someone with mental illness, I’ve been told to date someone with a consistent routine because certain highs can be just as bad as certain lows.

I’m really glad Aka Akasaka didn’t stop the series after the culture festival kiss because that moment felt too “perfect.” I wonder if this is a criticism of how perfectionism has caused good and honest people to shun away any emotional wounds they have suffered. People usually are the problem in inflicting wounds, but they’re also the solution to processing them. Romantic relationships are mostly about being willing to put up with your partner’s flaws. It’s often difficult to share pain with someone and it’s important to admit that it’s okay to want someone you love to share it with. Honoring that desire is a big part of loving others and more importantly, yourself.

Vulnerability is sexy and when love becomes war (like it was for Kaguya and Miyuki), it’s the great equalizer to achieving true peace for all sides involved.