Love is War is fundamentally a character-based story, so it's a shame that the characters happen to be its weakest aspect. Don't misunderstand, though; the majority of the cast is actually pretty solid, both main and supporting. There's not all that much depth to them, but most of the characters fit their roles perfectly. Heck, some of the interpersonal relationships are even fairly interesting. That sounds good, though, right? So what's the deal? It all comes down to the two protagonists, sadly.
Social awkwardness and emotional constipation both come as a matter of course with a premise like this, as you were presumably fully aware of long before ever laying eyes on this review. The problem is how far it ends up taking it. Every single interaction between the leads is painfully frustrating from the start, which just might be your cup of tea if you're even thinking of reading this manga. That's okay. But see, it keeps getting worse for every chapter until it starts becoming nigh unbearable. And no, it's not in the intentionally frustrating slow burn "why won't they just talk?!" kind of way. It reaches a point where the mental gymnastics just become annoying. A point where you find yourself staring at the page with a blank expression on your face, muttering "Really...?" under your breath for the umpteenth time in the same volume. The fact that these people are supposed to be 17 at the start of the series is beyond baffling when they're acting like particularly awkward 12-year-olds every opportunity they get. The manga tries to excuse it by continuously pointing out how Kaguya is sheltered and lacks experience talking to people, but that doesn't do much to make every conversation she has with the love interest any less aggravating.
In contrast, the rest of the cast is rather good. Everyone here probably already knows Chika from the memes, and that's basically what she's there for in the first place. Rarely doing anything to directly further the plot, she's mostly there to make the dumb jokes possible. Ishigami starts off rather bland, but ends up turning into the most interesting character by far as the story progresses. Iino doesn't do much of anything as she enters the stage, but she eventually manages to take an important role in the better part of the series. Hayasaka is one of the best characters from the very start, and stays that way through the entirety of the manga. Even some of the less important characters are genuinely interesting in some way. It's just a shame that the protagonists end up outweighing everyone else.
You may have noticed that this review hasn't mentioned anything about the plot yet, but that's fine. The manga takes its damn time getting around to it. In fact, in a lot of ways, it probably shouldn't have ever gone past its basic premise. Without saying too much, the whole style of the series changes in the blink of an eye and never really fully returns to what it used to be, and I get the impression that people are somewhat split on whether this is good or bad for the story in general. To be perfectly clear, I personally didn't like any part of it before this point in the story. After this point, however, I started liking SOME parts. That's pretty huge in itself. On the other hand, I've seen a good number of people say that they liked it before, but not after. To be frank, although the storytelling improves drastically in the short time dedicated to this shift, it costs the story its entire identity. And the best part? The protagonists are still annoying. The greatest improvement is genuinely that more time is now getting dedicated to the rest of the cast—particularly Ishigami. And this brings us to my final real point.
Ishigami's part of the story was the only thing keeping me somewhat interested in this series. Had it stood isolated, I could easily have recommended it to anyone interested in drama or romance. It's not watered down like the rest of the series, it feels genuine and raw, and every character seems drastically much better compared to how they are outside of it. But alas. In the end, it's just not worth walking through all the other shit just to get to the chapters that are truly good.
Comedy is purely subjective, so there probably isn't much of a point in me saying what I think on that. I will however say that there's so much repetition that it wouldn't be weird to get tired of the gag after a few chapters. It gets a bit better after the shift, but don't think for a moment that it's going to fully stop. I personally found the visual comedy to be best, which is in part carried by how good the art is. It looks somewhat awkward at times, particularly at the start, but the art's odd points become less and less frequent for every volume.
Love is War was a tiring read in general. It definitely has some good moments, a few truly fantastic ones, and a whole lot of bad ones. I can't see anyone enjoying the whole thing unless they love the comedy from the start and still appreciate the huge change in the writing. It seriously would have been so much better with Ishigami as the protagonist.
Story: 5/10
Art: 8/10
Characters: 4/10
Enjoyment: 3/10
Overall: 5/10
