Love is War's intimal premise is more deceptive than what people give it credit for. While being primarily romance and character-driven, Love is War is a complete package of a manga. Its witty humor, engaging mental battles, and emotionally charged character moments are the fuel and foundation of the story. Kaguya's character arc of becoming more of a "normal" girl is exceptional while Ishigami's development is hard to NOT get behind. Love is War seems to excel at everything they promise within the story. Surely... Surely Aka Akasaka, the genius behind Love is War, won't make a complete 180 as soon as he reaches chapter 240 right???
What Love is War so flawlessly does is shoot itself in the foot to get an honorable discharge but miserably fails just to get itself killed in the line of duty. So many cracks in the story make themselves visible right before chapter 240. I mean we learned the Shinoyima family is the reason why Shirogane is broke? Can we expand on that, it seems pretty big? Nope. Shirogane is catastrophically underwritten! We learn that he works so hard because of his mother and his abandonment issues and that his dream after working so hard is to buy his father's company back. There is so much depth here but it goes absolutely nowhere. Love is War builds up Shirogane calling Kaguya by her first name but then in a couple chapters they just refer to each other on a first-name basis??? What was the point in building it up as something special if its just said and done in the most uninspiring way ever? Kaguya, the goddamn goddess of knowledge and intellect, presses the floor number of where Shirogane's apartment is when she's supposed to be feigning ignorance because his sister is present. How the hell do you build your manga on the foundation of your main character being smart but making such an obvious rookie mistake and NEVER acknowledge the mistake being made. These problems themselves aren't very big and one could easily pass them off as "nitpicks". However, I think it's extremely important to understand how Love is War had multiple problems BEFORE chapter 240, it's only the consistency and delivery of the story was infinitely better then than now.
With minimal foreshadowing but definitely an established tone mixed with some foreboding, we reach chapter 240. The Shinomiya Political Nonsense Salad. This garbage of an arc starts off being overly mysterious when we learn later, that it was completely unnecessary and used to build an atmosphere it was not at all consistent with. Kaguya is being used as a political marriage hostage?? I think the idea of an overly serious conflict such as that coming into a comedy series with zero setup is beyond insane. One day we're trying to help Ishigami not get held back a year and the next day we're trying to stop a political marriage concerning a billionaire conglomerate from happening. The blatant tear-baiting of Kaguya breaking up with Shirogane, Shirogane winning over Kaguya's dad in 10 seconds, Haysaka and Chika getting ganged up in and backed into a corner, there are so many contrivances and useless sections in this arc it is impossible to fully take it seriously. The Shinomiya family are AWFUL "antagonists". Their designs make them blend into a wall, they aren't fleshed out at all, and they are adults fighting children?! The absolute nonsense in this arc comes out of the logic of its resolution. Seiryu Shinomiya (a central antagonist of the arc) gets into a confrontation with Fujiwara in which he says an off-hand line about how women derive happiness from children, marriage, and cooking. Fujiwara, a seventeen-year-old woman who has never dated, instantly challenges this notion and says that women dont like Mr. Seiryu Shinomiya. Apparently, this SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl did some "digging" and found out Seiryu is very sexually active and talked to his sexual partners to confess to what he has done to them. Chika is threatening to expose Seiryu and how he has "pervy fetishes" and abandoned these women when they got pregnant. The heir to a billionaire conglomerate is getting threatened, and even worse, outsmarted by a 17-year-old girl? These are the antagonists of the arc? Are you serious bro? So beyond suspension of disbelief its insane. The entire reason we are in this arc is because Shinomiya is a political hostage. The Shinomiya bros think she is the answer to the incoming war with the Shijo family. Do you know how this gets resolved? 17-year-old Kaguya says "trust me bro" and these grown adults say "aight bruh, ima let you cook real quick G"??????? Are you serious? Shirogane sweet-talks Kaguya's dad in 10 seconds, Kaguya gets his will, and then the rest of the family just says "do yo thang boo"?? Most unserious shit ever. But we haven't had Shirogane do some corny nonsense yet so one of the brothers' crew chases down Kaguya (for no reason) for Kaguya to be at the edge of a cliff and jump off for, you guessed it, Shirogane to catch her. The guy who didn't want to spend money on a cab, rented a helicopter to make a theatrical entrance with Kaguya. The funniest part is 3 people were chasing Kaguya and when she got to the edge of the cliff there was only 1 left and they were out of breath so realistically, Kaguya could just outrun them. LOL.
After that abysmal arc, Asa Akasaka decides he doesn't want to write anymore and resolves some threads in the worst way ever. Shirogane is leaving for America soon? Let's have a gag chapter where rich girl Kaguya oversleeps his departure and flies to America to have their own little goodbye. Shirogane being gone was built up for a very long time guys we even had an entire chapter dedicated to his final messages to everyone. Nah let's have him in America but on a big monitor so he still interacts with the main cast effectively making the plot point redundant and void. Ishigami and Iino had their relationship built up for chapters on chapters, surely...... Surely..... Surely Akasaka will make sure to resolve it in a very cathartic and satisfying way right? Wrong. Akasaka decides to make Iino the student council president and have Ishigami join the student council again just for HALF A YEAR TO GO BY. After half a year goes by, in the most flaccid uninspiring way possible, the narrator says "Ishigami and IIno inherited a lot from the previous student council and they will continue to write their own story." what.
Love is War is the biggest think piece on "they had us in the first half ngl". With its pathetic writing attempts, laughable resolutions, and garbage ideas, Akasaka has done enough damage to Love is War. Tokyo Revengers, Code Geass, Wano Kuni levels of bad.
