Kaguya-sama: Love is War (2020)
[ใใใๆงใฏๅใใใใ ๏ฝๅคฉๆใใกใฎๆๆ้ ญ่ณๆฆ๏ฝ]
Volume 17
Author/Artist: Aka Akasaka
Publisher: Young Jump Comics
Synopsis:
Fujiwara tries to surprise Shinomiya as an early birthday present.
Story/Characters:
We start with an interesting change of format, a chapter consisting of little one- or two-page shorts filling in some of the blanks from the winter break shenanigans. We then return to our regularly scheduled programming with Fujiwara trying to prank the members of the student council. The "I Love You" game that follows is mostly played for laughs, but then it comes Shirogane's turn. To keep from losing the game (by getting embarrassed), he flashes back to when his mom walked out on him and his dad. This is the first we've seen of his mom and it's got me curious if this is going to be explored further. After that, we have Shirogane alone with Iino and him trying to close the distance between them. It goes in an interesting direction. We then have Ishigami being encouraged by the glee club captain to pursue muscle training in his pursuit of Tsubame-sempai. After that, Shinomiya once again consults with Kashiwagi, prompting the latter to fear for her sexual development. This leads to the hilarious situation where Shinomiya ends up bonding with Maki over a porno provided to her by Kashiwagi. This episode is the frame for a flashback of when Shinomiya and Maki were kids. This leads to both of them having sex on the mind and Maki ends up confronting Shirogane and Ishigami over the boys' perspective on things with amusing results. (Love Detective Chika isn't prepared for this.) You might think that we'd have awkwardness between Shirogane and Shinomiya after this, but instead we have their first couple's phone chat. It's cute. We finally close on a side story with the media club tangling with their eternal rivals in the table game club.
Art:
As per usual, we get loads of great reaction shots. Shinomiya and Maki are really cute as kids. Also, in the flashback shot of Shirogane's mom, the way she looks is a big part of why I'd like to see further exploration of what's going on with her. I also liked Maki's film noir imagine spot from Chapter 169.
Other:
The relationship chart gets updated and we get the character profile for Maki.
Conclusion:
Although we've had breather chapters to break things up and lighten the mood, the last couple volumes have been dealing with some heavy material, so this is a nice bit of relaxation with the comedy the series was founded on. It's good stuff and well worth having.
Rating:
Own It