The Ice Queen of Tea
What They Say:
“Spring of First Year / Kaguya’s Culture Festival / Yu Ishigami’s Culture Festival”
One week after enrolling in Shuchiin Academy as a special scholarship student, Shirogane had already regretted that he had come to a school he should not have. The students around him were elites born into famous families. Shirogane, who is from a modest household and enrolled from a school outside of Shuchiin’s track, couldn’t even find a friend to eat with, so he quietly kills time away from the cafeteria. Just as Shirogane’s miserable emotions explode, an upperclassman with a student cap appears in front of him. A shining golden fourragere lays across his chest as proof of student council president. And he says that he’s come to recruit Shirogane into the student council.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We’ve heard throughout this series that the person who confesses first loses. Now that the culture festival is about to begin, both sides of this war are ready to admit defeat and confess. But before we get to that (or don’t, which is also highly probable), we take a look at the concept that the person who has feelings first is the true loser. Of course both have had these feelings for each other for as long as we’ve known them, but what about how long they’ve known each other? We started the series in media res in some ways; the war of love was already well underway. How did this story truly begin? To answer that, we delay the start of the culture festival by a few more minutes to dive into a rare backstory.
Seeing Shirogane in such a different state not all that long ago is a striking juxtaposition to the Shirogane we’ve always known. If anything, he feels more like Ishigami here, a cynic stuck in an environment that fills him with disdain. It’s not surprising that he’d end up like this, being dirt poor in a school full of the richest kids around. They’re naturally arrogant assholes who look down on the likes of Shirogane even though he’s only there because he’s smarter than any of them. It’s a raw look at the character that belies most of what we’ve seen from him, but also shows the beginning of his growth to the character we know and love, most importantly developing his own love. He sees Kaguya as the epitome of this concept that he abhors, being the richest of all, and her personality does nothing to sway him. Although this is the first time we’ve seen Shirogane like this, we’ve seen glimpses of Ice Queen Kaguya in the past, so at this time before they were acquainted or part of the student council, both are as far from their current personalities as possible. It’s a beautiful little look at the beginning of this romance, taking itself entirely seriously but only more effective for it.
Once we get to the actual culture festival, things get silly again. Kaguya has big plans, as does Shirogane, but we’ve got plenty of messing around to do before we can even guess if those will develop. First we see Kaguya’s class and their cosplay cafe. Hayasaka has a hilarious moment here where he “cosplays” as a maid and then pulls out an act that elicits the same “gap” sensation from Kaguya as wearing a maid outfit does from everyone else.
The primary focus of this segment is an absolutely absurd visit from a pair of characters from the first season, experts on ramen and, in this case, coffee. Hayasaka continues to be a highlight, joining in with them to put down Kaguya and praise herself, but these guys are even better with their golden ratio comparisons and “bad green screen” effects to make it feel like a pretentious but poorly produced YouTube video. That little attention to detail is the kind of thing that truly elevates this series to one of the greats in anime comedy. It ends with Kaguya coming out on top, but she ends up embarrassed for reasons that are as sweet as you’d expect from this series. And of course, at an event that allows visitors, you know you have to have the best adult in the series come in for a brilliant stinger to finish off the gag.
Following a day in the life of Kaguya’s festival, we get the same treatment for Ishigami. This ends up being as much about the love triangle of Nagisa, her boyfriend (yes, his name is spoken in this episode, but that’s irrelevant), and Maki. This group of characters have interesting dynamics when all thrown together, given their individual dynamics as smaller groups. This is the first time Nagisa has interacted with Ishigami in any meaningful way and wonders if perhaps she should consider him a friend as well. Nagisa’s role is more terrifying throughout the episode, though, which is a ton of fun throughout.
Of course, all of it is ultimately in service of Ishigami’s own romance, even if Maki is the most tragic character in the story. But Ishigami’s crush on Tsubame is certainly worth exploring in its own right, even if everyone agrees that she is way out of his league. This is the culture festival, though, where dreams come true! That’s the hope anyway. This is only the beginning of this potential mini-arc, but just as juxtapositions between character traits – gap moe, if you will – have been a highlight of the rest of the episode, seeing a lovestruck Ishigami forces him to be more sincere and vulnerable than usual, which is a great change of pace that makes him feel more sympathetic and three-dimensional. As with the main romance of the series, it’s hard to imagine any main characters actually getting any substantial romantic development, but most of the fun is rooting for our beloved boys and girls, especially the underdogs.
In Summary:
The culture festival has begun in earnest, but first we take a look back at how Shirogane first met Kaguya, fell in love, and started to open up more into the person he is today. It’s a beautiful flashback that doesn’t need any comedy to make its point highly effectively. Then there are plenty of laughs to have in the more traditional culture festival segments, not giving us any real plot development quite yet but bringing back some old faces for pure absurdity and presenting the opportunity for characters like Hayasaka to really shine. It’s a great, well-rounded episode even if the big events are still nothing but teases.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
