Why Kaguya-Sama Is Comedic Genius

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words cannot express how much love I have for this show

The thing I love about anime comedy is the inner monologue. It quickly and precisely presents the thoughts and feelings of a character, which allows for great scheming jokes like in Kaguya-sama or hilarious misunderstandings like in Nozaki-kun. In western media it's concidered lazy writing to use an inner monologue, but I think that's wrong. It's a ridiculous taboo on a very efficient and useful tool for comedy. Seinfeld used the inner monologue often and is arguably the best sitcom ever. The office used the clever trick of "the interview shot" to do the same. And I doubt anyone would claim that these shows have lazy writing.

I’m sorry but the fish-eye shot of shirogone’s face when kaguya asks why he didn’t bring his bicycle on the rainy day will get a cackle out of me literally every time I see it for the rest of my life

The thing that surprised me most about the show is the progression of characters. Every episode digs deeper into each characters personal arcs and it builds on what has come before even going so far as bringing in some social commentary on social status in Japan. By the end of the first season your rooting for the characters and even begin to see thier war as a tragedy of circumstances beyond their control.

A big reason Kaguya-Sama nails the comedy for me is actually because the jokes feel well thought out. There is rarely just one single punch line and everything always adds on to each other. In addition, the narrator adds an additional POV for the funny. It sounds like a stretch at first but this show has quite a few similarities to another extremely good comedy called Arrested Development.

dude I love your channel man

True, i rewatched kaguya-sama atleast 4 times

I really like your review on those anime you've watched

Great video keep it up 👍

explaining how Kaguya went and planned everything and exposing Shirogane 'Checkmate Kaguya is on the verge of exposing Shirogane...' But then Chika comes in and ruins it all I swear this scene- no series had me dying of laughter

BRO! like DUDE! this is so under rated idk why... everything about this was really good

For me personally I think its funny as long as its loud and exaggerated. Kazuma flying out of a window sometimes makes me laugh more than a fully elaborated but funny story line

i love your channel man

I love the breakdown of the show's writing! Very concise and clear :D

Dude, this is top quality content. Watched both this video and the essay on Konosuba and well, now I'm a sub. Good fucking job mate, you deserve more subs.

Using Kaguya as example is appreciated (it is indeed one of the best-written comedy manga out there), but I think you've missed a crucial detail of what makes good comedies work: the characters. This is especially apparent in something like KonoSuba where if you put the main four in basically any situation, the comedy would basically write itself just from their character traits and how these traits play into their situation. This is also how sitcoms do it: they establish quirky, colorful characters, so it basically doesn't matter what the actual plot of an episode is, it's carried chiefly by the character interactions. Other than that, there's of course the most basic comedic structure in the form of setup and payoff. The better a comedy is, the more effort is put into the setup so that the author can reap multiple payoffs off of the setup made early on. Every persisting trait of a character is potential material for a joke setup. Grand Blue is perhaps the textbook example of this; it's so good at utilizing its cast in this basic comedic rhythm that you start laughing BEFORE the punchlines even hit because the familiarity with characters makes you recognize where the jokes might be going as soon as you get the first hint, and it feels deserved and clever aside from just being hilarious. This is masterful writing.

This was a really interesting watch! Keep up the great work.

Hey, great video. Love Kaguya-sama.

There is an interview of Akasaka Aka explaining how he writes his story in Kaguya. Mainly, for the comedy (which isn't even his main focus as he says) he writes characters with a mindset to subvert the original settings he gave them so as to create contrasts and comedy. First the tropes, then the unexpected twist. "For example, since I intended to write Kaguya and Shirogane to be goofy idiots, I set them up as geniuses in the beginning. And for Miko (Iino), since she’s lewd on the inside, I made her an overly serious Discipline Committee member on the outside." And that's one of the main ways to write comedy, imo. Subvert expectation.