Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War S2E4: "Ai Hayasaka Wants Him to Fall for Her"

A lot of these titles seem to be compounds of "____ wants ______" chapter names. I'm just going to keep the first one of this episode's.


The opening narration tells us that it's now October, and the student council has been disbanded pending the new elections. Oooh, this has the potential for a real gear shift! Anyway, in the three days since their terms in office ended, Kaguya and Miyuki haven't spoken to each other even once. We see Miyuki and Chika chatting in the hall between classes, so it's not like the entire social group fell apart, it's just those two specifically who aren't interacting anymore.

In her bedroom, Kaguya wallows in her anguish at being separated from Miyuki. "Separated" here means that without being literally forced to spend time around Miyuki by the school institution, Kaguya can't approach him without it seeming like she considers him a friend. And, if he thinks she wants to be friends, he might also take it a little further and suspect she wants to be...no. no, unacceptable.

Hayasaka miserably gives her the same advice she always has. You know, for all that Hayasaka is an extremely disturbing creature, it's very easy to assume that having to deal with Kaguya' family constantly for years might have broken her into what she is.

Kaguya wonders if she can maybe try to make the opposite happen. Get him to approach her without incriminating herself. Hayasaka manages to avoid snapping and going off on her at this, but you can tell she's close; biting her lip, she very, very calmly reminds Kaguya that she's been doing essentially that for a year at this point. In light of that, it maaaay just be that Kaguya's approach to romance is a pathetic failure and she should completely rethink it?

Kaguya gets indignant at that, and scoffs that she'd like to see Hayasaka do any better herself. It's not like this is easy, you know? Hayasaka says that she didn't say it would be easy, just that she could do it. Kaguya says that if she can do it, then do it, bag Miyuki in one day. Hayasaka says that she didn't say she could do it in one day, just that it would take her much less than a year. Kaguya listens without listening, and keeps expressing her skepticism as a challenge. Hayasaka finally responds with...

...oh.

Less than two minutes into this episode, and I'm already terrified.

Roll intro. The anticipation only builds throughout. Afterward we jump to Miyuki at a bookstore the next day, where he is hailed by an impossibly wholesome blonde in a plausible-but-kinda-borderline-fetishy schoolgirl outfit who was in line behind him. He recognizes her, with some delay, as "Harthaka" the maid.

The upbeat techno-pop background music for this scene is absolutely perfect. It is the character Hayasaka is playing in musical form.

Fuck, she's even raised the pitch of her voice. Not just the cadence, the pitch.

He compliments her on how much better her Japanese has gotten since the last time they met, and she just has a split second of hesitation - no break in character, just very slight hesitation as her mind works - before catching herself and exuberantly thanking him, she's been studying very hard. Maybe not quite as hard as he legendarily does, but still, she thinks she's earned the right to be a little proud of herself teehee.

Watching the scene from hiding, Kaguya marvels at the ingenuity of getting into line behind him before starting up conversation. They're in queue, so neither of them can leave, and him ending the conversation early after she's already started it would be really awkward for him.

Hayasaka grabs a tech magazine off the rack by the waiting queue, prompting Miyuki to ask her if she likes computers. She says that she really doesn't know much, but she needs to buy a laptop soon, so if he knows anything on the subject she could actually appreciate some advice.

Based on the narrator's interjection, Miyuki has an interest in tech, as much as he has time to have interests beyond immediate academic and financial goals. Hayasaka knows this, likely by way of Kaguya's obsessing over him for the previous year.

On the other hand, Hayasaka also says that he probably knows more about computers because he's a boy. I think she might have gotten her notes mixed up; that's a line you'd use on Ishigami, not Miyuki.

She manages to break down his attempts at modesty, and gets him to accompany her to the bookstore's snack bar where she can pick his brain for good laptop options over coffee or something. He accepts. Watching from a hidden corner, Kaguya is literally trembling with frustration.

Jump to them chatting over coffee in the windowed sunlight. Miyuki asks about that school uniform, while the camera jumps around to highlight how improbably short the skirt is and how improbably tight the chest. She tells him that that's just the uniform for the school she goes to.

Apparently he never noticed her at his own school?

Even though she and Kaguya are very often seen walking around together?

This detail seems implausible, even within the show's absurdist comedy framework. Meh.

Anyway, she also says that her family are recent-ish immigrants who were referred to the Shinomiyas by a family friend who happened to work for them. She has a part-time gig as Kaguya's maid, usually when they're understaffed.

All a complete lie, of course. Which Kaguya, watching from behind a nearby bookshelf, has the most perfectly hypocritical reaction to.

Considering the CIA dirty tricks squad shit she herself has pulled on Miyuki before now, Kaguya really, really isn't in any position to talk.

Also, her internal monologue reveals that Hayasaka has been her full time maid/contractually obligated best friend since they were both little. Which...okay. Maybe Kaguya's family just decided that was the best use for the little orphan after they used her parents for one of the
ir annual sacrifices to Mammon or something.

The conversation between Miyuki and Hayasaka moves on from technical specs, to what she plans to do with her new laptop, and from there to hobbies and interests. Hayasaka claims that she mostly just needs the laptop for schoolwork and web browsing. On the latter topic, she expresses an interest in cat and other cute animal videos that Miyuki finds adorable.

Kaguya, gnashing her teeth, silently informs us that the only Ersatz YouTube videos she's ever seen Hayasaka watch for fun involve things getting smashed in a pneumatic press.

The juxtaposition of text and image here is a little unfortunate. Mercifully, it doesn't mean what it looks like it means. Hayasaka watches this, not animal snuff.

With each endearing lie Hayasaka tells, Kaguya assures herself that Miyuki is much too smart to fall for this. Each time, she's disappointed. At no point does she realize that he's believed (or pretended to believe) at least as many from her over the months, some of them about as out there as the shit Hayasaka is shovelling.

Soon, it progresses to Miyuki helping Hayasaka with her homework. Kaguya is horrified; Miyuki has never helped her with her homework! Not that she'd ever allow anyone to help her with anything, at least where anyone could see.

Kaguya developing even the tiniest germ of self awareness would end the entire plot of the show immediately.

Hayasaka decides to just drive the moe up to eleven and declares that she's exhausted from her long day of studying and running around, and pretends to fall asleep on the table beside Miyuki. Or maybe she actually falls asleep, her life has got to be pretty exhausting even when Kaguya isn't challenging her to do bullshit like this.

Miyuki realizes that Hayasaka driving herself to exhaustion is exactly what he's doing himself, and has a moment of insight that strikes a chord and tugs his heartstrings. Damn, Hayasaka is good. How did she even have time to develop these skills, if she's spent her whole life chained to Kaguya at the ankle?

When Miyuki puts a concerned hand on Hayasaka's shoulder, Kaguya looks ready to tear out some throats with her teeth.

Exterior shot of the bookstore, now under a darkening sky. A tired looking Miyuki on his Nth cup of tea or coffee is still sitting beside her, doing his own homework and studying. I guess he didn't have work today, at least. Hayasaka wakes up and, still in character, panics at the realization that they've been here for three hours. Miyuki tried to wake her multiple times, but she was out cold, and he didn't feel comfortable leaving her there alone.

...holy fuck.

Kaguya, still watching, seethes at how she saw Hayasaka sneak glimpses at Miyuki many times while his back was turned. She literally just pretended to be asleep for hours.

And...Kaguya lurked in the bookstore watching them and seemingly doing nothing else for the same length of time.

At this point, really, who's crazier?

When Hayasaka "realizes" that Miyuki stayed at the bookstore and stood watch over her for this entire time, she does a very convincing impression of being completely smitten. Hell, it might even be partially genuine. She looks soulfully into Miyuki's eyes and asks him if he'd like to go out with her sometime. When he doesn't respond immediataly, she...sort of gives the game away. Or else just makes herself seem almost as unhinged as she actually is. She tells him that if the issue is him already being into someone else, she'd be happy just being his chick on the side.

Notably, she didn't even say that in response to him saying he was taken. It seems to have been totally unprompted, except by him being wordlessly hesitant. I'm thinking that she either is tired of this and wants to end it in a way that also lets her give the finger to Kaguya, or she actually does think that this is a normal thing for a person to say in this situation. Both are plausible, given Hayasaka.

...

Seriously, why did she pretend to be British?

...

After a continued awkward pause, Miyuki tells her that no, sorry, he's into someone else and he's not interested in the arrangement she proposes. Whether he actually doesn't have eyes for anyone besides Kaguya, or if he's just weirded out by that last proposal and too polite to say it in as many words, I'm not sure. In any case, Hayasaka gets up and - letting her voice fall back to something close to its usual pitch - tells him that in that case she wishes him the best in his pursuit.

Outside of the mall, an irritable-looking Hayasaka puts her hair back into its usual style and puts on an overcoat. Kaguya, who mostly seems to be glad this is over, skips up to her and tells her that she told her, Miyuki is a hard nut to crack. Maybe her own method isn't so pathetic after all, then?

Hayasaka actually raises her voice when she wheels on Kaguya and points out the obvious.

One afternoon got her closer to him than Kaguya has managed all year. And, she reveals now, she only ended it when she did because she was just too miserable keeping this stupid game going on and on and on when she felt she'd already made her point.

Ah. So she did weird him out intentionally there, at the end. Her faking asleep for three hours was probably also an attempt at getting rid of him without giving the game away, albeit a really weird and time-wastey one. Maybe she just figured that Kaguya's time was more valuable than her own, so making her waste hers as well is still worth it as part of the "fuck you" to her mistress.

Hayasaka then has a...fit? rage? she's shouting and stomping her foot...about how humiliating that was, and that it would be different if she had a month. Ah, I see. Kaguya only ended up giving her a day after all, in the end, so Hayasaka had to go way over the top and throw out as much as possible in the hopes that something would stick. Hence her stranger choices toward the end of the performance.

From how she phrases it though, it sounds like she isn't just humiliated at having to dress and act like a softcore porn character setting the scene, but also at...well, being rejected. There was little chance she'd ever NOT be rejected, given the parameters she was forced to work within, but still. Has she ever been able to date, given her lifestyle? Will she ever be able to date?

Yeah, the more I think about this from Hayasaka's corner, the more I think I'd be satisfied if the show ended with her driving away with a briefcase full of Shinomiya family jewels while their mansion burns in the background.

Kaguya tries to apologize to Hayasaka. Hayasaka just refuses to look at her. Meanwhile, back inside the bookstore, Miyuki just finishes his final cup of snack bar coffee, wondering what the fuck even happened this afternoon.

Honestly, Miyuki's own showing in this episode was hot and cold as well. On one hand, watching over her in her inexplicably deep sleep for hours was a real bro move. On the other, him being so charmed by a performance that mostly centered around herself being dumber and needier than him and seeming to actually be tempted for a moment at the end, well...on one hand, he's a teenaged boy being offered a hot girl, so I'm not sure how discerning you could expect him to be. On the other hand, he has a bit of megalomaniac in him; we've known that since the pilot. That aspect makes me think that someone pathetic who will worship him might actually be particularly appealing to at least a part of his personality.

Still, thoughts are just thoughts until they're acted on. As far as actions go, he was a real champ this episode.

I’ll split this episode review here.