'Lady Kaguya Wants to Make Him Confess: The Geniuses' War of Hearts and Minds') is a Japanese romantic comedy manga series written and illustrated by Aka Akasaka.
Kaguya is the daughter of a wealthy conglomerate family, and Miyuki is the top student at the school and well known across the prefecture.
Akasaka was writing the manga Instant Bullets for Weekly Young Jump and wanted to come up with another series.
In an interview on Livedoor News, Akasaka said the original plot for Kaguya-sama was more of a fantasy and game of death, but his editor wanted something more mainstream and, at the time, Young Jump did not have a casual romcom series.
He was thinking of high school relationships while smoking some food, and came up with the concept of wanting to reclaim some of his emotions of his youth in a fantasy.
In developing the characters, he said that Kaguya and Miyuki initially have the same personality and thought process, like twins, which made their exposition to the reader easier to understand.
Other characters were developed in the same manner, starting as shallow and template-like, but being filled with realistic feelings and drawn from the author's and his acquaintances' personal experience.
[4] Akasaka said that he originally wanted to make a manga that would help office ladies relax, but since he is an otaku, it seems to follow in that.
He also believes the manga is more about providing the reader with something exciting and conveying meaningful messages about human relationships rather than to showcase a number of character gags and reactions.
[4] Aka Akasaka launched the series in the June issue of Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Miracle Jump on May 19, 2015.
[16][17] Viz Media announced during their panel at San Diego Comic-Con on July 20, 2017, that they had licensed the series for a North American release.
[10] A spin-off manga by Shinta Sakayama, titled Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Dōjin-ban (かぐや様は告らせたい 同人版, transl.
"Lady Kaguya Wants to Make Him Confess – Dōjin Edition"), was launched on Shueisha's Tonari no Young Jump website on June 14, 2018, and it was serialized on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month.
[15] The yonkoma focuses on two newspaper/press club girls, Karen Kino and Erika Kose, who idolize Kaguya and the gang but have no clue what really goes on inside the student council.
Hayato Kawai directed the film, Yūichi Tokunaga wrote the screenplay, and principal photography was conducted in March to April 2019.
Hirano, Hashimoto, Nana Asakawa, and Hayato Sano, actors of Kaguya Shinomiya, Miyuki Shirogane, Chika Fujiwara and Yu Ishigami respectively, returned to reprise their roles.
[33] In 2020, along with Aoashi, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War won the 65th Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category.
[45] Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network gave the first two volumes of the manga a positive review, calling it "one of the more unique rom-com premises out there".