List of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War characters
The Kaguya-sama: Love Is War manga series features an extensive cast of characters created by Aka Akasaka. The story takes place in senior high of Shuchiin Academy, and follows the student council president Miyuki Shirogane and vice-president [|Kaguya Shinomiya] as they come with many schemes to make the other confess their love due to both of them being too proud to do so. Other significant characters include the student council secretary Chika Fujiwara, student council treasurer Yu Ishigami, student council auditor Miko Iino, Kaguya's personal assistant and childhood friend Ai Hayasaka, as well as many others.
Main characters
Kaguya Shinomiya
The title character of the series, Kaguya Shinomiya is the vice president of Shuchiin Academy's student council. She is known for her beauty, intelligence and wealth, her family owning one of the largest business conglomerates in Japan. Due to being born into a high-class family, the manner Kaguya was raised caused her to be prideful, cold and calculating; but underneath her personality traits, she is really an innocent, kind and fair-minded teenage girl at heart. Her social status and upbringing also causes her emotional suffering due to loneliness and isolation. In spite of her intelligence and resources, she is surprisingly inept at utilizing social media and digital technology. She is also quite naïve when it comes to romance and sexuality, and had to be taught how to utilize fashion and femininity to her advantage. To make Miyuki confess his love directly or indirectly, she usually plans ahead to tilt the circumstances in her favour. Apart from engaging in student council work, she is in the Archery club.It is revealed later in the story that Kaguya was born out of an affair by her father and a prostitute named Nayotake Shimizu, who died less than a month after giving birth to her, and as of such wouldn't be considered part of the family going by tradition. Despite her father still considering her as much of a member of his family as the rest of his children, she is still treated akin to a political tool by her two oldest brothers.
Akasaka said that he modeled Kaguya to be like Kaguya-hime in that both are princesses at the start, but have something deeper about their character later. He made both Kaguya and Miyuki to have similar personalities at first, both proud and intellectual but later revealing to be more like "goofy idiots" on the inside. He would later have the two diverge in tendencies, with Kaguya being more like a "bad girl". Akasaka also said that while Kaguya has a dark side to her, he didn't want people to hate her so he tries to keep the positive and negative emotions balanced.
Miyuki Shirogane
Miyuki Shirogane is the student council president of Shuchiin Academy. He is famed for being the top student of the school who has also placed second overall in national mock exams, attributed to his studying all the time, hence his messy hair, dark circles around his eyes, and glaring look. Like Kaguya, he is inexperienced with romance and relationships. Miyuki struggles with physical sports involving skills and has a paralyzing fear of bugs, especially cockroaches. Because his father, formerly a factory owner, is unemployed and his mother – who left the family when he was a child – does not support them, he and his younger sister Kei often take part-time jobs. A running gag in the series is how he always imagines Kaguya looking down on him and saying "How cute.", and refrains to confess his feelings for her in fear of being rejected in such way. Miyuki also has a passion for stargazing, and dreams of one day becoming a professional astronomer. He also enjoys traditional folk tales, and believed that if he were in the Emperor's position in the Kaguya-hime story, he would have tried stealing the princess back, which mirrors his actions in the final act of the story.Akasaka said that he initially thought about naming him Mikado, after the Emperor in the Kaguya-hime story, but found that he liked Otomo no Miyuki better. He developed Miyuki to begin like a twin in personality and character to Kaguya, and would later diverge to a "good boy". He likes that he can portray him as calm and composed on the outside, but his mind would be racing on the inside.
Chika Fujiwara
Chika Fujiwara is the student council secretary of Shuchiin Academy. Chika is a fair-skinned young girl with shoulder-length silver hair that has a black bow in the middle of her square bangs, blue eyes and she has a large chest size. She has been friends with Kaguya Shinomiya since middle school, however, their closeness isn't obvious to others because of Kaguya's personality. Despite being skilled in languages, singing and various sports, she's often portrayed as being an airhead who doesn't take academic schoolwork seriously compared to her peers, and whilst she claims to be an expert on reading emotions, the accuracy of said reads tends to be rather hit-or-miss; for example, she is able to tell that Miko harbours feelings for Yu despite her antagonistic attitude towards him, whilst also being the only member of the student council who didn't figure out that Kaguya and Miyuki had started dating each other. This lack of social awareness when it comes to Kaguya and Miyuki's relationship fuels many of the conflicts in the two's games of love, such as marrying Miyuki in The Game of Life and also eating from his lunch. Despite this, she does her best to help cheer up her fellow student council members and is usually the first person to offer emotional support.Yu Ishigami
Yu Ishigami is Shuchiin Academy's student council treasurer and an underclassman to the other members. He is a dark-haired boy with an emo-looking haircut with bangs covering one of his eyes. The second son of a small toy manufacturer, he only attended school because his father forced him to, and was a truant until Miyuki recruited him to be treasurer. He usually keeps to himself and wears headphones while playing video games on his portable game console, however, he is a keen observer of people, noticing things that other do not wish to reveal, but occasionally getting in trouble for pointing out those things. He is afraid Kaguya might kill him because she tends to give him threatening glares and comments. Chika will also occasionally beat him up for making inappropriate comments.As the story goes on, Yu becomes more open with the council, particularly with Kaguya who begins to enjoy his presence as a junior, as he's shown to be very honest and sincere of others to the point where he will damage his own reputation in order to save others from being hurt. A background story reveals that in junior high, he tried to protect a classmate from her potentially abusive boyfriend, but got suspended and was then shunned by her and his classmates. Miyuki and the student council discover and support him. Yu eventually overcomes his trauma, and is able to move on. He starts to like Tsubame, his senior and the vice-captain of the cheer squad that he had randomly joined. During the school festival, he casually gives Tsubame a heart-shaped gift, but is unaware that it symbolized that he was confessing to her. Although he is rejected, he resolves to better himself so that she can come to like him.
Yu ends up going on several dates with Tsubame, though she breaks up with him on her graduation day due to being both unsure how to date a man who is younger than she is and because she loved him platonically as opposed to romantically. This depresses Yu, who remains heartbroken for a long period of time, but starts to feel happier when he realises he's developing feelings for Miko. He and Maki then develop a friendship over their mutual struggles in romance, with Yu eventually helping Maki move on from her crush on Tsubasa.
Upon Miko's becoming elected as the new school president, he is asked by her to take on the role of vice president, placing the two of them in a near-identical situation to Kaguya and Shirogane at the start of the manga.
Akasaka said that he designed Yu's character as to not interfere with the relationship among Kaguya, Miyuki and Chika. He describes Yu as taciturn and has little presence, and can come and go at any time, which has become useful as a recurring gag. When asked whether he resembles any of his characters, he said that he is also like Yu in that he has some negative thoughts, and that in high school he also had a crush on a senior girl.
Ai Hayasaka
Ai Hayasaka is Kaguya's personal assistant and childhood friend; her father is Kaguya's godfather, and her mother was Kaguya's wet-nurse. The two girls were raised together until the age of two, when Kaguya was moved to the Shinomiya main house; on their reunion aged seven, their official master/servant relationship was established. Her family has been serving the Shinomiyas for generations; once prominent and rivaling the Shinomiyas, they were subsequently absorbed into the Shinomiya family in recognition of their fine bloodline. She has short strawberry blond hair and is one-quarter Irish. At school, she acts like a popular fashionable girl who wears her skirt short, a loose collar, fancy nails, and accessories, all of which push the dress code. She keeps her association with Kaguya a secret from Miyuki and Chika. When Miyuki visits, she dresses as a maid named Smirka A. Haski, who attends an all-girls school and who flirts with Miyuki. When Chika visits, she cross-dresses as male butler Mr. Haski. Ai is more socially aware than Kaguya, and can be calculative at times, but is also very sensitive as she too longs for a normal high school life and a boyfriend, which results in her teasing Kaguya frequently. She eventually tells Miyuki who she really is and becomes his friend, while teasing Kaguya that friendship is the first step to a relationship. She later resigns from her position as assistant, revealing that she had been working for Kaguya's brother all these years to keep tabs on Kaguya. When Kaguya forgives her, she returns to the school and they can now interact as equals.Akasaka said that he designed Ai's character with the intent of having her become friends with Miyuki from the beginning. He said that she is mysterious and that he might bring out her "true personality" later. She was not intended to be a heroine, although some of the readers think of her as such.