The one name that shines the brightest in the romance genre of the anime industry is Kaguya-sama: Love is War. The manga is considered to be one of the best romantic comedy stories in the world, with some major twists and turns. The psycho-thriller elements mixed with the slice-of-life aspects of the series make it even more enticing and intriguing for fans.
Kaguya and Miyuki in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War | Credit: A-1 Pictures
The manga follows the “love” story of Kaguya Shinomiya, the vice president of the student council at Shuchiin Academy, and Miyuki Shirogane, the president of the same division. Although the two characters come from different worlds, they start developing feelings as they get to know each other. But confessing these feelings and then making their relationship work is not so easy for them, which makes up for a major part of the story.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War is Aka Akasaka’s biggest and most successful project. The mangaka once revealed his strategy while working on the story and how he had different elements that he could have used to make the story even more exciting for fans. Weirdly, one of those elements was “cherries,” which could have made up for an entire chapter because of a strange belief.
Aka Akasaka Could Have Made a Chapter Out of Cherries
In 2020, Akasaka was featured in a special interview with Livedoor News where he was asked about the various methods and plans that he used to create Kaguya-sama: Love is War. While talking about the emotions and feelings in the story, the mangaka revealed how he could have created an entire chapter out of cherries as the main aspect of the plot.
Akasaka stated:
Even if we consider just a single emotion, how that emotion is experienced will be very different depending on who’s feeling it, who they’re feeling it about, and their relationships with those around them. So, for every situation there are an infinite number of possible reactions, I think.
For example, I was chatting with the anime cast the other day and we happened to be talking about the cherries someone got as a present. I thought to myself, “Huh, I can make a chapter out of this.”
Akasaka believed that every emotion can be portrayed in many different ways depending upon the situation, the characters, and other varied elements. Thus, every situation can get indefinite amount of reactions from fans.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War | Credit: A-1 Pictures
He referred to one of his personal experience, where while talking about cherries to someone, he realized that he could have made an entire chapter based solely on cherries and an interesting belief around them.
The Strange Belief About Cherries
While talking about Cherries and Akasaka’s ability to create an entire chapter out of it, the mangaka revealed that he would have based the story of the chapter on the strange belief that if you can tie a cherry stem in your mouth, then you’re a good kisser. This would have made an interesting way to create chemistry between Kaguya and Miyuki.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War | Credit: A-1 Pictures
Akasaka stated:
There’s a popular saying that if you can tie a cherry stem in your mouth, then you’re a good kisser. I thought, “I bet Kaguya and Shirogane would want to be thought of as good kissers if they heard about this.”
Kaguya is very dexterous, so she ties the stem easily on the first try. But it would be embarrassing if the others thought she was too good of a kisser, so she unties the knot in her mouth and pretends that she can’t do it.
It would have added excitement to the story, but Kaguya would have realized that being a good kisser could be embarrassing for her. Thus, she would untie the knot just to save herself from the embarrassment. Interestingly enough, the spin-off series of Kaguya-sama: Love is War called We Want to Talk About Kaguya features an entire chapter on cherries called We Want to Talk About Cherry Stems.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War is currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
