After the Spring 2022 anime season, the third season of Kaguya-Sama: Love is War concluded. The finale was so well received that it notoriously overtook Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on MyAnimeList (as reported by IGN).
The characters of Kaguya-Sama are certainly beloved, and the vast majority of the cast is incredibly brilliant. However, in a cast of private school superstars, some characters are still more brilliant than others. It’s important to note that intelligence in Kaguya-Sama comes in a variety of facets, with academic and real-life skills hilariously not being a shared trait for almost any characters.
10 Tsubasa
Almost never seen without his loving girlfriend Nagisa, Tsubasa is one of the kindest characters in all of Kaguya-Sama. Notably, he’s also the one-sided crush of he and Nagisa’s close friend Maki.
Sadly for Tsubasa, he doesn’t get enough screentime outside of romance to offer much in the way of intelligent conversation. He’s in the bottom half of the school’s exam scores and is often tutored by his girlfriend, but not much else is known about Tsubasa’s intelligence. Fortunately for Tsubasa, he’s kind and charismatic enough to draw the affection of two incredibly intelligent people.
9 Ishigami
Ishigami certainly is one of the funniest characters in Kaguya-sama, but he isn’t necessarily the most brilliant academically. Unfortunately, he’s always placed in the lower rungs of the school’s exam scores.
Even after intense tutoring with Kaguya, Ishigami struggled in exams despite boosting his scores. Fortunately, Ishigami has other aspects of life in which he’s quite brilliant. Notably, he’s an amazing treasurer for the student council and does things with computers and numbers that nobody else in the student council can do. This makes him an indispensable member of the group.
8 Nagisa
Nagisa and Tsubasa aren’t exactly the most iconic slice-of-life anime couple in existence, but the duo is definitely cute. Of the two, Nagisa is certainly the smarter character academically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvGaLo7roEk
Fans don’t get to see much of Nagisa’s academic prowess, but she’s listed as having above-average exam scores. Not only that, she’s the best friend of one of the smartest characters in the series: Maki. Still, above-average exam scores put Nagisa as one of the lower-level students as far as the main cast of geniuses goes, and she’s been losing placements tutoring Tsubasa.
7 Tsubame
Tsubame is Ishigami’s main love interest and, according to Kaguya, the prettiest and most popular student among the third years. She’s also the person the helped Ishigami grow out of his shell more socially.
Tsubame’s primary role in the story is as Ishigami’s love interest, but she’s clearly an intelligent person with a rich love of the performance arts. She’s an exceptional gymnast on top of her grades and popularity, so it isn’t hard to see why Ishigami has such an intense crush on her. Academically, not everything is known about Tsubame, but she’s clearly competent enough to remain the most popular third year in a school with a heavy focus on grades.
6 Iino
Ishigami’s former rival and enemy, Miko Iino, grew much closer to the treasurer after season 3. In fact, throughout the season it was heavily implied that she’d grown to have a crush on him.
Unlike her crush, Miko is incredibly studious and well-disciplined. She is in many ways the shining example of a Shuchiin student. She isn’t as naturally brilliant as Kaguya, but she tries hard and is obviously very intelligent. She can, however, be very clumsy or boneheaded at times, like when she listened to an entire ASMR playlist with her headphones unplugged.
5 Chika
Secretary Chika Fujiwara is a hilarious member of the Shuchiin Student Council with some of the funniest scenes in the show. She’s got a flair for the mysterious and is always trying to crack a new case.
Chika has fairly average grades among the student council, but she’s a politician’s daughter and a fantastic debater. Chika has shown time and time again to have unique ingenuity skills (which unfortunately are used mostly to cheat at children’s games) and mastery over many day-to-day things. She’s been Miyuki’s teacher to help him understand countless non-academic subjects like volleyball and rap.
4 Maki
One of season 3’s funniest plotlines was the unexpected friendship that brewed between Maki and the student council boys: Ishigami and Miyuki. Together, the three lamented over their inability to confess to their crush.
Maki’s unrequited crush on Tsubasa is fortunately just a small aspect of her character. She’s a brilliant student who placed 3rd in her class during the semester where season 3 takes place. Maki’s intellect and wit allow her to go toe-to-toe with Kaguya both academically and in arguments, to the point where Shirogane mentions how similar the two young women are.
3 Hayasaka
The house servant of the Shinomiya family and the girl who functions as Kaguya’s maid, Ai Hayasaka is an exceptional character who dominated much of the early half of season 3.
Ai Hayasaka is easily the most overall competent character in Kaguya-Sama. While she may not be as smart academically as the show’s protagonists, she’s shown time and time again to be capable of handling situations that most high school students would be incapable of. Hayasaka is incredibly cunning and worthy of her position at the Shinomiya household.
2 Kaguya
Kaguya was one of the best main characters of the 2022 spring anime season, and it isn’t difficult to see why she’s so popular. Not only is Kaguya hilarious, she’s also a very brilliant character.
Kaguya consistently has some of the highest exam scores in the school, coming 2nd every semester since her first. She’s even taken time out of her day to tutor Ishigami during exam season. She also excels at archery and many other hobbies. Unfortunately, Kaguya does have a very distinct weakness: she has very little real-world and general practical knowledge.
1 Miyuki
Sharing the role of the protagonist with his love interest Kaguya, Miyuki is one of the greatest slice-of-life anime protagonists ever. The Shuchiin Student Council president is by far the most brilliant character in the series.
Not only has Miyuki placed 1st every single semester in exam scores, but he also got early acceptance into Stanford. The president’s intellect is shown to be incredible outside of just his abilities academically. He could do incredibly advanced calculations and construction to get the heart balloons directly to him and Kaguya in the season 3 finale.
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