Kaguya-sama: Love Is War Watch Order
Watch the three seasons, then The First Kiss That Never Ends, then the 2025 Stairway to Adulthood special. A concluding installment is announced but undated.
Watch the three television seasons in broadcast order, then the film, then the 2025 special: Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (12 episodes, 2019), Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? (12 episodes, 2020), -Ultra Romantic- (13 episodes, 2022), -The First Kiss That Never Ends- (film, 2022) and -Stairway to Adulthood- (two-part special, 2025). A concluding installment has been announced but not dated, so the anime is not finished.
The order, with counts
| # | Title | Format | Japanese premiere |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaguya-sama: Love Is War | TV, 12 episodes | January 12, 2019 |
| 2 | Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? (season 2) | TV, 12 episodes | April 11, 2020 |
| Optional | OVA | 1 episode | May 19, 2021 |
| 3 | -Ultra Romantic- (season 3) | TV, 13 episodes | April 8, 2022 |
| 4 | -The First Kiss That Never Ends- | Film | December 17, 2022 |
| 5 | -Stairway to Adulthood- | TV special, two parts | December 31, 2025 |
Episode counts and premiere dates are from Anime News Network's encyclopedia entries linked in the table; ANN also records each later entry as the sequel of the one before it. The third season's official broadcast page gives the same April 8, 2022 start on Tokyo MX.
The season 2 title has a question mark
The second season is not a new spin-off. Its Japanese title adds a question mark to the first season's, and ANN lists its official English site under the name Kaguya-sama: Love is War? Some services simply call it season 2. Either way it follows the first twelve episodes directly.
Where the OVA fits
The single OVA is optional. ANN dates it May 19, 2021, lists it as related to season 2, and describes it as further student council episodes built around fanservice, an eromanga and a cooking competition. The official season 2 site promoted it as an anime OVA bundled with a special edition of the 22nd Japanese manga volume. Watch it after season 2 if you can find it; skipping it does not break the order.
The film comes after Ultra Romantic
The First Kiss That Never Ends opened in Japan on December 17, 2022. The official US site announced its North American theatrical release for Valentine's Day 2023, and ANN dates the US and Canada premiere to February 14, 2023. It is a sequel, not a recap: ANN records it as the sequel of -Ultra Romantic-, and its plot summary picks up from where the third season leaves the two leads. The official story page divides it into four parts, the first set on Christmas Eve, when Shirogane and Kaguya attend a Christmas party at the Fujiwara home. Watching it before season 3 would give away how that season ends.
Stairway to Adulthood is a two-part special
Stairway to Adulthood premiered on Tokyo MX and BS11 at 10 p.m. on December 31, 2025, according to the official broadcast page. Its official synopsis has two halves: Chika plans a birthday surprise for Kaguya that involves pretending to date Shirogane, who fears it will complicate a secret of his own; then Shirogane invites Kaguya to dinner at his new home on a night his sister is staying with a friend. The official US site frames it as Kaguya looking back through a photo album of her days at Shuchiin Academy, and ANN records it as the sequel of the film, so it belongs after the film.
In Japan it streamed first on Prime Video from January 1, 2026, with other services following from February 1. Outside Japan, ANN reported that Crunchyroll began streaming it in select regions on December 31, 2025, so check whether your service and region carry it rather than assuming it sits alongside the seasons.
The ending has not aired yet
On December 31, 2025 the official site announced that a concluding installment of the anime is in production, based on a newly written original story draft by Aka Akasaka. ANN reports that this conclusion will be a film. The official notice gives no release date. Until it arrives, the anime has no finale of its own.
The manga does. VIZ publishes it complete in 28 English volumes; see the Kaguya-sama catalog for the full checklist. Because the anime's conclusion is described as newly written, finishing the anime and reading the manga's last volumes may not give you the same ending twice. We have not established a chapter where the anime stops, so the safe manga starting point remains Volume 1.
For more on the two leads, read our studies of Kaguya's maneuvering and Miyuki Shirogane's fear of exposure.