Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Kaguya Shinomiya (ISTJ)

Si:

“I didn’t forget! Your birthday’s September 9th which makes you a Virgo. Your blood type is O, and your birth weight was 2118 grams. I remember everything!”

“So we can’t be late, but it’s fine to violate traffic laws?”

“The term ‘heart and soul’ is quite vague and shouldn’t apply to dancing. What’s key is memorizing the choreography and training one’s body to efficiently do it.”

Kaguya is meticulous and careful. In an effort to get Shirogane to confess love for her, she comes up with extremely complex plans in which she accounts for almost every possible detail. This includes gathering information to prepare for counter attempts that Shirogane might try. For instance, she checked for his bike outside on the rainy day to know for sure if he’d biked or taken the train. She even rehearses with her maid beforehand to ensure she’s completely prepared, like with the love psychology quizzes. The level of work she puts into every plan makes her not want to bail when it’s going badly. Shirogane describes her as the most meticulous planner that he knows.

Kaguya’s cautious nature spans into following the rules extremely closely. Her maid describes her as someone who is far too rigid, never breaking any rules. This makes her prone to pointing out when other people are breaking the rules. At one point, Kaguya lists out every single dress violation her maid was currently guilty of. This specifically demonstrates Si because of how specific she gets versus just generally stating that the maid was in violation of the dress code.

Kaguya relies heavily on repetition and memorization. For instance, when Chika is trying to teach Shirogane how to dance, Kaguya directly opposes Chika’s approach, which focused on self-expression. Instead, Kaguya calls out the term “heart and soul” in regard to dancing as vague, and encourages Shirogane to memorize the choreography instead. Similarly, she masters archery due to her ability to repeat the same motion over and again. Kaguya explains to some fellow students that she accidentally hit the bull’s eye on her very first try, and simply repeated the action from that point on.

As a few final notes, Kaguya states that she struggles with falling back on her old habits, because that’s what she knows. This suggests Si valuing what is already known, especially considering that she admits that there are better ways. In addition, when she finds a girl who didn’t know how to get to school, Kaguya specifically asks her how she had been getting to school before this point, which suggests Si valuing past experience.

Te:

“If you are a Shinomiya, do not rely on anyone. Instead, use them. Do not receive anything. Instead, take. Do not love anyone. There is no instead.”

Kaguya presents herself as cold and business-like. This is fairly obvious right from the beginning, but is reinforced continually. For instance, when she finds a young girl wandering around lost, Kaguya is extremely curt with her. She asks her if she’s in trouble, and tells her to sum it up as concisely as she can. Of course, she helps the girl, but her attitude is task-oriented in nature, and she doesn’t at all appear concerned with being comforting or friendly.

Kaguya’s goal throughout the show is to get Shirogane to confess his love to her. To that end, she focuses on reordering the external environment in order to complete each plan that she cooks up. She doesn’t rely on emotional manipulation or forming/utilizing relationships, but rather factual information and setting up physical events to play out a certain way. This all suggests high Te. She tries to tightly control how things will play out, which is why Chika, as a wild card, often stresses her out.

When Shirogane claims to have gotten to know her well since working with her, Kaguya demands that he prove it. She decides to quiz him, via the game 20 Questions. In other words, she judges the truth of his statement via an objective metric, which suggests Te.

Fi:

“I bet if I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way.”

As with most low Fi users, Kaguya keeps her feelings to herself and is careful not to show weakness. This plays into the main premise of the show, in the sense that she is unwilling to admit her feelings first. Kaguya isn’t great at connecting with others or being empathetic, but when she does so, she tries to anticipate how she might feel if in their position.

Kaguya’s identity seems to be largely based on her family name, which is consistent with low Fi. She often worries about her actions will reflect on her family. In addition, her values appear to have come from her family (like with the family creed hanging on her wall), and she holds to them stubbornly. She’s fairly obstinate when it comes to what she thinks, and struggles to understand other ways of being.

Ne:

“The more you try to control her, the more out of control you feel.” – about Chika

Kaguya hates feeling unprepared, and she struggles to adapt. This is why she is prone to excessive preparation, like running simulations and attempting to account for every variable. Without a plan, she doesn’t feel capable of adapting to or dealing with life. There is a moment in the show where Kaguya feels trapped by Chika, but doesn’t even try to escape (even though she wishes too), because she hadn’t made preparations to do so beforehand. In other words, her extraverted perceiving function wasn’t even capable of trying to respond to an unexpected situation. Chika is a constant source of frustration for Kaguya, due to her tendency to be an uncontrollable wild card that Kaguya can’t account for.