The QR Code in the Kaguya-sama Season 2 Finale Actually Works: Here's What Kaguya's LINE Code Opens

The LINE contact QR code Kaguya shows Shirogane in the Kaguya-sama: Love Is War season 2 finale really scans. It opens the LINE Store page for the series’ official animated stickers, and that page is still live six years on. The production never said a word about it; viewers found it the night the episode aired, 27 June 2020. We decoded the on-screen code, and there’s a clean copy below. Last checked on 13 October 2026.

Most phone screens in anime are set dressing. A QR code is drawn as a grey smudge, a URL goes nowhere, and nobody at the studio expects a viewer to pause and point a camera at the TV.

Kaguya-sama is a show about two people who’d rather die than send the first text, so of course its one real QR code is the moment Kaguya finally asks for someone’s LINE.

The scene

Season 2 (Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?, with the question mark) ran from April to June 2020, and the finale, episode 12, aired on 27 June. Its first segment is “The Student Council Wants to Be Photographed”: the council’s commemorative photo goes wrong, Kaguya’s ancient flip phone is destroyed in the process, and every picture she’d taken since joining the council goes with it.

So she buys a smartphone. Her first. And in the next segment, she walks up to Shirogane and asks, with the formality of someone requesting a treaty: “President, could we exchange LINE IDs?” She holds out her new phone with her contact QR code on the screen, and the camera gives you a long, clean look at the screen as she holds it out.

For a series built on the two leads refusing to make the first move, it’s a big moment: Kaguya initiates, Shirogane dithers, and the student council group chat is born. The show treats it as a punchline. The QR code is the second punchline, and most of the audience missed it on the first viewing.

What the code opens

Viewers who paused and scanned the frame found that it works. The code points to the LINE Store page for “Ugoku! Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai”, the official animated sticker set for the anime, published by M-UP. Moving stickers of the main cast, the kind you’d actually send in the group chat the scene is about.

Neither the episode nor the official Twitter account mentioned it. The find spread the same night, with posts along the lines of “scan the QR code in episode 12 and you get stickers”, and Oricon ran a story the next morning quoting viewers: “they went this hard?”, “the art team is showing off”, “the fact they even thought to do it”. The finale pushed the series’ hashtag to second place on Japanese Twitter’s trends.

The nicest detail came out in the same coverage: Aka Akasaka’s original manga has the same scene, and the QR code drawn in the manga panel is real too. It links to the manga’s own LINE sticker set from Shueisha. The anime staff didn’t invent the gag; they noticed the manga had done it and matched it with their stickers.

Six years later the page is still up and the set still sells. In Japan it’s 100 LINE coins; the store shows it as US$1.99 elsewhere.

Scan it here

We decoded the on-screen code from a fan’s screenshot of the frame. Here’s a clean copy, carrying the same address as the code on Kaguya’s phone, so you can scan it from this page instead of pausing the episode:

If you’d rather scan it from the episode, pause on the close-up of the phone screen. The LINE app’s camera reads it directly, and so does a normal phone camera, which opens the store page in the browser.

Why it works as a joke

A contact-exchange scene is the natural place to hide a real QR code, because the shot has to show the phone clearly anyway. But Kaguya-sama had an extra reason. The LINE stickers aren’t a random product tie-in; they’re the thing the characters would be sending each other in the student council group chat Shirogane sets up later in the same episode. The merchandise is in character.

It also set the template. Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky did the same thing in its first episode this summer, with a contact QR code that opens a hidden chat page between the leads, and the Sword Art Online finale went further and rented a real server for an IP address. Kaguya-sama’s version is the cheapest of the three and the funniest.

If you want more of the story

The anime adapts roughly the first 14 of Aka Akasaka’s 28 volumes, and the 2022 film The First Kiss That Never Ends picks up right after season 3. Everything past that, including the ending, is manga-only. Viz Media publishes the whole run in English, so that’s the easy route.

Some of the side stories and spin-offs that ran alongside the main series in Japan have no English release. If you want to read those, Madomi translates each page as you scroll, the same way it does for the Japanese publisher platforms. It’s the same tool we use for anything that’s still Japan-only.

Frequently asked questions

Does the QR code in the Kaguya-sama season 2 finale actually work?

Yes. The LINE contact QR code Kaguya shows Shirogane in episode 12 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? (season 2) is a real, scannable code. It opens the LINE Store page for the official animated sticker set “Ugoku! Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai”. We decoded it and reproduced the code above.

What does Kaguya’s QR code open?

The LINE Store listing for the series’ official animated stickers, a set of moving stickers of the main cast published by M-UP. The page is still live and the set still sells, for 100 LINE coins in Japan or about US$1.99 elsewhere.

Which episode and scene has the QR code?

Season 2, episode 12, the finale, aired 27 June 2020. Kaguya’s old flip phone breaks, she buys her first smartphone, and asks Shirogane to exchange LINE IDs. She holds out her screen with her contact QR code on it, and the camera gives you a clean look at the phone.

Was the QR code in the Kaguya-sama manga real too?

Yes. Aka Akasaka’s original manga has the same contact-exchange scene, and the QR code drawn there links to the manga’s own LINE sticker set from Shueisha. The anime staff reproduced the trick with the anime stickers.

Where can I read Kaguya-sama after the anime?

The manga by Aka Akasaka is complete at 28 volumes and fully published in English by Viz Media. The anime covers roughly the first 14 volumes plus the 2022 film The First Kiss That Never Ends, so the back half is manga-only. Some of the side stories and spin-offs are Japan-only; for those, Madomi by Pawaka Labs translates each page as you scroll.

Go send Shirogane a sticker

The code still works, the stickers still move, and the group chat is still the best thing that happened to the student council. If you know of another anime code or address that genuinely resolved to something, we’d like to hear about it.

Episode still and key visual © 赤坂アカ／集英社・かぐや様は告らせたい製作委員会 (Aka Akasaka / Shueisha / Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai Production Committee). Used for editorial commentary.

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