Chihayafuru 3 – 02 – Small Actions Building Up Good Fortune

At his high school in Fukui, Arata stands on stage with accomplished athletes as they are recognized for their achievements, in his case winning at the Nationals. The problem is, he won in individual tournament. If he’s going to do his part to keep Karuta alive and thriving, he’ll have to attract more players.

To that end, he uses his brief time on stage to put a call out for anyone interested in starting up a school team. Alas, everyone who approaches him isn’t personally interested, they just know someone who is. For now, he has to be content with simply spreading interest.

It’s back to school, which means it’s back to the Karuta club for Chihaya and Taichi, joining Hana, Porky, Desktomu, and Sumire. Everyone has improved, and Taichi continues to beat Lefty Chihaya at every turn, leading him to warn her not to get too comfortable playing with the wrong hand.

Chihaya is pitted against Sumire, but even here, she’s somewhat thrown off guard when the Class D player tells her she’s taking karuta seriously now, which we know from having access to her thoughts is because she’s committed to keeping up with Taichi until he looks her way.

When news comes that the school trip will overlap with the dates of the Queen and Master qualifying, Chihaya starts to wonder if the gods of Karuta are cursing her. Kana, sternly scolding her for not straightening her shoes after taking them off, tells Chihaya she has to think of small things she can do to built her good fortune back up.

Sure enough, after two months, the doctor removes the bandages and clears Chihaya for use of her right hand. Suddenly unleashed, she’s back to beating Taichi, but the others can tell she still lacks the same boldness she had before the injury. Chihaya must sense this too, and so in order to get into shape for the qualifiers (which everyone assumes she’ll miss the class trip to attend), she enters the inter-society, A-and-B-only Yoshino Tournament.

Taichi, Porky, and Desktomu also participate…as does Arata, whose presence Chihaya quite suddenly notices. Arata has the good sense to compliment Chihaya for her hakama, and hopes she won’t lose, because this is a mixed-gender tournament. All she has to do is win all her matches and she’ll likely get to face Arata, which is probably why she entered into the tournament in the first place. No better test of whether she’s ready for the Queen qualifiers than if she can have a good match against one of the best.

Desktomu is taken down a peg after being throttled in his first match, but thankfully the ever-caring Kana is there to stop his his compulsive face-slapping. Chi and Taichi win their first matches, and while Porky loses, he wears out his opponent Sudou Akito, hoping to make matches easier for his teammates. It’s in this way all individual matches are team matches and vice versa: everyone is fighting to help each other out, win or lose.

Chihayafuru 3 – 01 – Living with the Contradictions

If you wish, you can read my reviews of Chihayafuru’s first and second seasons to get up to speed. I may have to read them myself. ;)

Six years is a long time, and yet Chihayafuru treats that expanse of time as if it last aired…last Tuesday. I was weary of jumping right back in after so long, having watched so many hundreds of hours of other anime. But by the end of the first episode, I’d remembered most of the main players and their relationships, as well as where we left off. It’s like riding a bike!

It helps that the show simply picks up where it left off, with Chihaya still recovering from her finger surgery and attending a Fujisaki summer camp with Taichi. Coach Sakurazawa proves quite the taskmaster, but only because she knows firsthand (having lost five Queen matches) that suffering now will make enduring serious matches that much easier.

Despite Chihaya’s diminished ability to play with her left hand, Sakurazawa pits her against Yamashiro Rion in three straight matches, hoping Chihaya’s more than ample passion will rub off on the disinterested Rion, who wins all three, but the final two were closer as Chihaya got faster and got advice from the coach to always maintain posture and move with grace, as all the greatest champions do no matter the circumstances.

In the fourth match, Sakurazawa again takes advantage of the players she has and pits Chihaya against Taichi. Retro earlier tells Chihaya that he believes he plays worse when Chihaya is around, possibly because he often loses to her. But Sakurazawa considers this a confidence-builder for Taichi, who ends up beating Chihaya, much to her displeasure. And Taichi is committed to beating her, in an official match, when her right hand is healed.

Like Arata, Taichi gets a lot of his motivation to play and love the game of karuta through Chihaya. When Chihaya ends up in a conversation about love with the Fujisaki girls, her love of karuta blended with love for Arata comes out, and the girls mistake her for considering karuta itself her one true love. In reality, she’s still trying to understand that love. Hopefully she makes some progress this season, both in love and war!

Chihayafuru 2 – 25 (Fin)

After the tournament, Chihaya sees more specialists, who determine she has enchrondromatosis in her right index finger. She decides to undergo surgery, which will require anesthesia and a week-long stay in the hospital. She spends her time studying a film of Arata’s match given to her by Coach Sakurazawa, and calls Arata, who tells her he always things of the time he and she first played karuta in his apartment when they were young. Chihaya also composes some poetry, some of which Oe recognizes as Chihaya expressing feelings for Arata. Oe prods Taichi to try harder with Chihaaya, and arranges for the two to attend a Fujisaki karuta camp on their own once Chihaya is discharged. Arata prepares to move to Tokyo to attend college.

With all the karuta matches played and champions decided, we were thinking this would be a pleasant little epilogue to wrap up loose ends. And while it achieved that, so much more stuff went down here; stuff that sets up an almost assured third season that we don’t think we’ll be able to resist. This was a beautiful episode that had Chihaya cooped up in hospital, leaving her little to do but study Arata, think about Arata, talk to Arata, and summon feelings for Arata that she doesn’t understand; i.e. love. She realizes that her love for him and karuta are intertwined; her means of proving to herself and him that she’s worthy of his love. But she may already have it; the most fun Arata ever had is when he played with her, and it’s the very thing that keeps him calm whatever the nature of the match he’s playing. She contributes to his greatness.

Also brilliant was the use of Chihaya’s poetry, as read by Oe (by far the best character in the show at reading poetry) to indicate that Taichi’s window is rapidly closing, and further dalliances only make his climb steeper. Those poems, and watching her connect them to moments of Chihaya’s behavior, moved us deeply. Oe the Yenta is firmly on Taichi’s side, likening him to a figure from the hundred poems she so adores, and one who she doesn’t want to lose, so it’s cute and awesome that she takes steps to get Taichi into a position to make a move, any move, to keep him in the gate versus Arata.

As Oe says, Chihaya can’t possibly stay clueless forever, especially when she’s unconsciously writing love poems to Arata as it is! Perhaps, after the second season finally gave Mizusawa taste victory at the top, the third season (again, we’re just assuming there’ll be one) will address the love triangle with more authority, while also continuing Chihaya’s rise to defeat the queen and face Arata. Until then, the fine quality of this season was every bit the equal of the first, and even surpassed it in some regards. We can only move forward.

Rating: 10 (Masterpiece)

Stray Observations:

• The reaction of horror of her friends at the news of the name of her condition is pretty priceless.
• Chihaya’s practice swings (and the nurse’s scolding) were also quite adorable.
• Coach Sakurazawa proves she’s quite the decent sort, providing Chihaya with a wealth of education (and very accurate!) karuta analysis of Arata and Shinobu.
• Everything about Chihaya’s phone call to Arata was just flippin’ fantastic.
• Arata happens to be looking at a magazine cover with Chihaya’s sister Chitose in a swimsuit when Chihaya calls and mentions Chitose. Weird, but great!
• Porky is wearing a t-shirt with PORK on it. WE WANT THAT SHIRT.
• In a nice surprise and blast from the past, the end credits role with the OP from the first season, which we liked a LOT more than the second one. Still love it!
• That’s fifty episodes of Chihaya and the gang watched. It was a fun ride, and we hope there’ll be 25 more in the future.

Chihayafuru 2 – 21

Chihaya struggles early against Yuube, but once she stops overthinking, goes with a more basic approach, and flips around the cards on her own side to make them easier to take with her left hand, and eeks out a win by two cards. Arata and Shinobu quickly defeat their opponents, and all the other Mizusawa players advance. Nishida has to face Arata in the next round, and while he puts up a passionate fight, he ultimately loses. Chihaya moves on to the Final 8, but rather than Arata, her next opponent is Shinobu.

Wow, this individual tournament is moving along at quite a clip! In a single episode we go from 32 players to just eight; Chihaya figures out how to switch her game from right to left, defeats two players, and with four episodes left, Chihaya is about to face off against her nememuse, the Queen herself: Wakamiya Shinobu. As a result, while she was saving her right hand for Arata (that just sounds wrong…), she knows she’ll have to use it against Shinobu. That’s a huge gamble, especially when last week a single tentative swipe caused intense pain.

But while the odds are very much against her no matter what hand she uses, Fujisaki’s loss proved that giants can be slain. If Chihaya defeated Shinobu to finally face off against Arata, you can be assured we’d pretty much lose it. That would be like a whole season of Kyousuke and Kuroneko dating. Arata, meanwhile, is just scary good, and even with all the negative energy directed at his game (his parents want him to lose so they don’t have to pay for his college in Tokyo), he eliminates his first opponent and barely breaks a sweat dispatching Nishida. We hope Chihaya’s journey doesn’t end with Shinobu doing to her what Arata did to Nishida.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Chihayafuru 2 – 20

The team receives their championship awards and banner, but Chihaya’s finger has swollen and Miyauchi takes her to an emergency clinic, where she’s diagnosed with a chip fracture and told to avoid strenuous activity. At the inn, Chihaya lies down beside a sleeping Taichi and recalls the matches that got them to the championship. The next morning she decides to use her left hand to play rather than simply forfeit. The four classes split off, and Chihaya first faces off against Akashi’s aggressive Yuube Keiko, who takes an early lead when Chihaya’s left hand proves too slow.

Karuta is such an obscure game, even in its native Japan, that the physician who tends to Chihaya’s finger has no idea just how intense it can get. Yet even within that incredibly narrow, specific world of karuta, we’ve learned that there’s a universe of complexity, beauty and strength. We also learn that the Chairman of Japanese karuta has a similar belief as Shinobu: that team tournaments are no big deal and even chaotic and “messy” compared to the peerless artistry of the individual tournament. It’s kind of mean for the show to pile on the team-hate immediately after Mizusawa played their goddamn hearts out to win the highest team honor there is.

And even if she values the team matches much more than Shinobu or the Chairman or even Arata, even Chihaya can’t help but buy into the superiority of the individual matches. But she also made a promise to win in every class, and that can’t happen if she forfeits. Thus her motivation to play is just as much honoring that promise to her team as it was buying into the primacy of the individuals. There’s no rest for the weary, and when her first ginger attempt to strike the mat causes extreme pain, Chihaya rolls the dice and switches to her left hand. The initial results are less than inspiring, but who knows, maybe she’ll be able make that hand match the speed of her ears and sense.

Rating:7 (Very Good)

Stray Observations:

• Porky’s sister makes her brother’s team congratulatory tees in a new deeper blue color. She’s a class act, plus we were getting bored with the powder blue.
• These individual matches will either continue into a future third season of Chihayafuru, or be so brief as to be anticlimactic  But its not like the team tournament could’ve been stretched across the rest of this season’s episodes…that would have frankly been torturous.
• Chihaya lies down beside Taichi, but perpendicularly…a nice visual representation of just how differently they think about each other. 
• Arata is going to college in Tokyo and Taichi is not happy with that.
• Sumire learns about the childhood friend love triangle and wigs out. Ironically, if Taichi was into her, everyone would be happy…unless Chihaya isn’t really romantically interested in Arata.
• Shinobu means to crush everyone. So as it turns out, she learned nothing. Oh well!

Chihayafuru 2 – 19

Taichi, determined to change his negative ways, is able to catch up with Ryoga, who commits a rare double fault. Chihaya defeats Rion for Mizusawa’s first win, and Nishida and Taichi are able to synchronize their last card, making both their games luck-of-the-draw. The moment the card is read, Chihaya wakes up from her post-game nap to see Taichi and Nishida win their games, making Mizusawa national champions. Upon seeing Arata in the hall, Chihaya scolds him for saying he doesn’t care about teams.

Ever since we’ve known him, Taichi has had no luck. Chihaya, the one he loves, doesn’t see him that way. Luck-of-the-draws never go his way. But with so much on the line, and with no guarantee they’ll ever have the chance they have now, Taichi decides to forget about all his past luck. He grabs luck by the scuff of the next and gives it a good shake until it finally favors him. Of course, he didn’t win just because of luck. It was a team match and it was a full team effort. It was also, not surprisingly, the best match of the season to watch. With the table so deftly set and the pieces in position and the stakes loud and clear, all this episode has to do is let ‘er rip.

Injury and all, Chihaya is able to take Yamashiro down first, and Nishida’s match is basically a commentary on how he’s finally going to make all his experience playing karuta pay off. Therefore much of the episode is Taichi going out on a wing and a prayer, just this once. He may regret saying that, though, as while the team wins, Taichi’s spotlight is still stolen by Arata’s mere presence. But never mind that. Team Mizusawa is the best in Japan, which means they’re the best in the world. Time to take a deep breath and savor the victory.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

Chihayafuru 2 – 18

Chihaya overcomes her injury to cut down Rion’s lead, but it’s still nagging her. Nishida is desperate for a win after two girls injured themselves giving it their all. After mis-analyzing his hair blowing, Tsutomu loses to Yamai, who energizes Rion, whom he secretly admires for her beautiful play. At the third-place game, Akashi and Hokuo continue to play hard, disgusting Shinobu, who suddenly remembers how she was isolated to strengthen her. Tsukuba loses to Ichimura, putting Mizusawa down 0-2. Nishida, Taichi and Chihaya will all have to win their games to take the championship away from Fujisaki.

Arata nudged Shinobu into sitting in on the karuta game, but not just to fulfill her duty as queen, but to try to change her mind about team karuta. She wasn’t very moved last week, but this week as the games intensify, like the Grinch, she starts to feel something in her she doesn’t recognize: excitement. Interest. Well, maybe. There’s a lot of conditioning to cut through to get to Shinobu’s soft side. After all, she was kept away from others her age so she wouldn’t ever go easy on anyone. The idea was, the more alone she was, the stronger she’d get. She is a strong karuta player – the strongest, but she’s a terrible queen and her social development has also suffered.

But back to the game: while Mizusawa had five chances at three miracles against Fujisaki, two of those chances go quietly into the night. We don’t mind Tsutomu and Tsukuba losing so forcefully; no amount of fighting spirit could overcome the sheer gap in ability and experience. By episode’s end we only know that Taichi is four cards down against Eroga, not a great place to be but not hopeless, while Chihaya and Porky’s scores remain a mystery. Mizusawa’s back is definitely up against the wall, but their three strongest players still stand, and there’s still a chance they can pull out a win. If not, we’ll be sorely disappointed. We already saw them lose in the last series. We want a win.

Rating:7 (Very Good)

Chihayafuru 2 – 14

Mizusawa’s semifinal match against First Akashi Girls School continues. Nishida is again the first to lose, but Kana wins shortly thereafter, releasing the tension somewhat. After Chihaya takes two of Megumu’s treasured “name” card, Megumu counters by taking Chihaya’s “Impasionate gods” card. Taichi wins, but Chihaya loses, leaving Desktomu as the deciding game. He gambles and takes the winning card, and Mizusawa moves on to the final against Fujisaki.

Before we return to the hot Mizusawa/Akashi action, the episode checks in with Arata, who is finishing up his novelistic apology, and Shinobu, still in his clothes and bored. The Fujioka West team finally arrives, and the queen takes the opportunity to voice her disdain for group matches. She wants to “kill time” with an individual match with Arata, who refuses because it’s a day for teams. Teams like Mizusawa, which thanks to the Fujioka coach, tells him is still alive and fighting.

It’s kind of sad that Shinobu doesn’t give a shadow of a shit about the outcome of the group tournament. All queens, even Karuta queens, carry the responsibility to ensure their kingdoms thrive. But all she’s interested in is playing and winning alone. As long as she reigns, the karuta kingdom will languish. Ayase Chihaya and Ousaka Megumu aim to usurp her, and from the look of their epic game this week, they’ll put up a fight.

The team won, but Chihaya lost, and she doesn’t know why she lost, to the point her obsessing causes her to dig her nails into her hand, something Taichi stops with a tender gesture. It’s great to see Oe win, even though it leaves her too exhausted for the final. And Komano not only contributes to the actual match, his is the decisive match, and he even has the guts to gamble to win. Hokuo gets its clock cleaned, so Mizusawa will not be able to hold back in the final against scary Fujisaki.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

Stray Observations:

• Another twist: Megumu not only doesn’t delete the photos her fan club snaps, she asks if she can have them, to remember her last team match. From here on out, it’s Queensville or Bust.
• We were a little disappointed that there was no Komano/Sumire scene after his big win. She did blush in awe when he won.
• We like how Hokuo is eliminated off-camera. We don’t really like Retro-kun.
• Shinobu’s spidey-sense picks up a card reading in the group match, and she employs circular breathing to study cards. We love her, but maintain her reign is poison for the game.

Chihayafuru 2 – 13

The Mizusawa/Akashi Girls match continues. Chihaya notes Megumu’s consistent calm, but uses all of the skills her teammates and Dr. Harada taught her, including the fact that Megumu is her, had she not been as well-coached. Hanano’s notes help Desktomu, while Porky’s opponent is more manly than he expected. Chihaya uses her accuracy to take three consecutive cards and start whittles at Megumu’s lead. Megumu momentarily wavers, but when Yu contributes vocal support, which she had neglected, she gets upset and recommits herself to beat Chihaya and challenge the queen.

There’s more similarity between karuta and March Madness than you might know. For instance, if there are two games going on at the same time, one between the 1 and 2 -seed teams and one between the 3 and 4, the natural inclination is to pay attention to the first game. But when the 3-4 game turns out to be more competitive and interesting, you change the channel and watch that. This is what happens to the audience at Omi Jingu. The match between Mizusawa and Akashi Girls starts picks up steam, and the swirling, clashing energy between the hard-fighting teams shifts the crowd’s attention on them. We don’t see a second of the other match.

The match doesn’t end this week, which is annoying, but it is a good match with a lot going on. It’s ironic that Porky was looking forward to playing a girl and gets the tomboy of the team, but more interesting that not only did Komano use Hanano’s unique scouting notes to heart, and they worked for him in a real game situation, but Hanano noticed that he used her notes, recalling his praise for her,  and feels pride in her contribution. Could this be the initial stirrings of a very unexpected romance? Well…probably not, but we wouldn’t mind if it went in that direction. She and Komano would make a very intriguing couple.

Meanwhile, Chihaya is staying right in her match with Megumu, and not just because she’s relying on her strengths, but because she’s constantly assessing her weaknesses and working to conquer them, or at least turn them to her favor. Chihaya believes Megumu is relying on her speed, and we know Megumu is driven more by being the one who makes everyone happy rather than any desire to be the queen. When her teammate usurps her, she responds aggressively. She is often faster than Chihaya, but we wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t revealed her whole game.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Stray Observations:

• Megumu’s fans – both the three swooning photogs and the weepy, youth-obsessed faculty advisor, are a bit grating here. We could have done with one or two fewer cutaways  to each. As for the Fujisaki girl, her stare reminds us of a MISAKA clone.
• One weakness that Chihaya has yet to conquer – and one that may prove devastating in her queen match – is her inability to contest close cards. She’s really quite terrible at it!
• We liked when Sudo noted that some of Chihaya’s moves reminded him of Wakamiya. They’re supposed to!

Chihayafuru 2 – 12

With the order exactly as planned with no surprises, Mizusawa begins its semifinal match against Akashi First Girls School. Chihaya is against Ousaka Megumu whom many present believe will challenge Shinobu. She also proves much faster than the last match Chihaya watched her in, and takes the first four cards in a row. Chihaya settles herself, and Oe gives her a supportive pat on the shoulder and refers to a refreshing poem about the last day of summer. Chihaya gets back into the game.

Their last two matches were against eccentric and ultimately weaker opponents, but this time Mizusawa’s facing a serious, dedicated team with a powerful ace, just like them. Ousaka Megumi in particular will not be easy to defeat, as her entire team has dedicated themselves to make her a player worthy of the queen’s crown, after her meteroic rise due in part to beginner’s luck. That said, she’s not much of a character per se; more of a collection of clashing attributes (ordinary, sharp-tongued, popular).

As such, we’re not really sure what to think of her beyond what she shows on the surface, which is, at the end of the day, arrogance. She’s been riding her momentum and wants to be in the final now, never mind how disrespectful or even foolish such a mindset is. Karuta isn’t about shortcuts; skipping an opponent would deprive herself of vital experience. This match is important enough to occupy two episodes of which this is the first, and while the flashbacks can’t entirely avoid the appearance of padding, they’re pleasant enough.

Rating: 7 (Very Good)

Stray Observations:

• The series always sets the tone with the first card called, but it always seems to turn out the same way: no matter who Chihaya’s playing, it seems like her opponent gets the first card, followed by a visible look of surprise on her part. You’d think she’d learn to control her body language by now.
• We feel like we can enjoy the matches better when the tension of who’s going to win is released. But because this match didn’t end this week, we weren’t able to skip to the end to see a hint of who won.
• This is why we don’t feel bad for skipping: after coming up short last year, and with thirteen episodes left, anything less than a national team championship would be a disappointment. They’re good enough to win it all. Now is the time to hunker down and do so.

Chihayafuru 2 – 11

Nishida thinks they should stick with the same team for the coming match against Shoyo, and gets angry when Tsutomu doesn’t protest. Chihaya decides to leave him out, realizing that Tsutomu is more tired from scouting other teams than Tsukuba is from playing matches. As he and Hanano rest, the rest of the team beats Shoyo, using Tsutomu’s data. Their next match is against Akashi First Girls, and Tsutomu is able to discern their makeup from Hanano’s notes. The two teams’ orders are exactly as suspected, suggesting Akashi has utmost faith that their ace can defeat Chihaya.

We have been watching March Madness, and one interesting moment in particular was when the cameras turned onto a solitary, bookish chap wearing a team t-shirt, pencil and pad in hand. This was the team’s Desktomu: observing and collecting data on every aspect of the game. While what Tsutomu is doing isn’t strictly SABRmetrics, it is another instance of a trend towards using statistics to gain an edge – great or slight – in sports that have traditionally gone without. It’s evolution that both irks purists and excites those interested in a sport’s future. And in team Mizusawa’s case, it hasn’t let them down yet (though that doesn’t mean it’ll always work perfectly, or at all).

Porky projects his past self on Tsutomu when he tells him he’s fine sitting out the next match, but what he fails to realize is that Tsutomu does have the drive; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to wrench vital data from the last team that lost to Shoyo; data even Nishida must use to win. A teams weaknesses can be hard to pick out in the heat of a match, but Tsutomu does the team’s homework, and they plan their strategy accordingly. Even Hanano’s seemingly superficial notes are detailed enough in their superficiality for Tsutomu to create basic personality profiles. But there’s one big difference that unathletic kid at courtside and Tsutomu: Tsutomu can play the actual game, and in the next match, he will.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Stray Observations:

• We forgot to mention Arata – turns out he can play after all, but he is banned from watching his friends play (not a light punishment, considering that’s why he came in the first place) and must write an essay of apology.
• Arata lends Shinobu (“The Drenched Queen”) his clothes and phone, which is very sweet. Though Shinobu may be too weird to consider it, we really wouldn’t mind these two hooking up, even if it did create more problems for Chihaya…no, because it would!
• “Show You”? Srsly?

Chihayafuru 2 – 10

Mizusawa’s next opponent is Yamaguchi Mioka, a team of memory aces and quiz champions, who arrange their cards in the middle and constantly change their order. As a result, the Mizusawa players must draw upon the individual strengths of their games to defeat them. Chihaya, Taichi, and Nishida win, Oe loses a very close match, and only Tsukuba loses badly, and the team moves on. Meanwhile, Wakamiya threatens to forfeit if the gamemakers don’t reinstate Arata.

To all of the myriad uses of Karuta, add studying aid. The NERRRDS of Yamaguchi Mioka, and their captain, Takayama, discovered the game by chance, and noticed the similarities with their competitive quiz play. Both games require memorization and a certain speed with the hand, and buzzing in answers before the question is finished is much like taking a card after the first syllable or two. But of course, the team isn’t that one-dimensional. We greatly enjoyed the creative ways the thoughts of the players are visualized, and how the Mizusawa members deal with their opponents in very different ways.

Nishida relies on the defensive style of his society. Oe (in perhaps the coolest visualization), memorizes by author and them rather than position. Taichi…plays just like these guys, so he does fine. And Chihaya? Once she breathes and calms down, she relies on her power/accuracy combo and otherworldly game sense. What’s also great is how the game doesn’t dominate the episode. There’s enough time to propel Arata’s story forward (and we’re now thinking Chihaya is to Shinobu is to Chihaya as Arata is to Taichi), and showing more of the Tsutomu and Hanane scouting team.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

Chihayafuru 2 – 09

Arata arrives at Omi Jingu to watch Chihaya and Taichi play, but he bumps into Shoji, a classmate from middle school whose Fujioka West team has only two players. They beg him to play on their team so they don’t have to forfeit, and give him a mask and remove his glasses. He has trouble finding any rhythm and his opponent builds a 15-card lead. When Shoji loses, sealing the win for the other school, he puts his glasses on and wins his game, as does the third member. Directer Kuriyama notices Arata from his karuta society and takes the team aside. Fujioka will recieve a reprimand and Arata may be barred from the individual tournament tomorrow.

We can’t help but imagine how differently this episode would have gone had Murao not drawn Arata away just before Chihaya turned in his direction and just missed him. He came to watch Mizusawa, after all, and certainly didn’t want to end up in a team match. But unlike Shinobu and Murao, he doesn’t believe those who compete in team matches love karuta any less than the individual players. If there’s anything playing with Chihaya and Taichi as kids taught him, it’s that there’s nothing like sharing karuta – whether its wins or losses – with those you care about. Unfortunately, win or lose, by substituting for an absent Fujioka player, he breaks the rules.

We understand him for not being able to say no to Shoji, especially when the arrogant, dismissive words of Shinobu and Murao kept going around in his head. We also understand him putting his glasses on and making an effort once his team’s defeat is sealed. He could sense his opponents frustration, and in the heat of the match, showing that opponent respect by not holding back was simply more important than not being found out, which he was. It isn’t entirely certain he’ll be disqualified, but if he is, he can take some small comfort in knowing his actions prevented a team that love kartua deeply (no matter what the individuals say) from going home without playing a single match.

Rating: 7 (Very Good)