I honestly don't know how this show is going to wrap itself up. This episode felt like the start of a new story arc, with Chihaya gradually getting over the fact that she lost her chance to face the Queen this year. It was heartbreaking to see her working through it ("If I hadn't messed up, would that be me up there?") but it was great to see her turn the pain of losing into the drive to go all the way next year. However...we only have two episodes left. Where are we going to go from here? What are we going to focus on? I went into this show knowing that there wouldn't be a definitive ending (the manga is still ongoing) but it's disappointing to see that all that build-up towards Chihaya's rematch with the Queen mean nothing this time around. I'm still looking forward to seeing that cheat get what's coming to her, though. Anyway, my main concern is that Chihayafuru will just stop rather than attempt some kind of closure. An open ending is fine, but from where we're at in the storyline, I just don't know. This show has proven me wrong before though, and I hope that it'll happen again. I would love to see this show go out on a high note. Concerns about episode limits aside, this was a pretty emotional episode. On top of Chihaya dealing with losing the tournament, Tachi once again did a pretty good job of acting as the emotional support for the team, despite his own feelings. I particularly liked the way that he handled the news that some guy had asked Chihaya out as well ("You need to realize that you can't date a guy who hasn't seen you play karuta"). The Christmas party scene, where we actually see the group apart and with their classmates for once, put a nice cap on how far they've come and how much more is ahead of them. On the other side of things, I'm getting a bit worried about Arata. When Chihaya called him, he wasn't hanging out with his class, he was with the karuta society. Not that there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, but after seeing him make a kid cry by taking a match too seriously and tracking down a guy who wasn't interested in the competitive side of it anymore makes me feel that maybe he got back into it too quickly and that he's forgetting about the fun side of it. Maybe the final two episodes will focus on that. With the competetive part out of the way, I wouldn't mind a human-relationship driven ending. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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