Justin: So I think for the most part, this episode of Chihayafuru had a balance of main characters appearing at good times. Of course, the most important character thanks to the cliffhanger last week got his fate determined. Let’s just say though, that it was a surprise in how it all turned out. Well, I should say I probably would not have been surprised if the teachers suddenly turned a blind eye -- it’s obviously clear Arata has immense talent for the game, and he is the grandson of someone famous in the community. The reasons for trying to keep Arata in though -- in that it involves finally taking down the current King, Master Suo -- actually reminded me of how there are always backhanded justifications when it comes to certain things. And it’s pretty clear that the staff has been more than exasperated when it comes to dealing with Suo, talented as he is. Does that really mean you have to toss the rules out to make an exception because one person has the ability to challenge the current King? The scene is played out in a joking kind of way, so it may not be quite so serious, but let’s just say it would have been pretty unfortunate if they did let Arata get away due to their reasoning. They should somewhat thank Shoji for trying to explain the situation (that seemed to warm their hearts), but even so, in the end, it speaks to not trying to set an example, but to give exception to a certain few people. Of course, their reasoning was a mild surprise -- for Shinobu to basically deal the karuta staff a crushing blow, that surprised me. Come on, I know none of you believed Shinobu would have thought about saving Arata...no matter how much she wants to play him! Maybe she does want to prove herself a lot to Arata, but to throw away her Queen status for him? In a way, it makes me wonder if she plays karuta out of love...which A) would seem contradictory compared to what she said in last week’s episode and B) would be disappointing. But I say in a way. In the end, this could have easily been a good bluff, or maybe she was considering it seriously. Whatever the case, if the staff had any thought about banning Arata from the tournament, they definitely had to let those thoughts die once Shinobu said she would forfeit. I have to give the anime credit. It was a good way to let Arata play again, though I do feel sorry for some people. Muse: When I tried to think of possible ways Arata could still play in the tournament, Shinobu walking in and basically saying that she’d give up being Queen if she couldn’t have a match with him was not something that I pictured. I guessed that she’d be mad, since there are very few people she acknowledges as worthwhile to play against, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen her this excited to play against someone. But it’s also interesting how it gets pushed to that point, since it looked like the officials were going to let him off with a warning after hearing the real circumstances. Arata insists on being punished for his actions, and while that is commendable, why give the officials a reason to take the ability to play in the tournament away from him? And he doesn’t reconsider until Shinobu steps in and says this: “Do you not want to play against me?” There are still parts to Arata’s reasoning that aren’t completely clear. Last week, I talked about my confusion surrounding his vague reasoning for helping out a team he wasn’t part of. This week, Arata says point blank that he was jealous. Chihaya was strong enough on her own to form her own karuta club, and now she’s got a team that supports her. Arata hasn’t bothered with any of that since he started playing again, at least not until the previous episode. Why? Does he really feel that separated from his friends? (It might help if you call and text them more often, Arata.) There’s still a missing piece here, and until the show decides to reveal it, I’ll have to continue to speculate. Justin: It makes sense for Mizusawa to obviously face the toughest teams at Nationals. It also makes sense to have some sort of variety apparently as well, since now we get a team that’s not just good at karuta -- they also happen to be a part of the Quiz Society at their school. We’ve seen some interesting styles pointed out in this episode, but one of course that takes the cake is the Mioka team attempting to use their memorization skills to their full capacity. Why it happened to involve moving the cards each and every time, well, considering the differing reasons between the leader and the coach, who knows. Speaking of the leader, I find it interesting what Chihayafuru has done so far. In some shows, you’ll always get that nondescript team that just so happens to be in the way of our main team, and usually nine times out of ten our main team wipes the floor with the nondescript, and this is generally reflected by quick narration of how they won, or with the usage of stills. Instead, we end up not only getting a quirky team, but we get a character or two to identify with and learn how they got into karuta. In a sense, it’s a sneaky way to show how people get into the game of karuta -- but it works for the most part. In this case, I think it worked because of Poseidon’s -- Nakayama Manabu -- way of how he got into Karuta. From just merely watching a DVD of the Queen/King match, he was hooked. From the timing to the understanding of the works, he treated it like a quiz game -- except the more karuta he played, the more he started to really just love karuta. Chihayafuru obviously has its own storyline to tell, but along the way, we get to see other ways to get into karuta. It’ll be interesting to see what reasonings other people that appear in this anime have in terms of getting into karuta. Muse: It seems like this current team arc is really trying to make a point in contrast to the statement Shinobu made in the last episode about the team matches not having any love. Yet again we’re seeing that regardless of how they got into the game, everyone in the building loves karuta in their own way. This episode was interesting in how the characters introduced had started playing karuta for academic reasons--many people have pointed out how great karuta could be as a study game--yet, three-quarters through the episode, Chihaya’s opponent Nakayama says this: “I work hard at the quiz championship for the sake of karuta.” He started playing for a specific reason, yet now that reason is more like an afterthought. However, it deeply colors the way that Nakayama and the rest of his team play, using a highly unusual card placement method, and changing the order of their cards every turn. It plays to the strengths of memorization, but it’s not enough to beat Mizusawa. There’s an interesting scene towards the end of the match when we pull away from Chihaya and Nakayama a bit and see how the other members of Mizusawa are handling their matches. Each of them tackles the duplicated strategy in a different way, and like the quiz team, each strategy also speaks to why they started playing, and how they’ve improved since then. Porky goes on the defensive, which is how his school teaches karuta. Kana can follow each card regardless of its placement on the field, since she knows all the poems, the poets, and their history by heart. Taichi has both memorization and speed, speaking to his perfectionist nature. And Chihaya... well, I don’t have to say anything about Chihaya. When she gets serious, it’s already over. Justin: I guess this is about the time where I guess drama is supposed to start with the team. And when I mean drama, I mean a bunch of cliffhangers. Last week it was Arata. This week it is...Tsutomu and Porky? In a sense, it felt kind of weird to have that happen in the end. But this does make me wonder if one of these two will take over an episode. We’ve had the Sumire episode, the Taichi episode, the Arata episode, and is it time now to have a Tsutomu or Porky episode? Well, it might be unlikely, mainly because I think we have to figure out why Porky even suggested that they stick with the original lineups. At this point, the only time it looked like Tsutomu would get involved in anything direct was when Sumire began her spiel on not having the spirit to win a championship. Needless to say, this didn’t make Tsutomu happy as he hurriedly got away from her. Otherwise, it had been straightforward. So why did Porky suggest to keep the same lineup? Does he think Tsutomu isn’t good enough to compete? Does he feel he serves a better purpose doing something else? This is a key decision since I don’t think they can change the order again, if them mentioning they could change their lineup after two rounds means anything -- but it’s hard to figure out Porky’s reasoning as nothing was hinted at, really. Muse: Yeah, I was really confused at the end. What exactly was he getting at? The earlier scene with Sumire seems to hint that Tsutomu is going to be accused of being more interested in data collecting than in playing. However, it seemed to me in that scene that Tsutomu was more disappointed with Sumire’s insistence that she doesn’t care. Also, I think it would be really sad if he stopped playing now. Aside from Taichi’s struggle to A rank, Tsutomu is the only one who’s shown having problems getting better at karuta but still playing anyway. Also, let’s not forget how in the last season, he declared himself worthless and ran off, leaving the team in a bind. He’s gotten much better at the game and has also matured as a person since then, but with that in mind, I really hope Porky isn’t about to make a broad statement about him not being needed on the team. And if he does, he’ll need some good reasoning to back it up. Images from Crunchyroll.com. Follow Justin at Organization Anti-Social Geniuses!
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