Muse: Just like in the first season, the momentum keeps building with only one episode left to go!
But before we get to all that, I’d like to make a quick apology. I wasn’t able to put last week’s post together because of a crazy combination of finals week and a family emergency. I promised myself when I started this blog that I wouldn’t let it get in the way of my life, and, well, life happened. Sorry for the extended delay! But we’ve got a bunch of stuff to cover that I missed last week, and I shouldn’t put it off any longer.
Two things that I’ve been highly anticipating from this season happened across these episodes. The first was Taichi finally making it to Class A! Although it wasn’t quite the scene that I expected, nor was it a sure win.
If there was a theme to these two episodes, it was “pressure,” and that’s also the right word to describe Taichi’s finals match. He was placed up against Rion, who, as we saw earlier, has enough raw talent to give Chihaya a hard match. This time, she was playing under even more pressure from her teammates, who were still sore about getting knocked off from their top school slot. Rion had a renewed interest in proving herself, especially after learning some humility in her match against Chihaya. To Taichi’s credit though, before the match began he still hadn’t lost his strange state of zen that he’d gained during the team tournament finals. Being able to let go of whatever’s distracting him at the time seems to be Taichi’s key to victory.
But all of that completely flew out the window when Chihaya walked in. In the scene before that, there’s a moment of uncertainty over whether Chihaya would go watch Taichi’s match or Arata’s. When Porky makes up his mind to watch Shinobu vs. Arata instead, he says the following about Taichi:
“He's going to win. He doesn't need us there to support him!”
Which makes it a foregone conclusion which one Chihaya would pick. I wonder how reverse psychology works on her? Anyway, once Chihaya is there, Taichi loses the sense of calm that got him to the finals in the first place. He becomes preoccupied with winning the match quickly so that Chihaya can leave to see the Queen play. His mind isn’t on the game anymore, putting him right back in his bad luck spot and leaving him wide open for Rion to practice her listening skills. It takes him awhile to realize that he’s sabotaging himself and to realize how to reverse it.
Justin: It seemed like Taichi finally evolved. Remember, this was the same guy that Muse had called out a few weeks ago for yelling at Arata, but now we get to the point where he not only beat Retro, but beat him by 18 cards. Whether it was the opponents he faced or he finally realized what he can do at this point, Taichi changed, and it seemed like it was permanent. Too bad it came crashing down once Chihaya decided to make Taichi look foolish by showing up to his match instead of watching Arata vs Shinobu. It’s not merely the fact that he was wrong about Chihaya being there, but it’s also her watching him that ended up throwing him off his game. It’s called being affected by the surroundings and the moment, or in simple terms, feeling pressure. It’s the finals. You have a chance to get into Class A. You’re facing a strong opponent. And you’re tired from all the other matches up to that point. Now you’re distracted by someone you think you know and expected to think was watching a different match trying to support you when really, that ends up adding more pressure.
Of course, that goes both ways, since it’s not only Taichi feeling the pressure: Rion’s also feeling it from her teammates. Fujisaki has managed to maintain a standard that’s fairly unprecedented from other schools, but it’s a standard that’s common hat for them. But in this tournament, none of their players could win it all, and the only way that would have changed was if Rion, who they already had some misgivings for, could win Class B. Rion was so determined to actually impress them that she could not actually play with any consistency; it also didn’t help to have an inconsistent reader too. But in the end, both players eventually found their rhythm: Rion, who has a great game sense, used that to listen to the correct sounds from the reader to take cards whereas Taichi replaced Rion mentality with Chihaya.
Needless to say, that was one of the reasons the game changed and swung in Taichi’s favor: Chihaya is someone Taichi has never beaten, and is stronger than Rion. There’s always a talent and skill gap in players, and the difference between Rion and Chihaya at this point is pretty sizable. So it was good to remember that as strong as Rion is, she’s no Chihaya. But if it was just that reason for why he won, that’d be kind of lame. The other reason (or the real reason) he was able to win was because he stopped constantly thinking that he had to get a big lead and get Chihaya to watch Arata/Shinobu, and reduced his match with Rion to something simple -- get 10 cards from the opponent, keep 15 on your side. While talent and game sense matter, sometimes keeping it simple really does work, and that’s how Taichi was able to win his match against Rion.
It was somewhat amusing though how Taichi apparently lost track of the fact that he made it to Class A. It’s only right though that Chihaya, the one who wanted to see Taichi get Class A, was the one who couldn’t hold back the tears. At the end of Episode 23, it was an emotion that I generally liked. (Don’t worry, she made me take that back at the start of Episode 24.) And it finally managed to hit Taichi that after going through a number of trials for a number of years, he’s finally reached a class he’s been aiming to get in. And he should really appreciate that moment.
Muse: I was pretty happy that Chihaya was the one that made Taichi stop and savor his victory if only for a moment. I’d expected the scene when Taichi made Class A to be highly emotional, but before he can even process the win, he’s pushing Chihaya out the door to watch the other match. He doesn’t think of it as his personal victory at first, which is as funny as it is endearing. Too bad he couldn’t enjoy it for long though, since now there’s a whole new world of strong rivals waiting for him.
Which brings us to our second main attraction: Arata vs. Shinobu. I’d floated the possibility of this happening a few times before--this match was near the top of my season 2 wishlist, right under Taichi vs. Arata--but the way it went down was far better than I could’ve predicted. There are very few moments nowadays where an anime can capture my full attention (i.e.: I don’t feel like pausing and checking Twitter) and this was one of them. I was glued to the screen the whole time.
But let’s back up a little bit. We’ve spent a lot of time discussing Shinobu, her thoughts on karuta, and her dislike of the team aspect. We’ve gotten a lot more clarification on this in the last couple episodes through the context of backstory and further comments that Shinobu has made during this arc. This episode had a pretty definitive statement from her towards Arata before their match that seems to summarize Shinobu’s thoughts on karuta:
“The strongest karuta players are those who faced the cards alone. Let's make it clear once and for all. Neither you nor I need any friends.”
This sets up an interesting contrast between the two of them. Shinobu believes that Arata is similar to her, but that’s not quite the case; one of the major motivations Arata has for participating in this tournament is so that he can be with his friends. As we saw in the team tournament arc, he’s a little bit jealous of what Chihaya has created. He can see the merit of it and wants to be on a team with his childhood friends again. On the other hand, Shinobu’s playing style was born out of isolation, so it’s no wonder that she associates strength with solitude. I wonder how she’ll react to Arata’s college plans.
As for the match itself, getting back to the theme of pressure, this is the first time that we see Shinobu break her composure during a match. Sure, she’s gotten surprised before while playing Chihaya, but this is the first match where she’s had to work for each card. Arata is just that good, to the point that it’s scary. His karuta superpower (we’re getting to the point where we can’t just call these things “skills” or “talents” anymore) is his quick acceleration, which can beat even Shinobu’s speed. At one point, she reacted first, but Arata got the card. Have I mentioned that he’s scary yet? To be fair though, Arata’s skills weren’t the only thing causing Shinobu problems. He was also using a targeted strategy to tear down her strengths...not to mention, she had a fever from wandering around in wet clothes the day before. I guess stealing Arata’s shirt for a while didn’t help. Taking all of that into account, the rapid-fire back and forth they had going is nothing short of incredible. This was easily one of the best, if not the best match of the season.
Justin: It was pretty much clear in their matches (Arata vs Emuro and Shinobu vs Megumu) that Arata and Shinobu were going to face each other. But as the match approached, I couldn’t help but go, “Man, they’re both just on another level. What happens when people like that collide?” And well, we got our answer. Now, I think the level of drama produced in the match between Mizusawa and Hokuo was stronger than this, and left a better memory than this one; all that said, this takes the cake for one of the most developed matches in Season 2. I say that because it provided a lot of clarity and timely information on a number of aspects that most watching Chihayafuru wanted to know about.
Let’s start at the top: We’ve all known how strong Shinobu is, and we really didn’t get any sign of a weakness from her. If anything, only Arata would be able to discover why Shinobu is so good at card games. But as it turned out, Sakarazawa had an inkling of Shinobu’s weakness, but she couldn’t figure it out. Arata did: he decided to attack her strengths, and that involved executing a cross where she couldn’t get her card with complete accuracy and grace. What this ended up doing was forcing Shinobu to do something she hadn’t done up to that point -- sacrifice her cards. She apparently never thought about sacrificing her cards, but only against Arata, who she’s had a history with, she decides to throw that strategy out of the way. And that resulted in her being down by the time Chihaya and Taichi manage to watch the match. It was only when she realized this that she played right into Arata’s hands -- and as Muse pointed out, Arata’s kind of scary. Hence why as she good as she is, the combination of her being bound by the cards, facing Arata, and being sick ended up being the difference in this match.
I thought it was quite interesting how the upbringings of Arata and Shinobu kind of play off of each other. Remember, it was established how Shinobu ended up facing kids her age but was eventually forced by her teachers to only play older kids and no one her age. Well, we get the opposite with Arata: he still ended up facing kids his age (and won), but he had some trouble with older kids. When he sees his grandfather in the hospital, it leads to a moment that manages to separate Arata’s style of karuta from Shinobu’s style of karuta:
“When did you have the most fun playing karuta?”
This is what Arata’s grandfather says after chiding him for losing in a tournament, and especially for a mistake he made. During the team tournament match, what did Chihaya want Shinobu to do while playing karuta? She wanted her to actually enjoy the game! Now, is that the ultimate difference? Not really. Arata still have to work hard and train in order to be the player he is today. And even after taking a year and a half off, he’s at the point where he could possibly be the best karuta player alive. He’d have to do the Karuta society a favor by beating Master Suo to prove it, but otherwise, he’s proven that he might be up for the challenge.
Now, there was a lot going on in this match. Well, there was also a lot going on outside of the match too: It started with Chihaya, who had to figure out if she could watch the match or not. I was thinking this was a somewhat interesting reaction, since it could go either way: her watching the match could alter how she approaches the game, but vice versa, her staying away from the match, considering she didn’t watch all of it, might have benefited her in the long run. Instead, she is convinced by Sakurazawa to instead take advantage of this opportunity and see the match herself. And what she sees makes her feel a pressure that makes her think she can’t breathe. And then she even manages to see a strategy that she never thought could happen (one with Shinobu accurately taking the card needed despite Arata’s cross). All in all, there were a lot of key characters we’ve followed over the course of 24 episodes watch this match -- I’m going to guess their approach to the game and their desire to get better will change quite a bit.
Muse: The scene Justin just mentioned is the only time I can think of where we’ve seen Chihaya seriously hesitate; she’s the kind of character that runs into things without completely considering the ramifications or logistics towards meeting her goal (see: every time the other characters call her selfish). However, this wasn’t an average finals match (if there is an “average” for finals in this show). Seeing Arata play Shinobu had a “no turning back” feel around it. I think that Chihaya’s hesitation came from her being unsure of how this would change her perception of Arata. She’s held him up on a pedestal this whole time--he is the one who got her into karuta in the first place, after all--and she hadn’t seen him play since. What would he be like now? Sakurazawa hit the nail on the head though:
“If you've chosen to take this path, there isn't anything you're better off not knowing.”
What Chihaya will do with this new information will be interesting to see.
Aside from the two big matches in these episodes, there were some other things going on along the sidelines that I’d also like to mention. Like Tsukuba and Tsutomu making the finals for their respective classes. I’ll be honest though, I completely forgot about Tsukuba. I feel a little bad about that, but I got a good laugh when the characters had the same reaction that I did.
There’s also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of possible shipping at the end of Arata and Shinobu’s match when Arata points out that Shinobu has a fever. Between this and the clothes-stealing, I’m pretty sure a new section of the fandom will form up around this. It’s hard to say whether or not the show will do anything with it though. Chihaya has enough to worry about without adding in the possibility that Shinobu might be her rival in more than one arena. The love triangle is complicated enough as it is... However, that’s not to say that I don’t welcome the possibility. However, with only one more episode, there’s not much point to the shipping speculation anymore.
Justin: Hey, I didn’t forget about Tsukuba...I mean yeah he was only mentioned like once during this individual tournament, but I somehow remembered that he was playing in matches. Then again, it’s hard to forget a character who somehow gets a bye in the tournament. And is the only one too. Really, really, hard.
...And this is the part where I will for the last time give someone (Madhouse, Suetsugu, her editor, Kodansha, etc) grief. Yeah, developing the main characters was important, and yeah, I still loved and enjoyed the individual tournament. But relegating the other characters to the sidelines was kind of a disappointment. They’re all varied characters and could get a bit of time in the spotlight, but instead, we end up having the long running team tournament, the mishap with Chihaya’s hand, and then all of the focus on Taichi, Shinobu, and Arata. How about everyone else? Nah, we’ll probably just have 5 minutes of screentime for everyone else combined throughout this tournament. Really would have liked to have seen others get time in the spotlight as opposed to just getting these main matches. Is it because there’s a thought the matches would be inferior to all the Class A, Class B matches? Is this due to budget? Is it really the source material? Whatever the case, I wish there was just a bit more variety for this tournament, and that might have just made what were good to great episodes to great to amazing episodes.
Now, it’s that time. Next week is the last episode of S2. I can probably expect everyone to get the napkins ready before they watch. But what should we expect? Well, I’m going to guess we’ll get a short spotlight on some of the important characters that impacted Mizusawa (like Megumu and Retro). We’ll get lots of remembering of what the team accomplished during this run. I don’t believe we’ll get the Arata vs Master Suo matchup. That will have to wait until S3 is announced.
...Yeah, I’m going to hope S3 gets announced next week. Will air next year. That just means more card games involving karuta, and that means people will be happy. Madhouse should like happy people.
Muse: Hear, hear!
What did you all think of the matchups? And how do you think this season will wrap up?
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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