You know that Sanrio would be all over that. Anyway, after having episodes where the matches were skimmed over, summarized, or cut short, it was really nice to have an episode that focused on just one match.
We didn't have to wait at all to find out who that girl was from the beginning of last episode; it turns out that she's none other than the Queen, and the youngest Queen ever at that. In the comments last week, it was mentioned that she had more than a passing resemblance to Arata and while we still don't know if they're related or not (it's still a possibility, I think) this episode definitely made a point to show that the most similar thing about the two of them is their aura when they play. For the majority of the match between Chihaya and the Queen they're bathed in a bluish-white light, which we've only seen before in reference to Arata. This is further underscored when Chihaya realizes that the game she's currently playing is a lot like that first match she played against Arata, at the start of her dream. It's not until Chihaya starts to consider giving up that the strange light no longer seems to include her, as though their match was taking place on another plane entirely. Compare this to when Chihaya finally takes a card from her at the end of the episode, and instead of a cold blue the light is gold. I might be reading too much into this, but I think that this lighting change was supposed to underscore the differences between the two of them, the prodigy Queen and the aspiring Queen.
There was also the comment that the Queen made when it looked like Chihaya was going to throw in the towel, about how when her opponents give up, it feels like she's just playing karuta by herself. For a second I thought that this was going to be the moment when we find out that all she wants is to play against someone on the same level as her, but instead she just similes and decides to finish the match quickly. I feel like this is a key point in the differences between her and Chihaya, who's put the utmost importance on being able to play with a team and takes a lot of strength from the people supporting her. While outside of karuta, the two have a lot in common (apparently they both like the same characters, they're around the same age, etc.) the way that they've met, with the Queen being presented as the final obstacle to Chihaya's dream, at the moment they're nothing more than rivals. I think that these two would make great friends if they had met under a different context. What would've happened if Chihaya had met her first instead of Arata? Would her dream still be the same? Regardless of where this match goes, this is easily the best episode so far. I wonder if a Queen vs. Arata episode is upcoming...?
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Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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