This week's episode starts off with the karuta club finishing their first round of matches and heading to a quick 15 minute break before the next round. As everyone heads out to the hallway to either grab a quick snack or drink, Chihaya stays behind and tries to focus on her technique. She's finally gotten the hang of the two and three syllable breathing technique with the cards, but she realizes she still needs to work on her accuracy. She also goes over the fact that with Kanade and Komano, she's able to go back up to 7 spaces from the playing field and still be able to reach the last row of cards easily, but with Taichi and Nishida, she's only able to go back 3 spaces so far. She proceeds to practice her technique by visualizing the cards on the mat (like Arata did as a child), but instead of practicing alone, she visualizes Shinobu and tries to compete against what she remembers of her speed. As she's doing this, the others are watching her in stunned awe. Komano makes the comment that if Chihaya would use even 1/10 of the concentration and dedication she shows karuta on her studies, she wouldn't be 5th from the bottom of their entire class. Speaking of which, Chihaya goes to speak to their adviser about the club going to the last tournament in the division before the qualification tournament for who is going to play against the master and queen. Their adviser seems happy that they're all so dedicated, but tells Chihaya that she can't let her go because she's on the verge of failing all of her classes and is liable to be held back. Chihaya doesn't understand why at first, but when her teacher reminds her that the first day of exams is on Monday, Chihaya starts to panic. Her teacher smiles and tells her not to worry since she managed to find her a tutor. As luck would have it, Chihaya's tutor is none other than Komano.
Read the rest of this entry Entry meta