Justin: I think for some people, the match between Mizusawa and First Akashi Girls ended the way they thought it should. I don’t know if they thought it would end the way it did. But in a way, maybe we should have seen it coming. Maybe we should have seen that out of the three needed victories for Mizusawa to advance to the Finals, it would come from the two characters who have often been overlooked, either by their play or their usefulness to the team. Kana should seriously get her emotions under control (or maybe win more!) to properly say Mizusawa instead of Pizusawa, but her mental fortitude was challenged, as she had consistently lost, and lost by the lowest of margins, yet in the end she secured not only an important victory, but a timely victory. We saw how devastating Porky’s loss in the High School Championship match against Hokuo was, and the others could not really recover from that early loss. Kana ended up giving them their spirit back by securing victory not long after Porky lost his match to Yuu, and considering what she’s had to go through, it only makes sense she finally gets her just victory. On the other hand, Tsutomu wanted to take one for the team and actually help Mizusawa...in a different way. But we saw how much of a toll that took on him, but his advice ended up helping out after all. In his chance to show how he plays karuta, he proves just how good he is -- and maybe can be -- at that, with the knowledge of knowing what’s available, his scouting, and just even believing in some superstitions. Does that mean anything? Well, considering competing as hard as he did got himself into a situation where it was a luck of the draw, it was good to not only have a belief in something, but also to feel a bit scared. It was great both of these characters managed to showcase what they got, and in the end, it made sense for both to help the team get to the finals. Muse: There’s a part of me that wants to completely skip past the analyzing and just bask in how awesome this episode was. This show never fails to surprise me, and this episode is a great example of that. I was pretty confident that Mizusawa was going to win, but I thought that the deciding match would be what we’ve been focusing on for the last few episodes--Chihaya vs. Megumu. While that match was intense and either of them could have won, in the end it just...stopped. Chihaya lost, and Mizusawa had to deal with that. Having it come down to Tsutomu’s match was great, especially after that episode a few weeks ago where Porky called his priorities into question. I have nothing against Porky, but I think from here on out he’ll worry more about himself than the other team members. As great as that was, there is something I want to talk about from Chihaya’s match. We get a scene at the beginning of the episode with Arata and Shinobu where she asks him to play a match against her to kill some time. (Sidebar: I really want this match to happen now.) Arata tells her no, because the individual tournament is tomorrow, but points out that she can only think of karuta matches as “killing time.” We’ve seen for this entire tournament arc that as challenging as the matches can get, that’s also what makes them fun. Shinobu is so strong that she can’t enjoy matches anymore. Which brings up an interesting comment that Chihaya makes during the match: “We can't let Shinobu be alone forever!” We haven’t heard this from Chihaya before, but now that it’s out there, I think that it’s yet another one of her reasons to want to be Queen. Chihaya put a lot of her focus at the beginning of the season on wanting everyone to enjoy karuta. She’s spent a ton of time analyzing Shinobu and their match together a year ago. Chihaya has picked up on the fact that Shinobu can’t enjoy karuta anymore. It’s possible that she wants to become strong enough to be Queen not just because it’s her dream, but because that may mean Shinobu will have someone to really play against again, and have fun. This is just my speculation though. Justin: There’s also something I gathered from Chihaya’s match, but since you took Chihaya’s side, let me go take Megumu’s side. After all, she did win the match! And really, once she managed to take Chihaya’s best card, I legitimately believed Chihaya lost the match. Her guaranteed card and she lost when the momentum was in her favor? As it turned out, Chihaya ended up having another lesson to learn. On the other hand, aside from learning Megumu’s good at playing karuta, did we learn anything about her coming into the match against Mizusawa and Chihaya? ...Almost not really. Unfortunately, we still don’t get a real reasoning as to why Megumu wants to play karuta. However, what we get instead is someone who does want to become Queen. Her methods of getting there may be off, but thanks to her facing strong opponents and then facing Chihaya, she wants to become Queen just as much as she does. Losing as a team, however, also got to her as well. Now, whether or not that will serve her well in the individual tournament is up in the air -- she might just face a really tough opponent that can knock her out -- but while maybe not as organic as Chihaya’s path is, her path, which involved having to learn what types of karuta would be her best and of course losing in the Queen final, is still one that suggests she can take on the Queen. Maybe she’ll also have fun while on that path! Though let’s face it: she just might find a way to face off against her own teammate. In what could be considered a surprise considering how Chihayafuru has gone, a new character steps up and into the spotlight, and that would be the one who tried to go in a different direction from Megumu, in Yuu. We saw her try to rally the team once Megumu was pressured by Chihaya, but then we also ended up learning that she too yearns to become Queen. Based on what we know so far, it looks as if Yuu never did desire to actually become competitive in karuta, but all that changed once Megumu came onto the scene. It seemed like she was supporting Megumu, and probably still does. But I can only believe along the way, Megumu’s play style and determination, or her playing in more competitive matches, Yuu ended up wanting to compete for Queen as well. She may have already had the talent to compete before Megumu arrived on the scene, but maybe didn’t aspire to try too hard to do so. Now in a match where her opponents get stronger and stronger, we see her path emerge as well. It would be interesting if they just so happen to face each other sometime in the individual tournament... Muse: Speaking of other characters getting attention, Kana’s decision to step out of the finals and give her position to Tsukuba is really interesting. It was obviously hard for Kana to admit that she doesn’t have the stamina to keep going, but this changes the dynamics of the finals. Tsukuba has failed in every match that he’s been in so far, and now he’s subbing in for the biggest one so far. This is his big chance to prove himself and brag to his brothers about something legitimate for once, and I hope that he can pull it off. The last thing I wanted to mention was the scene towards the end, which is part of an ongoing series I like to call Reasons I Feel Bad for Taichi Fans. I don’t ship it, but even I was thinking about how sweet and sad it was that Taichi had to point out to Chihaya that she was hurting herself and needed to calm down. Their reunion with Arata is going to be brutal. Justin: Speaking of brutal (in truth, we know it will only be brutal for Taichi), Mizusawa’s gonna have one opponent in Fujisaki that’s not gonna be easy to beat. For me, I’m not sure if they will actually win the match. I feel like for the most part, Mizusawa has reached their limit. Would it be awesome if they did win? Of course. But it’s probably not a good thing that the team that beat you in the High School Championship managed to only win one game, with Sado in the nearby vicinity. Granted, Sado left the older alumni to handle the support because he became focused on Chihaya and Megumu’s match, but if they couldn’t even win with Sado around, it’s going to be difficult to see how Mizusawa actually manages to win the whole thing. But mostly, I think it’s because I’ve gotten everything out of the team matches that told the story of the Mizusawa team. Win or lose, they’ve changed for the better. If they win, it would obviously just be the cherry on top, but if they lose, it wouldn’t change the fact that they have grown thanks to the matches they’ve played, and it would only serve them well when they take part in the individual tournament. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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