Justin: One of the Nationals staff members commented on something regarding the match between Hokuo and First Akashi Girls: “The main reason people continue to fight after losing is because other people are still watching.” There’s a few more things to add to that. It is of course because people -- in this case, not only karuta enthusiasts, but their classmates, former alumni, and karuta players as well -- are watching them. You don’t want to let up since you do have people watching. But questioning those two teams desire to win even though they lost in the semi-finals was pretty silly. After all, it’s bad enough you lost the semi-finals, and now you want to end your tournament in fourth place? In the back of their minds, that’s one of the things that drive them to still keep playing. Another reason is because they’re just driven to play karuta hard no matter what. It’s something they love to do, and for the Nationals guy to question their spirit like that was pretty bad. Of course, being driven to play karuta has gotten Chihaya in a situation that will most likely end without her playing in the individual tournament. Something happened to her finger, and it’s seemingly gotten worse the more she plays. I like her chances to be playing the next day to be at a generous 10%. Of course, the last thing she wants to do is to give up and have her team go out meekly to Fujisaki, or have somewhat of a repeat of last year’s Nationals where she couldn’t continue, and we know how greedy she is when it comes to winning, and you know she wants to win with the team. But her greed may end up costing her her chance to face off against Arata and Shinobu, and there’s not much she can do about it, unless Mizusawa can pull off a win to validate the chance she’s taking -- and it’s not looking likely. Muse: We’re getting into a nail-biter of a final showdown here, with no sign that it’s going to let up until the victor is decided. All of the matches that have been going on are interesting in one way or another, making the two Mizusawa losses especially hard to take. Tsutomu had already predicted his failure only to want to beat his own prophecy...and ended up losing anyway. Tsukuba had a particularly poignant promise with Kana to win the match in her place, since her jammed finger was keeping her out...only to lose to a guy who was focusing more on which Jojo pose he should use next. This leaves the championship to Chihaya, Taichi, and Porky; they have to win. One loss means failure. Throughout this edge-of-your-seat match coverage, the theme of team play that has been covered from many different angles since the start of this arc is starting to come together in a cohesive statement, finally presenting a solid counter argument to Shinobu’s statement that team play isn’t for people who love karuta. But before we get to that, we get some interesting insight into her past that we’ve guessed at before but have some solid proof now. Shinobu was always presented as solitary, to the point that I’d assumed it was part of her nature. However, it seems that wasn’t always the case, since it looks like isolation was forced on her at one point in order to hone her skills at karuta. To quote the adult in the flashback: “The more alone she is, the stronger she’ll become.” You can’t really argue with the results, but what about Shinobu as a person? The last few episodes have highlighted how lonely and isolated she really is, making Chihaya’s statement a few episodes ago about not wanting to leave Shinobu alone even more insightful. And Shinobu had something very interesting to say in this episode about herself: “Nobody will ever take me seriously.” Taken at face value, this seems like a ridiculous statement. She’s the Queen. Everyone surrounding her respects her. Plenty of people “take [her] seriously.” But can anyone play her seriously? What’s the point of being the best player if no one can really challenge you? However, I think we all know that Shinobu is slightly wrong in that assumption. Chihaya’s goal is to take the Queen title, and to do that, she has to face the Queen seriously. I don’t think that she’ll be alone for much longer, and Shinobu’s interest in the match seems to mean that she realizes that, even if she’s not willing to admit it to herself. Justin: Two things ended up standing out when it came to Shinobu. The first one was when, after some of the girls all shouted “Please wait!” and had their hand raised, something seemed to have gotten to Shinobu, as that moment got her more into the match. Considering her attitude prior to it, it is a complete 180, and almost validates the decision of her watching the final team match -- only in the next episode can we confirm that it did change her thinking, at least enough for her to not brush team matches off forever. The second happened to be something Muse quoted Shinobu saying. The only reason she had said this is because she was thinking what Arata was thinking, and what he said really stuck out to me out of everything in this episode: “Our love for karuta is real, but think about it: our beloved karuta can only grow through the recruiting, teaching, and encouraging of new players. It’s team players who keep this game alive.” After hearing this quote a few times from Arata, I took away a lot of things from it, but I’ll leave it at two things. The first is regarding karuta. In case you still didn’t realize, the world of karuta is pretty small. It’s one of those small pleasures that have people so knowledgeable and intense about the game, but in general, you’ll probably get people that aren’t quite so versed and it doesn’t quite have the cache like other sports or activities out there. So how does one make something as small as karuta grow? By encouraging ways to get people involved. To teach them how to play. And one way you can kill those two birds with one stone is to have them work together, to enjoy the game together, and that encourages them to keep playing the game, and to help the game grow. Sure, they may not know everything, but that’s what sustains karuta; you may not have to love them, but you can’t turn them away since they help the game grow. That means you still have to try and support them. The second thing that this quote made me think of was anime/manga. It almost seems like both of these things are pretty big, but in general, those two worlds are pretty small. That quote ended up taking me to a bit of a bad thing that took place regarding manga over Twitter this week; it showed just how the culture is pretty isolated and how it is seen from everything else. Now, while it seems like both are sustainable, you realize there could be more people that can like both, but entry into each are pretty difficult unless there are people that can encourage them, and encourage them properly. As of this point, I don’t think that has happened yet, and it probably won’t happen unless something major occurs. Then you look at it from another angle: other people that are just getting into both of these mediums and how they are supporting the industry, misguided or not. In other words, the anime we watch and manga we read, some of it might not have been thought of without those other people. So what does that mean? Should the best way to start is to adopt Arata’s approach to team karuta? Who knows; all I know is whether it is karuta, anime, or manga, they can all grow, but it starts with the person and how they recruit, teach, and encourage others into what they love. Muse: But once someone is “into” karuta, what is it that they get out of it? The answer is as varied as the characters, but I was wondering about that with Rion in this episode. In the second half of the episode, she says this line: “I've never lost a match with Grandma as reader. I was convinced that I could defeat the Queen if Grandma was reading.” This directly contradicts what her grandmother said in the last episode, about Rion never becoming Queen. Now I’m wondering if that statement also came from her years of experience (since readers also have to be high-ranked karuta players), knowing that being able to win with a particular reader doesn’t amount for much, even with all the skill Rion clearly has. Chihaya possibly has a broken finger, and she’s starting to push Rion into a corner. And she thought that she could take on Shinobu as long as her grandmother was reading? Rion could very easily be a powerhouse player if she learned to branch out a little and accept that not all readers will be as perfect as her grandmother. Regardless of how this match turns out (although I really want Chihaya to win), I hope Rion learns from this encounter with someone who has the skills to win and can adapt to the situation. Only having the former isn’t enough. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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