Justin: Nothing kills momentum of a previously solid (or great, however you want to look at it) episode of anime than a recap episode placed awkwardly when it shouldn’t be there. Chihayafuru almost fell into this trap. I say almost because after it finally went and celebrated Mizusawa and them winning the Nationals Team Tourney, it brings forth a scene where Taichi and Chihaya happen to be together. Taichi’s just tired, asleep. Chihaya, who shouldn’t have been in the room anyways but she’s clumsy like that yet we still like her, ends up getting closer to Taichi and rests beside him. What could have been an interesting moment...ends up giving us a recap of most of the team matches Mizusawa went through. Needless to say, it was kind of awkward. I get where Madhouse was trying to go with this, and especially since this might be more budget problem than anything else, but it was attempting to go through a quick reminder of what Mizusawa gained from becoming champions, from facing the international team to facing First Akashi to the match against Fujisaki. The problem is they would have been better served going through Chihaya’s memories as it seemed it should have gone, but instead it had everyone else’s struggles included. Thankfully, this only took around four or five minutes, so it wasn’t bad, but for me, it was just awkward. But considering how it ended, I might be slightly harsh. Onto more awkwardness: Chihaya’s actually going to play in the individual tournament. Sure, it probably was expected that she’d try to play, but considering how many episodes are left, you again worry how much time everyone else will get to have their chance in the spotlight. Currently, Chihaya playing in many matches looks like it won’t happen. Her finger can only get worse, she’s trying to play using her left hand against Class A opponents, and her first opponent is Yuube. You know, that girl who basically ran circles against Porky like he was nothing in the match against First Akashi Girls. I think Chihaya is better than Yuube. The problem is playing hurt against any opponent can be difficult. I mean, you already have to deal with them being healthy and just about as good as you. Now you have to play them hurt. For Chihaya, she’s not used to playing hurt. Sometimes you can make an adjustment that will allow you to overcome an injury, but more likely than not, you usually get more time to adjust or you’ve had experience with injuries to overcome them. But Chihaya has neither. In her match against Rion, the adrenaline pretty much kicked in since her injury happened mid match. She has to overcome more to actually win this match now that’s she had to think about her decision to play and her finger is still injured. Let’s just say I don’t like her chances. Muse: I would’ve been more forgiving of the choice to go into a five minute flashback recap if we hadn’t had a full recap episode recently cover the exact same material. It gets even more superfluous when it covers the same victory scene after the final match...which it had already shown at the beginning of the episode. I’ve complained about the strange pacing in this season already, but this is the weirdest choice so far. If it’s really coming down to budget problems, couldn’t they find another way around this? Anyway, as for the new content in this episode, I probably should’ve guessed that Chihaya would still play even if her finger is messed up. For some reason, I didn’t consider that. Chihaya could be in a full-body cast and still find a way to play karuta. I underestimated how far she is willing to go yet again. I need to stop doing that. However, I’m not sure how far she’ll be able to go using her left hand. As Chihaya herself pointed out at the end of the episode, her non-dominant hand just doesn’t have the same reflexes. I wonder if she won’t try something similar to what she did during her match with Rion, and start focusing on hitting the cards with her middle finger. That might put her dominant hand back into play, but is she willing to risk a more serious injury? Aside from that, I also really wanted to talk about Taichi and Arata’s conversation in this episode, since this was something that I was looking forward to for a long time. And to be frank, I’m really disappointed in Taichi. When I watched the first season, it took me a while to warm up to Taichi’s character because of how he was introduced. Instead of playing fair, he thought that stealing Arata’s glasses would somehow make him look better and “win” back Chihaya. As the season progressed, I let that go since they were the actions of an immature kid, and Taichi seemed to have grown past that. However, his reactions to what Arata had to tell him in this episode, and how he acts even before they started talking seriously, I felt like Taichi was backsliding towards becoming that jealous kid again. First, he doesn’t tell Arata what’s wrong with Chihaya. When he asks what’s going on, Taichi just moves the conversation to something else. It’s a subtle burn, but interesting in light of what comes later. After that, Arata tells Taichi that he’s planning on coming to Tokyo for college, no matter what it takes. We get some interesting insight into Arata here, especially taking into account that he gave up karuta for a while: “Taichi, in my mind, the only team for me is the one I had with you and Chihaya.” That line got me right in the heart. Forget romance and shipping, Arata just wants to play karuta with his friends. Sound like anyone else we know? (Hint: She’s playing karuta with a chip fracture.) But then Taichi follows that up with this: “Arata, Chihaya wants to be on a team with you again... But I don't. You're my enemy.” Just like when he was a kid, Taichi is letting his emotions get the better of him. Sure, he can be rivals with Arata. Wanting to beat him in karuta is a great goal, similar to Chihaya’s rivalry with Shinobu. But I think he’s getting stuck on the romantic aspect. Yes, Chihaya is crushing on Arata (whether she realizes this or not is a whole different story, however). But completely throwing out his past and a friendship with a person who’s affected his life pretty deeply because of feelings he won’t act out on--he wouldn’t be playing karuta if it weren’t for Arata and Chihaya--seems pretty immature to me. C’mon, Taichi. I thought that we’d moved past this stuff. Justin: Ah, I think this is just how it is to be young...maybe! Otherwise, aside from what we talked about above, this episode serves as a break from all of the serious karuta matches we’ve had for the past few months. Instead of obsessing how Mizusawa was going to win their matches, we now see them preparing for their individual matches in their class. Considering all of the colorful and interesting characters we’ve met so far, it would be interesting for me to see what matchups will take place. Would we see members of the Mizusawa team have to face one another? A rematch from the team tourney in some of the classes? The possibilities are somewhat endless!...The only question is time. Is there enough time to focus properly on everyone showing their brand of karuta? I’m not sure. I can only feel comfortable trying to figure that out after next week’s episode. It would be pretty unfortunate if a focus on some other characters was left to the side. But I guess I’ll have to put some faith in Madhouse here. Muse: I’m particularly interested in Shinobu going into the individual tournament. The team tournament finals definitely had an effect on her, even though she doesn’t seem to want to accept that: “I'll make them admit that the team tournament is nothing serious. I'll crush them all!” Hopefully Chihaya will have figured out a solution for her hand before she has to face her rival again. And then there’s Arata. Are we finally going to get some coverage of his matches? Is it next week yet? Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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