These two episodes showed a match and a half. The first was surprisingly short, the second surprisingly long. Usually episode 11 and 12 are some sort of midway climax. Not here. Here they’re just meant for build-up.
What I liked most, was Desk-kun. A support character like him has been done before, but I just loved Nishida as he wanted to prevent Desk-kun from turning into one of them. The ones who can never stand on the spotlights because they’re just not as good as the aces. It’s rare to see a show actually tackle that issue, because there are not many series that can balance their characters out as well as this series did.
But dammit, I have to say this: Megumu and her fanclub really are annoying. Especially the latter. This series has this unnerving talent to make any single character great, but I do wonder how they were planning to do it with these stalkerish types. The best they did so far was note that Megumu has improved, but that could just as easily have been done without them. And I like Megumu’s teacher and advisor.
I’d also have loved to see more of the other match that went on in episode 12, but that only appeared in a few details (like when Megumu accidentally grabbed some cards that belonged to them, that was a nice detail).
Rating: 5/8 (Great)
Chihayafuru is usually great at balancing its airtime, but this past episode was too slow. It felt a bit like a waste of time.
I’m expecting nothing less than an awesome win next week.
I kind of felt the same. Especially in the last episode. I was more interested in the actual Karuta match than the backstories of the characters. Megumu’s backstory was decent, it kept me interested, but at the same time I was thinking “Oy! You’re wasting time that could be spent on the actual match”.
The stalker trio was a bit obnoxious though. I suppose they are comic relief, but I didn’t really find them funny.
Agreed, there’s a slight imbalance to Chihayafuru’s second season, when you compare it to the first one. However, I am still enjoying it more than any other show this season, besides PSYCHO-PASS and Shin Sekai Yori.
Alas, with so much time passed between season 2 and 3, I doubt that there will be a season 3. Too much time and the typical otaku hasn’t got a lot of history of remembering. I hope I’m dead wrong, mind. I simply hold forth little hope.