Last week I labeled Mizusawa’s class trip an obvious maneuver to isolate Chihaya from the rest of her Class A rivals. To the show’s credit, though, it made the most of the opportunity, with many of its strongest karuta players making appearances. Even though we were blessed with an Inokuma match just a month ago, I was grateful for her return, and Sakurazawa’s competitive fire being rekindled is good news for more than just Eromu. Sudo was released from the penalty of his losing bet, and Harada-sensei’s bear mode was in full effect, proving that he’s still a beast even at age 57. Meijin Suou and Queen Shinobu made unconventional appearances at the West Japan qualifier, too, as foreshadowed last week. These are all worthy characters, but the real stars of the episode were Taichi and Arata. Were they able to carry the show with Chihaya sidelined in Kyoto? Fortunately, the answer is yes.
We’ll start with the aforementioned West Japan qualifier, where Arata has once again been saddled with the hopes of the karuta society board. They’re all hoping for some bright star to unseat Meijin Suou and become the new face of the karuta world – but we knew that already. What’s different about this episode is that Suou makes an appearance in the flesh, handing out Snowmaru dorayaki and acting as a source of endless speculation. His voice is little more than a whisper in these scenes, which couldn’t be much different from Arata’s accented, plainly audible speech. That contrast is important not just because so many others want a showdown between the two, but because Suou himself criticizes Arata’s playstyle as being unexciting. It’s ironic that, though they present themselves very differently, Arata has been described as a “troublesome” player, much like his Meijin grandfather. After all, “troublesome” is the first word that the elites of the karuta world would use to describe Suou.
Huh – I guess Arata’s portion of the episode was more about his destined opponent than anyone else, himself included.
I can say with confidence that Taichi’s appearances at the East qualifier were Taichi-centric, though Sumire plays a big role. This is her biggest chance yet to get close to the guy of her dreams; Taichi recently suffered a big defeat, and Chihaya can’t be the one to cheer him up, as she’s in another prefecture. Rather than offer a sympathetic ear, however, Sumire meets Taichi’s mother outside the venue, and promises to contact her when his match is over. This sort of devious behavior is why it’s hard to root for Sumire (though Chihaya’s romantic blindness isn’t a great alternative) – she senses that his mom disapproves of his hobby, and schemes to earn her favor regardless. In the end, Sumire flakes on calling Mashima-san and bars her from entering the karuta hall, but only after her guilt eats at her for a sufficient period of time.
As all of this occurs outside the venue, Taichi is engaged in battle within its walls. Despite winning a bet with Sudo at the Yoshino tournament, Taichi tells him not to withdraw, valuing the other man’s participation over a clearer path to the finals. One would hope that most competitors would display at least that much sportsmanship, but he goes above and beyond in his dialogue with Retro later in the episode. After avenging his friend’s loss in round 1, Taichi approaches Retro and expresses confidence that he’s better than the newlywed who beat him previously. “Don’t lose to someone like that!” isn’t the most sensitive form of encouragement, but these are two high school boys in a sports anime, so the low bar was exceeded here.
This may have been the best Taichi episode of the season thus far, come to think of it. Even if we set his relationships to other karuta players aside, he did a lot of grappling with himself in this one. It makes sense that he’d have some difficulty forming his own goals with a helicopter mom in his life, but his search for meaning in playing karuta runs deeper than that. The show keeps imposing images of Chihaya on screen whenever he considers what he’s playing for, but I interpret those as vestiges of his previous motivation. If there’s a silver lining in Chihaya’s absence from this tournament, it’s that Taichi can be put to the test without any distractions (though I’d love for him to win big with her in the audience). Now that he’s standing on one of karuta’s biggest stages with neither of his closest friends at his side, Taichi’s desire to “become someone else” could result in a major evolution for his character.
