Category: Finished Series: Sports

Don’t get me wrong, this finale is amazing. But I can only see an incredible cliff-hanger coming ahead at the end of this series. Chihayafuru was lucky to get a second season. But a THIRD? It will need it though. This entire second season was just one giant build-up for the what’s left to come.

I mean, don’t get me wrong: the second season so far has been fantastic. Every match has been awesome and the finale of the team matches is quite possibly the best yet. But none of the things that we were hoping for has happened yet! Arata and the Queen have pretty much been sitting around doing nothing, and that king guy is nowhere to be seen either. Oh, there were hints. The build-up for these guys is beautiful. But that only works if we’re ever going to get there!

Slow pacing… it is a double edged sword. You can see that with both Chihayafuru and Space Brothers here. I really don’t mind this series taking its time. Both series are absolutely brilliant at building atmosphere and keeping me at the edge of my seat for episode after episode. However, that is just the storytelling. The way they test my patience with recaps, on top of recaps at the start of each episode is counter-productive. This is the wrong use of flashbacks!

Oh, but really: these two episodes were glorious. Chihayafuru has completely nailed the tournament arc. It understands that you can’t just show stronger opponents and just expect things to work. The key is spicing things up. Making every match different and unique. This show managed to do that in so many different ways: every character is evolving, every opponent is different, every theme is different. But really, the finale. It didn’t have intimidating opponents that were different from every other opponent so far, it also used the Queen brilliantly. And Chihaya’s injury. Holy crap that made this match intense. Now that I think about it: the team matches really are the meat of the second season. They are what symbolizes Chihaya’s growth, since with this, she pretty much won’t be able to participate in the individual matches.

There is this big theme of loneliness hidden underneath these team matches, visible with the top players. I mean, I said that Arata and the King and the Queen have been sitting around doing nothing. The only reason why this bothers me is my impatience (in a good way!). This show likes to dance around the issue, but it does paint that threesome to be really lonesome. This point was the first time at which this really came to the surface. But while just about every other character in this series is chock-full of team spirit, they don’t. That contrast is stark, and I love it.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

I just realized this at the end of the episode… but the opposing team on the finals consists out of a bunch of nut-cases.

I think this keeps true to one of the themes of this series: geniuses are eccentric in one way or the other (even Arata with how seriously he takes his punishment). I’m not sure whether this has a deeper meaning beyond just being really entertaining, but I love it. At first they seem like this very serious team to come over, only to get completely hilarious once the actual match starts.

The creators also really know how to torture Kanade here, by having like, the best announcer in existance voice the finals. If there is anything that this second season has been brilliant at, it’s its build-up. The final match was hinted at many times before, the creators keep referring back to Arata and the Queen, which will just happen much, much later. And it does interesting thing with them: it really plays with its characters and finds creative ways for hinting like that. The comedy really works when it needs to and that really helps.

The cliff-hanger was awesome, but I am a bit worried that at this point in the series, we’re still stuck in the team matches. I mean, this is nice and all but the team matches are not what really matters here in this series. That goes to the individual matches, in which we can see all these characters participate yet again. There are so many awesome matches and re-matches about to happen that I worry that they’re not going to be able to fit all of that in what? eight remaining episodes?
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Holy crap! When Nishida lashed out to Tsutomu last episode, I did not expect that it was about to build up to something as amazing as here right now. I mean, the outcome of this episode was predictable, but the way in which it happened totally wasn’t!

Most of the episode was about Chihaya and her growth. Chihaya lost to Megumu, but it’s clear that she has become better, while at the same time that she has a long way to go (the way how her nails were clenched into the palm of her hands the whole time). And then when she lost, Tsutomu really came out of nowhere to really steal the show. This show already had the luck of the draw decide against the team’s favor, so with this it is a really good way to balance out. Because of this you really don’t know what to expect when things come down to it. Either way it was Tsutomu’s crowning moment of awesome there.

Then there is Kanade. What really surprised me here was that there were two matches of which we hardly got to see anything: Kanade’s and Taichi’s. What really intrigues me was why Kanade finished before Taichi, which really made me think that we haven’t really seen much about how she actually improved. All we know is that she suddenly has gotten really good, with multiple wins in a row despite being dead tired. Still, was Taichi just against a better player? It seemed like the best two seemed to be against Chihaya and Nishida. I mean, Taichi is pretty much an A-Class player at this point, as soon as he manages to win that damned tournament, so what exactly worked against him there?

This episode was also full of hints about special cards: the cards that contain the names of everyone. Chhaya lost hers to Megumu, Megumu lost hers to Chihaya. And I noticed the creators also dropping the names for the cards for Arata and Shinobu. Yay for building up!

One thing never improved though: the photographing guys never really stopped being annoying.
Rating: 6,5/8 (Amazing)

This match is very different from usual for Chihayafuru. Normally, it delivers in every episode. Last episode felt a bit flat. Normally it tries to push forward as many characters as possible. Here however, the focus was different. This really was about Chihaya versus Megumu. This episode at least.

Perhaps I’m not a fan of making the match go on for three entire episodes, but that allowed this episode to have that clear purpose for a change: a really detailed view of how Megumu changes through a match. That really had me fired up much more than I expected and I really have to say that how she gradually lost that ditzy behavior of her was done in this episode.

Oh and I said that this episode didn’t really focus on pushing forward the other characters. but still, Chihaya forcing herself to contest cards, Nishida losing badly, Tsutomu trying hard, the other girls trying really hard for Megumu, they were all really nice touches. I just meant it for the really high standards of this series. Seriously you do not see series that are as consistent as this series. Especially considering that we’re almost forty episodes in!

One point of criticism: that point where Tsutomu figures that a girl will likely want to grab cards about broken hearts because it’s one of the themes that the singer whose name is on one of the towels of the girls sings about… that is overanalyzing things a bit too much.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

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)

Let’s first talk about the story of these two episodes. Most notably, Arata. The creators used him for a story that involved two completely unrelated characters and at the start, I really had to wonder why they had to spend an episode on them. It could have easily be omitted… or so I thought. But even then, it looked like a bit of an odd choice to spend an episode on when you look at just the premise: Arata almost gets into trouble when he breaks the rules. It’s this kind of hijinks side story that is often used to fill up time or something.

But holy crap, the execution. These two episodes were roller-coaster rides. These two episodes just kept going with the mood switches and plot twists that just went completely against my expectations. At the start I really wondered what the heck the creators were thinking with such a random subplot. Then Arata nearly got expelled, and I wondered why on earth the creators would be including this. Wasn’t it in the benefit of everything if he just ended up playing? What are you doing here creating “pointless” extra drama? And then the Queen randomly appeared from out of nowhere, and I understood completely. The climax for that subplo really surprised me, but it paid off incredibly well. And in the meantime it did a brilliant job of fleshing everyone out: Arata’s feelings about not competing in the team matches, the Queen’s feelings over Arata, the headaches that everyone is having with the King. Not to mention how Arata’s shadow has been constantly looming over Chihaya and Satoru.

And then, there was the match against that ultra high-class school. That was pretty much one of the best told karuta matches against gimmick teams. The opponents were really interesting, but what really made it stand out is how it was brought, making clever use of how it appears to lump everyone together, only to do the complete opposite. It’s the kind of match that the team was bound to win due to the other team being completely insignificant, and yet Chihaya’s win just felt so incredibly good. The creators really cleverly just focused on one match: Chihaya’s. At the same time it just casually ignored that she pretty much was the only one in big trouble by the opponents’ playstyle, not to mention that she was up against their best player who really was a complete genius in terms of memorization.

The creators just kept throwing different twists and turns to the match. They gave some good characterization of the guy, Chihaya’s mix of admiration and fear was hilarious, the Queen’s random appearance was also perfectly timed and the moment when there were only six cards left and Chihaya’s strengths started to show: it was glorious.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Holy crap, that cliff-hanter! I was all set to type up about this episode’s use of foreigners, but first I just have to say that that caught me completely by surprise. Right from out of nowhere the end of this episode foreshadows so many things that we’ve been looking forward to: ARata seeing Chihaya again was already great. But for the Queen to also appear. Awesome.

Anyway, as for the foreigners, I see what you did there, Chihayafuru. First you made yourself seem like you had these horribly voiced foreigners with horrible Engirsh, only to reveal that they were raised in Japan for their lives. Instead this episode touched a bit upon their alienation as foreigners, and how they’re doomed to stand out in the xemophobic Japan. It worked well. Aside from the black guy perhaps. He just looked silly.

But yeah, the first match in a tournament is usually just the one that we breeze through and who hardly pose a challenge. It’s predictable, and this was an interesting way to fill it up: show people with a passion for Karuta, but who aren’t bothered with being competitive. They’re just doing this for fun and because they enjoy it.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

And here this series comes and goes like “I’m sorry I haven’t spent much attention on some of the minor characters, let me make up for that.” This episode brought so much life to them. Not just Sumire and Akihiro, but also Chihaya’s parents, her sister, Kanade’s mother, Akihiro’s brothers, even some unnamed people from the school’s band club and some random teachers. The band and their performance in particular was awesome. Now this is how you should spend an aftermath!

Chihaya feeling down over the loss, you see it everywhere, and yet the creators managed to spice even that up with that focus on her parents, not to mention showing how she has grown (being able to tie her own kimono and how she has completely changed from who she used to be). The time she spent with her mother was also awesome. It’s a really personal time with someone she knows for her entire life. There are little other series that have managed to put the same focus there.

And then this show suddenly started to toy with the symbolism behind words and it actually was very interesting to follow how this all related back to the characters themselves.

Also, the budget. I have no clue what happened in the first two episodes, but for some reason the series looks as awesome as it ever has. The differences in animation are not noticeable anymore, and the drawings really look crisp again. Some budget issues at the start or something?
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Holy crap. The way this episode begun. I had no clue that the creators would even put so much meaning into the reading. To the point where Chihaya is able to take control of the reader and how this plays off to the actual readers (so that’s why they used that guy for that! He already was an established character so this makes more impact! How is this show able to do so many things at the same time!?).

Heck, yet again this show manages to put so much meaning into just about every scene of its. Every character here has a moment. How the heck has it been doing this for so many episodes already? I sound like a broken record saying this.

And here this episode suddenly comes with the most impossible set-up of a luck of the draw match that is entirely against their favor due to Chihaya’s stupidity, leading to everyone suddenly needing to go after cards that are nearly impossible to get. And holy crap, the end results shocked me. I knew that the end result would not matter because the two teams would pass anyway. But the creators kept it exciting, first by having Retro screw up, and then having Chihaya actually lose again, despite all that build-up. There was so much emotion and build-up put into that match, that in the end result didn’t really matter.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

What the hell is up with this week? Just about every series surpasses itself. And here Chihayafuru comes, and effortlessly matches that level as if it’s nothing!

I mean, even for a sports series this was just really, really good. Only Giant Killing was better at developing such a large cast at the same time. This episode focused on a team-match between ten different characters, and in one episodes it somehow pulled it off to develop ten characters at the same time. Unlike Giant Killing though, which stood out by its great concept and outstanding execution, Chihayafuru makes everything look so incredibly easy. As if it’s the most normal thing in the world to have such tight character-development.

There is Chihaya who is trying to copy the styles of both the king and queen at the same time, Taichi’s rivalry and admiration for Retro-kun, Retro’s awesome development as he continues to try really hard to get ahead just like Taichi. There is Nishida with his sister who suddenly got a new boyfriend, Kanade and her pride for her kimonos after getting insulted, the small kid and his struggles amidst the A-Class in which he never can stand at the top, Sumire who actually does her job, Akihito who got a new job as a reader and holy crap how did all of that fit within 20 minutes?!

And the thing is that all of it was just really good. The matches themselves also were brilliant. One addition of the second season that I really like is how it uses those manga-styled notes all over the screen with nice little details that they can’t otherwise fit in. It’s a very clever idea to add even more detail to the characters. I’ve seen this done before, but never this consistent or well. Oh, perhaps Shaft-series had more text on the screen, but that never really related to the characters as well as it does here.

And good lord, Arata wasn’t even in this episode.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)