Category: Finished Series: Sports

So, last week I said that the matches in this series were predictable. Immediately this show goes and proves me wrong. Okay, I take the predictability thing back.

The thing was, that everything here was being set up for Taichi to overcome his struggles and advance to join Chihaya in Class A. And yet, Nishida won. In a way, it makes sense: Taichi has the advantage of just being really, really smart and good at memorization, and he used that well, especially near the end of the match. Nishida however, has the experience. He did quit for a while, but he was the number two of Japan, something that Taichi can’t boast at all. The level at which you play when at that point, even as a kid, is completely different from usual.

That leaves me to wonder: how the heck will this show end? With what kinds of match-ups, I mean? At this point, my guess is that the only way for this to work is that Arata somehow doesn’t make his comeback at class A (Yes! Yes! Yes! He will return in time!), and therefore has to compete with Taichi for the finale of Class B, while Chihaya takes on the Queen, after said queen wins over Nishida. That would be the most predictable course of events. In about a month and a half, it’ll be interesting to see how these predictions held up. Usually it’d be the more it diverges from this predictable path, the better, but we’re talking about an incomplete adaptation here.

Oh, and what’s also really important in this episode: the character development. This was the first time where Chihaya actually became aware of the people around her. It finally occurred to her that Nishida didn’t like his nickname. And in fact, the entire class promotion of this episode was a big symbol of change: Komano and Kana really changed over the past few months as well, which really showed in the aftermath of their match.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So, this was meant to be about the introduction episodes, in order to build up for the big matches as we reach the end of the series. And even there this show found a very good scenario: Chihaya’s loss against an opponent unimportant to the plot, and having the finale be amongst the rest of the main cast.

Also, this show really has the tendency to not show Taichi play. This episode really was apparent in that: for Chihaya it fully details how the match progresses. This episode also took a good look at how Tsutomu and Kanade played, but with Taichi we just got the description of “it’s fierce”. The episode ended with a cliff-hanger, so I wonder whether they’re going to keep this up.

One thing that is also apparent here is that the matches are kindof predictable. I’m not yet sure whether that’s an actual flaw here, because this show does not have any miracle comebacks or anything. While it’s of course natural for those to happen, I’ve seen so many sports series by now that those twists start to stand out as a bit convenient. To make up for it, this show plays around with its interesting match set-ups. Like, having the most important match right at the beginning at times.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Something very interesting happened here. Remember how the first volume of Chihayafuru completely bombed in terms of DVD sales? Well, when I checked back on the latest figures, it turns out that the second volume actually sold much better. While it’s still near the bottom of the season, the second volume sold in the order of five times as much here. That’s something you don’t see often. Still, these numbers are still far too low for a second season here. This show will end in two months.

It was up to this episode to promise that these final two months will be worth watching. And indeed, I made one really big miss-assumption with this series. The characters said that the past tournament was like the “koushien” of karuta, which lead me to believe that there is just one major tournament like this every year. Yes, I’ve probably seen too many baseball series. In any case, there still are plenty of smaller tournaments, including the tournament to decide the next queen. That’ll be a nice place to end things, and with a bit of luck this will also give a bigger role to Arata.

In the meantime, this was the expected intermezzo episode, and with that it really delivered. There was some very good banter, and we got some interesting insight into the way that Chihaya plays Karuta. The big danger for this show is to descend into a training arc at this point. I can very much identify with Chihaya’s dilemma here: having to stop focusing on what you’re best at, in order to become even better. This is something that is incredibly difficult to do, and not everyone actually manages to do it.

And yet again, this episode placed emphasis on every single character. Everyone is trying hard in his or her own way. Also bloody hell. Taichi still had contact with his girlfriend. Yes, “had”.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay, so this was the kind of annoying recap episode that you can’t just skip through, but actually had some new content. At the start of the episode, in the middle, at the end and after the ED were some collections of skits between the different characters. Well, I guess that if you want to animate those, then this is the perfect place for it. And as an added bonus, unlike the Mirai Nikki skets, these were actually quite funny.

Do I think that a recap episode fits in a series like this? Nah, not really. This show is simple, yet well executed. That’s not the kind of story that would really benefit from having everything repeated again. Especially considering how the creators could have actually used this episode to at least get some sort of epilogue going at the end of the season. Seriously, out of all the Autum 2011 series that are still airing, this one really is the best. But there is no way in which it’s also going to have the best ending.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Holy crap; the creators actually intended for Taichi to steal the show this time. Chihaya was meant to lose badly, but he actually made it pretty damn close here to actually winning the entire tournament. It’s not often that you see these tournament series that allow for competing amongst different tiers of skills, but this is actually a pretty good idea here: this way you can also get the new guys and the ones who aren’t as good as the main characters show off. Taichi would have lost badly if he went up against the people that Chihaya went against, but this way his match really made for an awesome closure to this arc.

It’s also good to see that Chihaya didn’t make some sort of miracle comeback. She did improve as the match went on, due to the decrease of cards that she needed to remember, but she didn’t suddenly became so good that she somehow caught up to her opponent. Karuta isn’t the type of game for that, especially on the high levels. Instead, she made quite an impression, in a way that she surprised the queen, who thought that she could get away from this match with zero caards given away. Chihaya actually lost with a bigger difference than that tall guy, but from him, she probably played a lot safer because she expected that he was really good.

Okay, so now, it will really become the question: how the heck are the creators going to be able to upstage this? Next week we’ll likely have some sort of aftermath. After that, it’s time for the thing that I’ve been fearing the most for this series: the conclusion. Which somehow is going to have to be stuffed into 9 episodes. In theory it’s possible.. if this was an original story. It is however a manga adaptation that will go on for much longer. And it’s especially frustrating: these past few episodes have promised so much. So how much of it will actually make it in this series? The creators would have to immediately skip like, one year to make everything fall into place in time.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Okay, I was stupid to think that this show would slowly introduce the main villain. I seriously thought that it would take until near the end of the series for her to really show up, like most villains do. How wrong this turned out to be: this episode was entirely about her, and she immediately gets to play Chihaya. So much for the individual matches being drawn out.

What’s more: the creators are laying a lot of parallels between her and the rest of the cast. She’s a bit weird like Chihaya, she’s calm like Taichi, and she’s incredibly good, like Arata. In fact, the creators hinted a lot that this would be like the first match that Chihaya and Arata had together, only to deviate from it again. It’s a bloody shame that the episode ended before the match was over, because this means that we have to wait a week to show how Chihaya really is going to lose. This can’t be just an ordinary cliff-hanger.

Now, this episode did introduce a bunch of one-like characters, like spectators, other participants and stuff. My one complaint was that they all seemed a bit too lumped together. But then again, this always was a show that focused on its main cast. Plus, there were some nice touches. Despite everyone wearing the same clothes, everyone here has different character designs. And while they may not look as good as the main cast, you can see how much time went into designing every single one of them. The lights guy also was pretty funny and an interesting way to break up the mood for a slight bit.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

And with this, the dreaded new year break in which absolutely nothing airs comes to end. And how! Seriously, this series came with one heck of an episode to celebrate that!

It’s not entirely explained why Chihaya collapsed in this episode. It probably was due to a combination of factors, like the really hot weather, a faulty airconditioning, very heavy clothes, and Chihaya herself getting incredibly worked up (plus that one scene where Chihaya felt weird at the beginning of the episode). Whatever it was, this episode featured Chihaya collapsing.

At first, I thought that this episode would introduce the major rival of this series. In any case the first minutes of this episode really hinted at that when she walked past and the creators wanted us to really notice that this would become an important character, in true Shoujo Fashion. And then suddenly this episode switched over to Arata who decided to pay a surprise visit to the tournament. Holy crap!

On top of him returning, this episode also explained exactly what happened to him after he moved away, making for a really sad little background of his to first see the grandfather he looked up to succumb to dementia and then pass on. Before this we only heard the accounts of the people around Arata, but not himself.

Chihaya’s collapse really made for an interesting situation for the two of them to see each other again. I especially love how Taichi wasn’t surprised at all when he saw them, and just left Chihaya in his care. It’s because of this that their reunion turned into him, trying to keep a hysterical Chihaya under control.

With this, I’m also seeing the structure of this series: the plan really is to make this one end with the third year of high school; the classic scenario. After this there will be the individual tournaments, which explains why so much time was devoted to that one blonde guy in the previous arc: that will be his crowning moment of awesome, while at the same time they’ll most likely introduce that rival of early in this episode. At the same time though, I can not yet imagine any way for this anime to end well. There is no way for the individuals to last 11 episodes, and there is also no way that they can wrap up the next year along with that.

On a side-note: Chihaya really is a simple character: her entire mind is on Karuta and her complete devotion to the sports is what really drives this series. Meanwhile, it comes down to Taichi and Arata to deliver the sophisticated part of this series. They are the ones who make this show complex and interesting to watch, with the side-characters adding all sorts of extra spices. The great thing is that alone, these characters wouldn’t be interesting, but the way that they play off each other is just completely amazing.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Whoa, they’re already heading to the finals here. This was just one episode worth of build-up and aftermath, keeping up with this series’ tradition of not dragging on at all. And yet, this episode did everything a build-up and aftermath episode should do.

It actually put a neat detail in for every single one of the character: Chihaya feeling overwhelmed, Desk-kun losing his interest in grades, Pork-kun going back to his teacher, Kanade understanding that she also has to learn the rules and habits of competitive Karuta… and that teacher who suddenly made a complete heel-turn when she found out how hard the characters are working. Kazuya meanwhile is a very reactive character: on his own he’s not that detailed, but he shines when he plays off of the others.

There also was this charming little part about Chihaya wanting to get noticed by her parents. It’s a nice subversion from when this trope is usually played: usually this sibling shadow is this impossible barrier that can’t be breached. In this show though, Chihaya is starting to shine on her own. Also, after seeing so many ditzy idols, it’s great to see Chieko, who puts on two completely different personas when she’s on or off camera.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Here’s also the thing with the team matches: because Chihaya’s team has two rookies, it pretty much means that the three other players need to win all of their matches to make up for that. That does put a lot of extra tension on them compared to the usual. It’s just one of the examples of how well this series is put together. This episode pretty much spent an entire episode and nothing more on the finale of a tournament. The perfect length to both deliver a good climax and to also prevent things from dragging on.

No,w, I do wonder: nearly all of the characters of the flashback arc returned. Will these characters do the same as well? Especially that tall guy looked like he might return much more often after this, and it’s already great to see two characters who actually know the main cast in this team, through various karuta clubs.

I also love how this show handles its foreshadowing in this episode. I often feel like sports series try too hard to build up on the big opponents that they have to beat. For on, it’s still a mystery of what Arata is going to do. But also, this episode referenced the upcoming opponents in just one single line, and never again mentioned them afterwards. I like how subtle this was done.

Speaking of which, I can already see one really big problem with the way this series is set up: Arata. Right from the beginning it was clear that Chihayafuru would end halfway through its story, but for a long while it was still a mystery what this would actually mean for this series (especially for the ones like me, who haven’t read the manga). However, Arata is clearly being set up to only reunite with the main cast, in the second half of this story. In other words: the part that’s never going to be animated. And that’s a bloody shame because the part where Arata appeared again in this episode was awesome.
Rating: ** (Excellent