Category: Finished Series: Sports

Last week’s introduction of the Taichi Cup had me excited for this episode. Who wouldn’t want to spectate a free-for-all tournament where Meijin hopefuls like Harada-sensei could clash with Class C challengers? Retro was in attendance, as well, which the show could have used to follow up his recent promotion to club president. The variety of participants might have created some fun matchups, maybe an upset or two – if the show had treated it as anything more than a distraction. When the Taichi Cup’s screen time ended just six minutes after it began, I was disappointed at the wasted potential that it represented. But as the episode ran on and it became clear where we were headed, I understood the reason for its brevity. Chihayafuru has historically placed climactic moments in its penultimate episodes, and used its season finales to cool down in their wake. And boy, did this one feature the mother of all climaxes.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 23 [Like a Boatsman Adrift]” →

It’s time for a Chihayafuru Super Post, to borrow a term from fellow blogger Amunchet. These episodes have been on the back burner for a couple weeks now, owing to my increasingly busy work schedule. The one that prompted me to push them onto my to do list, though, was number 20 (“May the Scarlet Kadsuras”). There was some sloppiness to its shot transitions that made it feel almost unfinished, which was discouraging as a longtime fan of the series. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a bit, as beyond the “Continue Reading” link I’ll be dedicating a few hundred words to each of these three episodes. The last two installments of the season ought to get their own posts, so I hope you’ll forgive this one-off cram session. Hit the jump for some conflicted thoughts on the final leg of Chihayafuru’s third season.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 20-22” →

Early in Chihayafuru’s first season, a young Arata told his new friend, “If you become the best in Japan, you become the best in the world!” He was speaking, of course, about karuta – the obsession of nearly every character in the series. There’s no money or fame to be gained from playing it, but an obscure sort of glory awaits two winners at Omi Jingu each year. Their victory places them atop a list of seven billion people, most of whom will never hear of karuta, much less sit down to play a game. Nevertheless, the allure of being the world’s best is sufficient to attract a small but devoted crowd of competitors. These two episodes are dedicated to four of them, each of whom play the game for different reasons, but all of whom fiercely desire to stand at the summit of the karuta world. Let’s go through them one by one, shall we?

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 18/19 [The Storm Will Soon Carry Me/Bring a Life of Everlasting Love]” →

Chihayafuru kind of lost me a couple weeks ago, but I had a (very) minor epiphany while watching episode 17 that changed the way I think about this season. The lack of sustained focus on karuta matches is still disappointing to me, but here’s the realization that offset some of that feeling. As the series has progressed and the cast has gotten larger, the amount of time that the main characters spend observing games (rather than participating in them) has increased. The narrower the field gets at the top, the less likely it is that your main players will be a part of it. This has led not only to an increased amount of time spent in the audience during matches, but also a shift in the show’s direction. It’s more concerned about the big picture than it is about card differentials or tracking a competitor’s psychology across a ten minute span. This is clearly illustrated in the first game of the Queen match, where Shinobu fails to take the Impassionate Gods card, sees Chihaya in the crowd and smiles, and suddenly we’re down to a luck-of-the-draw finale. How we got there isn’t as important as Chihaya’s personal link to the match.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 16/17 [Takes Me Away in Haste/As My Sleeves Are Wet With Dew]” →

When this week’s episode opened with Chihaya staring dazedly into space, Arata’s voice looping in her brain, I thought we might be in for a slightly more romantic affair than the one we ultimately received. Chihayafuru has never dwelled for too long on that part of its story, but having crossed a major threshold just recently, there was no way to know for certain whether the formula might change. Now we’ve seen the karuta-heavy aftermath that had been in store all along, and any hopes or fears that the show might undergo some metamorphosis have been put to rest. Chihaya is still a lovable nerd, Arata is back in Fukui, and the secondary members of the karuta club are nearly irrelevant, as they have been practically all season.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 15 [Helpless Autumn Leaves]” →

I’ve spent the last few months keeping the Chihayafuru shipping talk to a minimum, as I feel the show has a lot more to offer than a high school love triangle. For one thing, it has a cast that spans generations, which has been emphasized more than ever this season. For another, the series trades heavily in themes like self-improvement and finding purpose – personal quests which can easily get lost in the haze of adolescent romance. That goes for critics of the show as well as the characters within it. I’ve read reviews of Chihayafuru that are obviously colored by the writer’s preferred pairing. They view Boy A as the hero, and Boy B as the villain. They evaluate plot developments based on how favorably they seem to affect their favorite guy. Ironically, there wasn’t a strong basis for their bias, as the show only busted out the love triangle teasing in small doses… until this week.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 14 [The Emotions Experienced]” →

Yes, Chihayafuru, yes! Give me more split screen layouts, overlapping character profiles, and seamless panel combinations! This show might not have the most detailed animation, or the highest on-model ratio, but the way it flows between shots is expert level. If you’ve got this episode handy, check out the sequence that runs from 3:37 to 4:03 – the way it connects Inokuma and Megumu’s pregame decoration is so good. It starts by matching the postures of both women, who turn to look at one another, and later dissolves into an over-the-shoulder shot that puts them in the same frame. Immediately afterwards, we get a shot of Inokuma bordered by plant life (echoing the flowers that she’s tucked behind her ear), and her opponent appears next to her inside the border. The side-by-side placement of their characters connects Megumu’s makeshift tasuki (which she received from her fan club) to the flowers (which Inokuma received from her son). It’s a beautiful commentary on the support that family and friends can provide, and it’s accomplished almost entirely through visual direction.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 13 [Yet It Is I Who Withers and Wilts]” →

I thought about delaying this post until next week, as there won’t be a new episode on New Year’s Eve, but my 2019 anime backlog is reaching avalanche-like proportions already, so it can’t be delayed any longer. Neither can the Meijin and Queen qualifiers, which are finally underway after last week’s very good table-setting episode. “So the Flower Petals” wasn’t as memorable as that earlier installment, in my opinion, but it does restore one element that the show has been missing for a while: intensity in its karuta matches. Chihayafuru has been keeping the spotlight off Harada-sensei recently, but he’s finally barreled onto center stage, giving us a clearer look at his tenacious playstyle – and I’m quite happy about it.

Continue reading “Chihayafuru S3 – 12 [So the Flower Petals…]” →