What They Say:
Chihaya Ayase has spent most of her life supporting her sister’s model career. When she meets a boy named Arata Wataya, he thinks Chihaya has potential to become a great karuta player. As Chihaya dreams of becoming Japan’s best karuta player, she is soon separated from her karuta playing friends. Now in high school, Chihaya still plays karuta in the hope that she will one day meet her friends again.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Arata having made his victory, things are definitely in a kind of interesting state right from the get go. He’s pleased, but not cocky or over exuberant, which is nice to see. He’s pleased to see how far Taichi had gotten and has just a whole lot of positive vibes coming from there, and eeven Taichi can see himself as being pleased for Arata even after all that has been said and done. But once Chihaya gets into the mix, tensions seem to ramp up since she’s still just in such awe of his skill and ability that the calmness of him is unnerving. And like usual, Chihaya retreats into herself in her own way in trying to figure out what it is she’s feeling and why everything suddenly seems off after her losses.
The ceremony is fun to watch if only because Chihaya’s dreams were so big for her and everyone else that the fact that it didn’t come true has left her a touch beside herself, though in general everyone else is feeling pretty good about themselves and what they accomplished. The accomplishments in general are good, but it’s also noteworthy that both Arata and Taichi are a bit unique for this tournament as they’re the only ones that went through the whole thing without any losses, something that definitely impresses. Unfortunately for Chihaya, while she did well overall even if she couldn’t go for the top of the rankings, she’s also dealing with medical problems now because of her hand issue, which has lead to a rare disorder being discovered that definitely impacts her. While most people would just go through life without even knowing, her karuta play is severely impacting it and that means an operation while on summer vacation. A vacation spent watching replays of the tournament no less.
Like previous episodes involving this particular kind of spot in the series, Chihayafuru has a pretty relaxed and varied approach to what it wants to do to close the season. Chihaya’s friends do come to visit and we get some amusing poetry along the way as she reflects on her position while there in the hospital and there are some good light moments that come into play as well, which is definitely welcome after all the stressful competition material. And in some ways, it’s good to see the cast outside of their tournament outfits and in just regular street clothes. One of my favorite parts is when Taichi and Oe go to visit her, but Oe calls him out afterward about the fact that he should go to see her himself, by himself, and to try harder to win Chihaya’s attentions.
In Summary:
Chihayafuru has a pretty good epilogue episode here as things settle out from the tournament and we get to see the real results of what happened to Chihaya with her hand and what the truth of it all was. I like that they dealt with it as something a bit serious and that it occupied some of her summer vacation time, which is also covering the way she’s interacting with her friends and how Taichi is going to start getting more serious about going after her. There’s a good sense of closure and openness about it here as what we got for this season has definitely ended, but there’s room for so much more ahead, both in tournament and karuta play as well as the character interactions. What we get here leaves you feeling good about what played out and what was accomplished and it’s certainly an easy jump off point. But we’re holding out for a third season to see where else all of this can go.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
