After a strong emotional high, where can Chihaya go from here?
What They Say:
After Ms. Miyauchi tells Chihaya that she needs five members to start an official club, Chihaya starts recruiting. One day, Oe Kanade, a fan of classical literature whose family owns a traditional clothing store, visits the karuta club. She is shocked by the gap between the elegant karuta of the Imperial Court and competitive karuta. However, Chihaya wants Kanade to realize how fun competitive karuta can be.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the previous episode where things turned quite serious with the confrontation between Chihaya and Arata, I came away very, very pleased with it. The show had been an interesting work until that point, but the time spent with the characters at a younger age was getting old quickly and I’ll readily admit that there’s not a lot of appeal in the game itself, though I like the idea behind it. With the confrontation that happened with Taichi in tow, it really worked to show the effort she’s put in and the sheer frustration of discovering that he gave up entirely on the game even after the pledge she had made years earlier.
Though he’s given up on things and she’s returned home and back to school, she’s intent on starting a karuta club at the school and has the go ahead from the faculty to try and get it off the ground. Like most clubs, you need five members in order to make it worthwhile so she’s secured the room, Taichi’s assistance and is ready to start playing. And she does love to play with a passionate, and that can be infectious to others. And it is to that of Kanade, a young woman in her classes that is very curious about the club and game but has a lot of hesitancy for a couple of reasons. One of them being that Kanade is very well versed in all things classic and has her view of karuta being the one from the Imperial Court time period, which plays very different than the rough and tumble competitive play that Chihaya has focused on.
Naturally, Chihaya is focused on trying to win her over, especially since Kanade’s attempts at a club that has grace and elegance to it with archery isn’t going well. This leads to Chihaya spending a lot of time with Kanade which is rather fun since we ge tto see the way she devotes herself to winning someone over, but also realizing that she can learn quite a lot from her when it comes to the classics. It’s the kind of thing where she understands more of what karuta is all about by gaining a new appreciation of the cards themselves. Which in turn highlights the passion that comes from Kanade, something that definitely makes her a fun character and very much like Chihaya, just simply from a different subject in essence.
In Summary:
Kanade brings something new to the show as we get the starting point of the formation of the club. While a good bit of time is spent with Kanade and her personality and passions, it’s done with a bit of a lens through Chihahya’s eyes and how she can repurpose it to the karuta club. Karuta itself does keep a good focus here and we get a new way of looking at things which helps to spark even more of Chihaya’s passions, something that’s hard to believe can be done. The focus on the two girls this time around isn’t bad and Taichi handles it well going into background mode for it rather than trying to force him into positions that he doesn’t need to be. While the show doesn’t maintain the high from before, that’s more than likely a good thing as it shifts into its next phase and moves the story forward rather than playing in the same area over and over. It’ll go back there to be sure, but I’m enjoying the new path its exploring.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
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.
