The match gets down to the nitty gritty and far more intense.
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)
One of the fun things with this series that I do enjoy is the way that it magnifies everything through this larger than life prism at times when it is, in the end, a game. It’s similar to what we see in sports series to be sure and other shows of a similar nature like Hikaru no Go where it’s just elevated and intense. Passion is the name of the game here as always and there’s something to be said for the way the players are so into it, something that others may not always grasp and really understand. Sadly, too many people seem to go through the days of their lives without having something that they’re truly passionate about that it’s hard to understand those that do have these kinds of intense passions.
Of course, the show has to really go into that passion at times and we see that done a few times here in the first half as it works through the Mizusawa kids as they face some tough competition. They’re all motivated into the game itself by different reasons, which is always welcome to see, and getting a bit of an exploration of that while knowing there’s the background of wanting to live up to what Chihaya does and what she brings to the game makes it all the more engaging. There are always those rallying people on any given team and we know it’s Chihaya, even if she’s not playing, as they want to do right by her after seeing the way she plays so intently after all these months – or longer in the case of someone like Taichi.
Not surprisingly, things are pretty drawn out for the match here as it unfolds and we see the way that everyone is completely getting into it, including those that are watching from the sidelines since they have so much invested in particular players. Some of these are interesting, especially those that are their teachers and elders, but you also have to appreciate some of the other views, such as Megumi who is doing her best to keep distanced from it all since she’s not actually playing and has moved on. But there’s a great moment during the match where she starts to come to life in a new way, one that sparks something within her that we haven’t seen in quite some time which is what makes her so engaging to watch. But we also see Taichi start to come into his own a bit here, though it’s pretty limited overall. He continues to be the character I want to see explored the most, but he ends up getting the short end of the stick more often than not.
In Summary:
Chihayafuru continues to be one of those hugely frustrating series in so many ways because of how it plays out in that we get what, a few minutes worth of game play here overall? I love what it does when you get down to it in terms of characters and the passion of it all, but it’s also dragging things out too much in certain ways. I like aspects of it which keeps me from getting too frustrated with it in the end, but there are times where you just want to hit the fast forward button and skim until we get some real action and meaning here. But as the show progresses, I really do feel like I know more of these kids and how passionate they are about karuta than most other characters in other series in general. There’s some slow but steady progress here and the episode works well, but has me fearing just how far – or not far – the season will go overall.
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.