DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME DramaChihayafuru
MANGA DramaChihayafuru
OVA ComedyChihayafuru 2: Waga Mi Yo ni Furu Nagame Seshi Ma ni
ANIME DramaChihayafuru 3

REVIEWS

• 

  requiemsama

  83/100
  A compelling, gripping narrative of a rather underwhelming sport. A huge compliment to the sports genre.

  “If you become the best player in Japan, you’ll be the best player in the world!” - Arata Wataya

  This is a review of both seasons.

  Living in Shiga Prefecture for almost a year now, I’d like to assure and affirm to everyone who is unfamiliar with the Ohmi area that karuta is a HUGE sport.

  Everyone. Plays. Karuta.

  

  This past February, all of the elementary schools in this area (roughly over 100 schools) held a karuta tournament. Having already seen Chihayafuru beforehand, I was aware that karuta tournaments are a commonplace thing throughout Japan—what was most fascinating was literally how incredibly fast even my second graders were (and they still have a hard time reading and writing hiragana as is!) Thus, imagine the excitement that was all over Ohmi when an anime specifically about karuta aired on television. My words alone cannot express the obsession and the passion of these players, with even greater reward than players of Scrabble or word games associated with English.

  Hold onto your butts, and prepare for addiction. (96/100) Chihaya Ayase admires her sister, a rising star model and actress in Tokyo. Chihaya’s dream, as it seems, is to see her sister become number one—that is until she runs into Arata Wataya, a prodigious karuta player. She and her childhood friend Taichi (who obviously is secretly in love with her) join forces with Arata as her newfound passion to become the best karuta player in the world finds a special place in her heart.

  The story has absolutely fantastic pacing and arrangement of scenes. This is a josei anime, yet the first few episodes are a smoothly transitioned flashback to provide critical backstory. We see the young Chihaya, naughy Taichi, and eternally weird Arata. The series continues up to them gathering their allies, albeit through force, manipulation, or other hilarious methods. They train meticulously, and progress through some major tournaments, all of which are aligned with perfectly mesmerizing cliffhangers and uncertainties. It is safe to say that watching Chihayafuru will be nearly impossible in small sprees.

  There are plenty of likeable and unlikeable people in opposition to the Mizusawa High School Karuta Club, so the series steers clear of godmodding and needlessly overpowering characters. Along the way, we meet the ultimate antagonist (though not really all that antagonizing). A tiny, Kyoto woman. Be not deceived, for they are more dangerous than the Special Task Forces.

  

  Or at least as it seems to be in this series.

  Lastly, the story supports character growth by transitioning through their victories and defeats quickly, cramming as much screen time as it can to delve a little bit into their lives and emotions for each other. In summation, the plot devices and interexchange of scenes between the past and present, the limited recaps, and the unnoticeable transition into each successive chapter earns it an extremely high score from me.

  Central characters are good to a fault; support characters are ideal. (74/100) I would argue passionately that Chihaya is a particularly excellent central protagonist. It is without a doubt that she is supposed to be stunningly gorgeous, but what is most fascinating is exactly how negative her self-image is. She kind of represents the feelings of a typical, Japanese teenager, albeit unconscious of her natural beauty and natural talent. I believe her appeal to women is precisely that lack of self-awareness while maintaining a gifted and persistent persona. In a sense, she supports women who feel that there is nothing special about them, encouraging them to believe that there must be something—however obscure or weird—that they have a talent at. In no particular scene is Chihaya ever sexualized or viewed as an object, which is a great turn. It’s a nice transition from a pissy tsundere, or one of the many ditzy eye candies that drive eroticism where it doesn’t need to be. Perhaps my only problem with her is the one-dimensional perspective we are given of her emotions towards others—it can be really difficult to be attracted to someone whom we can’t relate to, and Chihaya’s character consists of a complete and utter immersion into improving her karuta. I would have liked to have seen a few more elements of growth in her nature and her emotion towards other central characters to say in the least.

  Taichi starts off like a pretty stock kind of guy, becomes forgettable, then ironically appreciable by the end of season two. As the characters improved, I felt the least bit of desire to see Taichi reach success despite having an earnest heartfelt for all of the characters in the show. His strengths are his whistle-blowing sort of appearance. As though it is scripted, his presence in every respective scene drew out the best quality of all the other characters.

  What kills the character score for me is Arata. As a central character, he spends an awful lot of time not being central. Whenever he claws some screen time, he seduces us to all go “ooh” and “ahh” with his god-tier ability of playing karuta. Then, half a season later, we finally get another decent scene of him. Then in the next season, we get a nice long treat of him, after wondering why on Earth things needed to take this long. Literally, the best character development he gets comes in his rivalry with Taichi.

  

  Where the hell is Arata? He’s like Waldo…

  What rescued this character score the most is in fact the supporting characters: Nishida, Oe, Tsutomu, Tsukuba, and Sumire. All of them have a particular trait or purpose to help bring out story elements. Nishida is highly intelligent, but his corpulent appearance also makes him a running gag. Oe gives off the historian sidekick sort of character, Tsutomu is both the tactician and comic relief. Tsukuba and Sumire later reveal even more fascinating aspects of the game of karuta. The best thing is that they all in some way contribute to Chihaya’s compounding abilities at the game.

  Nothing less than expected from Madhouse, but nothing more. (77/100) Having a deep respect for Morio Asaka (who also created my beloved Cardcaptor Sakura), I do for once have to be a little picky about some of the visual elements of the series. In particular, for a Madhouse anime, the story and characters are well developed, but the animation itself feels a little underdrawn and fuzzy. Even at 1080p the coloring is often drab, as are the movements and fine details.

  Other than this, the perspectives and the choices of angles when depicting scenes are superb. The character designs themselves are gorgeous, with intricate details on the eyes and hair. The visual aspect can be really engaging when watching matches as well.
  
  I am weary of 8 beat rock, and wish it would go away…but I do appreciate solid BGMs. (70/100) The opening theme sounds literally like the opening of a hundred other anime I’ve watched. I get it. This generation likes crap music, so I can’t really fairly judge against someone’s opinion. Still, I don’t care what my generation thinks here. Anime is art that should have artistic music, period. Since karuta is about a traditional Japanese game, why couldn’t the opening and ending be traditional Japanese folk? Perhaps like a biwa, or maybe some taiko? Either way, huge thumbs down from me.

  Meanwhile, the soundtrack of the actual damn show uses exactly the kind of music that would be excellent for it! I don’t know any other works of the composer, Kousuke Yamashita, but I do know that any decent score would be minimalism. Soft keyboard chords going in seemingly endless repetitions, increasing in intensity as the matches grow more intense. The BGMs offered a great emotional component to the anime, which in turn rescued that score.
  I should also mention that the seiyuu were also quite superb. In anime these days it’s rather difficult to find uninteresting seiyuu, but when compared to the bloodcurdling tsundere screech or yawning yandere mumble, I can feel excited for the enthusiasm and high energy in their speech.

  It’s a sports anime, so duh it’ll be good. (100/100) I don’t like reviewing sports anime too much, because Japan has a real knack for sucking in attention with the sports genre. However, Chihayafuru just happens to be about a difficult, boring game to watch in real life and manages to keep one’s eyes glued to the screen. Considering how difficult attaining that feat must be, I pay homage to the creators for turning it into the masterpiece it has become.

  I recommend it to everyone. Seriously, everyone. A drug-level addictive plot, memorable characters, decent animation, and catchy BGMs make this a great choice, even if it’s the first sports anime one watches. There are some cultural aspects to it that make it pretty difficult for a complete beginner in the world of anime, but I think the excitement would make up for any barriers.

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• 

  Unwelcome

  90/100
  An outstanding sequel that exposes how karuta sport influences the personal growth of the characters.

  ・ English is my second language, there may be errors in my grammar..
  ・I try to make a spoiler-free review, however, in the section opinion if something important happens I mention it.
  ・General experience ≠ Final score. My personal score is based in 5 star system, so I tried to put an accurate number here, but isn't always the case.
  ・Locate (Brief) Conclusion + Recommendation section where the main points are summarized.

  ━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━

  Experience with Chihayafuru 2

  ━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━ **Iɴᴛʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ**

  The summer season returns and Mizusawa Team has the ambition and determination to become the best team of all Japan, but first they have a challenge to overcome, being that to find new members to maintain the club, following with the attempt to create the atmosphere of a real team.

  During this season, the main focus was on the team competitions and what the character can learn from that experience. In the long run of their life there will always be an opportunity to compete individually with the purpose of to be a Meijin or Queen, but the title of the best High School team is only possible in those three years that will be consumed in a blink. With that in mind, the appreciation for teamwork grows in this part of the story.

  ━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━ **Oᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ**

  Compared to the previous year, now with a little misstep on the way, their tears and sweats shows their passion for improvement. Even when they lost the path, they find alternative routes to win, overcoming their weakness and enduring the pain they managed to obtain the desired title of being number one.

  On this occasion the balance between personal growth through the Karuta was more present, with constant competitions where the characters had introspection about their performance, leaving different flags to a future emotional development.

  I find that Chihaya had those hints of being something more, despite the fact that it’s usually focused on the Karuta, gradually opens his emotions to new perspectives, trying to understand how she feels about others and about her future. A point that will be explored further.

  Meanwhile Chihaya wants to improve and Arata is influenced by her, someone feels pressured because his conflicting feelings. Taichi faced many things in his life, encapsulated within the expectations of others versus his ambitions. This season end up, leaving the tension in the air with what will happen.

  For my part I keep getting excited about how every interaction between the characters result realistic, there’s the vibe of ideal youth that gradually breaks down in the transition from being an adult.

  ━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━ **(ʙʀɪᴇғ) Cᴏɴᴄʟᴜsɪᴏɴ + Rᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅᴀᴛɪᴏɴ**

  The feeling of bloom abounds in this series, being quite refreshing to see, with the same constancy in production as the first season. Now, you will continue to be amazed by the dynamism while they're playing, in contrast the close-ups show with bright colors and a tinge of nostalgia the mood of the characters.

  For the most part, if you liked the first season and want to understand more about how the Karuta influences the personal growth of the characters, feel sure that in this part you will find an interesting development of youthfulness who discovers their ambitions.

  ━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━
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• 

  Scheveningen

  90/100
  An excellent continuation focusing on its compelling sports and drama elements but also retains many of its small flaws

  Chihayafuru's second season is a seamless continuation of the first, which is both high praise and a minor criticism since it builds on the strengths of its first season while not really ironing out any of the flaws. Although the sports side of the show is still done excellently, the heavy focus on it creates a sense of imbalance in the narrative since the josei romance is noticeably absent for most of the season. While by no means a dealbreaker since the Karuta tournaments are exceedingly compelling, the intense focus makes the season feel as if it is no longer living up to its promise as both a sports and romance narrative. Though the series retains an overall sense of balance, it is becoming clear that it is not ideal to have it divided into seasons from its original serialised format. It is really meant to be a continuously running story with few narrative subdivisions. Despite that, Chihayafuru 2 is still undoubtedly an improvement, and more importantly, understands how to build on its existing story.

  An essential step Chihayafuru 2 takes is to establish its new status quo for the school year instead of merely continuing the current dynamics. The introduction of Sumire and Tsukuba both excellently supports the established cast and add new dimensions to the narrative. In particular, Sumire is perhaps the strongest addition since she fills a missing female role in the narrative thus far. She is essential in magnifying the romantic elements of the series as the only person who is overtly interested in pursuing it and as an 'outsider' to the world of Karuta. Although the audience is never under the impression her affection for Taichi will go anywhere, she serves an important supporting role for his character. One that pushes him to consider his relationship with Chihaya and Arata further. Sumire also serves as a compliment to Kanade's character, who previously had no one to discuss romance with, Chihaya being as ditsy as she is. Although this season does not further the relationships of our main cast directly, Sumire's introduction and interactions with Taichi and Kanade serve as a reminder and means to examine their feelings in more detail. In this, the show demonstrates an understanding that a convincing narrative cannot solely centre around furthering the goals of their protagonist, be it in Karuta or romantically, and needs to dedicate time to its other characters to make things feel more fully realised.

  Part of this is simply good storytelling to avoid the appearance of the world revolving around the main characters. But a larger part is understanding the requirements and constraints of their setting. Although the high school environment can feel far too ubiquitous in anime, it is a significant feature of life in Japan. Instead of just using it as window dressing, Chihayafuru justifies its choice of setting by having its characters and plot involve the specific challenges of a high school student. In particular, the dynamic of becoming seniors, and to an extent leaders, as they advance each grade. It integrates this into its plot and embraces it as an essential part of its setting that it needs to address. Perhaps this should be a basic expectation, but with so many shows surrounding high school, it is remarkable that so many avoid or fail in this step. Tsukuba poses a minor complication as the quintessential unruly junior, essentially challenging the main cast to grow as characters to better manage and understand him. This new dynamic helps propel character growth since they are no longer just dealing with their peers. With enough members to swap people out of their tournament lineup, it challenges the characters to consider why they play Karuta and their goals with it. It gives the viewer greater insight into what drives the characters, like Komano's desire to be a team player and Chihaya's unbridled love for Karuta that she wants to share with everyone. This all works to make Chihayafuru's narrative organic, concerned with following the lives of students who are serious about Karuta instead of a sports show that happens to be set in high school for one reason or another.

  Despite the superb development of the main cast, the flaws and limitations of the previous season are still apparent. While the first season established the love triangle and built tension around it, the second season neither relieves nor furthers it much. While not necessarily a problem, it reaches a point where the show feels scared or unable to have Taichi, Chihaya and Arata interact as a trio for an extended scene without detonating all the romantic tension. This bogs down the show's pacing since it draws out the love triangle instead of having it evolve as their relationships with each other change. Although it is exceedingly difficult to manage the romance and sports elements simultaneously, it feels like Chihayafuru does not really attempt to and merely alternates between them, and not with equal emphasis. While the romance and competitive elements are still done well in isolation, it feels less and less like they complement each other with how little interaction there is. In essence, Arata's presence is almost entirely divorced from the competitive goals of the cast at Misuzawa High yet essential for the romance elements of the story, all of which creates a mild disjoint between the story threads.

  Similarly, Shinobu feels distinctly underused who, along with Arata, suffers from a lack of screen time. Although she was positioned superbly at the start of the series, carrying a mysterious and overwhelming air to her, that can only last so long. Without the benefit of having an extensive flashback dedicated to her like Arata, it is hard to say Shinobu is positioned well as a rival to Chihaya. If anything, she feels like a plot device or obstacle instead of another character at times due to sheer isolation from everyone else. While this is part of her character arc, the lack of understanding from her perspective makes her seem either undeveloped or unintelligible. This only made worse in comparison to how much characterisation some of Chihaya's one-off opponents get through their rather clumsy perspective changes. This lack of development also leaves the connection between Arata and Shinobu feeling more like a red herring than a compelling plot element. It is both underdeveloped given how little screen time the two of them have and is not explored to its full potential, either as an additional romantic complication or a rivalry or friendship B-plot that could flesh out both their characters and serve as a implicit contrast to Chihaya and Taichi.

  Where Chihayafuru 2 then chooses to dedicate most of its run time is in the Karuta matches themselves. Although superbly done, the overwhelming focus on them does gradually detract from other story elements. Over half the episodes in the season are almost entirely dedicated to Karuta matches. While a step in the right direction since the previous seasons feels like it skimps too much on matches, this feels like an overcorrection with too little time dedicated to character elements. The almost immediate dive into the Tokyo regionals robs the new characters of some breathing room to better established themselves. During the tournament itself, the characters focus squarely on the problem of their upcoming matches and less on their interpersonal relationships. Although this is also a testament to how compelling the individual games are written and animated since they effectively carry most of the season, it gives the distinct impression that the series focuses more on its plot elements instead of character.

  This further contributes to the continued choppy sense of pacing since the season does not end after its natural climax. With most of the focus on the journey of the Mizusawa Karuta Club as a group, the end of the national team tournament would be the natural place to close the season. Yet, the show still continues with the individual tournament after nationals. This is likely an unavoidable limitation as the tournament schedule in real life is established this way. However, this robs all the tension from the individual tournament as the stakes are almost non-existent compared to nationals. And with Shinobu and Arata now playing, the viewer is never under the impression that Chihaya will make it very far, deflating much of the anticipation since this becomes more of a checkpoint in her character arc instead of a possible breakthrough. While the show does pivot to another important climax: if Taichi will win the class B tournament and finally make it to class A, the lack of build-up compared to the team championship results in it falling somewhat flat. Although this does not come out of nowhere, it lacks a clear emotional throughline since this goal affects to his relationship with Chihaya and Arata instead of his role as the president of the Mizusawa club. As a result, the emotional beats of the season feel off since it is trying to address two different threads that have become increasingly divorced from each other. While this could be expected in a serialised manga, it is hard to digest in an anime since each season does not feel like the cohesive narrative that is expected in a televised format.

  Even with some of these limitations, the narrative and presentation of the show are still compelling enough to overcome them. In no small part helped by the superb and consistent characterisation of the cast from both seasons. However, some of the manga elements the show carries over, while effective, are now undoubtedly hamstringing Chihayafuru. The use of manga like text hanging over the characters to convey the characters thoughts or information without using dialogue feels extreme unsubtle. While clearly efficient and even effective for comedic situations, some of the details delivered could be easily inferred, while others are important titbits that feel as if they should be delivered diegetically for greater emphasis.

  At the same time, the constant use of perspective jumping into the internal monologue of different characters in quick succession is still an issue. Because of the back-and-forth use during matches, it still feels much more intrusive than simply shifting character perspective for a different scene within the episode. However, there is a marked improvement in its employment since the perspective shifts are done through an interesting lens and mostly used with compelling characters that will play a future role in the narrative. This can still feel cheap since there are times it is abundantly clear Chihaya or the Mizusawa club's opponents are merely “opponent of the week” style characters with little relevance to the serialised plot. It cannot help but feel time and effort is wasted going into too much detail of the backgrounds for one-off characters when a much simpler explanation would have sufficed. This, combined with the gradual repeats and overuse of the same musical stings makes certain matches feel far too drawn out. At the same time, they remain oddly compelling, which is also an indication that the series as a whole is doing something very right and that these are more blemishes than serious problems. This strong, emotional, almost nostalgic, quality still permeates the series into its second season. Perhaps best exemplified by the visuals and music in its new opening. It is this earnest quality, emanating from the show, and in particular from Chihaya's character that still serves as its foundation and the source of its compelling nature. It overrides most of its flaws to produce an emotional quality that only the best stories can achieve.

  Overall, Chihayafuru 2 maintains the superb quality of its first season, though it shifts some of its priorities around. While it feels distinctly imbalanced, it is also undoubtedly excellent in the areas it chooses to focus on. Being able to maintain a compelling tension for multiple Karuta matches in a row is no easy feat. In a way, it also demonstrates how the show builds off its first season since the character groundwork was done there. Although the series improvements push it into a 9 out of 10, it is just barely in that range and has definitely hit its current ceiling. While many of Chihayafuru's flaws are easily forgivable or entirely understandable, it also has too much apparent missed potential to say it reaches a 10 at this juncture. While still a great show, at the pinnacle of the sports and josei genre, the second season makes clear there are limitations it needs to overcome, with most of its minor flaws established as more or less inherent or structural issues. Without melding its two genres together seemlessly, it’s hard to say it should be a 10. And Chihayafuru seems to be content shuffling its priorities around in each season to manage them, leaving it as a great show, but not quite as outstanding as it could be. Perhaps that will only come at the latter parts of its story when the plot converges on Arata and Shinobu, but at the very least a vast majority of viewers will find it easy to be compelled to keep watching until then.

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