The team battles continue in Chihayafuru! There’s no time for messing around anymore – with the Fujisaki team fully introduced and the reader already reaching for the first card, it’s looking like this episode will be the first act of the team finals from start to finish. We’ve also got a wide variety of subconflicts set up for this tumultuous climax, so let’s quickly break down where we’re at on that front!

First off, Chihaya actually doesn’t seem like she’ll be the focus of this match, at least in an emotional sense. She just went through a focus match against Megumu, and beyond that, Chihaya’s attachment to this match is fully an extension of her desire to succeed with her team. There will certainly be plenty of Chihaya material, but my read so far is that her segments will focus on a combination of figuring out her mysterious opponent and general “we’re doing it together” team emphasis.

Taichi seems like a more reasonable focus character, and it seems like he himself is framing beating this Arata-resembling opponent as him mentally overcoming his Arata-related insecurities. With Arata actually in the building, it seems very likely that Taichi’s big turn and Arata’s long-awaited appearance will end up overlapping.

Tsukuba is our third potential focus character, and his regret over not noticing Kana’s injury last time leaves me suspecting this may be the point where his selfishness as a competitor is directly addressed. Tsukuba has always played for himself at the expense of the team, but here in the team finals, his attitude and the overall spirit of the event may come to blows at last.

Beyond those three, I somewhat doubt Tsutomu will be prioritized, and get the feeling Nishida will just be a sturdy role player like usual. Of course, if you extend our scope beyond Chihaya’s team, we’ve got ongoing character arcs focused on Arata, Shinobu, Retro-kun, Hanano, half the members of the Fujisaki team, and plenty of other people I’m sure I’m forgetting. The dominoes are stacked up and ready to fall here in the long-awaited team finals. Let’s get right to it!

Episode 16

Aaaand it’s another recap episode. MOVING ON!

Episode 17

I feel like there’s some awkward tension between the florid visual articulation of this speaker’s voice, its actual qualities, and the melodramatic horns accompanying each line. The show is trying to convey “beautifully delicate” and “overbearingly intense” at the same time, and it’s a hard combo to achieve

The cold open successfully sets up Fujisaki as an opponent so imposing our heroes can’t even really respond. Rion is accompanied by a blue background and subdued pink flowers, conveying a sense of reserved beauty and unapproachability

“This match looks boring.” Looks like Shinobu will also get a fair amount of focus here, if they’re reestablishing her disdain for team matches in order to subvert it

“It’s possible to move and stop so quickly?” The show’s working for a difficult balance here – it wants Fujisaki to seem massively intimidating, but not in a way that makes Chihaya’s victory seem unearned or impossible. Thus we get a mix of opponents like Nishidas and Tsukubas, who are defined by stuff like their weird stances, as well as opponents like Taichi’s, who are just extremely good. You can line all of these qualities up in a row and make a team seem uniformly intimidating, but you only need to assign all that much screen time to “proving” Taichi earns his victory, whereas the intimidating qualities of the other enemies can ultimately demonstrate themselves to be superficial ones

Their team is so uniformly strong because their instructor Sakurazawa trained them to literally be strong, including stamina and strength and flexibility training along with their dedicated karuta practice. It seems like this team’s secret weapon is their coach is like a zillion times better than all the other coaches, in ways that would be obvious for any other professional sport

She’s been teaching karuta for twelve years, and their team has fifty members. This helps to explain how she also has the perspective to think “I need to boost up more of the younger players, since our ringers are all graduating.” She’s both great for individual players and a great asset to a team looking to survive over many years – she’s their actual ringer

“We can defend Fujisaki’s legacy without her.” Tsundere guy raises an interesting potential conflict – the idea of Fujisaki winning through Sakurazawa’s careful mentorship versus Fujisaki winning because Rion is a naturally talented ace who carried them without even trying

“She’s reacting too fast. What can she hear?” At least one of Rion’s “talents” seems to be that she’s spent her whole life hearing her grandmother read cards, and thus understands where her sentences are flowing earlier than any other person. This seems almost like cheating, but I’m guessing a core karuta skill at higher levels is listening and relistening to the highest level speakers simply to understand the nuances of their deliveries

Another sequence where we slowly listen to the reader as the players flinch at each subsequent dead card. For some reason, these sequences seem like some of the most tense and immediate in all of Chihayafuru. There’s just something about seeing these players tense and then briefly relax that really hammers in what an exhausting sport this is, and hearing the consistent voice of the speaker reading through full cards enhances the sense that we’re there beside them

“Can a reading also have color?” “There’s too much revealed when Yamashiro reads.” Aha. So this particular reader has a uniquely evocative, parsable tone for the different cards, and high-level players react to that positively or negatively depending on their own talents

So Rion is a reading specialist – her performance improves or worsens depending on the speaker, and this particular speaker is a Class 7 master reader who also happens to be the grandmother who inspired her passion for karuta. Well, fuck

“Listen to the poetry being read.” As it turns out, this episode at least really is focusing on Chihaya a lot. This is essentially the “Rion setup episode,” just like Megumu received a setup episode, but Rion’s strengths reflect so directly on Chihaya’s weaknesses (developing an emotional relationship with the cards) that the two are naturally riffing on each other

The focus on the imagery of the poetry is resulting in a more visually diverse episode than usual. Lots of nice natural scenery and rich colors this time

“This is a risky way to play, so I can’t rely on it. But this is how I build momentum, Dr. Harada.” I love this so much. A season ago, Chihaya would have started to hear the “tone” of the cards and think this was it, this was her mastering the game entirely. Now, every move Chihaya makes is challenged by her internal stress-tester, a voice built up by her various mentors that now makes her almost as strong tactically as she is physically. Across two seasons, Chihaya has genuinely and convincingly grown from an utterly self-oriented player elevated by one extreme talent to a reasonably well-rounded player who appreciates the value of her team, acknowledges her own weaknesses, and consistently interrogates her own play decisions, all while genuinely and accurately assessing and working to counter her opponents’ strengths

“I’ll have to change the momentum again.” This in particular feels like such a good way of expressing growth, since the momentum of the match was something Chihaya could basically never control before, but she’s a player who runs hot and cold, and so now she understands that it’s something she has to manage herself

Now we jump to Taichi and his opponent Ryoga. We in the audience know Ryoga mostly just cares about boobs, which makes him a great version of Taichi’s most enduring opponent: his own insecurities, draped over whoever can carry them

Oh goddamnit, it seems like Chihaya broke her finger. Will this match really end in anticlimax?

Just after realizing she’s being rude and should probably leave, Shinobu is ferried to the front. Well, this will certainly make Chihaya play harder, regardless of whether that’s a good or bad thing

“Injury affects the one who caused it more than the one who received it.” Damn, Harada. Telling her to abuse her opponent being put off their game due to injuring her seems like pretty questionable advice

“I don’t fit in anywhere except here. I have to win!” It seems like Rion leads a pretty unhappy life

Oh my god, Chihaya’s just repeating slamming a broken finger into the tatami. Her extended “eaaaaahhhhh” after that last card was brutal

Shinobu finally recognizes Chihaya

Aha, this gag about Chihaya not being able to remember Rion’s name in the middle of this dramatic monologue

A nice sequence of Shinobu criticizing Rion’s play. Shinobu’s stubborn, but also somewhat oblivious to her own stubbornness, so it’s endearing seeing her get caught up in this match in spite of herself

Nishida: “When am I going to come through? It has to be now!” Pretty much, dude

And Done

Whew, damn. Another frustrating injury this episode, though this time, it seems less likely to force this match to end in anticlimax, and more just narrows Chihaya’s options down to a few brutal, self-destructive gambits. It seems like we didn’t even really get to the Taichi or Tsukuba focus segments this week – this was all still on Chihaya, as she was used first as a sounding board for Rion’s character, and then as the dramatic lead in her own right. Our team is up against the wall now, and I can imagine any of our heroes winning or losing at this point. NOW I GOTTA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.