It’s time for more Chihayafuru, ya knuckleheads! With the regional team tournament now complete, the doors are open for this episode to prioritize basically any drama it wants to. Just like how the regional tournament last year was the moment that fully integrated Tsutomu into the group, the last scene of our last episode seemed to imply that both Hanano and Tsukuba are now invested in the team for genuinely karuta-related reasons, and no longer simply hanging around to achieve their own peripheral goals. That means it could easily be time to begin Hanano’s competitive arc, where we establish her style of play and explicate more karuta fundamentals through training, but we could just as easily leap straight from the regional to national tournament, and keep up the focus on our main team. After the satisfying but almost exhausting run of matches at regionals, I’d actually be fine with an episode that slows down a little, but Chihayafuru has never been one to slow its roll. Let’s dive right into one more episode of Chihayafuru!

Episode 7

We open with Chihaya’s sister Chitose reading rude internet comments about her modeling career. A hard tonal reset, essentially the opposite of last week’s opener. A low-energy and out-of-school opening like this leads me to think this actually will be a breather of an episode

Chihaya still moping about losing at regionals

“You’ve been watching the DVD of that chubby girl every day” ahaha Chihaya has a Shinobu fan video. It feels a little odd to acknowledge past continuity in this show for some reason; the show is so narrowly focused on its characters’ karuta-related journeys that it feels like a larger world doesn’t exist, and so a idle detail like “obviously Shinobu’s performance was taped and Chihaya watches it all the time” seems to gesture towards a level of consistent background reality that the show very rarely acknowledges

Some interesting reveals about Chitose’s own personal journey here. It seems her path from modeling into acting has hit a snag, and that even she herself believes she doesn’t really have the talent to make it as an actress. It’s kind of interesting that we learn this at all, given Chitose has never really had any emotional relevance to the rest of this narrative. The whole minor thread about Chihaya’s passion not being celebrated by her family has always felt a little undercooked to me; it’s perfectly realistic drama, and actually feels like it could be a lot more poignant than the love triangle stuff, but the show itself has never tied Chihaya’s family into her larger emotional arc, or placed any thematic significance on their actions. They just show up sometimes

And yeah, Chihaya’s just obsessing over the match. The stuff with her sister doesn’t go anywhere, it was just a dramatically neutral lead-in

The fraying old teacher actually brings up the deception of the karuta club’s “twenty new members.” But it seems like Chihaya’s strategy of simply collapsing into a puddle and apologizing is more effective than the Empress actively fighting back

Chihaya notices the concert band struggling with their own limited space, and actually asks the empress to let them use some of the space. This is an odd thing to focus on

Though as the empress points out, Chihaya being considerate is a pretty major step in her own character development. Chihaya’s selfish nature is such a useful character flaw – it gives her the presumptuous drive she needs to push everyone around her into action, but can also serve as a vehicle for character development once the show no longer needs her passion to propel everyone around her. A handy drama-prompting tool that resolves itself into an emotional hurdle to overcome

Oh my god, Chihaya’s actual reasoning is “if we’re nice to other clubs, surely the karma we gain from that will improve our luck during karuta matches.” Well, people only change so much

“Personally, I think Chihaya is a gambler at heart.” The old teacher makes the smart observation that someone who isn’t dismayed by the fact that their matches will always be influenced by luck must have a little bit of a gambler’s spirit in them

Seems like this really will be an odds-and-ends episode, shuffling us between tournaments

And damn, looks like we’re getting some actual development of Chihaya’s family situation!

Time now for some lovely shots of Hanano beating up children

Hanano and Tsukuba’s little brothers have a very good dynamic. I appreciate basically anyone who forces Hanano to drop the charming lady act

“The rule in this love is to be serious about karuta!” My god, this justification for Hanano’s presence is so friggin’ threadbare. I love her character so I’m happy she’s here, but jeez, this story really had to stretch to find even a vaguely plausible explanation for her not quitting long ago

“Let me play someone weak!” She really is great. This show desperately needed a petty, snarky character to counterbalance all of its wide-eyed optimists, and Hanano is a terrific variation on the type

Chihaya’s mom takes her to Kana’s family shop to buy her her own hakama

“When did she learn to do this?” Chihaya’s mother finally noticing how much her daughter has grown, illustrated through the tertiary skill of putting on a kimono. It’s an interesting and pretty clever choice – the show wants to portray Chihaya’s mother coming to appreciate her efforts, but Chihaya’s mother will never be particularly invested in karuta itself, so instead she’s here recognizing the other skills and qualities that a focus on karuta has built up for Chihaya

Chihaya’s mother reflects on how she’s never worried about Chihaya, because she’s known that as long as Chihaya had karuta, she’d be okay. This frankly seems like more of an excuse concocted after the fact than a satisfying explanation, but I think the fault lies with Chihayafuru’s author, not Chihaya’s own mom. Chihayafuru has essentially tried to split the difference between being a focused sports drama that ignores family entirely and a more well-rounded character drama where different characters’ home situations deeply impact their professional fortunes. Chihaya’s own family situation best reveals the messiness of this compromise – unlike Arata, whose family situation feeds directly and naturally into his karuta career, Chihaya’s family feels like such a dramatic afterthought that the story has to play catch-up here and retroactively justify her mother’s near-total absence from the plot

All that said, this is still a welcome turn for the story. The awkwardness of Chihaya’s family being so thinly constructed would only continue as long as this story does, so I’m happy to see the show simply bite the bullet and justify their actions so far as best it can. Like with Hanano’s questionable club motivation, this is an awkward narrative contrivance that’s totally justified by how much it contributes to the narrative’s greater good

This was also a good time to insert this parental character beat because Chihaya had just suffered a confidence-diminishing but ultimately not terribly impactful defeat. Chihaya needed to regain her drive somehow, but that need wasn’t tethered to any specific professional conflict, and we’re already between tournaments, so this was the perfect time for a digression that could actually make dramatic use of parental support

“We’re in the second season and Chihaya still doesn’t know what the title means?” Oh my god Kana

“Impassionate” refers to intense but controlled energy used for a positive purpose, like a rapidly but gracefully spinning top

Aw, the school band puts on a little performance for them as thanks for giving them the second floor. Jeez, this really is a kitchen sink episode

“I’ve never received support from anyone not involved in karuta.” I suppose that does gesture towards a little congruity between this and the Chihaya’s mom material

And at last, we’re off to nationals

“I sleep in my makeup, because you never know what might happen.” Hanano, what exactly are you expecting here

“Is there anyone you stay up at night thinking about?” “Well, I don’t know Shinobu-chan’s phone number…” Oh my god Chihaya

This show is such a dick. We cut from Chihaya thinking “someone I want to talk to…” to a shot of Taichi… only to have him walk in on Chihaya calling Arata. Cold shit, Chihayafuru

And Done

Welp, that episode was kind of a mess. An intentional and almost unavoidable mess, though – straddled in the space between two major tournaments, this episode was pretty much committed to sweeping up various narrative odds and ends, simultaneously touching on Chihaya’s family situation and Hanano’s competitive progress while also guiding the team towards nationals. I was happy to see Chihaya’s parents finally get some meaningful material, and am very interested in seeing how Chihayafuru handles a second straight team tournament. There are no free passes this time, and the stakes are as high as they’ll ever be. Let’s keep on storming through Chihayafuru!

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