At long last, we’re back for more Chihayafuru! Well, maybe “at long last” from where you’re standing – from my position, I actually just finished writing up the previous episode a few hours ago, and simply couldn’t wait to continue the group tournament. I tricked you into thinking an equal amount of time had passed for both of us by feigning familiarity, a little bit of “movie magic” for all you folks back home.

Anyway, yes, Chihayafuru. The previous episode was indeed a can’t-put-down tier one, and not even because it was centered on any particularly climactic or stressful match – it was just a well-articulated team battle from start to finish, making the absolute most of a lopsided team of opponents with one very specific strength. “This team has mastered quiz games so well they’re natural card memorizers” wouldn’t seem like the most dramatically fertile of gimmicks, but it ended up resulting in a fight that highlighted both Chihaya’s greatest strength (her buzzer-beating speed, now defined more as a trainable skill than a natural talent) and her greatest weakness (her emotional flappability and inability to handle unexpected situations). And with that match concluded and Arata’s tournament eligibility confirmed, it seems likely we may get a more bare-knuckle brawl this time, involving the entire team in a generally close match. But first, let’s see what Nishida has to say about Tsutomu!

Episode 11

Yep, picking up with that cliffhanger. So does Nishida think Tsutomu would be better off sticking to a sort of sideline coach role?

Kana pulls the short straw of building up opposition to this idea. You’d normally expect pretty much all the members of this team, save maybe Chihaya, to at least wait and let Nishida explain himself, but “everyone is reasonable all the time and always waits for others to explain themselves” doesn’t really lead to much of an in-conversation dramatic structure. I think they’d be better off leaving out Kana’s opposition here, because it feels pretty contrived, but sometimes you can’t avoid forcing a character to play a somewhat awkward dramatic role in some situation to make sure the tone works

Ah, that’s what Nishida’s concern is – he’s afraid Tsutomu has fallen into complacency about not playing, and he’s worried about his friend losing his drive to play. A reasonable fear that plays off both Tsutomu’s narrow range of interest in karuta and Nishida’s history of abandoning karuta for tennis

“I can understand what Nishida meant, but this isn’t the mood we want before the playoffs.” Man, everything is hard for Taichi

And the Empress realizes it. Nice to see someone outside their immediate group recognize just how hard Taichi works – he manages the team both inside and outside of matches, does his best to deal with their emotional issues, and fights in every match as a starter, even before we get to all his insecurity-driven solo efforts to reach class A. Karuta is not an easy thing for Taichi

And Chihaya confidently declares they’ll stick with the group stage five

Hah, nice followup moment with Nishida, as he stress-eats over the anxiety of confronting Tsutomu

This is certainly not the conflict I was expecting. And by shifting from a general perspective to focusing on Nishida’s feelings, I get the impression this is more his conflict to deal with – it’d be nice if Tsutomu stayed on the main team, but Nishida can’t lose his cool because someone else decided to take a supporting role

Their opponents are Shoyo, a Kyoto school. Their Show You! shirts are very intimidating

Welp, now we’re moving over to Tsutomu’s side, so I guess this is a conflict for both of them. Hard to interpret one of those slow “but how do you really feel” sets of shots panning into him as anything else

And back to Nishida, who’s now psyching himself out by imagining every single Kyoto player is as fast as Shinobu

“Empress’ jacket of love.” Lol, these little on-screen textual asides. They’re an occasional quirk of manga adaptations that certainly feel a bit less natural in anime form than when tucked into a manga panel, where the variable size and prominence of panels and text can naturally convey the concept of a “side thought.” That said, I find them charming, and don’t mind seeing them at all in shows like this and March comes in like a lion. They fulfill much the same endearing tonal role here, making me feel like the author is just as fond of this story as I am

“It’s more tiring to closely watch a match than compete in it.” Chihaya’s explanation for benching Tsutomu makes me think we will be going in a “Nishida needs to learn to value others’ priorities” direction after all

Yeah, the next sequence supports that. Nishida recalls Tsutomu saying that if he’s matched against Kawakabe, “don’t be intimidated by his speed. He’s just guessing.” The value of an extremely perceptive scout – you’ll win many matches you’d otherwise lose if you go into them already knowing your opponent’s gimmicks

“A person with good game sense wouldn’t let me goad them into that fight.” It’s pretty great how well the natural, real-life interaction of a worse player with an unexpected trick and a better player playing straight lends itself to fiction. There’s a natural narrative arc to a better player being initially fooled by some unexpected talent, eventually learning their opponent’s style, and then overcoming through their fundamentally sturdier abilities

And now we essentially get a team-wide celebration of Tsutomu’s support. Kana gets a great bit where she goes full pouty face to disrupt her enemy’s rhythm. Get ‘em, Kana

This isn’t necessarily a team shift that demanded an episode’s explication, but it’s certainly earning it well enough, and Tsutomu does deserve some credit for all his work

Yeah, here’s Tsutomu begging the prior losing team to explain how their opponents played. Demonstrating that his efforts weren’t just observational skill, but actually putting himself out there

Frankly, I’m really just hoping we’re building up to a spinoff about Kana on cards and Tsutomu on data taking over the karuta world. Although I guess without Chihaya there, they’d probably end up taking over the kimono selling world instead

Hanano offering some moral support, which is really all she can do at the moment. Her skill level and role in the narrative don’t give her too much to do now, though I have high hopes for her presence livening up the show’s non-karuta drama

Tsutomu and Nishida’s brief spat ends up becoming a way to both celebrate Tsutomu’s unique contributions to the team, and also emphasize how much they are a team, and everything they’ve fought through together

Over on Arata’s side, we get one more subtle justification for his brief disqualification arc – it means he’s separated from Chihaya’s team until the individual matches, and can’t intrude on conflicts that are pretty strictly related to the overall team

“Do you have the mind of an infant?” Thank you Taichi. Sometimes we all need to let Chihaya have it

Tsutomu demonstrates he’s a goddamn genius, turning Hanano’s notes about the various bags and straps their next opponents were wearing into meaningful data on their play style, relative strengths, favored cards, and starting order. A tiny dash of Sherlock Holmes appeal that both validates Hanano a bit and once again emphasizes Tsutomu is an absolutely indispensable asset to the team

“If you want to win, you have to fight for every card.” This is always such a bizarre element of karuta to me. “Arguing with your opponent over who touched a card first is a genuine skill in the game” does not feel like a reasonable state of affairs. Sorry, Yumin

Taichi considers going for a tactically effective seating arrangement, but then Retro-kun appears, presumably reminding Taichi of Retro’s own gallantry in the regional tournament. Alright Chihaya, you get your friggin’ ringer opponent

Hah. Both Tsutomu and Taichi independently realized that their next opponents likely made their order predictable as a feint they could afford to indulge in against weaker opponents

And Done

Welp, that was a pretty average episode. Its focus on Tsutomu’s tactical support was definitely a worthy priority, but it couldn’t really set up a conflict that necessarily illustrated that advantage in the most compelling way – I like the sequence of Tsutomu’s allies acting on his support, and I liked the later sequence of him breaking down their next opponents’ relevant qualities, but it all still felt a bit anticlimactic, and the show sort of had to split focus between Tsutomu and some general “we’re all in this together!” team stuff. That said, the episode still moved pretty well, I’m excited to see Tsutomu back on the active roster, and I can’t wait for Chihaya to face down with an actual ringer. We’ve got some exciting games ahead!

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