It’s time to continue our journey through Chihayafuru! Having just defeated Megumu and her unexpectedly talented teammates, Chihaya’s team is basically against the ropes at the moment. Chihaya herself lost, Nishida also failed, Tsutomu only won because of a fifty-fifty guess, and Kana is so wiped out she’s asked Tsukuba to take her spot in the finals. In terms of in-universe stamina, the team is likely exhausted, and facing down opponents who themselves beat our school’s closest rivals in an effortless, 4-1 victory.

In more metanarrative terms, this feels like a fight that could theoretically go anywhere, but will most likely end up being a dedicated celebration of team karuta. My reasoning for that is pretty simple – this is the very last match that our crew will compete in as a team for a full year, and the joy of playing karuta as a group has always been one of Chihayafuru’s most enduring threads, so this is basically the last, best chance to center a conflict on that particular theme for a long time to come. Additionally, the board pieces have been deliberately set up to allow a dramatic team match to further several character arcs. Tsukuba, whose fatal flaw has been his selfishness and unwillingness to trust in the team, needs to learn to care about his teammates’ fortunes, and contribute to an effort that’s greater than himself. Arata, who’s spent full seasons pining for his friends, is now primed for a dramatic appearance that revives their spirits and rekindles their friendship at their lowest point. And even Shinobu has now been characterized as a person defined by loneliness and contemptuous of team karuta – I frankly think her turn might have to wait for the third year, but it’s still very relevant here.

Maybe none of these variables will be used in the ways I expect, but regardless, I’m very excited for the finals. Our heroes have come a long way and earned many victories, and they’re currently all fitted with resonant personal arcs primed to add a human component to all this tactical drama. Chihayafuru is an extremely confident narrative, and we’re arriving at what almost has to be a dramatic peak. Let’s get to the fireworks!

Episode 15

Ah, Kana actually injured herself. She jammed her finger and yet still managed to win her game

Kana being as honorable as ever, talking about how it’s great that their ace wasn’t injured while crying. Oh Kana

The dramatic strings feel like a bit much, but this show pretty often dances in fairly melodramatic space, so it’s not too much of a tonal break

Alright, this is good. We’re now getting Tsukuba’s internal thoughts, as he berates himself for not realizing Kana was injured. Tsukuba’s gotten a bit of development here and there, but he’s still the clown of the group, and this match could easily be a turning point for him

The Empress notes what rocks Tsutomu and Kana have become. From the hesitant newbies, they’ve become perhaps the two most dependable and selfless members of the group

Checking in with Retro and the other defeated Hokuo members. Is it time to start building up our new opponents?

One of the tournament organizers mistakenly thought Arata was there for Retro’s team, putting the ball in Retro’s court as far as the Arata drama goes. An interesting way to keep Hokuo’s characters relevant for this last act

Fujisaki, the finals opponents, apparently have a policy of “always switching in one younger player for the finals.” This feels very arbitrary, and the fact that we’re having two audience unknowns rush through explaining it to each other only underlines that

On the other hand, this segment is pretty successfully building up the ruthlessness of this coach, and the generally adversarial tone of their team

And here she is – that red-haired girl the show kept cutting to is the new addition to the enemy, second year Rion Yamashiro. Seems like we’re setting her up as a dark horse enemy – perhaps our team underestimates her, places her against Tsukuba, and that’s how this becomes a Tsukuba-focused episode? Or she could just be Chihaya’s opponent

One of the older players explodes at Rion, saying how she’s creepy and should have refused to play. So is Rion our “emotionless karuta machine” character?

I’m actually really liking what we’re seeing of Ms. Sakurazawa, the Fujisaki coach. They call her scary and heartless, but she doesn’t seem deliberately cruel, just a very dedicated and pragmatic coach who really wants to build the best possible team

Hokuo’s coach admires her for her dedication to her mission, in a beautiful shot that contrasts her against falling stars. He’s a good choice for voicing this admiration, as he himself is about as unforceful as a coach can be, and more a mascot than mentor

“Think of this like facing five Sudos.” Thanks for that, Tsutomu

Taichi notes that the guy who didn’t express himself at all on Fujisaki’s team “looks a lot like Arata.” I guess we’re baiting his personality reveal, then. They sure are setting up a wide array of hooks to yank on during this match – this guy, Rion’s power, however Hokuo pops up, etcetera

Tsutomu readily admits he probably won’t be able to win his match. Our chances seem pretty slim here

Oh nooo, they brought in an incredibly high-level reader for the finals, and now Kana’s sobbing about missing the chance to play with her. Cruel fate, how you torment these tiny pigtails

Rion is facing down Chihaya, and is apparently the granddaughter of the famous reader. We’re going into this match with literally zero knowledge of this girl’s ability or playstyle, and it’s very exciting

Nishida is facing down Manata, the guy who needs to avenge his partner. A fine pairing

And yeah, Taichi versus this mysterious Arata-like glasses guy, who’s actually the team captain. He’s the other one the show has made a big effort to keep mysterious, and now this scene is framing this as a matter of pride, Taichi’s determination to represent his team and even beat Arata if he has to

Makoto, the bitter one who was angry at Rion, is facing down Tsutomu. Tsutomu throws him off his game immediately by calling him out on his own tell, ahaha

Ah, that’s why we’ve had this Hokuo focus – there’s also the third place match with Hokuo fighting Megumu’s group. I don’t feel we’re really invested enough in their stories to warrant much dramatic attention for that match, but it could act as a reasonable tonal counterpoint to the finals

And here’s Retro fulfilling his clearest role – heading off to convince Arata to watch this finals match. I initially wondered why Retro was being tied in here, but it fits nicely for his character, given he and Taichi are both fighting to reach Class A. This is essentially his show of respect to Taichi

Oh my god Arata, would you stop being so goddamn honorable and just go watch the match

Shinobu’s bitterness towards team matches continues to feel a teensy bit arbitrary – her feelings make perfect sense thematically, since she’s basically the lonely throne incarnate, but I can’t necessarily buy that she’d feel so invested in making sure Taichi also avoids this team match. I think her relationship with Taichi is the crux of it – we haven’t gotten nearly enough flashbacks or present-day conversations to see their relationship as meaningful, and thus her intrusions into Arata’s personal conflict here naturally feel arbitrary as well

We get a brief, perhaps imagined evil smile from Rion. I feel like “seemingly emotionless, secretly a sadist” has a bit too much overlap with Megumu’s character type, but we’ll see how this plays out

“Rion has the breasts of an infant.” Oh c’mon, they slowroll the reveal of this Arata-like dude, and it turns out he’s just obsessed with boobs?

Apparently Makoto is actually in love with Rion. We are getting a pretty bizarre drama sampling from this enemy team

“So this is the extent of the ears of the best team players.” Shinobu affecting her absolute best supervillain impression to act haughty about the team players

“They have fun fooling around together, so far away from the cards.” In the past, Chihaya has correctly intuited that Shinobu’s strength is partially based in her personal, emotional relationship with the cards. Here, unsurprisingly, Shinobu is framing that personal connection as a direct reflection of her isolation – implying that if she weren’t isolated, she couldn’t possibly be as good. This is the sort of backwards justification for unhappiness you see all the time – “I’m not lonely, I’m just choosing to not waste my time with others, and I’m actually stronger because of it!” It’s a flimsy but very human psychological pretense, and a natural conflict for Shinobu’s character

“If I beat him, maybe things will change.” Taichi is working very hard to convince himself this fight could be a turning point for him, to the extent of forcefully assigning Arata’s personal qualities to his opponent so he can play-act overcoming his hangups

Meanwhile, his opponent just cares about boobs

And Done

Hahaha wow, that episode was weird as fuck. I mean, right? I figured Fujisaki would be built up as a team of titans, but instead they seem like a totally unfocused bunch of gag characters, from the guy who’s tsundere for Rion to the guy who looks like Arata but only thinks about boobs. On top of that, we basically had a shotgun blast of character development in every direction, with characters as diverse as Taichi, Shinobu, and even Retro-kun getting some key emotional beats. I feel like Chihayafuru just tossed around fifteen narrative balls in the air, and I’m not really sure how it plans on juggling them all through this match, but I’m game for the attempt. It’s time for the team match finals!

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