Folks, we’re watching more Chihayafuru and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. My foot has been put down. I know the risks, I know the consequences, and I’ve made my decision – it is time for Chihayafuru, and that is unequivocally that.

Now that that’s settled, let’s take stock of where we’re at. The finals of the team tournament has seen Chihaya suffering yet another injury, and while it now seems impossible that she could compete in tomorrow’s singles tournament, she’s still holding on against her current opponent Rion. Last episode did a thorough job of establishing Rion’s personal circumstances and very lopsided play abilities, painting her as an opponent who has little chance of becoming a general purpose threat, but who can instantly become a monster when the right card speaker is at the stand. Like their early quiz show-trained opponents, Rion seems like an enemy designed to stress-test Chihaya by matching her own strengths, except Rion is actually a relatively well-rounded opponent, while Chihaya has sprained her dang finger. All the while, Shinobu sits in the front row, learning through the ferocity of Chihaya’s match that team karuta is just as legitimate as singles karuta. I’m not exactly thrilled to watch Chihaya engage in some My Hero Academia-style “victory comes first, I’ll fix my bones after that” desperation, but I am excited to see Shinobu fall for Chihaya’s karuta, and I’m eager to learn how this match resolves either way. Let’s dive right into one more episode of Chihayafuru!

Episode 18

We open with a reminder of Chihaya’s injury, setting the stage for the drama to come. This also leads naturally into Nishida reflecting on how in spite of the girls playing so hard they’ve injured themselves, he’s yet to really contribute to this tournament. So we’ve got mountains for Chihaya and Nishida, at least, though I prefer Nishida’s “I gotta pull my weight on this team!” to Chihaya’s “I gotta play in spite of my finger already being broken”

Jeez, I guess we’re just getting the full last two minutes of the previous episode. I suppose that makes sense if they’re actually going to follow through on last episode’s team-focused final lines, instead of simply using them as dramatic punctuation for last time

Kana gets us up to speed – every single member of our team is losing by somewhere between four and seven cards

“It’s time for you to learn that there are times when spirit alone isn’t enough.” The opposing coach is very comfortable playing the villain, but I don’t blame her for it. She’s not mocking Chihaya’s team, and she’s not here through luck; she herself is the opposing team’s star player, the dedicated manager who’s built them up to this point

Taichi returning to a very reliable source of confidence: “he’s strong, but not as strong as Arata.” This sort of phrasing is common enough to have graduated into sports/shounen drama cliche, but its ubiquity is reflective of the fact that it’s a genuinely real phenomenon that often does lead to competitive breakthroughs. Playing against someone seriously outside your league might not feel like it’s doing much to improve your mechanical skills, but it can do a massive amount to improve your mental skills and general competitive temperament. Once you’ve seen how fast a game can be played in a competitive situation, you’ll often feel less overwhelmed by anything short of that than you would be otherwise, regardless of how you actually match up against that lesser opponent. And in a sport as momentum-driven as karuta, maintaining a positive view of your prospects and your opponent is all the more crucial

(That again points to how Chihaya is so well set up as a protagonist: she sucks at maintaining a consistent mental state, and so her matches seesaw wildly all the time, leading to plenty of drama for us in the audience)

“Arata… I’m happy when I forget you, but then I feel encouraged when I remember you.” The dramatic language of lovers and destined sports rivals is kinda identical, huh

Taichi doing his best to forget all the other placements he’s learned this day. Theoretically a team with a whole lot of players could abuse this quirk of team tournaments, but team tournaments already seem pretty endlessly abusable

“I want to overcome my own analysis.” A very smart setup for Tsutomu’s battle – his rational analysis led him to conclude he’d lose here, but his spirit as an actual competitor wants to rally back against that. It’d be nice to see Tsutomu fight with some fire

Meanwhile, Nishida is remembering his fundamentals and working to play like Taichi, with a focus on the known remaining cards

And Tsukuba’s match is unsurprisingly focusing on his integration into the overall team, through the framing device of the two cards he “absolutely must be good at.” This setup has been terrific; we’ve got clear and unique conflicts for all five of our active competitors

All of them seem to be intentionally taking some of the dramatic pressure off of Chihaya, whose match has simplified a bit since her injury

Tsutomu loses, as his opponent reiterates his love for Rion. Sorry Tsutomu, but it looks like you’re getting sacrificed to the drama inferno this time

Goddamn, this sequence for Chihaya internalizing Kana’s lessons is so good. First off, Kana’s beautiful mental images of the cards have long been one of Chihayafuru’s best visual tricks, adding tonal richness and new colors to a show that most of the time is pretty much split between the yellow of tatami floors and the tan of human faces. But beyond that, this also smartly illustrated how Kana’s style of mental imaging and focusing on tone can be combined with Chihaya’s natural talents, resulting in an ability to chase the right card not just when you’ve confirmed the actual words, but when you’ve confirmed the speaker’s tone relative to the words they’ve already spoken essentially guarantees they’re “moving towards” one particular sentence from among several

Both Kana and Rion’s talents have been a little hard to parse in terms of their actual applicability to matches, but this sequence makes those strengths incredibly clear. If Chihaya can master this, she’ll be able to recognize by tone alone a vast number of cards – she’ll be on her way to matching the king and his absurd number of one-syllable cards

Chihaya recognizes she may not be able to play in the singles tournament. Another expression of her growing team perspective – though of course, Chihaya’s always wanted to play as a team

Weird to see these altered-photography sneakers in a shot that’s otherwise hand-drawn. Some shows can manage altered photography background art, but when it’s just one small element of the composition, it stands out

We get a nice check-in with the losers finals, which are extremely close. They’re certainly built up both these teams well enough for us to care about them, though probably not enough to actually prioritize their match. Megumu’s great though, I’d be happy to follow her story

Oh what, they actually brought up the losers just so they could loudly make team spirit noises in order to annoy Shinobu? That’s cold, Chihayafuru

But yeah, that leads directly into Shinobu reflecting on her own loneliness. She was apparently isolated from other players her own age specifically to avoid learning bad play habits. It makes sense that Shinobu would resent these teams for gleefully celebrating the spirit of camaraderie she’s been denied all her life

Oh my god tiny Shinobu is so adorable ahhhhhh

WHAT THE HECK A REF JUST STEPPED IN WE HAVE REFS REFS EXIST

Okay, okay, we have refs. Karuta is not just a sport you could rise to the top of by arguing over every single card. I am extremely relieved

Rion’s coach correctly analyzes her initial advantage and current weakness – she was better on the three syllable cards that allowed her to take advantage of knowing her grandmother’s tonal cues, but now that it’s down to largely one-syllable cards, she won’t get to react any faster than Chihaya. Rion needed to clean this game up long ago

Man, I’m loving this. I feel like we’re finally at the point where Chihayafuru’s match conflicts aren’t just deliberately established one at a time, but emerge naturally from our existing understanding of player strengths and karuta fundamentals. There’s such an inherent satisfaction to recognizing a tactical conflict at the same time the show starts to illustrate it

Shinobu’s losing her dang mind over on the sidelines. I didn’t really expect this to turn into a “Shinobu match”

Taichi’s opponent seems like a good counterpoint to his general “bad luck” weakness. While Taichi’s luck is indeed terrible, it seems like his opponent also plays in such a way as to minimize mistakes and unlucky breaks, something Taichi could certainly learn from

Tsukuba also goes down. Sorry guys, this just wasn’t a match where the second string players were ever gonna shine

“We’re getting three wins, guys.” THE GAUNTLET IS THROWN!

And Done

Ah jeez, that was so much fun. After a bunch of prep matches and setting up opponents and establishing tactical variables, this episode was basically just payoff after payoff, reveling in the fun of sports matches between thoroughly established and well-matched opponents. Even if Tsukuba and Tsutomu both went down in flames, the focus on Taichi and Chihaya’s struggles meant this episode on the whole actually felt extremely close, and perhaps even favorable for Chihaya’s team. This was a brutal, thrilling episode, and I can’t wait to see this match’s conclusion!

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