It’s generally a good policy to design your stories with a planned beginning, middle, and endpoint. Certainly leave yourself room for creative twists and new discoveries along the way, but beginning with a coherent, planned structure is crucial if you want your story to feel like a satisfying, cohesive saga. Of course, not all stories can afford to open with knowledge of their ending – particularly stories in mediums like weekly manga, where concerns like “what new variables can I introduce to keep readers hooked” will often trump more luxurious questions like “how do these new variables further articulate my story’s fundamental point.” Continuing weekly narratives demand novelty, and novelty often ends up evolving into baggage.

Chihayafuru The Movie: Part Three is a work with an awful lot of baggage. As the final film in a trilogy that itself is an adaptation of a sprawling manga with far too many characters to feature, the film was dealt a messier challenge than most. The first film simply had to consolidate the manga’s first major arc into a two hour narrative, and did a terrific job of distilling that arc down to its fundamental variables, while simultaneously rearranging the broader strokes of the manga to better suit its medium. The second film essentially tackled the “Arata arc,” using Arata’s journey from despair to the second year tournament in order to lend emotional structure to an almost adaptation-proof tournament arc. But here in the third film, all three of Chihayafuru’s leads must simultaneously grapple with the end of high school and their pursuit of the karuta crown, while the film rushes to give all its many secondary characters something to do.

The results are messier than the first two films, but still indicative of a keen intelligence in terms of what must be kept, left, and rearranged. Likely the film’s weakest invention is also one of its most crucial – the introduction of Io Wagatsuma, a young woman who opens the film by challenging Shinobu, and then later is revealed to be one of Arata’s underclassmen. Io’s entire role in this film is “stand in for Shinobu that Chihaya can fight,” and her entire personality is “Arata, please go out with me,” but her very existence seems like an acknowledgment that the true heart of Chihayafuru lies in team karuta, not in either romance or challenging the throne. Stuck half a country away, and with his personal drama resolved, Arata quite frankly just needs something to do – and thus he builds his own karuta team, with Io serving as the sounding board for him to talk at in explaining his mission. Arata’s nebulous role in Chihayafuru would be maddening for any adaptive team to handle, and I salute this team for once again “resolving him” with as little messiness as possible.

But if the heart of Chihayafuru is team karuta, what then for Chihaya and Arata’s dreams of challenging the throne? The film’s solution to those conflicts is one of its smartest choices, though to be honest, I’m not actually sure if it’s a choice at all; we’ve moved past the point the anime covers, and so my knowledge of the source material has reached its end. Regardless, this film’s use of Suo Hisashi, the current Meijin (male karuta champion) is so smart that I actually kinda hope the manga uses him this way.

Suo is introduced as gracefully as possible – while Io is established through her battle with Shinobu, Suo is established in the process of crushing Harada-sensei. Suo presents himself as distant from karuta and emotions altogether, but when Arata issues a heartfelt challenge to avenge his old teacher, a smile crosses his lips. Suo agrees to sit on the throne for one more year, as an Eternal Meijin – but in the end, his true challenge comes when Taichi shows up at his training session.

Suo is not challenged in an outright match during this film; as I said, Chihayafuru is ultimately not about proving personal superiority. Instead, it is his outlook that is challenged – his lonely position on the throne, where he seemingly can no longer find any joy in karuta. He initially relates to Taichi because he sees Taichi also can’t find joy in karuta; that he’s playing for someone else, and isn’t truly “all-in” emotionally. Suo sees the intensity of people who truly love karuta as a burden to him, like a responsibility he knows he can’t fulfill, and Taichi begins the film at a similar point – overwhelmed by his own love for Chihaya, certain she’s going to choose Arata, and unable to find the joy in a hopeless cause. But over time, Suo and Taichi each come to understand that they are lying to themselves, and grow stronger for it.

In Suo’s case, his denial of love for karuta comes from an understanding that his own time as a champion is nearly over. Though his play is effortless and gorgeous (the film conveys the power of his ears with great clarity, emphasizing how he can actually move softly because he hears the cards so long before his opponent), he is going prematurely blind, and will soon no longer be able to see the board. Already in his seventh year of university, Suo wishes to hold the clock still, and maintain his control over the game he loves – but he cannot, and so he denies loving it at all.

While Suo quietly reflects on the end of his karuta career, Chihayafuru’s younger stars all grapple with the coming end of high school. Taichi’s struggles are partially informed by the fact that this is such a crucial time for him in terms of college applications; while it is was easier to play karuta for Chihaya’s sake in his early years, he can’t justify throwing away his future in pursuit of an unattainable past. Like the first Chihayafuru film, this third one is most principally a “Taichi film,” which makes as much sense now as it did then. Both Arata and Chihaya are larger-than-life figures, imposing mountains with their eyes on the throne – in contrast, Taichi is just an insecure guy who’s deeply in love with his childhood friend, and doing his best to muddle through. While Arata and Chihaya directly pursue their ideals, Taichi is plagued with doubt, asking his ailing teacher “aren’t you afraid of going that far and having nothing left? Nothing but regret?”

It falls to Suo to remind Taichi of the things that are truly important, and what remains after all else has gone. Having concluded one more begrudging lecture for an audience of half-conscience college students, he sets his chalk back on the board, and scribbles out one of the One Hundred Poems. Turning back to his audience, he states “even though there is no one who can turn back the hands of time, like this poem which has survived for a thousand years, please remember that we have the power to eternally stop a moment in time.” Setting down his chalk, he turns directly to Taichi, and asks, “what are you doing here?”

It’s the crux of the film, and the moment when Suo is truly “defeated.” Actually beating Suo wouldn’t prove anything in an emotional sense – but by making Taichi his true successor, Suo simultaneously relinquishes the throne with grace, and also finds a sense of peace in things ending. That revelation of peace is then shared with Taichi, who rushes back to compete with Chihaya against his true rival. And the film ends in one more thunderous team match, as these heroes we’ve come to love battle against each other, victory and failure secondary to the joyous memory of the moment. Those youthful days of competing as children will never come back, but they will always remain – and so too will this moment, and every future moment they’re brave enough to capture.

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