It’s time. It’s time! IT’S TIME! It’s been thirteen long months since I concluded my journey through Chihayafuru’s second season, and season three has finally arrived! SIT THE FUCK DOWN EVERYONE, IT’S TIME FOR CHIHAYA SATURDAY.

Alright, I know it’s probably a little inconsiderate of me to say “finally,” considering some of you have been waiting six friggin’ years for this season. But Chihayafuru is just such a fun, lovable property that even my much shorter wait has felt pretty interminable, and to those of you who’ve actually waited the full six years, I salute your fortitude. It has been far too long since we’ve spent time with Chihaya and the gang, and I couldn’t be happier to be back here with the karuta crew, and all of you as well.

When we last left off Chihayafuru, a great number of our key characters had just experienced a variety of major transitions. Arata at last returned to competitive karuta, and ended up beating Shinobu in his first major match, prompting immediate speculation about his path towards the master seat. However, Arata’s victory might have ultimately ended up impacting Shinobu’s journey more than his own, by pushing her another step closer towards embracing karuta as a communal activity. Meanwhile, Taichi at last earned his entry into Class A, and will be joining Chihaya for intensive training under the badass Sakurazawa. With all our leads on new paths and the rest of Chihaya’s team gearing up for fall tournaments, we’ve got plenty to look forward to from the season to come. Let’s return at last to the wonderful Chihayafuru!

Episode 1

A gentle, familiar return in both aesthetic and narrative terms. Morio Asaka’s consistent soft lighting and warm, pastel colors reintroduce Chihayafuru’s usual aesthetic, as we witness a scene we’ve seen many times before – young Arata thanking his friends for playing with him

“As long as we keep playing, we’ll see each other again!” And we’ve actually started reaching the fulfillment of that promise now, as Arata finally returns to professional karuta

I have heard “Naniwa Bay, now the flower blooms, but for winter” so many god dang times

I like this little vignette about a middle school-aged Chihaya, which is basically reintroducing the show’s fundamentals through an entirely new story. The greater point here seems to be to remind of Chihaya’s personality, and of her uniquely talented ears, but that information is being conveyed through an actual story, rather than overt exposition

Her friend is Michiru Horikawa

Ah, now I see the real purpose of this segment – to reintroduce the audience to the rules of karuta as a whole. We’re not introducing a novice like Hanayo to the continuing narrative this season, so in order to catch the audience up on the tactical intricacies of karuta in a hurry, we’re dipping back to a time when Chihaya explained the rules to a different friend

Chihaya gets a perfect score against her friend, of course. It remains hilarious to me that Chihaya has managed to gather such a dedicated group of karuta-playing companions, in spite of being one of the worst possible evangelists for the game. “Hey, check out this fun game where I will TOTALLY DESTROY YOU”

“I don’t understand karuta that well, but I can see how much you love it!” I suppose that is her saving grace – her pure love of the sport is very infectious

More quick reminders of key plot beats as we pass by Taichi and Arata, highlighting Taichi’s theft of Arata’s glasses (which simultaneously reminds us of his intense feelings for Chihaya), and then Arata’s relationship with his grandfather. Playful use of character theming here – the wipe transition to Arata’s house is a bunch of snowflakes

And with a final reminder of Arata’s current motivation, we jump to the OP… which appears to be entirely constructed of prior season footage. Welp, maybe the OP isn’t actually complete yet

We begin the season proper on the exact shot we left off, with Taichi and Chihaya arriving for training

Sakurazawa’s Fujisaki Karuta Club is built on a strong foundation of athletic training. As expected, she treats her students as athletes on a fiercely competitive team, not buddies at an after-school club. The drill sergeant our heroes need

Apparently Retro and some of his teammates were also scouted. There’s no false pride informing Sakurazawa’s teaching methods; if she meets strong opponents she thinks her students can learn from, she’ll happily include them in her training

“Suffer now so you can endure the toughest matches with ease!” She puts them through more matches in a day than they’d actually experience in a tournament, thus preparing them to feel fresh even in their final matches. Sakurazawa is a champion

It turns out she was never Queen, but she was runner-up five times. Chihaya heart throbs at this, and I agree

And we check back in with Makoto and Rion, with Makoto apparently now having graduated. I forgot how adorable these two are, and hope Chihaya becomes better friends with Rion this season

The other girls ask Chihaya what she’s doing for the summer, and she just mentions her various karuta activities, and then smiles at the ceiling while thinking about karuta. Bless you Chihaya, I missed you

Chihaya getting all excited for Love Talk. Some very charming expression work here, though this has been a relatively conservative premiere animation-wise

This season seems to be using cut-in character portraits to echo what’s presumably a consistent visual tic in the manga – commentary by other characters in the corner of panels. It’d be easy for this effect to seem confusing in anime form though, since the screen creates a more cohesive sense of space through its total focus on one “panel” at a time, as well as the use of color, which could easily make an effect like this look cluttered or outright confusing. Their solution seems to be to give each of these cut-in portraits a “shadow” ringing them in a full pastel shade, which clearly differentiates them from the active drama, and tells us they’re not actually in the scene

Thoughts of love always return Chihaya to Arata

Meanwhile, Taichi meets the new Fujisaki club president, Hyuga Yoshihiko

Heh, I love this shot of Retro rambling at the screen as Chihaya gaily waves her friends off in the background. This is a comic beat that actually benefits from animation, with both Chihaya’s dorky wave and the sliding movement of her friends bolstering the impact

Retro gives Chihaya a likely true, but also painful piece of wisdom: that Taichi generally plays better when Chihaya’s not around

At the same time, this conversation also baits a future battle I’d absolutely love to see: Taichi versus Chihaya in an actual tournament match

Sakurazawa sets up a sort of “mock tournament,” but then sets Chihaya against Rion for three straight matches. HERE COMES THE FRIENDSHIP TRAIN

“Rion lacks stamina and an attachment to karuta.” And Chihaya, who has karuta attachment to spare, will hopefully rub off on her

Rion isn’t quite as good as Chihaya, and the show’s found multiple ways to circumvent that and even up their matches – first through Rion’s power multiplier due to her familiarity with the speaker last season, and now through Chihaya’s negative penalty for playing with her left hand

This training camp neatly allows us to fit a nearly challenger-tier match into the season’s first dang episode

Man, if Chihaya learns to play equally well with both arms, she will be a ridiculous threat

Rion apparently plays karuta so she can eat lots of rice. A true champion

She mentions next year’s high school championships, and Chihaya immediately perks up, and we hear the sound of cicadas contrasted against the bright green leaves. Both of these signifiers point back towards that tournament, and towards Chihayafuru’s most persistent image – the team staring up at that great shrine gate

“What do you think it means to have ‘good game sense?’”

Ooh, I am so excited for this. Chihaya has developed a whole bunch of individual “weapons” for her play, but she’s never really pursued any larger, overarching strategy – as she says, she’s mostly just taking individual cards. But the show’s been building up her interest in developing strategic strengths as well as physical ones, and I’m eager to see how that pays off

Rion’s use of similar-but-slightly-different placements is messing with Chihaya’s memorization. The unique strategic conflicts of dealing with the same opponent multiple times in a row

Sakurazawa corrects Chihaya’s posture, and says “all Masters and Queens have had good posture.”

This lights a fire under Rion as well, who seems to envy Chihaya’s special treatment

And after their matches, Rion actually gives Chihaya a key piece of advice founded in her hearing-based play. When she’s forced to listen to less polished speakers, Rion doesn’t try to identify the exact pre-vocal sound; instead, she simply tries to classify that sound as low or high pitch, thus still narrowing the potential cards

WHAT, THEY SKIPPED OVER TAICHI AND CHIHAYA’S PRACTICE MATCH. THOSE JERKS

Taichi throws down the ultimate challenge/pledge/confession – that he’ll beat Chihaya in a professional match this fall

Sakurazawa ends the episode on a resounding refutation of Retro’s hypothesis: that Taichi only needs confidence, and “there is a kind of confidence only Chihaya can give him”

And Done

AW CRAP YOU GUYS THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN. This wasn’t even a particularly momentous episode, but it was wonderful to return to Chihaya and the gang, and I already feel totally caught up on the show’s active drama. What recapping we experienced here was efficient and graceful, and consistently matched with either forward narrative momentum or at the very least new flashbacks. Taichi and Chihaya have both been set on clear paths forward, and Sakurazawa’s brutal training regimen has given the show a natural excuse to pit some of its strongest competitors against each other. I’m thrilled to be back watching Chihayafuru, and happy to see it’s just as cheerful and entertaining as ever!

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