What the heck are we even doing now, folks? Following its initial tournament and the Chihaya-Taichi faceoff, basically all the rest of season three has so far been dedicated to the leadup and dramatic battles of the Master and Queen challenger matches – and now, those matches are over. Both Harada and Haruka proved themselves unable to defeat the defending champions, and the gauntlet has already been thrown down for Arata and Chihaya’s next-year challenge. But that challenge is still twelve friggin’ months away, and in the meantime, Chihayafuru’s stars will be navigating their last year of high school, and deciding where their lives go from here. After a long, long segment of purely tournament-focused drama, Chihayafuru is at last raising its head back out of the sand, and acknowledging a wider world once more. So where do its characters go from here?
For Taichi, the next step seems to be “reclaim confidence through seizing more tournament victories.” Taichi’s ideas of self-improvement all generally end up being some kind of self-flagellation, and with his mother now actively aware he’s been disobeying her, it surely won’t be long until he has to directly confront their differing perspectives on his future. For Chihaya, the end of this tournament means the questions she’s been delaying answering return to the foreground: what steps will she be taking to actually become a teacher, and how is she planning to answer Arata? And for Arata himself, well, he’s always been the wildcard – though having now challenged Suo directly, I imagine he’ll soon be consulting with Harada, or perhaps powering through more tournaments of his own. Whatever happens, the narrative gates have been opened wide, and I’m eager to see where this story now goes. Let’s get to it!
