The team battles continue in Chihayafuru! There’s no time for messing around anymore – with the Fujisaki team fully introduced and the reader already reaching for the first card, it’s looking like this episode will be the first act of the team finals from start to finish. We’ve also got a wide variety of subconflicts set up for this tumultuous climax, so let’s quickly break down where we’re at on that front!

First off, Chihaya actually doesn’t seem like she’ll be the focus of this match, at least in an emotional sense. She just went through a focus match against Megumu, and beyond that, Chihaya’s attachment to this match is fully an extension of her desire to succeed with her team. There will certainly be plenty of Chihaya material, but my read so far is that her segments will focus on a combination of figuring out her mysterious opponent and general “we’re doing it together” team emphasis.

Taichi seems like a more reasonable focus character, and it seems like he himself is framing beating this Arata-resembling opponent as him mentally overcoming his Arata-related insecurities. With Arata actually in the building, it seems very likely that Taichi’s big turn and Arata’s long-awaited appearance will end up overlapping.

Tsukuba is our third potential focus character, and his regret over not noticing Kana’s injury last time leaves me suspecting this may be the point where his selfishness as a competitor is directly addressed. Tsukuba has always played for himself at the expense of the team, but here in the team finals, his attitude and the overall spirit of the event may come to blows at last.

Beyond those three, I somewhat doubt Tsutomu will be prioritized, and get the feeling Nishida will just be a sturdy role player like usual. Of course, if you extend our scope beyond Chihaya’s team, we’ve got ongoing character arcs focused on Arata, Shinobu, Retro-kun, Hanano, half the members of the Fujisaki team, and plenty of other people I’m sure I’m forgetting. The dominoes are stacked up and ready to fall here in the long-awaited team finals. Let’s get right to it!

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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!

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It’s time for some more Chihayafuru! And holy crap, look at that, we’re already into the second half of the second season. Normally, this would be the point where I start lamenting the approach of Chihayafuru’s end; fortunately, given we exist in the blessed timeline that somehow also features an upcoming Chihayafuru season three, I have very little to grumble about. As for this episode in particular, we’re currently right in the middle of what could be the closest match Chihaya’s ever participated in.

Chihaya was pretty much thrashed by Shinobu and eventually overrun by Yumin, but Megumu might well be the toughest opponent she can actually, currently overcome. Last episode focused closely on the tactical interplay of these two closely matched and similarly gifted players, building up both Megumu and her team around her all the while. With this match focusing so closely on Chihaya specifically, I’m guessing the upcoming finals match will be the true “ensemble performance” highlight, where teamwork is the main focus – in the meantime, I’m very much enjoying this bare-knuckle brawl between Chihaya and Megumu. Megumu’s lead has disappeared, but the support of her teammates has brought her passion back to life. Let’s see if that’s enough to take down Chihaya in one more thrilling episode of Chihayafuru!

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Alright, let’s get back to work on our journey through Chihayafuru! Now that the last episode is out of earshot and we can be brutally honest, I’ll be frank: what the fuck was that. We started that episode concurrently with the beginning of the team tournament’s semifinals, and by the end of the episode, I’m pretty sure we’d only made it through four, possible five actual cards of that match. Yes, sure, the episode had other priorities (like building up Chihaya’s opponent Megumu as a Yumin-tier side character), but that’s such a glacial pace of conflict on its face that I can’t help but grumble a bit. Good fiction is able to make tiny moments feel like endless gaps of time, but Chihayafuru’s last episode wasn’t entirely able to keep its twenty minutes from feeling a whole lot like two minutes of actual action stretched into twenty minutes of episode.

That said, all the buildup that consumed Chihayafuru’s last episode should theoretically be paid off right here in this one. Megumu has now been sturdily established as an opponent who embodies many of Chihaya’s own skills, but who feels more comfortable executing on her overall range of abilities than Chihaya. With a full episode of arc-tending and character-establishing behind us, we could be diving into one of the most fully tactics-focused episodes of the show so far, and I’m thrilled to be here. Let’s get right back to Chihayafuru!

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Our journey through Chihayafuru continues! The last episode was more of a role-filler than a standout, but it did a fine job of both articulating and celebrating just how much Tsutomu’s research helps the team, an unglamorous role that doesn’t really lend itself to pulse-pounding narrative drama. And having emphasized the close bonds of Chihaya’s original five teammates, those teammates are now all on the field at last, fighting in the semifinals of the friggin’ national tournament. This is the closest this team has ever gotten to the top, and possibly the closest they’ll ever get, so I’m guessing every match from here out will be its own reward – a very close competition designed to thrill purely based on its tactical interplay, not just fit some role in a larger narrative. And with Chihaya now facing down the woman Yumin beat to challenge the Queen, we’re guaranteed at least one desperate and extremely high-level karuta battle. The preamble has been ambled and the preliminary matches liminaried – let’s buckle in for a high-intensity episode of CHIHAYAFURU!

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At long last, we’re back for more Chihayafuru! Well, maybe “at long last” from where you’re standing – from my position, I actually just finished writing up the previous episode a few hours ago, and simply couldn’t wait to continue the group tournament. I tricked you into thinking an equal amount of time had passed for both of us by feigning familiarity, a little bit of “movie magic” for all you folks back home.

Anyway, yes, Chihayafuru. The previous episode was indeed a can’t-put-down tier one, and not even because it was centered on any particularly climactic or stressful match – it was just a well-articulated team battle from start to finish, making the absolute most of a lopsided team of opponents with one very specific strength. “This team has mastered quiz games so well they’re natural card memorizers” wouldn’t seem like the most dramatically fertile of gimmicks, but it ended up resulting in a fight that highlighted both Chihaya’s greatest strength (her buzzer-beating speed, now defined more as a trainable skill than a natural talent) and her greatest weakness (her emotional flappability and inability to handle unexpected situations). And with that match concluded and Arata’s tournament eligibility confirmed, it seems likely we may get a more bare-knuckle brawl this time, involving the entire team in a generally close match. But first, let’s see what Nishida has to say about Tsutomu!

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Captain’s Log: I am currently five days into preview week, and team morale is approaching dangerously low levels. If the crew have to struggle through one more awful isekai or rote otome adaptation, I’m not sure what might happen. In light of this, I’m requisitioning one (1) episode of Chihayafuru to raise team spirits, reminding everyone that anime can also be good and fun and not an exhausting, spirit-breaking experience. Give my regards to the folks back home, and pray for our safe return.

Folks, it’s time for Chihayafuru. Our last episode turned out to be an unexpectedly important digression from Chihaya’s team tournament, as Arata arrived and found himself roped into secretly helping an entirely different team. In base narrative terms, the only major takeaway from that digression was “Arata is now in danger of being disqualified from the singles tournament” – a dash of fairly arbitrary drama, and a threat that I’m really hoping is just there to be an empty cliffhanger. On the other hand, in connecting-with-the-cast terms, Arata’s match was an absolutely essential bit of relationship building for Arata and the audience. Arata doesn’t need to connect with the other characters – he needs to connect with us, and join his costars as an approachable human being. Last episode did an excellent job of furthering that goal, and I’m very ready to see the show follow through on his newfound relatability. Let’s get to the karuta!

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Today we’re diving back into Chihayafuru! I was expecting last week’s episode to get us into the meat of the team tournament, but instead it used the first round more to celebrate the individual strengths of all our leads in a very low-stakes competitive situation. The charming team of ostensible foreigners were a fun group, and I appreciated how Tsutomu has naturally settled into a support role for the team, but I’m frankly ready for some blood. This annual team tournament is perhaps the only time Chihayafuru can fully make use of its ensemble, team-focused setup – every member of the team is simultaneously crucial here, leading to matches that can sometimes struggle to highlight everyone, but are always rich with drama worth mining. The regional matches leading up to that showdown with Retro were some of the most exciting the show has pulled off yet, and considering how well the show has built up Chihaya’s teammates over these thirty-some episodes, pretty much every team match episode feels like a direct payoff for all the training they’ve suffered. With the opening match cleared and Tsukuba having already gotten his chance to shine, I’m ready for the original five to turn some heads. Let’s get right to the action!

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It’s time for Nationals, everyone! After an extremely close loss in the regional tournament against their fiercest rivals, Chihaya and the gang are setting off for the national-level team tournament for the very, er, second time. The last time this tournament came about, Tsutomu and Kana were barely integrated into the team, and Chihaya’s collapse due to injury prevented the group from really getting anywhere. That collapse was a fairly natural narrative twist at the time; after all, Kana and Tsutomu weren’t nearly good enough to compete on a national level then, and their arcs needed a great deal more fleshing out before Chihaya’s crew could compete as a tactically cohesive group of five.

In contrast, Chihaya’s current team is composed of characters who’ve all survived individual arcs, all committed and recommitted to karuta, and all grown closer over time. This tournament is no longer dramatically hamstrung by the imbalanced dynamic of Chihaya’s team, and given this is the biggest team tournament they’ll experience this particular year, it seems very likely that the story will now embrace all the match-by-match theater it skipped over last time. Chihayafuru has essentially set up its dominoes to allow this tournament to be payoff after payoff all the way through, and I’m very excited to see just what’s in store. Let’s settle in for another episode of Chihayafuru!

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It’s time for more Chihayafuru, ya knuckleheads! With the regional team tournament now complete, the doors are open for this episode to prioritize basically any drama it wants to. Just like how the regional tournament last year was the moment that fully integrated Tsutomu into the group, the last scene of our last episode seemed to imply that both Hanano and Tsukuba are now invested in the team for genuinely karuta-related reasons, and no longer simply hanging around to achieve their own peripheral goals. That means it could easily be time to begin Hanano’s competitive arc, where we establish her style of play and explicate more karuta fundamentals through training, but we could just as easily leap straight from the regional to national tournament, and keep up the focus on our main team. After the satisfying but almost exhausting run of matches at regionals, I’d actually be fine with an episode that slows down a little, but Chihayafuru has never been one to slow its roll. Let’s dive right into one more episode of Chihayafuru!

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