Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 3

Alright everyone, we’ve not a moment to waste here. Chihayafuru’s third season has begun, and within two brief episodes, we’ve already found ourselves in the midst of one more tournament arc. While Chihayafuru is very comfortable executing on training arcs, episodic vignettes, and sequences focused on propelling its central relationships, it is undoubtedly most comfortable, and most entertaining, in the midst of its regular tournament arcs.

And why not? When it comes to stories based around one-on-one competitions like karuta, and particularly ensemble productions like this, the tournament arc is the most natural venue for compressing all of a narrative’s strengths into a concise dramatic structure, complete with naturally rising tension and a continuous feed of fresh antagonists. No need to find some contrived excuse for gathering and battling all your prior enemies: they’re there for the tournament, and that’s explanation enough. The trajectory of your protagonist can be balanced by the journeys of their friends, while the natural winnowing of a tournament’s progression means that as the active battles get more intense, the in-show audience is filled with beloved characters to cheer them on. As Nishida just demonstrated, even one-on-one tournaments don’t have to feel isolating: our heroes are fighting together, and given how well this show has built up all their relationships, I can truly believe in their camaraderie and mutual trust. Let’s dive back into Chihayafuru’s pre-Masters tournament!

Episode 3

“High schoolers sure are formidable.” I do wonder what the actual demographic makeup of competitive karuta looks like. In Chihayafuru, it makes sense that high schoolers are so dominant, because all of our protagonists are high schoolers, and most of the people they interact with are going to be high schoolers as well. But at the same time, it’s clear that you can’t really make any money playing karuta, and thus it’s not something you can treat as an actual “career” in the way shogi players do, meaning it very well might be dominated by people young enough to dedicate all their time to playing. Karuta also seems particularly punishing to older players, with its extreme focus on reaction time and reflexes

We’re introduced to this tournament’s new ringer – Inokuma Haruka, a former queen for four years running who’s just now returned from maternity leave. She’s adorable!

I kinda love how this show always pulls out those classic “introducing our hero’s TERRIFYING next opponent” beats, but the characters they’re introducing are like, Shinobu in a Snowmaru shirt, or this nice mom here

Haruka and Sakurazawa are well-acquainted, unsurprisingly. I wonder if Sakurazawa was an active challenger during the time Haruka was queen

Nice to see this episode actually tackling the awkwardness of competing as an adult, with Haruka feeding her nursing child between rounds

Chihaya’s right hand is still an issue, but they’re framing it as “not back at full strength,” rather than a genuine health problem. I’m glad for that; I think Chihayafuru has basically run out of times it can physically incapacitate Chihaya to delay her ascension

Meanwhile, Taichi and Arata are off having a Fated Meeting

The two discuss ways to reset their memorization between rounds, which seems like an impossible task to me. I’m bad at rote memorization even given ample time to study – having to not just memorize a board state within minutes, but then also actively forget that board state in order to refresh the slate, sounds absurd

This strategy discussion is so nice! The minutiae of how you maintain an accurate mental image of the board during a board-shifting match is something it’d be very hard to gracefully articulate within a match, since the spectators can’t really parse it, and the active players would only be explaining it to themselves. But it works wonderfully here, as banter between friends who are both interested in strategy, while also enriching our understanding of their unique play styles

Also nice to see Arata being vulnerable as he asks Taichi about making a karuta team. Arata was more a narrative destination than a character for quite a long time, and so it’s fulfilling to see this more personal, uncertain side of him

Taichi immediately tenses up at Arata confessing he wants to play team matches, with the camera and his hair hiding his eyes until he gives Arata one last death-stare. And yet, as he walks away, Taichi’s repeated mental refrain is “what is my problem?” He knows he’s being unfair to Arata, knows his feelings of anger and insecurity are his own problem, and yet he can’t help but feel the petty things he’s feeling. Stuff like this is why Taichi is easily my favorite character in this show – he’s a messy character who’s well aware of his own failings, and working to improve, but still regularly bound by his own selfish feelings, and thus often full of self-loathing. He’s human, in short

The frustration of knowing exactly what he’s doing wrong, but being unable to escape his own mental cycles. “Think of all those matches where I lost to myself!” Karuta can be such a painful experience for Taichi

Aw, this is a really charming exchange between Sakurazawa and the Empress. I love how this show has depicted the Empress’s slow engagement into karuta, as someone who’s clearly not an enthusiast herself, but still dedicated to supporting her students. No one in this show is judged for not knowing things about karuta – it’s all about the joy of discovery

From Chihaya’s perspective, Taichi is actually doing very well – it’s his first Class A tournament, after all. But Taichi isn’t really capable of appreciating that, since his true destination is still so far away

Alright, pairings are up! Aaand holy shit, it’s all titanic faceoffs. Yumin versus Arata, Sudo versus Rion, and, uh, Harada versus that child prodigy girl

Meanwhile, Chihaya faces off against the goddamn Master runner-up, Takemura

Sudo knows that Rion can easily fall off her rhythm, and Sudo loves to knock people off their rhythm

Taichi starts up a conversation with Sudo’s weirdo teammate, and immediately regrets it

Meanwhile, Kana’s got her eye on a different prize – carefully observing this round of sixteen’s master speaker. I am really looking forward to the payoff for Kana’s arc, both because Kana is the best, and also because Kana’s material is when Chihayafuru tends to get the most imaginative in its visuals. I assume her eventual ascension to a great reader will ultimately be illustrated through a lot of beautiful visions of the hundred poems

She thinks he’s using a stopwatch to time himself, but he’s just tweeting. Goddamnit

Even Kana’s appreciation of this reader is draped in glorious light and color

As the best player we know who’s now out of the tournament, Nishida essentially becomes our default commentary crew

We at last get the reveal of Chihaya’s career survey response: she wrote that she wanted to become a high school teacher, but only so she could be a karuta club advisor. An honest and incredibly flattering answer for the Empress to receive, and one she wants to honor by doing her best to support Chihaya. I LOVE THIS GOOD SHOW ABOUT GOOD PEOPLE

Meanwhile, Chihaya is plowing ahead in her movement towards “silent karuta.” She’s been training for at least half a season now to use only as much force as is necessary to take cards; like Shinobu, who just barely brushes the corner of any card she takes. At last, that training is starting to pay off

“It must be tough having so many mental and physical weaknesses.” Sudo sure does love being an asshole

It’s neat to watch Chihaya actually moving past the things that initially defined her competitive style. At first, Chihaya’s incredibly aggressive movements were her signature, since they symbolized her general speed of reaction. Now she’s learning to maintain that speed without the wasted movement, thus training herself out of her own “signature move”

Ooh, I really like this shot that pans back for the first meeting between Chihaya and Haruka. The initial emphasis on the speaker’s head, as well as the soft focus, allows the show to get away with a trick that naturally highlights the artificiality of our visual plane, as nearer competitors are shortened relative to the background plane, in order to simulate a camera panning up and backwards to a higher perspective

There are all sorts of ways to simulate movement without actually fluidly animating that movement, but most of them tend to also draw attention to the artificiality of the animated frame. Using them is thus often a tradeoff between visual congruity and dramatic effect

Sakurazawa offers more context on her relationship with Haruka – apparently they actually were direct rivals, and Sakurazawa challenged her four friggin’ times. So was the Queen qualifier match just Haruka versus Sakurazawa for four years running?

Haruka is a natural genius of the game. When Sakurazawa asks her how she plays so well, she just responds “oh, I can just hear the cards well.” That must have been an aggravating response to someone as strategy-minded as Sakurazawa, similar to Taichi’s feelings of frustration regarding his far more naturally gifted friends

That’s a conversation I’d like to see – Sakurazawa and Taichi discussing the nature of talent

“This isn’t going to end well.” Goddamnit Taichi

Taichi is getting stuck up in his own head as usual, but gets a mental reset courtesy of his training partners, who give him a light bump on the head as he passes by. Reset, Taichi. Your friends are with you

As someone who suffers from pretty serious anxiety, I can really relate to how much of Taichi’s struggle is based in trapping yourself in these unproductive mental loops

“I don’t care about being Queen. I just want to get my rice and defend Fujisaki’s reputation.” Bless you Rion

Unsurprisingly, Sakurazawa was wise to pair off Chihaya with Rion. Rion isn’t a self-starter, but Chihaya’s voice in her head keeps her fighting

Arata wins against Yumin, without even really understanding or countering her rules lawyer strategy. Arata too strong

His easy victory points to a fundamental truth of sports drama, or compelling conflict more generally: tactics only matter when competitors are reasonably close in overall skill level. You want challenges to be difficult enough to demand strategic thinking, but not so difficult they’re insurmountable, something also true in, say, game encounter design

Taichi and Chihaya both win!

Sakurazawa’s final answer to the Empress begins with “part of it comes down to the times and luck,” a nod to her own time as runner-up

And her next fight is against Haruka, of course

And Done

AW SHIT, WE’RE REALLY IN IT NOW. The show is flying through this tournament at a blistering pace, but that itself feels like a reflection of just how many characters we’re actually following this time. The only even slightly major characters who lost this episode were Sudo and Yumin, meaning the quarterfinals will include Arata, Taichi, Harada, and Rion, in addition to the Chihaya match. And we haven’t even really found out how Haruka plays yet! I AM EXTREMELY EXCITED.

This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.

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