Chihayafuru

As a child, Chihaya Ayase had only one dream: to see her elder sister Chitose become Japan's most successful model. However, upon defending her ostracised classmate Arata Wataya from his bully—Chihaya's childhood friend Taichi Mashima—she discovers the world of competitive karuta and soon becomes enamoured with the sport.

Based on the Ogura Hundred Poets anthology, this card game where poems are studied requires excellent memory, agility, and a tremendous endurance from the players. Full of hope, Chihaya joins the Shiranami Society together with the newly reconciled Arata and Taichi, embarking on an exciting journey for the title awarded to the top-ranked female player—Queen of Karuta.

Since middle school, Chihaya grew distant from a dispassionate Taichi and separated from Arata. However, in order to improve her skills, Chihaya decides to create a karuta club in her high school. With the help of Taichi, another veteran player, and a few spirited newcomers, Chihaya's new-founded Mizusawa Karuta Club aims for victory in the Omi Shrine's national championship.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ayase, Chihaya Main

Seto, Asami Japanese

Mashima, Taichi Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Wataya, Arata Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Wakamiya, Shinobu Supporting

Nakamichi, Mihoko Japanese

Ooe, Kanade Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Suou, Hisashi Supporting

Touchi, Hiroki Japanese

Harada, Hideo Supporting

Ishizuka, Unshou Japanese

Sudou, Akito Supporting

Ohara, Takashi Japanese

Komano, Tsutomu Supporting

Yonaga, Tsubasa Japanese

Nishida, Yuusei Supporting

Nara, Tooru Japanese

Maruyama, Masao Producer

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Tsunoki, Takuya Producer

Reviews

Jun 22, 2013

MelKaven

Recommended

"What the hell is Katura?"
Of course, that was my first reaction.
But then...
Wow...
Just wow...

At first, this anime really didn't catch my interest. It was plain and dry, like trying to shape out the dry clay; but as it went on, I found myself immersed in it. Like a sea of colors vibrantly expanding across an infinite of sky. Yes, even now, fifteen minutes after I finally saw the last episode, I am still numbed by its excellence.

**NO SPOILERS**
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...
Story:

In the beginning, the story seemed boring. Predictable. Like a boat streaming across still water. It was lifeless, and simple. I expected it to be like any other Anime with a swindle of a romance eclipsed by the ever flamboyant facade of a sport or activity.

But somewhere, as the series progressed, it seemed to evolve. It seamlessly grew to something more, something beyond the natural limits of a story. It wasn't plagued with typical conflicts or unrequited desires, it was like a light that slowly lit itself brighter and brighter, unblocked by the trends of literature and expectation. Barriers that innately shackled a series' potential seemed to fade away, and every climactic moment that the characters felt was somehow shared with the viewer. As if a crescendo of realization would slay you alongside them.

All in all, it was about the sport, Katura. And, you'd think: "Well, if its just about a sport its not like anything interesting can happen." But somehow, it was different. The sport was a sort of catalyst that helped the characters not only develop towards one another, but it opened the door for an entire world that we all seem to forget, as if blinded by the mundane trudge of life.

The competitive aspect of the game, which yearned for such a demand of stamina seemed to be later eclipsed by the "true" virtue hidden within the sport. Yes, what the beginner sees, and the masters forget: The poetry. Such an attribute slowly became the mortar that gave new meaning to each simple issue that arose during the characters' failures.

It was seamless as we learned with them, through their desperation and hardship; their envy and willpower. The goals kept increasing, and aspirations began to soar, capping only at what the characters truly wanted.

Rating: 10.
tl;dr:
Romance. Friendship. Deeper revelations. Aspiration oriented. Perseverance through strength. No text box storytelling. Failure.

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Art:

The art in this show was interesting. It had primarily bold lines, and definitely took some getting used to. But now that I finished it, I really couldn't imagine this anime any other way.

The thing is, since this show is so off on a tangent in the first place, it seemed necessary to break the norm.

However, I will say that there were moments when I wished that they wouldn't have. The fact of the matter is, the art does well for its purpose, but it seems like it was aimed at a particular niche. I guess it just comes down to personal preference, really.

Nonetheless, the art was still phenomenal. Everything down to lighting was near perfect, and facial expressions were particularly pronounced so as to invoke the true feelings of the characters. Bloom, Sparkles, Glitter, Comical Backdrops, and Chibi Moments; everything seemed in good shape.

Overall, it had a realistic feel. Which held tremors to the viewer considering the entire theme could be realistically translated into anything the viewer truly desired.

Rating: 9
tl;dr:
The art was different, but really you shouldn't have any complaints.

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Sound:

Ah. Sound.

This soundtrack is simply awe inspiring. Even now, as I write this review, I have OST 7 "Main Theme" on loop.

The music in this show was EXTREMELY good. It did very well to convey the emotions that were felt by the characters, and worked seamlessly with the art and choreography to invoke what the moments wished you to feel. To be honest, the music had a voice of its own. As if it was an entire character separate of the cast, watching the show with you, helping you along through the tears.

It sympathized with you when necessary, and laughed alongside you, guided you along the adventurous moments... It really couldn't have been any better.

Even if this show had 5 frames a second and 1980's art, I would still choke for air at how many times this musical score seems to steal your breath away.

If anything, I'll still be listening to this music many decades later. Thank you, Kousuke Yamashita.

If only I could rate this 20.

Rating: 10.
tl;dr:
Symphony. Commonly repeating motif. Varied orchestration. Light sounds mixed with heavy ensembles. Stellar composition.

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Characters:

While romance is an aspect of the story, it is merely a development feature. Note that the story is more so directed toward the love of friendship and the game itself than it is towards any romantic moments.

To start with, each character occupies a niche.

Ayase is a beauty, yet it is in vain. The moment she speaks, it is broken by her tomboyish image and personal drive. But its those very traits that reel you in. She is the joyous energy that keeps the group together, and despite her clear superiority in the game, genuinely cares for her friends, and helps aid them in their journey to pursue Karuta.

Taichi, Ayase's childhood friend, remains her loyal companion throughout the years. His mental forte is unmatched to most every player the game has ever known; even once reciting every card at random in the entire deck of 100, just because he could. His family is privileged, and he is pressured by his parents to keep at the highest tier in terms of sports and exams. His brains keep him on par with the purists that achieve their status merely due to athletic prowess. He acts as the groups motivator and leader, often amping everyone out of their slumps with "Just the right words" to turn them around.

Arata represents the reverse side to Taichi, being the poorer, lesser appreciated, segment to the story. As the story progresses, his darker past becomes realized, and he continues to become a shining beacon for Ayase.

There is a triangle romance between the three of them, but remember, the show does not articulate this enough for this show to be branded as a romance.

Of course, there are a great many other supporting characters that help aid Ayase on her journey to realize herself through Katura, each having a realistic and effective back story that warps the plot in one way or another.

Rating: 10
tl;dr:
The characters were diverse, which allowed for the story to be seen through a wide spectrum. Realistic. Believable. Nothing was over exaggerated.

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Enjoyment:

Did I find this show enjoyable?

Well, in a way I did.

I felt that it was really giving a perspective about achievement I had never really thought about.

To learn meant failure, to grow stronger meant to feel hardship and to overexert yourself to what phase out the illusions to what you truly desired.

At the end of each episode, with the crescendoing music resounding with each episodic climax, I felt the overwhelming desire to watch the next.

Rating: 10
tl;dr:
It was like a ten hour long movie that always kept you drooling for more.

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Overall:

I was stunned by the hype of this show that I nearly skipped over it. And let me tell you, I ALMOST did.

And simply for the thought once existing, I regret it.

If I had passed up this show, I really would have missed out on such a masterpiece. I am shamed of myself.

I honestly cant wait to jump into Chihayafuru Season 2.

Rating: 10
tl;dr:
It was beautiful to the core. Every aspect was heartwrenchingly flawless. If you have any last minute questions before watching this series, feel free to PM me.
I really don't think the world can afford to have people so many that haven't seen Chihayafuru.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 25, 2016

Cryptic-senpai

Mixed Feelings

Let's be honest: I'm not really a fan of sports anime. Or anything that revolves around sports. More to the point, I'm just not a very competitive person, physically. Give me an essay topic and I'll try my darn hardest to prove I can write better than my opponent. Give me some math questions, and I'll melt my brain from the stress of making sure I don't make a single error. When it comes to brain games, I am a perfectionist. But the moment I felt pressured to be better than my fellow ballet classmates, my inspiration and desire to go further trickled away and ... vanished. The moment I understood that my tae kwon do classes weren't just for recreation, they were for competing with my other colleagues, I just completely lost interest. It is not my forte, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. That's why I so very much wanted Chihayafuru to prove me wrong – to show me that sports anime can be just as good and captivating as any other despite my lack of interest in the subject. The show certainly started off with a bang.

The main character, Chihaya, is in high school. A meeting with a former elementary school classmate of hers prompts a flashback that extends across several episodes, detailing her previous history with this classmate and, more specifically, the start of Chihaya's passion for an unusual sport – karuta. Karuta not only requires physical prowess, it also requires you to use your brain, constantly: the basis of the game is the memorization of one hundred poems. Only fifty of these are used in any one game. The cards that are used by the players in karuta contain the second verse of the poem. To put it in a nutshell, a reader recites the first verse of a particular poem. You grab the card that has the second verse of that poem. It sounds simple, and in a way it is, but it takes a lot of training to become good at karuta.

I suppose you can guess why even I wondered if I would want to play karuta – the mental aspect interested me. Not only that, but I was taken in by the way the anime showcased Chihaya's love for karuta. In addition, I also liked that it touched upon different forms of love for the same hobby and passion: one of Chihaya's high school classmates is a girl named Kanade, who adores karuta, not because she is particularly competitive, but because she likes the poems, and the history and meaning behind each and every one. The variety and carefulness with which the anime presented its theme held my attention. I definitely found myself liking the characters, and by episode eight, I found myself cheering them on. Even the card game matches were exciting. I was nervous, hoping one of the main characters would win, hoping that things would go well.

But things started going downhill when I realized that, by episode twenty, I knew pretty much nothing about any of the characters. Let’s start off with Chihaya, the titular main character. She is obsessed with karuta. Part of this is arguably because it was the first hobby she actually started to like. As a child, her only dream was to see her older sister become a famous model, but a chance meeting in elementary school with a boy named Arata sparked her passion. Seeing how good Arata was, Chihaya wanted to be as good as him, perhaps even surpass him. Arata himself is a bit of a mixed bag. He is characterized as a stoic young man who has a similar passion for karuta, although he hasn’t been playing as much as he used to due to a tragedy in his family. Taichi is Chihaya’s childhood friend, and in elementary school, he used to bully Arata, but has since then formed a grudging respect for him. Then there is Kanade, a female classmate Chihaya and Taichi meet in high school, along with Nishida. I’ve already mentioned Kanade, and Nishida is an overweight boy who, similar to Chihaya and Arata, has a love for karuta.

“But senpai, you told me so much about those characters!” Yes, but did you notice that I didn’t include much of their personality traits? That is because they don’t have a lot. They feel bland and, ultimately, uninteresting, which is a huge problem in an anime that is more character-driven than plot-driven. The anime definitely does not spend much time fleshing out its characters. Some interesting sub-plots that were brought up at first – such as Chihaya’s awkwardness and inability to talk to her parents about her hobby – are ultimately cast aside later on as if they never existed. I would have liked to see Chihaya opening up about her passion, especially since she is supposedly so good at karuta and is progressing in all these championships and matches. What do her parents feel about her going on so many trips to play karuta? What about her sister? We’re not privy to any of that. Similarly, we don’t know anything about Taichi or Nishida’s familial life. Arata seems to live on his own, and the only thing we know about Kanade is that her mother supports her, if only because she is present at some of the karuta matches later on.

What is more, is that the love plot feels artificial. Watching the first episode, you can probably guess pretty quickly that Taichi has a crush on Chihaya. That actually develops a bit throughout the series, since by the last couple episodes, Taichi admits this to himself. Chihaya, on the other hand, has a long-standing crush on Arata. The problem is that there doesn’t seem much of a reason for her to have this crush. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for unrequited romances, and to some extent I can sort of understand her idealization of Arata. But, it sort of loses steam when she emails him and texts him, and he never replies. Not even when he actually sees the emails. There is one scene where he asks Taichi to give Chihaya his cell phone number, to which Taichi responds that he should do it himself. But we don’t know anything about what happens after that scene. We don’t know how Chihaya got Arata’s phone number. The scene just sort of ends and progresses on to the next one. To put it simply, Arata shows pretty much zero signs of being interested in Chihaya. In fact, he has a closer relationship with Taichi than anything else. I’m honestly guessing that the second season will reveal that he has a crush on him.

Back to karuta, though, since that is the main shtick of this anime: the matches, at first, are interesting. However, later on, they get rather repetitive and predictable. You could argue that in a game consisting of two players battling one another, there are only two possible outcomes, but you could still make it more interesting. Chihaya is supposed to be a good player, but she is always so amazed and taken aback by her opponents that I wonder where all these good players were. Why were they hiding in the woodwork? Taichi’s matches were overall more interesting than Chihaya, mainly because he tends to keep his cool and focus on the match, unlike the main female protagonist.

Another thing that I take contention with is that Chihaya is in group A, the rank that composes the best players in karuta. We are told early on that it is very difficult to get into group A. Chihaya then gets into group A. She must be a really good player, right? Maybe, but we don’t see much of it. She commits so many faults, makes so many mistakes, and loses so many rank A matches that I find it hard to believe she could even obtain A rank in the first place. Maybe the point is to show that she is talented at karuta. That is fine and dandy, but if you tell me a character is good at karuta and then show them being completely flabbergasted later on, you are not doing a very good job of convincing me that they are worthy of being in the group with the best players. Taichi and Nishida are far more believable A rank material.

Arguably, the thing I liked the most about Chihayafuru is its focus on different ways you can enjoy karuta, and finding your own reasons to be passionate about it. These aspects are applied to karuta, and other sports by extension, but they certainly don't need to be. They can also apply to a whole lot of other things, such as hobbies, school, and, really, anything else you need or want to focus on. That was something I thought was really interesting, and it was a nice theme throughout the show as a whole.

Chihayafuru’s OST is nothing to really write home about; it’s there, and it works when it needs to, but I didn’t find myself looking up the soundtrack to listen to them again. The opening theme is YOUTHFUL, performed by 99RadioService; like the band name, it’s a serviceable OP, but not completely my cup of tea. I liked the ending theme a lot more – a song called Soshite Ima by Asami Seto. The seiyuu for the most part do a good job. I couldn’t really discern any voices I liked in particular, although I certainly recognized some of the voice actors and actresses.

The art and animation is really where the show shines; Madhouse always does a good job, and Chihayafuru is no exception. The colours are bright, the character designs are very likable, and the animation is fluid. There are occasions where CGI is used, but it is never jarring or distracting, and fits in well for the most part.

Overall, Chihayafuru starts out very well, but ultimately loses steam in the long run. I can’t say whether or not it’s a good sports anime as a whole, since I don’t watch many at all, but I certainly enjoyed it as long as it managed to be engaging for me. In the end, I’m not certain I would recommend it to those who want to try the genre out, so I’ll leave that to people more knowledgeable in other sports-oriented titles. It was good while it lasted and would have definitely benefited from tighter and more consistent storytelling, in my opinion.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 2, 2020

mitkopom

Not Recommended

I have dropped this anime after ep 5. A while after that i got forced myself to watch it again based on its very high rating...
it was a pain to go trough ep 6. Dropped ...
what turned me down?
1. A lame card game which was supposed to look thrilling and exiting. Well my bad but it was boring.
2. A selfish and egoistic main female character who exploit her friends in order to reach her goals. She also tends to bully other people to join her club by forse.... Its a first time happening that i actually dislike the MC which is designed and supposed to ... be likeble... :( :(
3. Romance story look sluggish and i dont see any development there.. Same goes for characters development..
4. Poem readers sounded quite annoying ... feels like a funerall...
PS: anime looks well targeted towards its demographics, but lookig at its very high rating i strart questioning the rating credibility.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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