Chihayafuru

This review only applies for the first 6 episodes of the series, it does not constitute for the overall experience of the anime itself and it will be comprised of what I liked/disliked about the anime and the reason I have had dropped it for.

So my problem with Chihayafuru is that I really couldn't invest any interest in the card game at hand. Let me explain. First of all it isn't a card game, but instead it is a reaction game. The game is simple to understand. You have some cards, 100 in a deck, which you place in any order you want in ... your territory, territory which basically is, quoting Wikipedia, the space in front of the player, 87 cm wide and separated from their opponent's cards by 3 cm. Once a player has no more cards in their territory, they've won. After you've arranged the cards you're given 15 minutes to learn the arbitrary positions you've given them, then the game starts. Each card has written on them a poem that origins from some old japanese poem collection. The players have to basically pick a card each time they hear a poem they recognize. A person will read off a bunch of poems, starting with some not written on the cards themselves to get the players accustomed to the reader's voice. And then they go on and pick what card they hear. There are certain penalties that result in moving cards from your territory to the opponent's and viceversa in case you do something, but I don't really know them and merely read about them, but that's okay, this is pretty much the detail the anime has given on the game >so far<.

So my problem here is simple. The anime didn't display any strategic part of this game and merely made it seem like a game of match two, where you basically you pick two things that are the same as fast as you can react. From what I've read off about competitive karuta, there are certain penalties if you rush and react too fast and in an unfavorable position, penalties which at least make you have some prior planning of how you're gonna tackle a situation. But the way the anime displays it is merely a reaction game. When I think of a card game I think of one of either two things. A) A game where you basically form a deck strategically to combat certain types of opponents but the results are generally gonna be obvious and luck will be generally minimal, only displaying the complexity of the game itself and your sense of predicting your enemies. B) Different situations that stem off due to different chance of draws where you have to think strategically and have to adapt to the situation at hand and have some sort of in the moment planning to succeed.

Neither are Karuta as displayed in the anime. It is all fast reaction time. And most explanations on the game are there to give a relative, rather than essential, understanding of the situation. Don't get me wrong, the game is displayed accurately and what happens is indeed accurate to competitive karuta. As far as the matches and the actions go, it is accurate. But it is really poorly explained. There are a lot of details that I understood with a very simple explanation upon a google search that the anime just didn't really bother going into explaining properly. As the anime displays it, all you have to do to succeed in Karuta, is react faster than your opponent, always. Which in truth isn't necesarily the case, since you have to know if it's worth risking a penalty if you go for x instead of trying to stay safe. So bottom line, you're gonna watch people reacting as fast as they can without the thought behind what they've done. Which sucks, because you enjoy things all the way more when you can understand what's happening. I mean, even with the penalties and what not, it is still gonna be a game of who reacts faster, but at least show the depth of the game...

However, if the series does not focus on Karuta the card game, on what does the series focus? On the passion of every character for the game. Which quite frankly it does do well and the story itself is mostly about having the determination to follow up on doing something you enjoy and trying your best to improve and enjoy it with other people. The motivation behind the characters is understandable and even enjoyable to an extent, and that extent is the characters having some reason to cry once every episode... I'm not 100% sure if in the first episode any tear is shed, but I'm really sure in each episode after the first, someone or a multitude of characters will have to cry. And I could accept that if that only happened while they were children (the series will start with a flashback about the main character's childhood) because I mean at that age, you tend to get emotional and what not, but then you have a girl cry while saying "I like kimono..." and then you're like fuck off.

And although the motivation of the characters is well explained... well... first of all the main characters are a group of 2 boys, 1 girl, one boy, quiet and reserved, the other, brash and outspoken and a girl that is clutzy and somewhat aggresive. Spruce it up with a love triangle and you've already given my enjoyment terminal cancer. Coupled with what I already said about the whole, cry at least once per episode thing, add in some other things that are spoilers that seem like poor and cliche demotivators to stop someone from doing something they dedicated their life to, obvious right off the start too and... I wasn't gonna enjoy this right from the start, was I? You see the 2 boys, 1 girl group is what I used to call a shounen tri-fecta, so imagine my surprise when I found that in a josei of all things. I'll need a new name for this type of group of characters. At least I ain't misinformed anymore.

I might be a little unfair since the overall setting doesn't have them in a group and as they grew up they... some of them... ok, one of them really considering a spoiler, has changed. But that character's route is also quite obvious from the start too so... For me I don't really have anything left to go on with on the character route. The game doesn't entice me, the story while its theme is interesting and somewhat well executed, it does depends on its characters, which are pretty much the same archetypes I've encountered for years... What do I have left? The art style which I can at best describe as feminine? The sound which is used to complement the characters' I already dislike mood and japanese poems I never really cared for?

To put it quite frankly, if the roadblocks I have had had set for me aren't really roadblocks for you, you will most likely be able to enjoy this anime. If you don't mind the characters being somewhat cliche and having merely a relative understanding of what's going, the theme of dedication to something you like will only come off as really strong for you. But with all these hurdles I had mentioned I couldn't enjoy this series. If the game does sound somewhat interesting you could give this series a try because that gives it all the more strength to what it's trying to do. However if you dislike tropey characters and the game sounds uninteresting, I don't think you have a lot to go on, frankly, since those are integral parts of the theme. I hope the game's depth is better explained if you do decide to head deeper than me into it, but the characters themselves are nothing new that you can't predict.

The Theme was really boring to me. A card game known as Karuta, in which 2 people have to snatch the cards before each other, didn't seem to me interesting enough, as it was seeming to the protagonists.
Female and male protagonists are beautiful and handsome respectively, but the girl is so over obsessed with the game that I was hating it.
I wasn't getting her obsession, maybe I couldn't relate. What caught my attention was "Taichi getting jealous With Arata because of Chihaya"
Maybe he liked Chihaya for a long time, so I thought the story will be interesting, when some goal (Karuta) will ... be the bridge between the protagonists but I was utterly disappointed.. Matches were really boring.. Character development is nill.. And club members despite being together all the time didn't have the sort of chemistry that friends have.. I wasn't enjoying at all..

What motivated me to watch it more was Taichi's answer in the first episode, to Chihaya's question "What is love?".. That is: "It's when nothing goes the way you want. When you're not having fun, and yet.. You still want to be with her."

Most of the focus was on the matches and competitions. Neither the love story, nor the character development was apparent. So I didn't like the series..
Only positive point in the whole series is, good animation. That's it!
For me, it's 3/10.

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.