Don't get me wrong, Chihayafuru 2 is still very good anime. Of the ~200 anime series I've seen, I'd easily rank it in the top 10%. However, it is pretty much a sports/fighting anime, whereas the original series was more about story and character development. So if you got hooked on the original for those reasons, consider yourself forewarned - you're not gonna see much of that in the sequel.
In the original series, most episodes were a self-contained story. A character(s) would encounter a problem or a situation, struggle with it, and overcome it, and grow in the process. Meanwhile you got to learn more about the characters, the game, and there was some movement on the meta-plot involving the love triangle. Occasionally there was a 2-parter with a cliffhanger in the middle, and there was one multi-part storyline if I remember right. But overall the series covered a lot of time and subplots in 25 episodes.
There is very little of that in Chihayafuru 2. It has eschewed the endearing character-centered formula from the original, and replaced it with the standard sports/fighting formula of long, drawn-out confrontations. The focus is now on the matches and how they play out. The vast majority of the episodes are play-by-play sequences of the tournament matches. There are even one or two matches which span two episodes. That's right - whereas the first series would spend at most two episodes to cover an entire *tournament*, the sequel spends that many episodes on a single *match*.
It's all very well executed, and I've been glued to every episode so far. That's why I still gave it a 8 for enjoyment and overall rating. But that's almost entirely because I've seen the original series, care about the characters enough to patiently wait for the meta-plot to progress, and now understand enough about the game to follow what's going on. If I had watched Chihayafuru 2 first, I probably would've dropped it after a few episodes - sports/fight anime are really not my thing.
I can understand why they did it. The original series did a pretty thorough job covering the basics of karuta, so all they have left is the meta-plot and showing you the finer points of the game. Well, if they move the meta-plot too quickly, then the series is over. So they have to create most of the drama using the finer points of the game. It's done very well, and if you like sports/fighting anime you'll probably love this. But as someone who was attracted to the original story by the characters and their development, I was only able to rate the story a 7.
The art is just like the original. Could be better, but very good with no major flaws or annoying quirks. Well, the faces have no noses when viewed from the front, but that's pretty common in anime.
The sound is better than the original. Maybe it's that the focus on matches that allows for more dramatic music. I dunno. But I felt the music added a lot more to the series than in the original.
Character development as I explained is minimal. They add new first-year students to the club (in fact the first few episodes where they're added are very reminiscent of the original series). But then the series quickly shifts focus to matches. In the last dozen or so episodes (only 22 eps have aired so far), the new characters have been limited to a few reaction shots. They probably could've been removed entirely without drastically affecting the series. The original characters are developed, but mostly in the context of the game (e.g. learning new strategies for playing). Ironically, the character who seems to be getting the most personal development is the background-character/symbolic antagonist Shinobu.
Still a very good and recommendable series, but very different in tenor than the original.
