Okay Chihayafuru hit me in the face with EPICNESS. As for a lot of viewers, I suspect, I would not have thought I'd be so hooked by an anime about cards and poetry. And yet I've binged this in a day and an evening.
First thing that made me stay is the MC. Jesus, finally a strong female character who can live independently from love affairs. You know it very soon in the series, Chihaya-chan is all about accomplishments and friendship and loyalty. Her story does not care about romance, well not much and I have to admit : it's damn refreshing and funny as well. The second season has a big negative point though, one of the new character is the polar opposite of that i.e she's all about boys and I hated her for this. Now I totally get that a story is about how a character is starting from point A to get to point B and how he's gonna grow in the process. So not necessarily that negative of a point.
The show is thusly all about the sport, Karuta. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, of course everything is gonna be thoroughly explained in the first few episodes of S1 (which are really amazing introduction/origin story, ever). But now the show keeps on being very detailed in its depiction of the matches in which our heroes are gonna clash. Big kudos to the artistic direction : the anime is pretty much on par with how Karuta matches take place in real life. The speed, the rituals, the players behaviour, everything has been studied and given the little bit of punch and grit which belong to the world of animes.
Thanks to the character building, there isn't a single moment I was bored while watching the Karuta game : you're gonna care (SO MUCH) about the people in this series, because god everyone of them has purpose, I guess this is thanks to the source author's commitment and love for the world she's been crafting with so much attention. The story takes you very close to each protagonist, may it be hero or foe, the screen changes your point of view at multiple occasions during a single match, in doing so the story leads your mind to a multitude of possible outcomes and 90% of the time, things are unpredictable. Foes never are random NPC existing only to make the story move forward, all of them have purpose, goals and background. The screen time is pretty much perfectly balanced, and I loved that no supporting character is left out to dry. Speaking of which most of them are introduced really soon in the series, reinforcing the world building really fast, seen as rivalries and friendships are going way back in each character individual path. Consequently to this, the story is going to make sense really easily for you and soon too, as you will get involved in the situations effortlessly.
Another huge plus will be the voice acting. Every character has got a very distinct vocal identity for which I guess we can thank the actors direction. As for emotions, you're gonna see a lot of tears but one nice thing is that you shouldn't be bothered by weird/bad cry-acting xD. A very charming detail : some characters like Arata one of the main, have a regional accent which is awesome to hear, and I have to say concerning Arata the voice actor/accent combo suited his character perfectly, you're gonna root for this guy solely on this detail. Also you get to hear the voice of Yagami Light/Okarin in this show (I'm partial to Hououin Kyouma :D).
Visually the show never disappointed me. It's not top notch on every sequence, but when quality is needed, quality is present. It's colorful, it never seems overly cheap even if some wide shots let us see some character drawings which could lack in precision, but nothing shocking, also I guess I'm always bearing in mind the time/budget strain now when watching an anime (thanks to Shirobako). The character design is really interesting, and the MC is absolutely lovable. Maybe Taichi is a little bit too much of a shoujo character, when compared to how other boys are depicted, but he's supposed to be the golden boy of the story, what can I say.
I did not care much for the music at first, not because it's bad, but because I was too much focused on the events and the... subtitles. On second viewing I have to say the music did not bother me because precisely, it came on point and only when needed, to support what happens onscreen and to complement the characters' emotional status. I have to say I easily let the S1 opening credit roll because the sound of it is so energetic, it's kind of a healing potion to my ears, but I guess that's because I'm totally into the MC...
In a nutshell, I really enjoyed this show which surprised me tremendously. The direction is masterful. It's smart, the characters are smart. It's got heart, the characters have got heart (SO MUCH). It cares about its material (Karuta) and maybe sources as well seen as how the story is so intense and complex. I didn't talk about the humor, maybe because the show just is not a comedy, but it's got its many funny moments, which make it into one the most well balanced show I have seen in my small anime enthusiast career. I'm done, go watch it now.
