I will admit that Chihayafuru was really enjoyable. I really did have a great time watching this anime. However, the flaws of this anime were pretty evident and I'm a little harsh when it comes to them. Firstly, let me start off with what I did like.
Positives
Characters - I loved the characters in this series. From Chihaya's "all Karuta, all the time" personality, she's a ditz but we still love her because she's just so nice about it, to Taichi's "I'm smart and arrogant but despite that, we still feel for his internal struggle to admit his feelings for Chihaya. Even the side characters like Retro-kun and Dr. Harada. There were just so many enjoyable characters that I can't really pick out a character that I just couldn't stand. Even the grumpy, old teacher was a riot when she warmed up to the karuta club.
Animation & Music - The animation was gorgeous. The color palette that they decided to go with in the artwork for this anime was spectacular. The characters looked stunning...at least the ones that were supposed to. I'm sure there aren't many people out there that think Nishida or Retro looked marvelous. Either way, the artwork was great, I loved it. What I loved even more was how the music fit so well.
Story (kinda) - This is touch and go because there were some elements of the story I didn't like. To be more specific, I loved the story revolving around Chihaya, Taichi, and Arata. I loved the romantic/friendships tension between these three. It was your classic love triangle except it didn't suck.
Negatives
Pacing - This was the killer to me and why I only gave it a 7 on my overall score even though I gave it 8s and 9s for everything else. The pacing of this anime was WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY too slow. There were entire episodes were VERY little was accomplished in the grand scheme of things. Hell, there was a mid-season review episode...WHY?! Why would you have a mid-season review episode for an anime that moves at a snail's pace? Yeah, we sort of know what happened between episodes 1-12...not much has happened in the grand scheme of things for us to forget what happened all the way back in episode 2 or 3. To top it all off, the ending was extremely unsatisfying. Now, I'm the type of person where I don't like long running anime series. Anywhere between 12-26 episodes is perfect. Going beyond that feels like stretching. This anime? They set it up for a sequel after 25 episodes...and probably another 25 episode season at that. For this anime, that feels too long.
Accomplishments and Storytelling - WARNING, SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH! DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE ANIME. I look back and contemplate, what did this series accomplish? Did Chihaya become Queen? No. Did she come close? No. Did she at least improve from midway to final? Actually, no, it felt like she got worse. Well, did Arata become Master at least? No...Well, did he at least come close? No...Um, did he improve? I guess? Considering he quit karuta for a year and a half before being suckered into it again by Chihaya and Taichi, I guess you could say he improved. *sigh* Well, how about the relationships between Chihaya and Taichi or Chihaya and Arata? Did those go anywhere? Nope. This anime "hinted" at a potential romantic pairing between either of those two and none of those really happened. Overall, for a 25 episode anime, it just didn't progress much at all. Many of the plot points that were established early on seemed to have zero progression. It seemed the writers felt as though we should have a closer understanding of some of the competitors in this karuta competition than of the main characters. I'm sorry, but that's poor storytelling. While I'm all for side stories and side characters, when it seems like this anime is making a greater effort to tell their stories than the main characters, we have a problem. END SPOILERS
Overall
I know its a rather funny statement to make, but this anime had a great story with poor storytelling. It HAD a plot to work with and...just didn't work with it. The characters were great, it was nice watching them for 25 episodes but the pacing of the overall story was slow, monotonous, and I caught myself continuously saying "Are we going to accomplish something yet? We have 5...4...3...2...episodes left and still nothing?!" Chihayafuru was one of those animes where I will say I'm glad I watched it but felt really disappointed with the overall product.
