Thread: Licensed + Crunchyroll Chihayafuru Season 2
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Old 2013-07-04, 05:19   Link #1521
Quadratic
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Join Date: Feb 2011
I wanted to make a longer post on reflecting on Arata and a few others, so here it is.

His minimal screen time makes an interesting story telling technique (ok, technically he got a lot more screen time this time round!). He is a person who is isolated within the story, and to the viewers themselves.
His mother's observation of him on his win was especially touching: "He's doing what he loves and shining at it, all on his own."
His goal to win the competition and go to Tokyo is an excellent sign of him actively breaking out of this isolation.

One thing I found interesting in the the Shinobu vs Arata game was how we no longer listened to his thoughts halfway (a quarterway?) into the match. Everything regarding him was told through an external manner.
If anyone questioned that (I certainly did not at the time), it made the reveal of where his mind was really brilliant.

Also, I finally found the scene where he expressed his jealously of Taichi & Chihaya's team (almost 1/4 way through ep 10). At first I thought his jealously was that they had a team, but I'm starting to suspect it's because they had formed a team without him, as he revealed their childhood team was the only team for him (so, +1 on feeling excluded?).
In any case, his team match showed how good natured he is with respect to the game. The thing that was hurting him the most was his inability to respect his opponent by properly fighting his opponent, since he could not influence the final outcome of the match.


A while back, I said that Kanade was the observer of the love poems and Sumire wanted to experience what is written in the poems (or I said something to that effect).
Kanade had definitely taken an interesting development in the last episode, by stepping out of this role of watching Taichi wasting his time going nowhere with Chihaya and actively trying to get him to make a move.
Kanade is definitely becoming the wingman in the typical romance story; I'll help you confess to your lover...minus being the wingman who's also in love the person she's helping.
A confession relieves the burden on the character, but it looks like Taichi's "tragedy" will probably extend until the end of time (and so will the "discussion" ), since confessions almost never occur until near the end of a story.
Sumire seems to have fallen out of relevancy, and it seems she's devolved into merely an observer (probably due to the show having too many characters now...). In some ways, I am also glad, as it meant more screen time for other things (ie. Shinobu & Arata...).


On a final note, this season on a whole was about the same level of enjoyment as the previous (which is to say it was highly enjoyable).
There was a few boring bits (mainly involving the photographing trio...), but definitely a show worth watching again in the future.
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