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Originally Posted by Sol Falling
I guess one of the things these two new characters have brought to the story are new contexts of development for Tsutomu and Kanade especially. As the weakest players in terms of skill in Mizusawa, they might have been in danger of getting lost in the story in the midst of the rest of the club's passionate determination to go pro, to play the Meijin/Queen, to reach A class (or to meet Arata). By throwing in a couple new protagonists who are closer to their "level", this gives them a more immediate background to stay relevant to the story.
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Nice point--the episode really brings this out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sol Falling
Meanwhile, with regards to the ending scene: I want to believe in Shinobu as a sympathetically portrayed character. I want to believe in her as a strong and respectable character who is loved by this manga, in turn for her love of karuta. Unfortunately, her potential setup as a romantic rival to Chihaya for the love of Arata, on top of the already precarious position of being Chihaya's rival for the highest title in karuta, might get in the way of that. Shinobu already displayed a terrible reaction to her loss of a few cards to Chihaya in karuta--how much uglier might her portrayal become if the Chihaya-Arata romance plot gets pushed ever farther?
I bring this up because the effect of her (indeed, sensual) 'playing with the phone cord' scene was not friendly, or sympathetic, but unsettling. I bring it up because, unlike Sumire, Shinobu's portrayal does not fill me with an immediate confidence in her sympathetic role in the story. I am forced to wonder whether my sympathy for Shinobu (like my sympathy for Chitose) goes against the ultimate ends of this story. While it is a bit early to be saying so much, in the end I might be very much glad if those worries were unfounded.
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Shinobu is such a strange character--she seems to live all alone in her large empty house, with her only friends, the karuta cards. I have always taken her isolation as the corollary of her success, the lonely summit etc, but perhaps there are psychological reasons for her solitude.
You could connect this aspect of Shinobu's character to Chihaya's absolute dedication to karuta. Her friends all seem to think she is a little crazy, "karuta-baka." Perhaps we are learning that a certain degree of craziness is a prerequisite for reaching the ultimate heights of karuta.