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Old 2013-03-24, 09:05   Link #781
inisipis
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I don't know about you, but I find meganeko Megumu hot. Was she Shinobu's final competitors in last years High school individual competition? (Besides Sudo I mean.)

Of course our queen Shinobu is always so lovable with all her anti-social antics, all drenched, pouting in the corner for not getting to watch the Birdman competition. At least she gets to wear Arata's clothes, if it means anything to her.

Chihaya's over the top acting when she suggested that she'll give in and play a B-level player, is really funny.

Looks like Hokuo got the short end of the straw when they go against the top team in the semi-finals. We can deduce which team Misuzawa will go against in the finals, if they ever get there.

Last edited by inisipis; 2013-03-24 at 09:22.
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Old 2013-03-24, 10:30   Link #782
hyperborealis
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Hokuo lost to Fujisaki last year too. No doubt Hiro and the others will bring back tales of terror to heighten the suspense when the Mizusawa Seven have to go up against them. And perhaps invaluable advice: as we saw even in this episode, even rivals and opponents can contribute to a team's success.

----------

The debate over the initial lineup was interesting. Usually Taichi and Tsutomu decide this, but in this case, since Tsutomu's own participation is the issue at stake, he's excluded from the deliberation. That leaves Taichi, but Taichi surprisingly has no idea what to do. We see Miyauchi-sensei wanting to step in, and discounting Chihaya's capacity to help here. In the end, Chihaya decides. And she does so wisely--she consults Tsutomu's data (smart move), and she brings down her her learning from Harada-sensei (game-set-and-match smart move). Leadership on the Mizusawa team is informal and ad hoc, without a definite hierarchy, but decisions are still informed by data, experience, and wisdom. The team leads the team.

----------

A lot of people (myself included) thought Tsukuba was way over the line when he kept writing his own name in on the play list. I was surprised and pleased to find out the anime takes a positive view of his actions, as Nishida's comment illustrates.

----------

This week's title poem is #51. Here is the U. Virginia translation:

How can I tell her
How fierce my love for her is?
Will she understand
That the love I feel for her
Burns like Ibuki's fire plant?

The poem is a love poem about the burning passion a lover feels for the beloved. This passion refers by analogy to the passion Nishida expects Tsutomu to feel for wanting to play in the tournament as one of the starting five.

We saw another example of the anime using a romantic metaphor to explain a feeling for karuta in last week's episode, when Chihaya apparently feels consternation upon learning that Shinobu wants to play Arata. From Chihaya's reaction, you might think she is jealous of Shinobu, but her jealousy is strictly about karuta: she wants to be Shinobu and Arata's main karuta rivals.

This use of romance to explain karuta makes me wonder if the two modes--romance and karuta--are not somehow equivalent. This seems particularly the case in Suetsugu's presentation of Chihaya's character. So, Chihaya does not have a lover; instead, she has rivals--that's why when Sumire asked her who she thinks about at night, her first thought is Shinobu. Instead of a romantic relationship, she has a karuta relationship with Shinobu, where Chihaya dreams of improving her game to the point she can beat Shinobu. Instead of making love with a special some one, she plays a match with a special someone. Instead of feeling jealous when her special some one finds a new lover, she feels jealous when she learns Shinobu wants to play Arata and not herself.

This really works. Chihayafuru is a karuta story told as a love story. No wonder everything that happens on the karuta side feeds instantly into shipping arguments on the romantic side! And that explains why Chihaya can be so oblivious to romance: she is already fully engaged romantically. Every time she plays a match, she is, in her own way, making love. No wonder Taichi wants to beat her in a match: that would make him, and not Shinobu or Arata, Chihaya's principal rival, and thus her karuta boyfriend.

In Chihayafuru, romance is the continuation of karuta by other means
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Old 2013-03-24, 11:27   Link #783
Kanon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperborealis View Post
Every time she plays a match, she is, in her own way, making love.
I will never look at Chihaya's matches the same way ever again. I'm even more eager to watch her match against Megumu now
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Old 2013-03-28, 14:25   Link #784
Akka
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Quote:
This really works. Chihayafuru is a karuta story told as a love story. No wonder everything that happens on the karuta side feeds instantly into shipping arguments on the romantic side! And that explains why Chihaya can be so oblivious to romance: she is already fully engaged romantically. Every time she plays a match, she is, in her own way, making love. No wonder Taichi wants to beat her in a match: that would make him, and not Shinobu or Arata, Chihaya's principal rival, and thus her karuta boyfriend.
Okay, now I have this weird picture in mind of Chihaya Furu being an hentai anime...
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Old 2013-03-29, 15:57   Link #785
Blaat
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Sakurazawa sensei is a lot older than I expected (it sounded like Megumi Hayashibara is voicing her). Not sure who is voicing the red girl sitting behind her. Still if I were Shinpachi I wouldn't be afraid of her, quite the opposite really.

Anyway I can't say I liked the episode, it was too unfocused trying to do multiple things at the same time. It also reminded me (dare I say it?) one of those shounen filler episodes, where instead of focussing on the fight (which you're expecting) they're focussing on every thing else.
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Old 2013-03-29, 16:29   Link #786
Kanon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blaat View Post
Anyway I can't say I liked the episode, it was too unfocused trying to do multiple things at the same time. It also reminded me (dare I say it?) one of those shounen filler episodes, where instead of focussing on the fight (which you're expecting) they're focussing on every thing else.
I like how this was even lampshaded in the episode, when Sumire goes "We're cutting to your flashback now?!"

Personally, that didn't bother me. I enjoyed learning more about Megumu-tan. At first I thought she sit in the wrong spot on purpose to intimidate the opponent and was only pretending to be innocent like Shinobu does, but it turns out she's really just a lovable ditz. A very confident ditz. The way she treats those three dorks is not very nice though

Kana's scene was the highlight of the episode. So poetic.
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Old 2013-03-29, 17:00   Link #787
YourIdeas
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I found episode 12 to be a bit slow, if only because there was so much focus on Megumu's background. This might be due to the fact that prior to this episode was 3.5 episodes dedicated to matches and the other .5 being Nishida/Tsutomu development. Still, funny character with her sharp-tongued-picture-deleting-charms.

Really disliking Tsukuba this episode, if only because he's fallen into the same hole as Sumire. It feels like for him, Karuta is just a way for him to get his younger brothers to look up to him, and though I found his antics funny, he's starting to get annoying in how he hasn't seemed to improve much.

I'm quite surprised at the number of Omi Jingu episodes we've gotten. We only got three last season (due to Chihaya fainting) and Megumu v. Chihaya will bring the count up to 6. Throw in the finals and the single tournament and we're looking at at least 10-12 episodes. As much as I like this setting, I feel like we're spending a little too much time here.
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Old 2013-03-29, 17:11   Link #788
Reckoner
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Well they've definitely wasted time on nonsense. That unintentionally racially insensitive episode, an episode on Arata playing for some random team which was a very roundabout way of displaying his jealousy, etc. Now this episode which just dragged immensely. Did we really need the back story of those 3 camera guys (The 4th wall crap does not just justify it, just no). The advisor thinking back on Megumu's backstory was fine and justifiable, but then we also got other useless stuff like Tsukaba making useless observations (At this point I think Sumire and Tsukaba are just not very good characters).

The focus is definitely all over the place. Next episode will presumably be better, but then again it's probably going to take the whole episode to conclude the match. Then another episode to setup the final match. Another episode to conclude the final. Then we move to the singles tournaments. This is going to be a really long arc. They wasted too much time on silly early round matches that no one really cares about.
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Old 2013-03-29, 17:27   Link #789
Yume Hanabi
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It felt nice to have a change of pace after those last few tense episodes. The part at the end with Kana was beautiful.
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Old 2013-03-29, 17:51   Link #790
Kanon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by YourIdeas View Post
I'm quite surprised at the number of Omi Jingu episodes we've gotten. We only got three last season (due to Chihaya fainting) and Megumu v. Chihaya will bring the count up to 6. Throw in the finals and the single tournament and we're looking at at least 10-12 episodes. As much as I like this setting, I feel like we're spending a little too much time here.
I find this to be an odd complaint. Karuta is the main focus of the show, so it's perfectly natural for one of the two major tournament of the year to get that much episodes. What would you rather have them spend time on? There is nothing more important than this tournament for the cast. They've been focused on winning it since last year.

And it's not like it's been all about karuta. We've gotten character development and the bonds between the characters deepened.
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Old 2013-03-29, 18:02   Link #791
Kazu-kun
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Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
I find this to be an odd complaint.

It isn't if you compare this tournament to the first one, which had a considerably faster pace. This tournament is dragging, but unfortunately it was the same in the manga too. This tournament was the part of the manga I liked the less, except for some isolated moments here and there (mostly centered on Taichi).


Nothing we can do about it though. I was hoping the staff would cut the irrelevant bits to increase the pace a notch but it's obvious it isn't going to happen so...
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Old 2013-03-29, 18:24   Link #792
kitten320
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I'll have to agree and say that it was a slow episode and flashback for camera guys was useless since it doesn't add anything new.

And Tsukube should learn to get off his high horse. It's not like his brothers will hate him if he loses.
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Old 2013-03-29, 19:02   Link #793
thundrakkon
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Another wonderful episode. I'm glad that the series is going for 2 cour. There are just not enough good series around.

Btw, just because Taichi is not the main focus of an episode does not make it a bad episode. It seems like some are sticking to "the best episodes are Taichi focus". The series is called Chihayafuru for a reason, and the main theme of the series is Karuta.

It was nice getting background character on the opponents. There was already a lot of background information for our wonderful main team, so other teams getting focused is the only way the episodes can go without it seeming like a redundant battle anime.

Chihaya is going into badass ultra-sensory mode now. I do hope she wins, or else she'll no chance against Shinobu. I doubt she will beat Shinobu this tournament, but at least Shinobu will consider her a serious threat and rival afterwards.

Actually, with all the shipping that is going around, I believe a great couple would be Shinobu X Taichi. He's so in love with Arata, and Shinobu is like another version of Arata. They both can be sharped tongue towards each other. There will be a lot of passion there after all those sly wise-cracks and fights with each other. They would definitely make an interesting and fun couple.
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Old 2013-03-29, 19:22   Link #794
YourIdeas
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Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
I find this to be an odd complaint. Karuta is the main focus of the show, so it's perfectly natural for one of the two major tournament of the year to get that much episodes. What would you rather have them spend time on? There is nothing more important than this tournament for the cast. They've been focused on winning it since last year.

And it's not like it's been all about karuta. We've gotten character development and the bonds between the characters deepened.
I'm not worried about the fact it's karuta. (If I was, I wouldn't even be watching Chihayafuru anyways) I'm just worried about the pacing. This particular event is probably gonna go up to about episode 16-18, which leaves few episodes for any other important events. There's still the Queen/Master qualifiers for Chihaya and Arata, A-class for Taichi, etc. and those would probably have to feature their own single-episode focuses. As interesting as it is to see our heroes battle scary fake foreigners and quiz masters, I'm far more interested in seeing Chihaya battle higher level opponents, like Megumu.
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Old 2013-03-29, 19:32   Link #795
Kazu-kun
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Originally Posted by thundrakkon View Post
Btw, just because Taichi is not the main focus of an episode does not make it a bad episode.
Don't know were you're coming from with that Taichi comment, but the pacing is what makes it.... well, not a bad episode but definitely not as good as it could be with a faster pacing and less waste of time on meaningless characters like the photography guys.
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Old 2013-03-29, 19:39   Link #796
thundrakkon
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Originally Posted by Kazu-kun View Post
Don't know were you're coming from with that Taichi comment, but the pacing is what makes it.... well, not a bad episode but definitely not as good as it could be with a faster pacing and less waste of time on meaningless characters like the photography guys.
I do admit the photography guys were a waste of time, but the rest of the episode was fine the way it was.

The Taichi comments comes from many reasons, but there was an earlier post saying that the best episodes are Taichi focused. Taichi was not in the episode for all intents and purposes, so there was a larger amount of complaining in this episode, especially from those who are Taichi fans, even if they do not specifically state his name. Call it subconscious complaining, if you will.

Overall, I thought the episode was fun and entertaining. Megumu seems like a real character, and she does seem like a final boss of sorts.
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Old 2013-03-29, 19:56   Link #797
Kazu-kun
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Originally Posted by thundrakkon View Post
Taichi was not in the episode for all intents and purposes, so there was a larger amount of complaining in this episode, especially from those who are Taichi fans, even if they do not specifically state his name. Call it subconscious complaining, if you will.
All the complains on this episode, as far as can tell, are centered on the pacing issue. Don't go around projecting whatever problem you may have with Taichi or the viewers who likes him on this, please. If you're going to post I think you should address the actual discussion.
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Old 2013-03-29, 20:01   Link #798
ars89
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Wow Megu sitting down in front of fujisaki was a major dis at mizusawa and hokuo. Could have doen without the camera guys. Nice backstory about Megu. Was worried for a bit, but glad Chihaya settled down with help from Kana.
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Old 2013-03-29, 20:13   Link #799
Kirarakim
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Originally Posted by thundrakkon View Post
Even if they do not specifically state his name. Call it subconscious complaining, if you will.
So lets see you are making this claim based on absolutely nothing. One person mentioned Taichi in passing, no one else has! But from all that you assume everyone complaining is only doing so because god forbid Taichi is not a focus for 20 something minutes?

I have not seen the episode yet so I have no opinion on it but I have enjoyed every episode this season regardless of who was the focus (and everyone knows I am a Taichi fan).

When people say they don't like an episode I wonder why but then I read positive posts like Kanon & Yume Hanabi and think I hope my thoughts align with theirs. Taichi's presence in the episode never even crossed my mind. It's a huge cast. Chihaya and Taichi might be the main characters but one of the wonderful things about Chihayafuru is every character gets development and focus.

But I really should shut up and watch the episode.
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Old 2013-03-29, 20:15   Link #800
thundrakkon
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Originally Posted by Kazu-kun View Post
All the complains on this episode, as far as can tell, are centered on the pacing issue. Don't go around projecting whatever problem you may have with Taichi or the viewers who likes him on this, please. If you're going to post I think you should address the actual discussion.
I did try to have a civil discussion about this, and my posts have been a discussion about the series. However, if you insist to go on with this discussion, which I would rather not, here is a direct quote where you specifically project what I was concerned about.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazu-kun View Post
This tournament was the part of the manga I liked the less, except for some isolated moments here and there (mostly centered on Taichi).
Essentially, if it wasn't Taichi centric, it was not to your liking. At least that is one way to interpret it.

I get that there may be pacing issues, as you have your opinion on it. I like the episode. That is my opinion on it. I rather discuss the episodes contents and the characters themselves than worry about the pacing.
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