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Old 2013-06-15, 20:09   Link #1301
SeijiSensei
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I guess one source of my confusion concerned what Taichi meant by "why am I here?" I read that as "why I am wasting my life playing karuta?" rather than "why am I still in class B?". Perhaps it's obvious to everyone else that the second meaning is the correct one. I don't think the anime does a very good job of discriminating between these alternative interpretations though.
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Old 2013-06-15, 20:11   Link #1302
Kazu-kun
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I don't think the anime does a very good job of discriminating between these alternative interpretations though.
It definitely doesn't. I knew because I read the manga, but I can see where you're coming from.



On another note, I wonder if anyone else picked up on the obvious similarities between Arata's and Taichi's playing styles? It has been alluded to before, in the few times they talked about karuta, but it's made more clear in this episode/part of the manga. They both lack the sort of talent that gives you a clear advantage over the average player (the super hearing Chihaya, Shion and Suo possess, for example), so they have to rely on strategy and arm technique, and memorization is really important for both, since they change the position of the cards very often.

Of course, Arata's style is way more polished thanks to all the training he did with his grandpa, but as Taichi becomes more serious about Karuta, he gets closer and closer to Arata's level, and I think he has the potential to built upon this playing style and maybe even surpass Arata.
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Last edited by Kazu-kun; 2013-06-16 at 01:58.
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Old 2013-06-15, 20:22   Link #1303
Guardian Enzo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I guess one source of my confusion concerned what Taichi meant by "why am I here?" I read that as "why I am wasting my life playing karuta?" rather than "why am I still in class B?". Perhaps it's obvious to everyone else that the second meaning is the correct one. I don't think the anime does a very good job of discriminating between these alternative interpretations though.
I don't know - it's possible I was jumping to conclusions, but I confess it never occurred to me that Taichi meant anything except "Why am I still in Class B when the others are in Class A?" I think it was pretty clear even in the anime, to be honest.
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Old 2013-06-15, 20:49   Link #1304
Quadratic
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A few pages back, a few posters mentioned something along the line if Chihaya watches Arata's game over Taichi, it'd invalidate the theme of team/teamplay that had been built up this season. I admit I thought she'd pick Arata's game, but the explanation of her goal having Taichi getting into class A made sense over the theme of team (unless we want to believe she too is thinking of Team Chihayafuru from their childhood).
By the looks of things, Chihaya and Taichi (and Nishida) are going to watch Arata's match over the last 2 Misuzawa members...
So does this undo everything if they do watch Arata's match?

Personally, I think that the theme of team (in Chihaya's case) was thrown out the window when she won by herself against Rion, whereas Taichi and Nishida actually gave a proper display of team play.
Having said that, I think Chihaya thinks in a larger scope, eg. her desire to make Shinobu and Arata not to be alone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I guess one source of my confusion concerned what Taichi meant by "why am I here?" I read that as "why I am wasting my life playing karuta?" rather than "why am I still in class B?". Perhaps it's obvious to everyone else that the second meaning is the correct one. I don't think the anime does a very good job of discriminating between these alternative interpretations though.
Taichi's thoughts in this episode was "What am I doing here? Why haven't I been able to defeat five Class B players in a row?", so clearly he's wondering why he's still stuck in class B rather than why is he wasting his life playing karuta.
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Old 2013-06-15, 22:59   Link #1305
GundamZZ
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As expected, Taichi win the game in one episode. Since Chihaya's game ended in last episode, both A class match and B class match are cut short.

I feel so sorry for Rion-chan. She shoulders too much burden. The fierce competition can can go on for 2-3 episodes. It's been shortened. Chihaya has a strange place in Tiachi's mind. He determines to "defeat" Chihaya and Rion is his mock opponent. It somehow calms him down. He figures his own winning edge. It's sad that Rion is crying. Instead blaming her, Rion's coach praises her effort. This anime adaption is quite different.

Maybe they will end the class A final in one episode and two episodes for the aftermath?
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Old 2013-06-16, 00:08   Link #1306
Anh_Minh
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Originally Posted by frodonk View Post
as for them not similar, they are both players who devoted much of their time to karuta and were isolated from other people (or even other players of the same age) since they were considered to be geniuses. I'll leave it at that. Shinobu and Arata's exchange before the start of the match explained my point more clearly than what I can say about the matter.
That's just Shinobu's conceit that her road is the only road. Arata's not isolated. He goes to a Karuta society, he has a senpai he looks up to, he has normal friends, he has karuta friends...

He happens not to have a club because his school didn't have one and he didn't create one. And in Tokyo, he was alone because he was the new kid.

Quote:
boobie-chan is different. she views the cards as poems, not as 1, 2 or multi syllable cards. though she had to unlearn that to become a class A player and take the reader exam.
Yamashiro 7-dan's the same, though. She also reads the poems like, well, poems, not bunch of syllables. That's why Kana aspires to be like her.
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Old 2013-06-16, 00:08   Link #1307
hyperborealis
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If Suetsugu treats Taichi's match briefly, she may not consider it to be as important as we might suppose. Reaching A class may be a minor step in Taichi's overall story. Also, so far that the match is less important, Chihaya's extreme reaction becomes more significant. If she cares a lot about a big deal, then it's due to the big deal. If she cares a lot about a little deal, then it is due to Taichi.

I have to say, when Taichi starts firing on all cylinders, pruning out decision trees and adjusting strategy on the fly, he is every bit as impressive as Chihaya or Arata. Each of them has his or her own remarkable capacity for playing karuta.

Chihaya's decision to watch Taichi's match comes about oddly. She's set to sleep through it, till Sakurazawa wakes her. Then she sees Arata and Shinobu, and is on her way to watch them when she is interrupted by Kana & Nishida. Then these two argue, good angel against bad angel. In the end, we never see her decide, but only the result of her decision. But her inclination to watch Tsutomu & Tsukuba's matches probably explains her motives--team first. All the same, her tendency to follow the last outside influence is disconcerting. I'm hesitant to build large thematic castles on such a haphazard and contingent foundation.

After Taichi's victory, Chihaya is in tears--that is how important his achievement is to her. For me, the most moving moment in the episode was Taichi's smile of happiness--after so much struggle, and for so briefly, he allows himself to be happy. Thank goodness Chihaya was there to return himself to his happiness--he was all set to miss it, in the rush to get to the Class A championship.

Which brings us to the episode's title poem, #73. Here is Mostow's translation:

Above the lower slopes
of the high mountains, the cherries
have blossomed!
O, mist of the near mountains,
how I wish you would not rise!

The poem commemorates a scene of perfect beauty, the cherries blossoming on the distant mountain. So too does the episode portray Taichi's accomplishment, a moment of perfection, but brief as cherry blossoms, and all too soon obscured by mists as his life goes on.
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Old 2013-06-16, 04:55   Link #1308
Mubyoshi
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The sexual tension between Arata and Shinobu is through the roof!
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Old 2013-06-16, 14:04   Link #1309
frodonk
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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
That's just Shinobu's conceit that her road is the only road. Arata's not isolated. He goes to a Karuta society, he has a senpai he looks up to, he has normal friends, he has karuta friends...

He happens not to have a club because his school didn't have one and he didn't create one. And in Tokyo, he was alone because he was the new kid.
arata's isolation was self imposed, at least when it comes to karuta and for a limited time only. he only played with his grandfather mainly, and that's kind of why his time playing as a team with chihaya and taichi was a big deal. when the master died arata shut himself away from the game. it was only when chihaya and taichi went there that he started playing again, and also started going to his society to practice.

shinobu was isolated for far longer than arata, and it was not self imposed, to a point that the only the cards are the only friends she considers.

when one looks at it that way, they are really different, but shinobu considers him to be somebody like her.

Quote:
Yamashiro 7-dan's the same, though. She also reads the poems like, well, poems, not bunch of syllables. That's why Kana aspires to be like her.
point is, you dont see kyoko playing competitive karuta.
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Old 2013-06-16, 15:26   Link #1310
Anh_Minh
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Originally Posted by frodonk View Post
arata's isolation was self imposed, at least when it comes to karuta and for a limited time only. he only played with his grandfather mainly, and that's kind of why his time playing as a team with chihaya and taichi was a big deal.
He's been going to Nagumo society and known Murao since elementary school at least. And he was quite familiar with team playing since before he met Chihaya.

Yes, he made a special connection with Chihaya and Taichi. But it's not like he didn't play with other people before or after them.

Quote:
when the master died arata shut himself away from the game. it was only when chihaya and taichi went there that he started playing again, and also started going to his society to practice.
But he played there before his grandfather died. Quite different from Shinobu.

Quote:
shinobu was isolated for far longer than arata, and it was not self imposed,
It kinda was. The head of her society keeps asking her to come back. And all he wanted was for her to play older players. She's the one who decided to just train alone.

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to a point that the only the cards are the only friends she considers.
She's always been weird and isolated. Since before she started karuta.

Quote:
point is, you dont see kyoko playing competitive karuta.
She must have at some point. Only Class A players can become readers.

Spoiler for manga, not sure when it was mentioned. I'm pretty sure it was in the past compared to where the anime is, though.:
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Old 2013-06-16, 19:02   Link #1311
Guardian Enzo
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I actually do think Arata is quite lonely. Physically interacting with other people isn't the same thing as having meaningful relationships. I think the difference between Arata and Shinobu is a matter of self-awareness - he realizes he's lonely and he's capable of trying to change his life as a result. Right now, she's not.

I think the whole point of Arata' request to his parents is because he realized the short time he spent with Taichi and Chihaya was the most meaningful of his life. I think Seutsugu threw the kind of half-assed thread with him playing on a team on there as much to frame his development around this as anything else. Arata's isolation may be self-imposed, but it's still isolation. Just because a guy isn't a hikikomori doesn't mean he's not lonely.
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Old 2013-06-17, 01:00   Link #1312
hyperborealis
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At the start of the fourth episode, Arata's parents worry that he will be estranged by distance from his friends in Tokyo. For his part, Arata is unconcerned: he is sure his friends will not forget him. Recalling Chihaya's phone call on that winter night of the year before, when she had compared their cell phones to the "misty bridge," he reflects, "Chihaya, In my mind our misty bridge is not a cell phone, but something else." Exactly what, he does not say.

But whether that bridge is karuta, or their shared dream of becoming meijin and queen, or more basically the childhood memories that bind them together, Arata feels a sense of connection already with Chihaya. So it is not true that he lacks meaningful relationships or feels lonely. His desire to move to Tokyo fulfills this sense of connection that he feels, and expressly not the opposite sense that he lacks such a connection or feels the lonely want of it.
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Old 2013-06-17, 04:10   Link #1313
Guardian Enzo
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Boy, that's a mighty semantic argument. He's not with his friends so he wants to move closer to them - but he's not lonely?
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Old 2013-06-17, 05:35   Link #1314
thalmann
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Originally Posted by hyperborealis View Post
At the start of the fourth episode, Arata's parents worry that he will be estranged by distance from his friends in Tokyo. For his part, Arata is unconcerned: he is sure his friends will not forget him. Recalling Chihaya's phone call on that winter night of the year before, when she had compared their cell phones to the "misty bridge," he reflects, "Chihaya, In my mind our misty bridge is not a cell phone, but something else." Exactly what, he does not say.

But whether that bridge is karuta, or their shared dream of becoming meijin and queen, or more basically the childhood memories that bind them together, Arata feels a sense of connection already with Chihaya. So it is not true that he lacks meaningful relationships or feels lonely. His desire to move to Tokyo fulfills this sense of connection that he feels, and expressly not the opposite sense that he lacks such a connection or feels the lonely want of it.
Of course It is karuta that linked them together. What do you expect?
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Old 2013-06-17, 05:38   Link #1315
thalmann
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<<Of course, Arata's style is way more polished thanks to all the training he did with his grandpa, but as Taichi becomes more serious about Karuta, he gets closer and closer to Arata's level, and I think he has the potential to built upon this playing style and maybe even surpass Arata.>>

Taichi can't even beat Chihaya and you expect him to be at Arata level?
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Old 2013-06-17, 08:12   Link #1316
hyperborealis
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Boy, that's a mighty semantic argument. He's not with his friends so he wants to move closer to them - but he's not lonely?
Oh, absolutely. This is one of the principal themes of Chihayafuru, after all--that karuta, childhood dreams, and shared memories bind friends together, beyond the power of distance and time to separate. That is why the narrative begins with the main characters in elementary school--it is to frame all of the current action, in high school, in a relation to the past.

Even the "present" we are watching is already a memory. "Tokyo. Six years ago." So the manga begins, by jumping back to Chihaya's sixth grade. Chihaya is telling us the story in retrospective, from twelfth grade. The whole narrative itself illustrates the vital reality of memory.

Anyway, watch again the opening of episode 4, and see what you think. It really doesn't play as an Arata who lacks meaningful relationships or is lonely. It's Arata affirming the deep sense of connection he feels with Chihaya instead.
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Last edited by hyperborealis; 2013-06-17 at 08:31.
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Old 2013-06-17, 10:35   Link #1317
Kazu-kun
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Taichi can't even beat Chihaya and you expect him to be at Arata level?
Yeah, he'll eventually get there, I think. At the very least the story seems to be leading him in that direction. Why do you think this tournament revealed that when he plays at his best he's a lot better than we thought he was (he beat Retro by 18 cards)? It's foreshadowing. It's foreshadowing that he does have the potential.

It's just my opinion. Take it as you will.
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Old 2013-06-17, 10:51   Link #1318
DragoonKain3
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Lol@Shinobu. Still trying to attract attention from Arata, even trying to peg him as a loner like her when Arata is pretty much 'normal'. Poor girl is in love but doesn't even know it yet. XD

And Chihaya watching Taichi over Arata AND Shinobu combined? Maybe a hint as who she truly loves.

Regardless, I am impressed with Asami's acting. I actually thought her crying was realistic and touching to the nth degree. Other times I think crying of other VAs as pretty much fake, but I was wowed here.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I guess one source of my confusion concerned what Taichi meant by "why am I here?" I read that as "why I am wasting my life playing karuta?" rather than "why am I still in class B?". Perhaps it's obvious to everyone else that the second meaning is the correct one. I don't think the anime does a very good job of discriminating between these alternative interpretations though.
The subs I read has him thinking "What am I doing here?", and to be honest, at first I thought he was questioning his life in carta. But then the subs added "Why haven't I been able to beat 5 Class B players in a row?" after which I thought that was pretty arrogant of him thinking much in the lines of "Why am I still in Class B when everyone here is a joke" in a less condescending way.

But I could understand where he was coming from, as he took a Class A player to the luck of the draw (wasn't he undefeated during the team tournament?), while he absolutely DESTROYED Retro. And judging by Retro-kun's remarks, Taichi also curb stomped the rest of his matches.

And the answer? Pretty much implied that Chihaya has something to do with it (his composure is different once Chihaya came). Or that maybe he was too focused on winning that he didn't focus enough on HOW to win (he played differently thinking he had to win early and by a lot, when he was doing just that with his previous mindset).
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Old 2013-06-17, 12:29   Link #1319
Bern-san
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It's a shame that Chihaya and Arata couldn't see Taichi's calm/extreme NTR mode, because I'm sure they would have a great reaction.

I wish Master Suo could appear even for a couple of seconds, just the older people remembering him is fun that watching him in person would be awesome.

Poor Tsukaba is so ignored that he even wasn't present in the seiyuu event
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Old 2013-06-17, 14:41   Link #1320
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I'm rather curious about the seiyuu event, did any thing interesting happen?
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