Thread: Licensed + Crunchyroll Chihayafuru Season 2
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Old 2013-02-25, 15:33   Link #548
Sol Falling
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
There is no meaningful distinction between friendship and love. If Chihaya has got strong platonic feelings for Taichi or Arata (Arata being the stronger connection here, for whatever reasons), then that could easily become/serve as a foundation for a romantic connection.

In fact, because Chihaya is sexually immature, I wonder if it could even happen too easily. Given the level of longing/idolization Chihaya has displayed towards Arata thus far, I find it difficult to imagine (when they finally manage to get into regular contact with each other) that Chihaya would put up any sort of (initial) resistance if Arata ever pushed their relationship closer romantically. I almost feel like the strong emotional tension between them as is cannot continue as is, that it might require an outlet at some point. And sex would be pure instinct. At any stage, if they had an opportunity, I think it would be all too easy for Chihaya and Arata's present relationship to turn into a sexual/'romantic' one.

However from then on, from Chihaya's perspective, the question becomes what Arata's motives are. Is he truly interested in her because he returns her feelings of idolization, her love of his karuta (or his love of karuta)? Or else is he just interested in her romantically, with karuta being a convenient vehicle. Is there any real reason for Chihaya and Arata to actually be together romantically just because they both love karuta? Precisely because Chihaya's love for karuta is currently so closely tied to her feelings for Arata, this would be an issue. So even though in this case romantic potential exists (in the form of strong, currently platonic feelings), and it might very well or could very easily happen (from my perspective), there is no indication that that would necessarily be the right path.

Taichi, meanwhile, is just not even on Chihaya's radar as a major (i.e. singular) emotional entity, even though she obviously cares a lot about her friends of course, so he's still honestly got a long way to go. On the current path he is walking, I don't even know if winning Chihaya over the way he would like to (or at least, insofar as he displays jealousy towards Arata) is even possible. The only plausible progression I can imagine for Taichi with Chihaya really is if he would mature to the point that he realizes romance/sex doesn't really have to be something all-encompassing, so that he could play second fiddle against karuta in Chihaya's life but still have a relationship which is completely fine and natural and satisfying. Although the very idea of this progression basically goes against a lot of Taichi's character development, it would be an extremely natural solution to Taichi's feelings for Chihaya through which I believe he could even win Chihaya over as he is currently.

The basic idea is that love/romantic passion and dreams/life's passion don't really need to correlate with each other. And a stable relationship can be achieved if the parties involved just understand where they stand with each other.

On the other hand, there are scenarios where love/romantic passion and dreams can very comfortably intersect. And this is usually where one or (ideally) both individuals are already very mature/accomplished in terms of the dreams they are pursuing. Chihaya x Harada-sensei might comfortably fall into this category, if Harada-sensei were a pedo and not already married (lol). The stability of their experience/the things they have already accomplished allows the relationship's growth to be very complementary. In this sense, I think Chihaya x Shinobu could have a greater chance at long-term survival (once they properly acknowledge each other and become long-term rivals etc. or something, lol) than Chihaya x Arata.

lol, so basically what I am trying to say is that I will take my yuri-shipping where I can get it. And also that while het pairings can probably work out fine, honestly yuri is so much better. You get the powerful emotional tension/platonic attraction, you get the expression via sexuality (in combination with mutually physically attractive partners), but you don't get the doubt, baseness, and instinct/shallow self-interest of heterosexual relationships.

(Shinobu would be a pretty tough ship for Chihaya, currently. Just as Taichi is not really on Chihaya's radar (as a 'singular' existence), neither is Chihaya presently on Shinobu's. All the same, though, Chihaya is the main character, and really, I still can't get over the fact that all this time Chihaya's been calling such a distant person "Shinobu-chan" :P.)

Last edited by Sol Falling; 2013-02-25 at 15:53.
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