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I think the contrast between Taichi and Tsutomu's reaction to their defeat is easy to understand. For starters, this is the second time Taichi ends up in second place. As Nishida stated in an earlier episode, second place hurts, placing second for the second time must hurt even more; especially somebody like Taichi who is more accustomed to being number one. Tsutomu, on the other hand, had never reached the end of a tournament before, that alone in itself is a tremendous achievement for a Karuta newbie like him. Furthermore, it's obvious he likes Kanade quite a bit (maybe even has a crush on her), so he was more easily able to put aside his disappointment and be happy for her.
The second difference between their situation is in the way they were defeated. Kanade was the stronger player and you could clearly see it on the mat: several cards on Tsutomu's side, only one on hers; it was so apparent Tsutomu himself obviously couldn't miss it either and he almost gave up before the match even ended as a result. It's easier to accept defeat if your opponent is stronger than you.
While Taichi eventually admitted Nishida had been slighty better than him after cooling his head off, the gap between them was most certainly not large, and the fact the match was decided by luck of the draw made it even less noticeable. It's not hard for me to put myself in Taichi's shoes and understand how he was misled into thinking Nishida won thanks to luck in the heat of the moment and harbored bitter feelings towards him for a little while due to it. In the end, what matters more than his spurt of the moment reaction is that he eventually realized on his own that he had been unfair to Nishida and that no hard feelings were left between the two. I'm sure this has taught Taichi a lot and that we'll never catch him reacting this way again.
Of course, that's just how *I* saw it.
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