[Verso Sciolto]

Spoiler for Length:

In episode six of the first season we already found Kana reading up on Japanese culture. In the school library that time. Hyperborealis mentioned the translation of one of the books and pointed out the significance of its title: “Higashiyama Culture and Modern Japan”. The author is given as Yamafuji Masao in English and as 山森正雄 in Japanese.

A title of a book which doesn’t appear to exist either but which gets linked to Donald Keene through online searches with the title given in Japanese: 東山文化と現代に日本. Perhaps there is something significant about that as well. Perhaps Suetsugu-sensei dropped some breadcrumbs to follow for her followers. For people trying to locate a path leading into the background of this story so full of specifically Japanese cultural references in another language. Or maybe not ... Perhaps that is too oblique a method to attribute to design. Whatever the case may be -crumbs or pebbles, purpose or lucky accident- there are worse ways to spend your time than to follow them, I think. In that episode of the anime, Kana leaves Chihaya behind in the library while carrying out her own selection of books. The setting changes are interesting.

I’m going to add what Hyperborealis probably also had in mind by explicitly referencing that title. Later in the episode we’re moved to the Oe family store where we once again find Kana reading that same book. Another title sits on the counter besides her 解説 小倉百人一首, translated as: Explanation for Ogura Hyakunin isshuu. Before she walks away from them and wanders around the store in thought. Before Chihaya joins her in front of a kimono on display there.

That book has a title which must bring a jolt of recognition to a lot of people who have gone through high school in Japan. Well maybe not a jolt but there must be others who found it somewhat familiar. While Chihaya is suitably impressed with Kana’s knowledge she should have been aware of the stories she is telling her because the second book is very similar to a book that has remained in print for many decades because it became part of the high school curriculum in many places. They are in their first year but does it really make sense that Chihaya never looked at the stack of books she took home when she became a high school student? Or does this particular school perhaps not provide such titles? Is that why Kana is in the library and the books have library stickers visibly attached in that scene? The topic is familiar and the title perhaps somewhat generic. Nevertheless…

Does it make sense to assume that the elementary school teacher introduced them to those poems for the sole purpose of playing karuta? Chihaya says that she too knows one of the poems but reacts as though she hears for the first time, the meaning which Kana brings to her attention. Is that exposition for our sake or an extra curricular lesson for hers?

When Kana returns to her own room alone, probably after a bath that same evening, wearing yukata, a type of clothes worn traditionally in such circumstances, she looks again at the two books and takes the Higashiyama volume she had been reading off the top. She then appears to substitute it for the book with explanations of Ogura Hyakunin Isshu underneath.

A gesture with which the animators seem to suggest that Kana goes back to that even earlier time and perhaps even rejects some of the modernity suggested with the first title. A decision which would not quite leave her naked but her family would have gone out of business if taken literally because the style of dress associated with that period is even more rarely worn in Japan today than the traditional clothing sold in their store and which Kana wears out of preference even in her most private moments.

Kana imagined and suggested that the type of gatherings in which the karuta club should engage, mirror those ceremonial occasions at Omi Jingu in style of dress up and decorum. As shown in the video just posted by SeijiSensei in the thread for the first season. What those who follow up references must have realised by now is that the construction of Omi Jingu, unlike the composition of the poems, doesn’t date back to the Heian Era.
Although the gesture with the books can quite easily be interpreted as Kana’s imminent acceptance of Chihaya’s invitation to play karuta together now that she is reassured that Chihaya is indeed fascinated by the different perspective she adds to her world there must be a little more to the substitution of the two books. Perhaps karuta, the way Chihaya plays it, represents modernity. Perhaps that is what Kana accepts?

Maybe I overlooked it, wouldn't be the first time, but I saw few reactions to that analysis Hyperborealis posted for the sixth episode of the first season.

We're going back to Omi Jingu. Not the way some would like to see but we're going back there nevertheless. Emperor Tenjin has also been brought to our attention in class in this anime series…. Specifically his association with written law which may literally not have existed either.

What exactly did Kana consider in that private moment of reflection, when she looked at those two books in her hand? What does it mean to be a Japanese woman attached to traditional Japanese values? According to Yuki Suetsugu or according to those who created those moving images based on their visions of Japan … and how, if at all, does Donald Keene fit into all of that?

(Seventy-eight pages here as well. Will we make it past the guardians of the 78th poem and back on to Akikaze ni (79)?)