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Old 2012-03-13, 16:31   Link #1341
totoum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity View Post
I severely disagree with those posters who think contesting every close call is dishonest. Contesting every close call is what separates the passionate and the sincere from the weak-willed and the insincere.
People who believe she's being dishonest believe she contest close calls knowing she didn't get the card first in hope a weak willed opponent will give her the card she didn't actualy get.
That's very different situation.
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Old 2012-03-13, 16:49   Link #1342
Kazu-kun
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Quote:
Originally Posted by totoum View Post
People who believe she's being dishonest believe she contest close calls knowing she didn't get the card first in hope a weak willed opponent will give her the card she didn't actualy get.
This has been proved wrong already. If you check the screen-caps posted by Byakou you'll see Yumi was right every time she contested a card.
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Old 2012-03-13, 17:43   Link #1343
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So all 3 have a chance to make it next year. Too bad Harada's society didn't get to the master match, forgot the guy's name. Lol Taichi protecting Chihaiya from random guys.
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Old 2012-03-13, 18:10   Link #1344
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Harada-sensei is my hero. I can totally understand why Chihaya fell for him. What an amazing man!

I really enjoyed the slice-of-life part of the episode, which highlighted how close the member of the club have grown. They're almost family now. I also loved it when Taichi tried to pretend he wouldn't care if Chihaya got herself a boyfriend and yet couldn't stop himself from blocking that dude's number on her phone once he learned they had already started mailing
Only Kana-chan seems to have noticed his obvious for love for Chihaya. Damn, the other three are so dense when it comes to romance.

The Arata scenes were great too. I'm happy we're starting to see him more often... unfortunately, the series is already almost over.
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Old 2012-03-14, 00:24   Link #1345
GundamZZ
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Spoiler:


Seriously, they cut a lot of details, including introduction. It's like watching abridged version.

Chihaya unintentionally used the "phone=bridge" reference. Arata is clueless right now. Hopefully, he will get the hint and be brave.
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Old 2012-03-14, 00:46   Link #1346
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I really wanted to throttle both Chihaya and Taichi for much of the episode. Chihaya for her continued self-absorption and immaturity - shame on her for hiding in a locker when her mentor was fighting for her honor - though at least she does (as usual) figure it out eventually. And Taichi for continuing to keep his feelings secret from Chihaya, even as he finally admits it to himself openly. Kanade gets it of course, but Chihaya's cluelessness isn't an act, it's who she is - and Taichi knows this - yet he continues to play the supportive and gallant friend and wait until she's taken away from him. Very sad.

Of course, Harada-sensei makes up for this by continuing to climb the GAR-meter. It's no wonder he's stolen Chihaya's heart, and now Kanade's as well. That scene with Hiroshi was a testament to how great the writing for this show is, given that it involved a supporting character and a minor character, and still managed to be arguably the emotional high point of the episode.
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Old 2012-03-14, 00:52   Link #1347
karice67
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamZZ View Post
Spoiler:


Seriously, they cut a lot of details, including introduction. It's like watching abridged version.

Chihaya unintentionally used the "phone=bridge" reference. Arata is clueless right now. Hopefully, he will get the hint and be brave.
yes!

and YES!!

and kinda yes! again. Although I am also wondering if a lot of viewers here missed it too. I thought the anime made it obvious enough by the flashback to Kana-chan teaching Chihaya the significance of that particular poem...but maybe not?

Then again, as some of the 2-ch ppl are saying, Chihaya still views Arata as 'the god of karuta' after all...
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Last edited by karice67; 2012-03-14 at 01:09.
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Old 2012-03-14, 03:22   Link #1348
Blaat
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamZZ View Post
Seriously, they cut a lot of details, including introduction. It's like watching abridged version.
I got the same feeling but I didn't know if it was the source material or simply the anime team that decided to skip around that much so thanks for clearing that up.
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Old 2012-03-14, 03:53   Link #1349
KyriaL
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Its ironic how many say that Chihaya's unyielding passion for Karuta distances her from other people, but her persistence paid off, as she now has the opportunity to befriend others due to her passion, which unintentionally set the example for others to follow.

But it is still kind of sad, from a certain point, that girls only talked to Komano due to him being close to Taichi. But everyone has to start from somewhere, right?
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Old 2012-03-14, 04:26   Link #1350
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Heh, I quite liked episode 23; they take a step back and relativise the emotional attachment to losing (without disrespecting it). I loved the scene with Harada sensei "comforting" his losing disciple (where he comforted himself as much, but both played the roles tradition assigns them - beautifully played, especially after the earlier telling off of Chihaya for not thanking Yumin for the match). And then Christmas - showing the bonds by being apart (and Chihaya confusing Arata over the magpie-feather- bridge-like phone).

How many episodes? 26? 25? 24 + recap? (At the place we're at, and with time remaining, I'd guess 24 + recap would make sense.)
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Old 2012-03-14, 04:38   Link #1351
Dop
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo View Post
Of course, Harada-sensei makes up for this by continuing to climb the GAR-meter. It's no wonder he's stolen Chihaya's heart, and now Kanade's as well. That scene with Hiroshi was a testament to how great the writing for this show is, given that it involved a supporting character and a minor character, and still managed to be arguably the emotional high point of the episode.
There's no arguably about that for me, it was such a very wonderful moment and a real tribute to the finely crafted writing of this show.

As far as the rest of the episode was concerned, I loved the various party scenes, and also Arata putting the fear of god into his young opponent at their karuta society.

I am SO going to miss this show when it's done.
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Old 2012-03-14, 04:45   Link #1352
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The scene with Harada and his student made me tear up. This series gets to me almost every episode.
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Old 2012-03-14, 05:04   Link #1353
hai_san
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Beautiful 23th EP, finaly Taichi admit he is is in love with Chihaya, well it was obvious from the beginning but still it is the first time he said it so himself. While Chihaya clearly has strong feeling towards Arato, but we still have to see in which way it will developes.
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Old 2012-03-14, 06:45   Link #1354
Yume Hanabi
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Harada is a bear 8)

At least Chihaya's hair are safe... It was cute how everyone was trying to take her place.
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Old 2012-03-14, 12:31   Link #1355
hyperborealis
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Lovely lovely episode.

The episode title "The Night is Nearly Past" comes from the 6th waka. This poem is just hauntingly beautiful:

How the night deepens
As lovers part
a white ribbon of frost
is stretched along
the Bridge of Magpie Wings.

-Peter McMillan

When I see the whiteness
of the frost that lies
on the bridge the magpies spread,
then do I know, indeed,
that the night has deepened.

-Joshua Mostow

Chihaya's flashback to Kana's explication of the poem gives us an important clue to how the anime expects us to interpret the poem: "The misty bridge of magpie feathers / spanned the river of stars which separated Orihime and Hikoboshi / So the bridge brought them together." Kana is talking about the Tanabata legend. Here's the summary from Wikipedia:

Orihime (織姫 Weaving Princess?), daughter of the Tentei (天帝 Sky King, or the universe itself?), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川 Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"?). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星 Cow Herder Star?) (also referred to as Kengyuu (牽牛?)) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

In mentioning the poem to Arata, Chihaya is on one level not saying anything more than that telephone technology is like a bridge that connects her to her friend, someone separated from her habitually, the way Orihime and Hikoboshi are. But of course, there is a deeper level, which suggests that Chihaya and Arata are themselves versions of Orihime and Hikoboshi, however one is supposed to take that, whether as sundered lovers or mythological personages. Perhaps it is coincidental, but the idea of Chihaya as Orihime the weaver of heavenly cloth ties directly back to Undertaker's translation of the idiom applied to Chihaya in the recap episode:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertaker View Post
Chihaya's "not a care in the world" is not exactly correct. A direct translation of those 4 words is "there is no seam on heavenly cloth". It originally means perfection.
Arata is already a kami of karuta, for Chihaya. But this striking poetic allusion suggests that Chihaya is also a kami matched with him, and that together, they make up a corresponding pair, just as Orihime and Hikoboshi do.

Where does Taichi fit? He also receives his own poems from Kana. She refers to the 40th and the 41st wakas. Here are the U. Virginia translations:

Taira no Kanemori

Though I would hide it,
In my face it still appears--
My fond, secret love.
And now he questions me:
"Is something bothering you?"

Mibu no Tadami

It is true I love,
But the rumor of my love
Had gone far and wide,
When people should not have known
That I had begun to love.

Very briefly, both poems speak to love, but only from one side: there is no reference in either poem to a corresponding lover, or a response. These poems fit Taichi all too well.

We've talked a lot about character development in Chihayafuru. Do the characters ever change, in the sense of becoming different from what they were when they started? Or, rather, do they become more themselves, what they were, but more intensely, and with a new consciousness of who they are? I wonder if the latter is not the case.

It is very striking that Chihaya should now use the poetry of the Hyakunin Isshu to understand herself. In this she has become another Kana. But the possibility opens up that the characters are themselves expressions of the poetry. For example, we have to strain for plausible reasons as to why Taichi can't do what some bozo at the train station can do, and ask Chihaya out. We know from her response to Kana--"if I let this chance slip away, I might not get another one!"--all Taichi has to do is ask. But perhaps he never does since he is always and essentially the lover of the two wakas. Suetsugu-sama leaves the romantic narrative open not just to prolong the story, but to create in her characters versions of the poems. The characters are the poems.

---------

The phrase "The Night is Almost Past" also refers to an earlier moment in the episode, where Chihaya is watching the two finalists receive their awards, and she thinks: "the long day is finally over. / And the rest of us will spend the next year as losers." After day, comes night, and so the night of the title is the night of having lost. Consequently, in telling us that the "night is almost past," the title tells us that the friendship and connection Chihaya feels with her friends--what she experiences in missing them at the Christmas party, and what the title waka is ultimately about--have healed for her the sting of her defeat. Chihaya's night is almost past.
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Last edited by hyperborealis; 2012-03-15 at 23:04.
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Old 2012-03-14, 14:19   Link #1356
LKK
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I was genuinely surprised to learn that Nishida and Komana were unaware of Taichi's feelings for Chihaya, especially Nshida. Earlier, he had picked up on Chihaya's desire to meet up with Arata again. So how could he have missed Taichi's feelings for her? Taichi hasn't done a particularly good job of hiding them. *shrugs* Well, then. Extra points to Kana for being the only one in the club who's noticed.
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Old 2012-03-14, 18:56   Link #1357
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
That reminds me of France's last qualifiers match for the 2010 soccer world cup, where Thierry Henry caught the ball with his hand, which led to a goal and France getting qualified instead of Ireland. His - and everyone on his side's - defense? He wasn't caught by the referees. It happens.

You could say - and I'd agree - that he acted like a pro. He brought victory to his team, and there's a whole lot of money at stake, so we're talking about something that matters.

But would you say he exhibited sportsmanship? That he was "passionate and sincere"? Of course not. And the thing is, there's no money in karuta. Without sportsmanship, all you're left with is two weirdoes slapping cards and having "did so! did not!" arguments - I'd as soon watch kids rule lawyering about Yu-Gi-Oh.
A sports becomes sports not by people upholding the virtues and the beauty of the game but by playing to win, doing all that is within reach and allowed to win. Casual play is what needs sportsmanship. Competitive play is what needs rules, referees and a strong self-confidence in the players. In that sense, Thierry Henry played just as he was supposed to. It wasn't sportsmanship in the sense of admitting to faults but it was sportsmanship in the sense of doing what he can to win. You can argue as to which of the two is more respectful to the sports but as far as competitive play goes, its the latter that matters more. Not only because it shows how much the player wanted to win but also because it draws attention to the sports, something that the sports relies on in order to grow and survive.

But with regards to Karuta, which is a much different game from football, and has different standards for ruling, it is even more imperative that a player contest all close calls. Because if your opponent isn't even confident enough to argue back that he or she got the card and not you, there is no reason to let them have it. And no, it wouldn't lead to an infinite loop of bickering. There is a clear rule that says that if the players can't come to an agreement, the card goes to the player whose side the card was on.

And I think you're belittling Karuta and all the other competitive sports out there that don't have much if any to the fiscal side of the story, by implying that money is what turns a game competitive. It's not. It's the other way around. A game that's competitive and emotional is more likely to catch popular imagination and thus create an intake for financial investment. What matters isn't how much money is on the line - although it certainly helps to have more money than less or none - but how much you wish to win..

The beauty of Karuta with its poems and all that isn't something people that are competing at the A level give the slightest damn about. The show itself notes that. It is a competitive sports and trying to appease the crowd with arbitrary standards of sportsmanship which could hurt your play is nothing but a testimony to the weak will of the player. Yumin recognizes this during the match and decides to shed off the facade of grace that she had forced onto herself, that thing that was stopping her from playing her game, from enjoying that sports that she loves dearly. I don't see anything wrong with that whatsoever. Rather, I congratulate her. And any player that manages to get into that mentality in any sports.

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Art of War by Sun Tzu
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
A competitive sports is war. And you should be doing everything that makes it easier for you to win. Adhering to arbitrary standards of fair play bla bla is just finding excuses for weaknesses.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
If really all that happens is that Yumin contests the cards she sincerely thinks are hers - then ok, it's normal. But because it's normal, why is that remarked upon? Why is she unusual? And how come there never are any close cards that she thinks go to her opponent?
Why is it commented upon? Because she does it more often than most people bother to. Why is that a good thing? Because it means she truly cares and tries her best to win. Why is she unusual? Because she is good but still does this thing that most people are uncomfortable doing. People are just jealous of her skills and in their quest to find a flaw with her play, they found this one thing that she does more often than normal - and I bet not all that more often either - and they harped on it till it became legendary. It happens with everybody. With success comes hate. People will try their very fucking best to try and gloat on something a successful player does that's somewhat out of the ordinary.

And why does it matter if there are any close cards that she thinks go to her opponent? She can contest it all the same. What matters isn't whether she thinks the card should go to her opponent but if her opponent thinks the same. If the opponent doesn't have the confidence to claim so, then she gets the card. And I doubt she can just claim any call either. She can only claim really close calls. And as implied by Chihaya's cluelessness with both the calls in the episode, the players themselves can't entirely be sure. So the best a player can do is believe in themselves and contest.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
Unverifiable details don't make a story any more likely to be true. I'd say it's a sign of the speaker making things up. The animators chose to show that Yumin's stories were true. I don't know what the original author intended, though I think it makes more sense from the story POV for the truth to be left ambiguous, as it would be IRL. (And it wouldn't change a thing - since the cards were on her side, Yumin would get the benefit of the doubt.)
That doesn't change the fact that you are being pretentious and disrespectful when you assume that she is cheating or acting in disgrace when there is no proof. When there is no proof that someone's cheating, the best thing to do is to shut up and observe more. In this particular case, there was definite proof as to Yumin's sincerity. But that does indeed not matter. Because if things were left ambiguous, Yumin would still win and all of you who are hating on her just because she makes you uncomfortable would be nothing but jealous haters or pretentious bastards that have never been truly passionate about anything. If you don't like my calling you that with as little as your posts here as evidence, then please realize that you have even less to work with when you hypothesize that Yumin plays dishonestly.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
What case? There's no proof. Of course there isn't. It's all about observation and memory, both of which are ultimately pretty unreliable. Chihaya showed against Shinobu she was both observant and honest, but she's not infallible and she knows it. That's why I have trouble with Yumin, now that I think of it. Without her reputation, I could have accepted the match as a lesson in determination, which I suppose Chihaya needed.
Chihaya ran after the cards that were most definitely not hers. Yumin contested for cards on close calls with confidence that they were hers. She couldn't have known it with certainty but she contested it anyway. And here you are, claiming that Yumin was in the wrong for contesting the calls while you let it slide that Chihaya picked up cards that were definitely not hers while lacking the confidence to even contest for them. That's what I am getting at.
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Old 2012-03-14, 19:03   Link #1358
syke123
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Arata lost as well, bullshit!

I saw that the manga still has a bunch of volumes, possibility for a 2nd 2 cour season?
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Old 2012-03-14, 21:22   Link #1359
Utsuro no Hako
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
I really enjoyed the slice-of-life part of the episode, which highlighted how close the member of the club have grown. They're almost family now. I also loved it when Taichi tried to pretend he wouldn't care if Chihaya got herself a boyfriend and yet couldn't stop himself from blocking that dude's number on her phone once he learned they had already started mailing
Only Kana-chan seems to have noticed his obvious for love for Chihaya. Damn, the other three are so dense when it comes to romance.
Spoiler for For Size:


Too bad when Chihaya thought about who she wanted to be with at the party, her first thought was Arata. Taichi can try all he wants, but he's still second. Possibly even third behind Harada. Or even fourth behind Sudo. God, Taichi, you suck.

I like that Tsutomo was invited to the party and even got to talk to girls (about Taichi), but I wish we got a little bit more on how joining the karuta team changed the way the class treats him.
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Old 2012-03-14, 21:57   Link #1360
maplehurry
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Quote:
Adhering to arbitrary standards of fair play bla bla is just finding excuses for weaknesses.
That's not necessarily true. It's not excuse for weakness as long as one doesn't whine about the loss while adhering to arbitrary standards of fair play.
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