Chihayafuru 2 - 4

"To Tell the People in the Capital That I Head For the Islands"

Though luck does play a part in this sort of thing, it's far more important not to psych yourself out.

If you were to look at me, you'd hardly guess that I have years of sports experience under my belt, but I do. The thing is, I was spectacularly awful at everything I've tried, be it ballet, judo, cross-country, tennis, yoga, volleyball, or softball (the latter two of which I played a lot of in middle school but never joined a team), save for two: soccer and archery. When I first tried soccer, I was horrible at it. I'm not a runner and I suffer from asthma, so being on defense, midfield, or offense was excruciatingly hard. So, of course, my team forced me to be goalkeeper one random match, and, miraculously, I saved every single goal. Except that now I had found something I was decent at, I started psyching myself out whenever I performed poorly. Luck seemed to be against me in every match after that first, and it got to the point where I never saved a goal ever again. At the time I thought that first match was a fluke, but in retrospect, I realize that at some point I started believing that it was natural for me to let goals through, and that subconsciously affected my performance. My own belief in bad luck is what stopped me from improving, rather than the actual luck itself. And that's exactly what's been holding down Taichi, except that in his case, he doesn't believe he has the talent rather than luck (when it's really the opposite).

Chihaya and Arata are great characters, but I think the real draw of Chihayafuru has always been Taichi. He's the loner in the trio, the one who never quite managed to connect the way the other two did as children, and he got where he is through sheer hard work and determination, rather than in the refining of talent. He's a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" and that fact has been killing him since he met Arata. His love of Karuta doesn't just stem from his love for Chihaya (though that's certainly part of it) but also from his need to prove to himself that he can become great if he just works hard enough. He wants to win, he wants to catch up, and I can tell you from personal experience that nothing feels quite as wonderful as winning something by the strength of your own hands. In that sense, Taichi is a much more relatable to us than air-headed Chihaya or godly Arata and every victory at his hands is more meaningful for it.

Unfortunately however, Taichi really does have bad luck. Really bad luck. This isn't exactly a new development either; he's been plagued by it since he was a child and we saw it thwart him more than once in the first series. However, nothing quite encapsulated the extent of it as when the air conditioners stopped working and The Empress exclaimed, "It's only affecting my kids!" The air conditioning wasn't the only problem either; having to go against Hiroshi-san's (who was a Meijin representative the year before) team was brutal, and having come from the same Karuta Society, Hiroshi knew exactly how to pick at Chihaya and Taichi's weaknesses. Then, of course, the reader was so nervous that he ruined the rhythm of the match, causing all the experienced players to be distracted, and Taichi's opponent was intimidatingly crazed about making the match flow in her favor. Yet with a little help from Chihaya, Taichi finally managed to get in the zone and catch up, and his hard work and memorization skills provided the push he needed to succeed in an intense match that only Chihayafuru could pull off. It is a little gross when you see someone be so good at something that it's ridiculous, but as Hiroshi-san grudgingly admits, Taichi put in the hard work and tears to make it possible, and thanks to him, Misuzawa is guaranteed a spot for Nationals, though there's still the final match against Hokuo to look forward to.