Chihayafuru 2 - 7

"They All Exchange Hellos and Goodbyes At The Famous Gates of Afusaka"

Fourth wall? Bah, this is Chihayafuru!

While the purpose of this episode is to provide a breather between tournaments, there is so much going on that it hardly feels as though that's the point. Compared to the first season, Chihayafuru 2 is racing at breakneck speed and in under ten episodes the Karuta Club is off to Omi Jingu for another shot at Nationals. Before that though, we get a look into Chihaya and her family.

I find it kind of strange that Chihaya's family is only now getting more attention; most of what we know about the situation arises from the fact that Chihaya is more or less the forgotten child. Her sister, Chitose, is a model and their parents are constantly fussing over her career to the exclusion of Chihaya's life. Chitose herself doesn't particularly care about Chihaya and her obsession with Karuta; she is, however, inspired by her little sister's determination to continue her acting and modeling job after feeling particularly discouraged about her future. Still, it's hardly fair that instead of helping cheer up her depressed imouto, Chitose projects her own failures on her sister and further puts her down about it. While their parents aren't completely ignoring Chihaya, it can't be said that they're supporting her either, so with guilt in mind, Chihaya's mother decides to finally invest some interest and money on her youngest daughter.

It's kind of thoughtless to buy off your daughter with clothes, but Chihaya's mother is hardly the first to try, and so the two of them go to Kanade's family shop to buy Chihaya her own hakama for competitions. There's an interesting dialogue here that happens between mothers, in which Chihaya's mother tries to justify the way she and her husband have treated Chihaya by explaining that Chihaya is the more stable of the two girls emotionally and that they've had to worry about Chitose's "unstable career choice" in contrast. While some of that does ring true (the fact that Chihaya is more focused on what makes her happy), it's also a cruel excuse at saying "you're fine on your own, and your sister needs us more," though Chihaya doesn't see it that way. It's a mark of just how neglected she's been that this admission to thinly veiled favoritism makes her happy; at least she has her friends.

Speaking of the Karuta Club, the consequences of failing to recruit five new members have finally caught up to them, and the Band which would have taken their club room finds itself without enough space to store their instruments. Hoping to amass some good karma to reverse their stream of bad luck, Chihaya offers the second floor of the club room to the Band against better judgement. While it's technically self-serving, the fact that Chihaya recognizes that the Band deserves some help is a sign of maturity, though she's still thick as a plank of wood - "we're already on the second season and she still doesn't know what the title means!" - when it comes to studying and matters of intellect.

Still, the karma pays off when the extremely grateful Band serenades the Karuta club, wishing them good luck and success at nationals. As Nishida aptly says, "it's the first time someone outside of Karuta has wished me well," and that means a lot to them all; it's really touching to have someone genuinely support you, especially when your own family and friends rarely do it.

In the blur of these extremely busy twenty minutes (complete with rapid humorous inserts), the club arrives at Omi Jingu once more, where Sumire returns to her role as a catalyst for romance by asking Chihaya is there's someone she loves. Unlike other times when she's been asked this question, her mind goes straight to Arata, whom she calls later that night. Unfortunately for Taichi, he witnesses this and it's very clear to him just how much he's losing by. The Bro Code has let him and Arata give each other room, but they failed to account for Chihaya's own feelings and how much stronger they would become in absentia. It's cruel that Taichi always gets the short end of the stick, and the longer he waits to act, the more Arata becomes an integral part of Chihaya's heart. Ultimately, he'll have to stop running away from his feelings and using Karuta as a "rule" to his love if he wants there to be any chance of he and Chihaya ending up together.