Chihayafuru 2 - 12

"The Only Sign of Summer"

Beat the snot out of her, Chihaya!

I'm starting to see a pattern over this highly extended coverage of the national championship, one that particularly focuses on Chihaya's mental state when she progresses through a match. As has been the case throughout her Karuta playing, Chihaya tends to botch the first half of the match and come through in the second, if only because there are less cards on the field to confuse her. However, lately it's become a bit of a rhythm in which Chihaya finds inspiration halfway through a match from something in her surroundings, and this time around that inspiration comes from Kanade, whom is also busily keeping Tsukuba in awe of her perseverance. Even though it's getting easier to predict when Chihaya will win (or will she?), that doesn't mean that her matches are boring or not as involved. Seeing Kanade remind Chihaya of the meaning of a poem, and for Chihaya to actually take that to heart and use it to bring herself into her top game, is really quite touching. It's yet another mark of how much more mature Chihaya is now, selfish though she may outwardly be.

What did get on my nerves a little bit this week was her opponent, Ousaka Megumu (Matsumoto Sachi). If there's something I can't stand, it's someone being purposefully rude and proud; while pride isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, it's incredibly disrespectful to shove it in someone else's face, as Megumu seems to be fond of doing through her not-so-subtle mannerisms. Sitting in front of Fujisaki rather than her real opponent and claiming that her team should just be allowed to advance to finals is downright aggressive of her, and even her backstory does little to make me like her. While it's never nice to lose, it doesn't give her the right to act so high and mighty about the skills she's acquired since. I really hope to see Chihaya utterly destroy her case of hubris, even if it means we're in for another predictable match.

As to the rest of Misuzawa, we're told nothing about how they're performing as a whole. I think it's a subtle indicator that they might win this when the crowd already assumes Ousaka's team has this in the bag, but they're not having the easiest time of it either. The only player we know for sure is winning is Kanade, and only through sheer force of will. As Tsukasa notes, playing four games in a row is deadly tiring, and Kanade, with the least amount of stamina, is showing the strain most. Regardless, however, she refuses to let the tiredness overcome her, and she might just win her first match at nationals here at her most exhausted. If she and the rest of Misuzawa come through, they either have a shot at a rematch with Hokuo, or a match with the returning champions at Fujisaki, but first, Chihaya needs to teach Ousaka a lesson about manners.