Chihayafuru 2 Episode 21--The Determination to Win

Muse: I probably should’ve seen that one coming. Like I said last week, I was convinced that Chihaya’s left hand just didn’t have the same reflexes as her right, so I thought that she would end up playing like she did in the finals match by focusing on using her other fingers to hit the cards. What actually happens is a brilliant move that is obvious in retrospect. With Chihaya’s playing style, everything was in service to her right hand, from her stance to the way she laid out the cards. Because of this, the problem wasn’t reflexes; it was that she was treating the hand on the left side of her body like it was on the right. The reach simply wasn’t the same. Unconsciously, Chihaya was still playing as if she was using her right hand.

Once she figures this out though, the rest is just simple readjusting. She mirrors all of her movements, even realizing that she needed to move all of her cards as well (I wondered if she was allowed to do that, and then the ref came over saying that it was bad manners, so I guess that answers that). And while she gets used to this mirror style, Chihaya makes an interesting discovery:

“Right handed players only know how to play against other right handed players.”

With the number of left-handed people in the world estimated to be around 10% of the population (Google says so, therefore it is fact), it makes sense that karuta players create and refine their strategies based on right-handed plays since that is the majority of what they will encounter. But considering the split-second timing needed in the higher ranks of karuta, when a block intended for a right-handed player is up against a left-handed player instead, the likelihood of success goes down.

This episode also points out an interesting fact that I hadn’t really thought too much about before: Shinobu is left handed. Her talent is unquestionable, but now I wonder if she built up some of her skills based on the fact that most people don’t know how to play against a left-handed player. I think that this will be very helpful information for Chihaya in the future, and depending on how long her finger takes to heal, I’m also wondering if Chihaya will try an ambidextrous playing style in the future.


Justin: I just can’t seem to get anything right when it comes to Chihayafuru. It looked like smooth sailings for a while, but then I started to fear the worst when Yuube, up by ten cards, started to become convinced Chihaya would give up because she couldn’t play with her left hand. This feeling of hope already emerged during the team tourney final, so as soon as it happened here, I knew Chihaya was going to win. How? Well, I didn’t know how, but I knew, as Arata was giving some hints about trying to play left handed, it would’ve involved Chihaya having to play as a left-handed player. She finally played like a left handed player, though it took some fortune for her to do so! And that’s one of the reasons why she beat Yuube. I mentioned already Yuube’s willingness to let up against Chihaya (and even allowing her to move the cards like that -- what are you doing Yuube? Why didn’t you stop her?); the other happened to be time. As I mentioned last week, you usually figure out how to play with an injury over time. For Chihaya’s case, she was fortunate to have had enough time in a karuta match to figure out how to play with her non-dominant hand. And that’s what pushes her to her two victories in the individual tournament.


For me though, while Chihaya’s story was nice and there’s some sort of karuta matchup we have to talk about, I think I have to talk about Arata. For most of the season, Arata probably had lesser screentime than that old teacher with his slowness of speech. It was that bad at one point. He then got his chance to shine in the Nationals Team Tournament, but even then, he was probably not as cutthroat as he was in his match against Porky. The set-up was obvious: Arata had not faced a member of Mizusawa before (and at least for me, the way Arata had talked to Porky, did he forget about facing him as a child?), and when he does, he goes and praises them, saying that they must be special and awesome.

He then merely swipes a card in maybe a nano-second. It was so bad that Porky was not even out of his stance by the time Arata swiped the card. At that point, despite Porky’s insistence on not giving up, if we didn’t think Arata was already going to win the match, well, that clinched it right there. You see, we all knew Arata was on a tier higher than most Class-A players, but after quitting the game for a while, he lost those skills. I don’t know about you guys, but it looks like he’s all the way back. As was mentioned by the karuta staff when they were debating on what to do with Arata, he really looks like he’ll be a worthy challenger to Master Suo, assuming he can get there.


Muse: Arata’s match versus Porky was particularly interesting because Porky initially lost his drive to play karuta as a kid when Arata beat him in a tournament. Back then, Porky was only interested in winning for the sake of winning. He’s changed now, but it’s still an emotional matchup for him. Making it even sadder is the fact that Arata clearly doesn’t remember him. I guess when you’re at that crazy-good level, you can’t remember all the people you beat. I think that he’ll remember Porky after this time though, since he did make Arata fight for that win.

Of course, despite that, losses still hurt. That rematch forced Porky to take a deep look at his motivations and what he’s actually doing for the team, which is something I’ve been waiting for in his character for a while now. You can really feel his desire to win, which makes the loss particularly sad. It does result in this great line though:

“That's why I hate strong players. They make me want to beat them! They make me want to work harder!”

However, you can hardly blame Porky for losing. After all this time, we finally get to see Arata’s skills in a match, and not just for a brief scene or hyped by secondary characters either. I can see why Shinobu is so eager to play against him; I’m pretty sure that he’s faster than she is. He can hit not just one spot on the board, but move between at least three points within a second and with amazing accuracy. I don’t think anything like this has appeared on this show before this point. I hope that we can see his play style in more detail during the upcoming episodes.


Justin: That’s going to be hard to do Muse. That’s mostly because it’s now time for Round 2 of Chihaya Vs Shinobu. Someone’s gonna need to get the popcorn ready for everybody that’s watching this one. Chihaya obviously has come far in her growth as a karuta player, and she wanted to prove that to Arata by facing him. She’ll have to prove her skills to him against Shinobu, and that means playing left handed isn’t going to cut it. It will be very interesting to see just how far Chihaya has come...

...but it will also be interesting to see Shinobu’s play. Muse already pointed out what Chihaya learned while she played left handed -- will that be a factor in their match? It might, but what I want to find out is what did Shinobu gain by watching the team tournament? After all, that was one of the big keys in that arc. Eventually it’s going to have to pay off. We’re going to find out if it pays off, for Chihaya, or for Shinobu. Now whether that’ll take up the entire episode or we’ll have to find out in another week, who knows. But we will be getting our answer.

Muse: In the meantime, I’m getting hyped for Chihaya’s rematch with Shinobu. This is one of the moments she’s been working towards! Anyone else excited?

Images from Crunchyroll.com