I´m sorry that this review will get rather long but this time I just want to write that much about this anime ;)
Sometimes you stumble across one of those anime which happen to feel different, whether they are good or not is up to you but still they are/feel different.
Chihayafuru is one of that kind.
Basically, it´s a mixture of sport, a little comedy and drama which is not the most common type of anime but definitely not unique either.
To sum up the whole anime: Chihayafuru is all about "Karuta", nothing more, nothing less.
Karuta is a Japanese game using cards with poems written on them.
To
...
win the game, the player has to win a certain card on the game field which is the appropriate card to a different one (also a poem) which is being read out by a third party.
If you touch the right card before your opponent does, you win that card.
Once you manage to clear your field (25 cards for each player) you win the game.
So basically, it´s all about memorizing all cards/poems plus the appropriate cards/poems and being faster than your opponent.
This is a VERY simple way to describe the game, if you watch Chihayafuru you will come to understand that it´s way more difficult than it might sound up to this point of the review.
The anime involves six main characters, the five Karuta club members and a friend of the two founders of the club, who happens to live far away from them and therefore does not appear that often. Nevertheless, he is one of the important characters, if not the by far most important one.
The characters are one of the strong points of Chihayafuru because the five members of the Kurata Club are all quite unique in their appearence, behaviour and their way of playing the game, one uses her speed, one pure mathematics and another his memorizing skills.
Using their different abilities, one can easily see the differences in their style of play which is important for the anime, otherwise it would get boring quickly.
Talking about the battles, they happen to be surprisinlgy interesting, one would think that an anime all about sitting on the floor and touching cards has a high risk of becoming monotonous but the battles are really intense and thrilling and as I have already mentioned, the style of play changes with every character of the Karuta club.
Another good aspect of the anime is it´s humor, they´re not frequent enough to call Chihayafuru a comedy anime and they are not breath taking or jaw dropping but the gags are enough to reduce the tensed atmosphere which is omnipresent because of the high aims of the Karuta club.
The pacing is also well done.
Unlike some shounen anime (just for the shit storm, lets´s mention SAO at this point), there are many setbacks and defeats for the Karuta Club, so we´re not bound to watch Chihaya and her friends, being totally overpowered, blasting their way to the top of the world tree... uhm national championship.
Furthermore, unlike even more shounen (take a look at DBZ), the better players never seem to outrun the inferior ones, we actually get to see a lot of progression, even the screentime is allocated nicely, although two of the five members can´t do shit against the three good ones.
So no Yamcha, no Chiaotzu but equally shared focus.
That´s why I said this anime is somewhat different, of course, there are more facts like how the school settings stereotypes are completely ignored and how the strongest player of the club has the biggest flaws, problems and the smallest understanding of the whole game.
These things made Chihayafuru feel some kind of unique to me and I cherish that.
Of course, there are debatable aspects of Chihayafuru as well, the anime explains a lot of techniques and rules which can feel tedious, though it´s important to understand the game which makes up the whole anime.
I can understand if poeple stop watching tha anime due to the seemingly endless talks about one syllable, two syllable and dead cards, positioning techniques and movement patterns.
Like I said, tedious but necessary, necessary but tedious.
Also, if you expect the anime to involve anything else than Karuta, you´re bound to be disappointed, of course, there are some other aspects like love but they are almost crushed in an instant.
One scene from Chihayafuru sums it up:
* Cell phone rings* "Sorry, it´s my girlfriend... hey there... mhm ... mhm... yeah, let´s break up." "Wait, did you just break up with your girlfriend?!" "So what, let´s play some FUCKING KARUTA !!!"
I know that this is totally taken out of the context but it still does um up the overall attitude towards anything that is not Karuta.
I know there is some stuff going on behind the scenes, especially one character does a lot of thinking, and they sometimes think about things like love and so on but nothing really happens.
To come to an end, Chihayafuru is a surprisingly interesting anime about an old card game with intense battles and loveable characters.
In spite of that, there is nothing else than Karuta in this anime, so if you can´t bring yourself to like this game, you may not enjoy Chihayafuru very much.
Try to at least give it a shot, I had A LOT of fun with this anime.
+
Characters, Equality among the Characters, Intense Battles, Humor, Opening (!!!)
-
A lot of theory, Nothing else than Karuta
Jan 3, 2013
Chihayafuru
(Anime)
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I´m sorry that this review will get rather long but this time I just want to write that much about this anime ;)
Sometimes you stumble across one of those anime which happen to feel different, whether they are good or not is up to you but still they are/feel different. Chihayafuru is one of that kind. Basically, it´s a mixture of sport, a little comedy and drama which is not the most common type of anime but definitely not unique either. To sum up the whole anime: Chihayafuru is all about "Karuta", nothing more, nothing less. Karuta is a Japanese game using cards with poems written on them. To ... 
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