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~~This is a review of both season 1 and 2~~

After many times of straight up ignoring this title due to the concept I finally decided to watch it. It was the kind of impulse decision where you've got a ton of things you want to watch and can't make a decision. Close your eyes, Click a title and proceed to watch. I should do this a lot more. Maybe i'll find other gems like Chihayafuru.

There's a lot of common misconceptions surrounding Chihayafuru, misconceptions I find myself guilty to believing aswell. To be honest I won't blame myself or others. In hindsight, how can a card ... game about poems be exciting? Mix in a bit of classical Japanese literature and you've got yourself a show many will frown upon the thought of watching. Watching Chihayafuru taught me to go into shows blindly. To not be swayed by common opinions and decide for yourself if you like it.

Now then, onto the review!

To summarize the show briefly; Chihayafuru is about a high school student named Chihaya who fell in love with a certain card game called Karuta when she was younger. She fell in love with it after playing a certain character who'll play a role in the story. Her goal is to become the best Karuta player in Japan and become the so called ''Queen'' which is the title for the best female player. to summarize the game in short; There's 100 poems and each player is given 25 random cards with the second verse of a poem. Players are given time to place their cards on the floor in any way they want. A so called ''Reader'' will read the first verse of a poem and players are supposed to take the second verse to that card. The game is over if one side has no cards left.
This doesn't mean that side has automatically lost since players are allowed to take cards from both sides.

Chihayafuru is a lot of things. It's a sports anime with real drama. It's a slice-of-life show with some romance mixed in. It's a show about a game maturing to a sport, and most importantly, It's a show where there's no main character. Every character feels like the protagonist of their own story. Yes technically Chihaya is the main character but the other characters get equal screen time, their own story and problems to deal with in great detail. I feel like it wouldn't do the show justice to call Chihaya the clear main character. I know and like characters like Taichi and Komano equally as much as Chihaya.

The show does a good job setting the tone of the story. It's not overly complex. It's a simple story about a girl aiming to be the best in what she loves most. It's the execution that shines through. We experience the journey of Chihaya as she decides to set up a club, recruit members and in turn we experience the story of those members. There's a few things in the beginning that didn't make a lot of sense. If there's something to fault It would be that the recruiting of members felt forced. It didn't flow very well. The show would randomly introduce us to a character who you can instantly tell will join the club. It made the events leading up to that feel less significant. Outside of that the story is very well paced.

The biggest strength of Chihayafuru is it's characters. I feel like i've gotten to know every single character. We get a lot of insight about their rivals aswell. We find out their struggles, thoughts and goals just as much as our main cast. This is what makes Chihayafuru so good. Many times have I wanted to root for the enemy as much as for our main cast.

One of the reasons I feel like it's unfair to call Chihaya the undisputed main character is because there's loads of interesting character dynamic between our main cast. It's safe to say some characters spend more time with other characters than Chihaya. I feel like this is an important point in shaping them. They aren't all there for Chihaya. They're here for themselves, their own goals and to overcome their own struggles. To make friends in between and grow closer as a group. The way Chihayafuru handles it's characters is extremely comparable to Hunter x Hunter which has some of the finest characters i've ever seen out of an anime.

At heart Chihayafuru is as much a drama as it is a sports show. The thing that's so important for a show focused on drama to succeed is making believable characters with believable struggles. Without these two things you can't possible create drama that doesn't feel forced or overdramatized. It came to my surprise how real all the drama felt. To some characters Karuta means absolutely everything. Imagine when you lose a match you knew you could win by only two cards. If I was someone who was extremely passionate about karuta i'm sure I would shed some tears of disappointment and sadness. The feeling of wanting to get stronger but struggling to achieve that is something a lot of us can connect with. Being strong isn't for everyone. In fact, being strong requires determination and this is what the show depicts really well. Characters who are determined and motivated do their absolute best to become stronger and throughout the show we experience the results to that determination. It's a journey you don't want to miss.

Chihayafuru's sound department has done a remarkable job in creating proper background music and using them at the right time. At the same time their usage of NO sound has proven to be very succesful. In a game where hearing is crucial to success the lack of sound in some scenes actually help build tension and help you understand what the players go through right before a verse is read. The opening songs are fun and nice. It isn't anything special but it's the kind of song you'd expect for this kind of show. The ending songs on the other hand are extremely good and I still have both of them on repeat.

Chihayafuru is a show you don't want to miss out on. It's just that good. While the beginning may seem like your generic ''let's start a club and recruit members'' what lies beyond that is something truly special. A journey with each character to what they find important and want to achieve. Chihayafuru has given me a feeling I haven't had in a long time. The desire to keep watching, wanting to know what'll happen next and being able to keep watching over our characters as some sort of silent guardian. I'm truly happy I've finally decided to watch and finish the show. As this is a gem you absolutely don't want to miss.

Hunter x Hunter is the best shounen to date''.

People commonly praise Hunter x Hunter as the best shounen ever created. I can't really say much about this because i've not watched many of the big shounen's. However, I can say that Hunter x Hunter is a solid shounen with a lot of good stuff to offer. It does remarkably well on it's characters and managed to create an interesting and engaging story, but not without flaws.

When I think of Hunter x Hunter the first thing that comes to mind is how masterfully it develops it's side characters. While the main characters get significant amounts of ... character development the show truly shines at creating side characters and making you feel sympathetic with them, villainous or not. While not every single character is being used throughout the entire show, when they are relevant the show makes sure to tell us everything there is about them and makes sure not to leave them in the dust or use them for plot convenience... except for a few.

One of the things Hunter x Hunter suffers from is using characters for plot convenience. Multiple times throughout the show are we introduced to characters who are solely there to make our protagonists, named Gon and Killua, stronger. There is extensive amounts of training done by our protagonists during the show, which is a good thing. It shows us that power is reached by continuous training and not through the ''power of friendship''. The problem however, stems from the fact that we are introduced to characters who only exist to tell Gon and Killua how to get stronger. We barely get to know anything about their motives except for ''I can't bear seeing people with so much untapped potential so I will train you''. I would be fine with this if these characters were actually relevant to the plot outside of making our protagonists stronger but it feels more like an excuse to have these characters train Gon and Killua. After they're done training them we barely ever see these characters again.

Another instance of using characters for plot convenience has to do with foreshadowing. There is no power of friendship. There are however multiple instances of so called ''asspulls'' within the show. Characters who are gravely injured and bordering death who survive because the show randomly introduces plot points without any foreshadowing towards it's supposed existance. We are told at the last second about a special power a character has that makes said person survive. We have no clue's or indication towards these powers which means they were only brought up because the show needed a ''logical'' reason for our characters to survive. In another instance are we introduced to a character from a certain family that even had an arc about themselves who has the power to grant other people's wishes, but under certain conditions! Naturally this is right after one of our major characters is severely wounded. We've had no evidence of this character's existance untill she was necessary. Sure, she wasn't relevant to the plot before but when we were told who the members of the family were they should've mentioned her or anything regarding her existance. Instead she was pulled out of thin air when the show needed her the most. Talk about convenient.

Speaking about being severely wounded. The show is really good at making sure to remind us our protagonists are, in fact, not invincible. Multiple times will we see them lose fights against the same opponent over and over and be severely outclassed. As I mentioned earlier there is no such thing as power of friendship within Hunter x Hunter and every victory by our protagonists is gained either by strategy or just being better. Yes, that's all there is to it. The people who have the most strength, within all it's forms win and that is certainly true for Hunter x Hunter. I should mention that actual fights are scarce except for a couple of arcs/episodes. Hunter x Hunter spends a lot of time on it's characters and the fights we get are varying in quality. I wouldn't say any of them are bad ( except for a certain arc when our characters just learned about new powers and steamroll through every opponent unaware about these powers ) but with the exception of a few they aren't anything to write home about either.

Throughout the show we are introduced to several villainous groups and the way the show develops them to make you accept them morally is incredibly well done. Multiple times have I felt true regret and sympathy towards the villains. This is especially evident in one of the later arcs where the protagonists basically fight for human survival. The show makes us spend a lot of time with the villains and show us what they're like, what they're thinking, what they struggle with and why they do what they do. It shows us that villains can change aswell and as a result we get incredibly good development for most of them. Never before have I truly sympathized with the supposed villains in any show, but the way Hunter x Hunter makes us learn about the villains is truly worthy of praise.

From a technical standpoint the show certainly doesn't fail to deliver.
The art style used works fine for Hunter x Hunter. Backgrounds aren't always exactly the most detailed but at times when the show focusses on world building the show tries hard and succeeds in showing us what we need to know. The show is certainly capable of good backgrounds and we are shown that plenty of times. Character designs fit the art really well. The backgrounds and character designs show enough similarities that the show looks very natural. Animation is above average throughout the entire show. I haven't witnessed any severe drops in quality and everything was overall very pleasing to look at.

Soundtracks were really good and well done. I added a couple of them to my playlist because they're just that good. The show has fitting soundtracks for most of the situations, however I must say sometimes tracks were used at the wrong times. It didn't take away from the immersion but there were moments I thought to myself ''they should've used this track instead''.
Think about a lighthearted track during a serious moment or the other way round ( this is slightly exaggerated to get the point across ).
I don't pay much attention to sound effects but I will notice when a sound effect is really out of place. Gladly I didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

Hunter x Hunter is certainly an incredibly good show worth watching for anyone. It's commonly said to power through the first arc and I agree on this. While I consider the first arc to be fine and actually a load of fun it is a little generic. Consider it the introduction of the characters and plot. The true Hunter x Hunter starts after this. I promise you will not be disappointed.

I'm sure all of us have one or two idols we look up to. Usually it's musicians or sports stars, maybe you're completely head-over-heels over your favourite anime director. Hata Kousaku is no different than us. Kousaku, attending an agriculture school, is completely obssesed over a certain popstar named Kusakabe Yuka. His obsession goes to absurd lenghts. He occasionaly sends his grown vegetables or fruit to Yuka and his whole room is completely filled with posters and what-not. Kusakabe Yuka shocks the world when she announces her retirement leaving Kousaku shocked and majorly depressed. Suddenly, a transfer student joins Kousaku's school and class under ... the name Kinoshita Ringo and it turns out this girl is a striking resemblance to Kusakabe Yuka. Kousaku instantly realizes that she is the idol he's been looking up to. For future reference i'm going to use the name Ringo as it's her real name. Kusakabe Yuka was only her stage name


Story: (6)

The story isn't anything fancy or deep. I feel the entire point of the anime is to make you smile and allthough it does manage to accomplish this it does not take away the fact the story is rather mediocre. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. As most rom-com's dont utilize a deep storyline and i believe they don't need to. The comedy part is definitely strong in this anime. Most of the times it goes totally random and you're left wondering what the hell you just watched.

The setting of an agriculture environment is an interesting choice, one i haven't seen yet before. I'm not the kind of person that's into agriculture but i feel that's not a problem. It was actually fairly interesting to hear about different methods of growing vegetables and it was absolutely hilarious to watch the students go to absurd lengths in protecting their crops.

Art: (8)

The art was good. There were no major flaws or inconsistency issues and i felt like they did a really good job in portraying the characters and the crops. I feel like this is to be expected from a 2014 release. Allthough the characters were drawn nicely i personally didn't like their clothing and work uniforms. I felt like Ringo and a few other characters ( whom i'll be going over at in the character section ) were robbed from their natural beauty solely because of the clothing. Ofcourse, this is subjective and to be expected because in order to accomplish succesful farming you have to get your hands dirty. In my opinion, once the characters switched from their work uniform into normal clothing you would feel better about watching them.

Sound: (7)

The sound, while being nothing special certainly wasn't bad either. The music was used at the appropriate times. It did well adjusting to the mood and was overall very cheery.

Characters: (5)

Definitely the weak part of the anime. About every character in this anime is generic and unoriginal. You have mr. nothing special protagonist, your typical tsundere who is in possession of the most oversized and unrealistic boobs i've ever seen in any anime and on top of that she is either extremely self unconscious or she thinks big and small have a reverse meaning, You simply do NOT deny the size of your boobs when they're the equavalent of a basketball. You also have your typical childhood friend who is there solely to form a love triangle. The amount of noteworthy contribution she has to this series is about as high as the amount of basketball-sized boobwomen on earth. Also i feel like she dyed her hair with vomit. Onto the next person, you have Kamatori Kei, who, at first glance would make you think he's the ''mature'' person in the series. Oh god how wrong was i in that assumption. He, alongside Ringo was one of the few enjoyable characters in this series. He is slightly perverted but hey nothing wrong with that right? He contributes alot to the randomness of this anime. Last but not least, you have Kinoshita Ringo. The adorable, purple haired girl who seems to blush 24/7. She is definitely the strong point of this anime. She gave a mysterious feeling. She talks almost monotone and doesn't say much. Even so she was fun to watch and definitely great to look at. I feel like there was little to no character development in this series at all. Ringo and Kousaku's relationship barely change and as such the end of this series will leave you infuriated. When this anime ended it felt like the last episode was just another random episode. It didn't feel like an ending so i'm generally disappointed by this.

Enjoyment: (7)

For me this anime was fairly enjoyable, however i struggled to finish this to the end as i felt like there was no clear objective. When i finally thought about an ending that would have to be cramped up in one episode i was unpleasantly shocked that it simply did not have an ending at all. The agricultre however, was fairly interesting and the comedy was definitely fresh and enjoyable.

Overall: (7)

Allthough i rated this a ''6'' on MAL i did so on a subjective basis. When i rate a series i do so on personal enjoyment and not on an objective basis. The anime had both a very clear strength and an obvious flaw. Thus i feel the lack of character development is balanced out by the great amount and original comedy. a ''7'' would only be a logical conclusion from this point of view.