If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I'm glad things are starting to turn out as we'd hoped with Chihaya learning from Deskmoto and Kana-chan. The two of them take a very analytical approach to karuta, which is a nice contrast to the more reflex and instinct based players at the top. Except Taichi...he's just insane.
We don't know how much Shinobu puts thought into her game though, but we know that A-class players like Arata do think about all the aspects like that. Deskmoto shouldn't have won many cards at all from Chihaya, but it shows that he's really thinking about placement. Hopefully, Kana will start using her seasons pattern, which will throw off opponents attempting to take any cards from her. Most higher level players are used to seeing cards arranged for speed, as the other three club members pointed out to her. I'm hoping Kana picks up defensive karuta.
This episode seemed to cover a lot of territory, but the humor is still always there. Taichi breaking up with the girlfriend we were no longer certain he still had (it was surprising they had still been going out!) and the career survey that earned Chihaya a whack on the head and her cowering in fear of the Empress.
Makes me wonder what Chitose put for her own survey.
Yeah, this was a pretty broad episode and illustrated, finally, that to be aiming for the top, one has to have a wider spectrum of skills than just a single natural talent. Though the current Queen looked like an android, I hope she actually has developed herself thoroughly with great effort, not just concentrating on one thing like Chihaya so far has been doing. Taichi and Nikuman both failing also demonstrated how tough the A class is - but at the same time how high potential Chihaya has despite her flawed methods.
Are we going to see Arata playing before the very end? Theoretically he should be participating in at least the qualifying contest, assuming he wants to be at the grand competition. He might not need to play against any of the main characters, though, at that point. Since he hasn't played for a year, I wonder if his A class status is still valid or does one need to renew it every year?
Deskmoto's analysis is good, but it really only seems useful for helping out his teammates. Since he's weaker than any of them in any aspect, the fact that even he could take cards from them highlights their weaknesses. On the other hand, analysing what quadrants he wins in doesn't really say much about what he's good at or not since the teammates don't serve as a controlled variable like he does.
Following on our gag from last week, Chihaya got no cheers at all from the boys while Kana was.. hugely popular.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Episode 18 - HS
The version I got had broken subtitle styling.
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I've been thinking about it for a while now, but it feels like the director/original author couldn't entirely avoid a slight inconsistency in Chihaya's playing proficiency when they are now trying to depict how tough the A class is. Basically the Queen match managed to do that, even if at the expense of the current Queen's humanity, but now Chihaya, objectively speaking, is playing worse than she was some eps ago. She makes lots of mistakes she didn't make previously and is continuously dumbfounded, not to mention she has zilch composure anymore.
But at least this leaves the other club members more chances to shine on their own. Especially the smaller ones.
Still no Arata... He's so forgotten already that it'll soon be impossible to build real emotional impact with anything happening with him.
Well, Shinobu is a robot. A-class players are:Originally Posted by Kraco
- insanely fast (reaction time and/or physical speed)
- precise (uses only the force they need)
- get into their opponent's head
- use strategy
- possess excellent memorization skills
From what we've been shown of what few other A-class players we've seen, they usually have one or two of those aspects. Shinobu is unique because she uses all of them. Chihaya right now, is only insanely fast. She uses too much force, is a bit of an airhead (so strategy is out), and only somewhat gets into her opponent's head by her speed and personality.
But she is learning from others. Deskmoto introduced her to strategy, and Kana introduced to new methods for visualizing cards. Now Sakura has given her insight to why speed hurts her so much, and what a strategic player can do to eliminate any advantage she might have had. But she also made Chihaya realize that she really doesn't need to be that close to the cards, which will slow down Chihaya her teacher requested, but also grant her increased precision. Chihaya will soon be able to combine those ideas and become closer to Shinobu. In many ways, she's learned that much more by losing.
A nice focus on Kana as well. Deskmoto was quick to note her flaws and use them on her, but Kana was able to sneak in a few tricks as well. The hakama/kimono posture trick was great, and she's able to use her poise to sell even more, heh. Can't wait to see how their match turns out.
Her mother's love for bishonen is still hilarious.
Arata should have already learned all those points you listed, right? Chihaya got her current playing style from him, since she was so impressed by his aggressive speed that set him apart from all the other players back then (that she had witnessed, anyway). Chihaya got stuck in that twisted ideal, but I can't really see it as being anything special to Arata himself, especially since Arata was looking up to the old grandpa, who hardly could have played with uber speed anymore. Plus he should have seen much more at a younger age already, thus experiencing the troubles Chihaya is only seeing now and learning from them early on.
Bah, I want to see him play even more after this episode. Although I also feel like Chihaya couldn't offer him much resistance. I didn't feel like that some episodes ago when Chihaya still felt strong, but now that the show is making her seem unnecessarily weak, I can't help it.
I wouldn't say they're making Chihaya seem unnecessarily weak, she was weak. Sakura pointed it out very well when she said she was lucky to be playing a girl who was only very fast. Chihaya can utterly dominate B-class, but she's always been hit or miss. If she doesn't get warmed up and fall into a good pace, she doesn't win. If she loses too many of the one-syllable cards, she can't win either.
Chihaya had plateaued by relying only on speed and her reaction time. She's always had these weaknesses, as the upside down game she lost to Taichi proved. Now that she is playing against experienced A-class players, it's becoming that much more evident. High schoolers rely on the same methods (speed and memorization), they haven't tended to use much strategy either.
They better have Retro's perspective of Mashima's game next episode. So far they've both been "jack of all trades" such that I really can't define them too much. This applies more so to Nikuman.
In a sense, but not quite. I think it might have more to do with the fact that she got her current playing style from playing Arata. Matched against such a good player, her only chance at taking a card back then was to rely on her speed and good hearing. Perhaps she thought that was her only weapon.
Honestly, I actually don't care about Arata anymore. He's the background final boss who's been alluded to since the beginning of the series, but other than that he doesn't really matter anymore. If Taichi starts being a dick again though, I might change my opinion.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Yeah, that's the problem I mentioned earlier. Although at this point I don't even know if it's a problem or not from the author's pov. Maybe she didn't even mean Arata to be anything much else than a childhood inspiration figure for Chihaya. I might have misinterpreted the whole thing. Still, Chihaya getting heartthrobs from thinking of Arata battles against that humdrum view. Honestly, I don't know anymore. Maybe it was a simple mistake made by the mangaka. Realistically speaking he could still mean a lot more for Chihaya than us, the audience, but that's not good story writing.
I think of him as a character who serves as a type of goal for Chihaya. She wants to be as good as him and just recently met the queen, who is her immediate rival. Chihaya now needs to focus on how to get better. She can't really look towards Arata until then. In fact right now from the competitive karuta perspective, Arata's more of Taichi's concern/mind than Chihaya's.
Showing his side of the power-up as if he was the 3rd main character of this series would make it worse by fragmenting it I think.
That aside, this is probably build-up. Otherwise, the impact of "Next time we meet will be as opponents/tournament/karata" that Chihaya feels won't be conveyed to us as the audience if we've been watching over Arata's shoulder the entire time.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Nah.
Chihaya is deeply in love with Arata. She has been since she was young. She's just too scatterbrained and obsessed with reuniting with him via karuta that she doesn't realize it. This was implied around the episode where she forgot about her own birthday.
The primary reason she was obsessed with karuta because she built on the impression that it was the only thing that would reunite her with Arata. In addition, Arata told her that she could be the best in the world at karuta because only Japan plays it. She liked that idea because it would allow her to eclipse Chitose. All of that has now changed since the Omi Jingu tournament. She actually wants it, just for the sake of doing it. The Chitose part changed after she found her father's scrapbook. Karuta became more than just a means to reuniting with Arata after she encountered Shinobu.
Taichi recognized this from long ago. That's why Arata is more of his problem. There isn't any space for anyone else in Chihaya's mind. Taichi has to catch up (or at least not fall behind) so that Arata can't dominate Chihaya's thoughts from afar. Now that Chihaya's motivations have changed, Taichi really could relax a bit, but I don't think he's caught on quite yet.
Episode 19 - HS
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Tension, tension. This episode worked really well. And ruthlessly. The completely dishonourable method Desktomu chose suited his throughoutly calculative mindset well. Like the audience noted, it really made rooting for Kana easier. Another good detail was how unreasonably impossible Taichi's plan to win the 50-50 situation no matter what was. These sort of games feel far more realistic and thus exciting than the Queen's robot play.
Bill might have given up on Arata, but I was still glad to see him. Especially after Chihaya let Taichi sleep against her shoulder.
I'm really enjoying the way this series has started to show the audience more of the strategic edge to karuta at the same that Chihaya's eyes have finally been opened to the concept. Perhaps it was an oversight on the original author's part to ignore it for so long, but it ultimately is a nice effect. Chihaya only saw speed and reaction time in the game, and we generally only witnessed those aspects as well. Now that she's begun to look deeper into the playstyles of others to improve herself, the series itself allows for more time to be spent on it.
Pretty clever presentation, happy accident or no.
From that viewpoint, it also makes Shinobu's robot play far less impenetrable. She's wasn't just a monster, Chihaya simply didn't have an eye for the strategies that were being used against her.
A nice end to the Kana/Deskmoto match...capped by yet another lovely depiction of Chihaya's lack of grace and composure. Chihaya ORZ, hehe. Taichi almost stumbled back on to his old ways, but thankfully in the lobby, he knew he was solely to blame for his loss. Perhaps he has finally grown up fully.
The van scene reinforced my support for a Taichi x Chihaya ending, even if we still don't know who Chihaya wants to go out with. (It'll be something ridiculous, I'm sure).
They still didn't end up covering Nishida's style of play very well. From all we've seen up till now, he seems to be inferior to Taichi at least as far as ability is concerned. How exactly is he good? I'm not refuting it so much as unable to comprehend it. The only thing I remember is his barrel-roll.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Considering we haven't learned any special traits of his, he's just probably an overall good player. If the circumstances favour him, he can win, just like happened this time. At least he isn't lacking ambition, which is something serving him well.
I hope Arata is much weaker compared to his previous self. While I do hope he manages to become the representative (just so he can meet Chihaya), I also wish that he gets owned in the nationals or something, not by anyone special but because the level is that much higher. Why? Because those types tend to get the girl in the end in Shoujo stories. While I am cool with Mashima with his recent improvements, he still does not come close to Arata.
Peace.
And what exactly is that previous self? We haven't even seen it, except that he could win some tournament and thus arrived late to see the grandpa's end. We do know his pause was only a year long, so he shouldn't be terribly weaker now that he practices hard again. He was working all the time, physically and mentally, so he didn't turn into a passive couch slouch either. Of course this doesn't mean he should be an uber robot like the current Queen, but he certainly shouldn't be much weaker than his previous self, whatever that level was. We last saw his skills when he was a little kid, so it's utterly unreasonable to assume he wouldn't have developed after that at all.
I'm not going to hate this series if Arata doesn't get Chihaya, but I'm going to hate this if some noname beats Arata and that's it. That would be too ruthless. Arata was the sole reason Chihaya developed from a sister worshipper into a woman of her own. Consequently it was also Arata who allowed Taichi to grow a personality not seeking only easy victories, even if Chihaya was the visible proxy in that process.
Episode 20 - HS
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I guess Shinta's wish was at least partially fulfilled already, with Arata getting beaten by some noname. Although we still don't know how strong he was before the hiatus. Nevertheless, it seems like he did retain his class A status. While I liked this episode quite a lot, I also think it was a bit ambiguous, probably on purpose. Not awfully lot was learned, especially not of Arata's developed style. What's-his-name did seem to suggest Arata falls into the calculative type with a poker face, but who knows, I wouldn't ponder too deeply his words, as he seemed a bit pissed off he only won by luck, basically. It has been hammened home already that on the top you can't be single-anything skills wise but must boast a broader spectrum.
All in all I did enjoy the meeting, however short and disjointed it was. It was amusing Chihaya was all about karuta so quickly, even if she was really moved. Arata seemed to find it no less funny. Taichi and Arata's meeting turned out more meaningful, but I guess that makes sense now. Forgetting the karuta brained Chihaya, Arata clearly understands human relationships now, and that created the tension here, which also put into words when Arata probed the possibility of a relationship between Taichi and Chihaya. That was a fine scene in many ways, likely being a big stress relief for Taichi as well. First seeing Arata lose and then being so unsure about Chihaya must have clarified the battlefield somewhat for Taichi.
But like I said, I felt this was a bit too ambiguous to really make strong predictions about whether Arata manages to get Chihaya.
One thing I noticed about Arata's style was how placid he was. The water comparison was a nice touch in that regard. While pretty much every other player we've ever seen flinches when a dead card is read, Arata does not. He calmly waits for the card to be read, as if he already knew.
Taichi really has grown up. Arata might have quite the competition for Chihaya.
I don't think there's much else for me to say, Kraco covered the rest.
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