Anime Review: Chihayafuru 2: Be As Dear Now, Those Were the Good Old Days(2.05)

            Chihayafuru 2: Be As Dear Now, Those Were the Good Old Days(2.05)Review

The karuta club is preparing to play their final match of the tournament which will be against Hukuo which is the team that they beat last year to win. Since both teams will be going to nationals this Hukuo's president wants to take things easy and since Retro has always been able to predict the order of the opposing team using this information to unfairly match their players should make a win easy. Sumire reports to the team that she heard Hukuo's president saying that winning matches against Taichi, Kana and Tsutomu should be easy which is something that only causes them to become more determined to win their matches.

Huoko's president is very upset to learn that Retro lied to them about the order he predicted because he wanted them to beat the team fairly because that will prove that they are the best. Hukuo team has extra pressure put on them in their match because their former president Sudo is the one that will be the reader for the final match. Chihaya ends up not doing to well in her match because she is focusing so much on trying to make her method of taking cards similar to Shinobu which is something that her opponent notices and since he isn't one that seems to think himself capable of defeating someone like Shinobu he doesn't get why Chihaya would be so focus on the distant goal of beating her but he does use her concentration on copying a technique to his advantage to be the one winning their current match.

Kana ends up doing very well in her match in large part due to how good of a reader that Sudo is because he has nearly perfect rhythm which is something that helps Kana out a lot because of how much she focuses on the poetry part of karuta. Kana's opponent is very surprised by Kana's skill and that she can move so well despite the size of her boobs which her opponent is far to focus on but Kana in her thoughts reveal that a kimono is something that allows her to move so well. Nishida ends up loosing his match which adds a lot of pressure to the rest of the team since they thought they could count on his win. Chihaya add the end of the episode starts trying to emulate the current master's style rather than Shinobu's which leads to her starting to make a come back.

I really loved this episode and how it dealt with the idea that even if winning may not be something that needs to be done to advance it doesn't mean that won shouldn't try their best to win. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.