Anime Review: Chihayafuru 2: Feel Love Deepen(2.03)

                                        Chihayafuru 2: Feel Love Deepen(2.03)Review

In this episode karuta club compete in the regional team high school championship for the second time. At first the karuta club were just going to use the five original members to compete but after Tsukuba tries to change the order on the sheet and Tsutomu realizes how much Tsukuba wants to play and he relates to Tsukuba's feelings because last year he also didn't feel like he was needed there so Tsutomu decides to add Sumire to the match against an all male team that seems to go easy on females and Tsukuba to another match against a vocally aggressive school.

Sumire is very frightened by having to compete in a match because she had assumed that she would just be watching the matches that day but it turns out that after her opponent lets her get a few cards solely because he thinks she's pretty she starts to get serious about taking cards especially after seeing that Chihaya had won her match by not letting her opponent take a single card from her. During this match while watching Chihaya play Tsukuba and his brothers who came to watch him, all decide that Chihaya is really cool and after Tsukuba has a conversation with Tsutomu about why he allowed the new members to play and tells him he's sure that Tsukuba since he has the talent and the passion will start winning matches and Tsukuba decides that Tsutomu is also cool.

During his match Tsukuba ends up not doing very well and he starts to feel like a fool because he was so confident about karuta which is the only thing that he is confident about and he's embarrassed that he can't even take one card  it is especially bad for him because he's making a fool out of himself in front of his little brothers who worship him. Tsukuba eventually starts to worry more about just getting a card rather than winning the game although he still does win in the end and his brothers still thinks he's great and hope that playing traditional karuta would help improve Tsukuba's skills.

It was also noted by Kana in this episode that Chihaya, Taichi and Nishida playing so solidly in their matches were in part because of their new club members. This episode is one in which we really got to learn more about who Tsukuba is and what he's like as a player and Sumire also is continuing to show herself caring more about karuta. I overall really enjoyed the episode, please tell me your thoughts on it.