Anime Review: Chihayafuru: The Red That Is(1.02)

                                      Chihayafuru: The Red That Is(1.02)Review

This episode starts off the day after the first one ends and when Chihaya returns to school the next day she discovers that the whole class has started to ignore her like they ignore Wataya and when Taichi says that the class will stop ignoring her if she ignores Wataya and Chihaya calls Taichi out for being mean and the two began to argue. Wataya tries to tell Chihaya that it's okay that she doesn't need to defend him but once Chihaya brings up that Wataya is going to be a karuta master someday Taichi challenges Wataya who says that he won't let anyone take a card from him.

Later on there is a karuta tournament that both Taichi and Wayata are competing in and both of them do well in their first round but everyone was surprised and amazed by Wayata's skills. Do to how good Wataya is and how Taichi will have to play him in the final round Taichi ends up stealing Wataya's glasses because he doesn't want to disappoint his mother by loosing and doesn't think he can beat Wataya fairly. Wataya ends up playing the first half of the round pretty well since he memorized were the cards were but once Taichi notice this he moves the cards around and Wataya doesn't do well anymore. Eventually Chihaya comes over and takes over for Wataya because he can't see and she wants to win for Wataya and she thinks she might be able to do this for him because earlier in the episode Wataya said that Chihaya has a natural talent for karuta.

Chihaya has a rather unusual style to playing karuta since she moves her whole body while playing and often falls over the cards and causes them to move all over but this method seems to work fairly well for her. Taichi eventually starts to use a similar method as Chihaya once he realizes why she's so serious about the game in the end Chihaya wins the match which excites her greatly and at first Taichi tries to play it off as it doesn't matter who wins because karuta is a stupid game but when Chihaya says that it was a fun match Taichi seems a bit embarrassed and that he might agree with her.

Chihaya calls home to tell her family that she won the karuta tournament but their all excited about her sisters model contract to care and her sister calls karuta lame and boring which saddens Chihaya. Taichi's mother is very disappointed him because he lost and says that he will no longer be allowed to compete in karuta tournament because he should only compete in events that he can win. Taichi ends up giving Wataya back his glasses and begging him not to tell Chihaya that he stole them because he doesn't want her to hate him and Wataya calls him a coward but agrees to not tell Chihaya because he understands his feelings. Overall I really enjoyed the episode, please tell me your thoughts on the episode.