Anime Review: Chihayafuru: As the Years Pass(1.19)

                                      Chihayafuru: As the Years Pass(1.19)Review

This episode starts off during the same matches that the last episode ended on. In Kana and Tsutomu's match Tsutomu is behind because he has two faults where Kana has none and he doesn't seem to be able to make up for his fault since he and Kana are at about the same level in speed. Tsutomu after realizing he's making even more mistakes then just faults tries a risky strategy of putting all of his remaining cards together this works okay for awhile but in the end Kana is able to win the match and realizes that she was able to go directly for Chihaya's favorite card. Kana wins the match and Tsutomu congratulates her and she is very moved that she was able to win.

After Kana and Tsutomu's match is over Chihaya looks over to Taichi and Nishida's match and is shocked to discover that they both only have one card left. When there's only one card left in a game of karuta it is called luck of the draw because the players generally just guard their own card and it's down to which card is read first. Taichi tries to increase his odds of winning by actually going for the cards that sounded similar to Nishida's remaining card and he ends up thinking about how he wished he had Chihaya's skill of being able to hear certain cards before they are even read. In the end Nishida ends up winning the match.

After the match is done Taichi says something that implies that Nishida won because if luck but once he's thinking over the match when he's alone he tells himself that it wasn't luck and that Nishida won because he defend his cards better then he did. When Nishida comes off and sits by Taichi, Taichi apologizes and Nishida tells him that he's glad that he's the president of the karuta club and he wants to keep playing karuta with him also he likes that Taichi actually calls him by his name.

On the way back home from the match Chihaya after hearing that Nishida dislikes how she calls him and Tsutomu but weird nicknames keeps trying to call them by their real names but it comes off as strange and Nishida realizes that she over heard him but Nishida tells him that just who she is so it'd be weird if she stopped acting like that. Also when discussing her match Kana mentions how she didn't feel any pressure to win but only to play karuta the way she liked to best because she was playing against Tsutomu. Chihaya after realizing that her and Taichi always feel pressure says that she'd like to play karuta as a team again.

I really enjoyed this episode the matches felt very intense to me especially since they were against members of the karuta club. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.