Anime Review: Chihayafuru: For There is No One Else Here(1.14)

                         Chihayafuru: For There is No One Else Here(1.14)Review

This episode starts off right before the individual tournaments which are played according to class levels meaning that Chihaya's in A class, Taichi and Nishida are in B Class and Kana and Tsutomu are in D Class. Kana and Tsutomu agree to see each other as rivals since they are in the same class but when Nishida tries to do the same with Taichi he's disappointed by Taichi's lack of fire.

In Chihaya's level she learns that the youngest queen in history at 16 is playing she's a girl named Shinobu Wakamiya who Chihaya quickly learns is insanely good at karuta while shortly after beginning her own match she sees that Shinobu has already finished her's and her opponent was only able to take one card from her.

When getting their assignments for who they will play for round two Chihaya goes between hoping to play Shinobu and hoping she doesn't in the end Chihaya has to play her. Chihaya quickly learns that not only is Shinobu extremely fast but she can also make her moves pretty much silently. Taichi who will advance to the next round in his class because his opponent didn't show up ends coming to watch Chihaya's match and he along with everyone else is shocked by Shinobu's speed but he thinks that Chihaya can be just as fast when she just focuses on one but Shinobu can do that with all the cards.

Chihaya tries to use her usual playing strategy of going on the attack but she notices that even though she's doing that she still can't get a single card. At this point Chihaya is beginning to give up any hope of ever winning the match but Shinubo mentions the character on Chihaya's search which makes Chihaya remember that Shinobu is a teenage girl just like her and that she should be able to beat her. Chihaya then starts to focus all her energy on just one card(which according to taichi what she was doing was really obvious) this doesn't end up working because of Shinobu's speed.

Chihaya starts to look like she's going to give up again which leads Shinobo to reflect how her matches always began with players being competitive but they soon give up and she feels like she might as well be playing by herself. Chihaya stops being discourage when she feels like playing against Shinobu is similar to playing against Arata so that motivates Chihaya to try out looking at things from a new perspective and with that she realizes that Shinobu is left handed and that she plays defensively.

After realizing that Shinubo is a defense player Chihaya decides that she has to try and take one of Shinubo's cards in order to shock her. Chihaya and Shinubo touch one card at the same time and since it was so close Shinubo tries to give the card to Chihaya but she refuses because she knows that Shinubo touched it first and she wants to make sure that she earns her first card from the queen. Chihaya actually ends up stealing two of Shinubo's cards in a row which shocks and amazes everyone.

I really enjoyed this episode even though it mostly only focused on one match that wasn't even finished in the episode it still felt super exciting to me. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.