Anime Review: Chihayafuru: For You, I Head Out(1.13)

                                   Chihayafuru: For You, I Head Out(1.13)Review

This episode starts with the karuta team arriving at nationals on the day of the tournament Chihaya starts not feeling well and while she tries to play still it's obvious that she can't play to the best of her abilities. When the team starts off pretty stiff Taichi reminds them to just take everything one card at time which works for the team other than Chihaya who Taichi notices that something is wrong with her at this point.

On the way to going to watch Chihaya compete Arata thinks back to his relationship with his grandpa with first remembering how much he admired him and how he taught him karuta in the first place. Then Arata thinks back to how grandpa was after his stroke and he remembers how his grandpa was determined to keep playing even though he can no longer move his right side. Then one day after Arata arrives home from school he sees an ambulance outside his house his mom tells him that his grandpa will fine and should return home in a few days but when his grandpa doesn't remember him it's revealed that he is now suffering form dementia.

Arata at first tries to get his grandpa to remember karuta but after he has no luck he is heartbroken and it seems that he had started to distance himself from karuta either because it started to become painful for him or because he spends his time taking care of his grandpa. On the day that Arata's grandpa will die he sees the date of the karuta tournament and tells Arata to go to the tournament and it looked like he really wasn't willing to take no for an answer.

When Arata finally arrives at the match he arrives pretty much just in time to see Chihaya faint which leads Taichi to pick her up and forfeit the match for her. After Arata asks what is wrong with Chihaya, Taichi tells him to take care of her. Chihaya wakes up briefly and while happy to see Arata really feels like she must finish her match despite her poor health. Arata sees Chihaya determination and this combine with a man saying that he would like to call someone master Wayata again leads Arata to decide that he will play karuta again because he still does love it.

After the tournament when the team comes by Chihaya's room she says sorry for not being able to compete in the days matches but they assure her that it's okay and Tsutomu excitedly tells her that he won his first match that day. Chihaya though is determined to be well enough to play in the individual match the next day.

I overall really enjoyed this episode, I really liked seeing a more detail story of why Arata ended up quitting karuta. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.