Anime Review: Chihayafuru: Just as My Beauty Has Faded(1.22)

                               Chihayafuru: Just as My Beauty Has Faded(1.22)Review

In this episode Chihaya has to play her match against Yumi Yamamoto the previous Queen. Before the match had started Chihaya remembered how Yumi was after she won her Queen's match and how all she really remembers from how she played karuta was how she refused to give up and while Chihaya was nervous about playing her she still felt like she could win the match if she controlled the game. Yumi before the match even started seemed pretty discourage and a bit jealous of Chihaya's looks and how she feels it isn't fair that she is only good at karuta when other players have more than one gift.

When the match actually starts Chihaya starts off really careful and she ends up taking pretty much every card and not even making one fault. After watching Yumi play for awhile Chihaya notices that Yumi has loss her passion for playing the game of karuta therefore Chihaya becomes determined to not let Yuli take one card from her. Chihaya begins to play somewhat recklessly and ends up making quite a few faults. While watching class A compete Kana sadly notes that no one inside is listening to the poetry but she is somewhat cheered up by the fact that reader reads the poems so clearly. Tsutomu then tells Kana about how few really great karuta readers there are and how they put in a lot of work to become one.

Yumi's karuta coach ends up opening the window and tries to encourage Yumi to just play her own kind of karuta at first it seems like Yumi will dismiss his advice and just accept defeat but then she remembers that since now she is a challenger again she doesn't have to not play her version of karuta. Yumi then starts to contest any card that is a close call and Chihaya starts to loose her confidence level. Taichi seeing this realizes how much mental strength goes into karuta because after that point Chihaya starts to loose the match. In the end Chihaya ends up loosing her match.

I really loved this episode there was an intense karuta match that dealt with how someone's level of confidence effects how well they play the game.