Anime Review: Chihayafuru: The Night is Nearly Past(1.23)

                                Chihayafuru: The Night is Nearly Past(1.23)Review

This episode starts off shortly after the end of the last one and Chihaya is feeling very upset by her loss and she goes and locks herself in the cabinet. Sudo comes over and reminds everyone of the bet that he had with Chihaya about the one that looses first shaving their head Dr. Harada ends up saying that he'll take her place in that bet and ends up saving Chihaya from having to shave her head. The karuta club waits Chihaya to come out of the cabinet for awhile together until Taichi is able to convince the rest of the club to watch the karuta matches while he remains waiting for Chihaya. Taichi brings up how he's been communicating with Arata because he feels that Arata would be better able to help Chihaya through her defeat. Kana comes up awhile later and tells Taichi that he should watch the match between Sudo and Dr. Harada and when Taichi tries to convince Chihaya come out to cheer on Dr. Harada, Chihaya opens the door he was leaning on rather abruptly and tells him he should be watching the matches not cheering anyone on. Taichi then admits to himself that he is hopelessly in love with Chihaya.

Chihaya while watching Dr. Harada play realizes that the rest of the team had been cheering her on the whole time during her matches and she realizes that during the matches that she was only thinking of herself and she feels that maybe one of the reasons why she lost. In the end Dr. Harada wins against Sudo but doesn't win the last round so he won't be competing in the eastern qualifier.

Chihaya awhile later gets asked out by some random guy from another school and she doesn't know if she should say yes or not since she's never been asked out before and is afraid it won't happen again. Kana thinks that Chihaya shouldn't go because she doesn't know the guy, Nishida is surprised that she's never been asked out before and Taichi doesn't think it will work out since he hasn't seen her play karuta. Taichi ends up blocking the guys number on Chihaya's phone and she doesn't seem to bothered by it and Kana realizes that Taichi has feelings for Chihaya even though no one else notices it.

Arata is regretting that he ever quit playing karuta in the first place and feels that he isn't playing to the best of his abilities because he took time off. He ends up telling this to a former member of his karuta society who has recently quit due to not feeling like he can ever be a master. The episode ends with everyone going to different Christmas parties and Chihaya having a brief phone call with Arata.

I overall really enjoyed this episode I feel like a lot was covered even though not much really happened. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.