Anime Review: Chihayafuru: Set These Forbidden Fields Aglow(1.12)

                       Chihayafuru: Set These Forbidden Fields Aglow(1.12)Review

In this episode after winning the tournament Chihaya sees how upset Retro and the rest of his team were to loose and she wonders if she can possibly play well enough to represent all of Tokyo. When Chihaya arrives home after the tournament she wishes to tell them about her win but they become distracted when her sister come home and tells them they must watch a game show she was part of. Later on in the episode Chihaya finds out that her dad actually cut out the picture from the newspaper of her and her team winning the karuta tournament and knowing that her parents care makes her very happy. At school when Chihaya tells the karuta advisor that the team won their tournament and their going to nationals she's very disappointed to discover that the advisor would rather go to tennis camp.

Chihaya worries briefly that Tsutomu will quite karuta after she hears his grades have slipped but he assures her that his grades her still good and he doesn't care about them they way he use to because of karuta which I think is a good thing since he use to be obsessed with them. Chihaya decides that since the team will be competing at nationals that they should all practice at karuta society Chihaya is a bit surprised to find out that Nishida, Kana and Tsutomu are going to practice at Nishida's old karuta society but she's happy that they came to that conclusion themselves.

 Chihaya and Taichi goes to practice at Dr. Harada's karuta society. Dr. Harada tells Taichi that he plays the game pretty well but he lacks passion  and he tells Chihaya that she lets her emotions guide her a bit to much. After practice with Dr. Harada Chihaya tells Taichi her doubts about playing in nationals about how she doesn't think she can properly represent Tokyo but Taichi tells her she shouldn't feel bad about beating a team fair and square and that Retro came over to his house the night before with information about nationals and tells her that the other teams in Tokyo are their closest allies.

While practicing karuta one afternoon the team notices that Kana had arranged her poems by seasons but Nishida tells her that she shouldn't arrange the cards like that because no one would place them like that when playing competitive karuta and he implies the meaning of the poem is not important which upsets Kana but Chihaya assures this isn't true. The episode ends with the advisor after watching the team play karuta for a bit calling karuta important and placing the semi-finals trophy in case in the office and agreeing to come to nationals with the team.

I really enjoyed this episode it showed what it meant to be the team playing that would represent a whole area and it also showed that some people care more then they let on. Please tell me your thoughts on this episode.