Chihayafuru Episode 4: Sweet Victory

After Chihaya had declared to Taichi that if she wins the competition to succeed into Class A, he will help her form the Karuta club, she works hard to obtain victory.


Impression:
At first I wasn’t sure what to think when they went a little off track of the manga’s route in the beginning of the episode and changed it a bit, so it raised a little bit of concern for me, but thankfully they quickly jumped back onto the main road following the manga’s events accordingly. Perhaps that was a smart move because this way, the next episode can be completely devoted to one of my favourite chapters.
It was definitely awesome to see Chihaya’s present level. I love how she just consumes all that chocolate (poor Taichi, spend quite a bit of money on that) and then passes out! It was also hilarious to see how her final opponent, Yasuda who has been in the B Class for three years constantly returns her ‘Chihaya’ card when she tries putting it on his side for her advantage.
Just after Chihaya won, having read the manga, I was holding my breath for the moment Arata would give her the cold shoulder and reveal he had stopped playing. That was certainly unexpected to poor Chihaya who worked so hard and so proud of herself for successfully getting into the A Class.
As for Taichi, it turns out he has been playing Karuta in middle school but lost faith that he’d ever be able to reach Arata’s level of playing and felt he has put his youth into waste. This episode showed that he really does love the game, and now that Chihaya had won, the two of them will start putting together the club.
I was also rather surprised to see the Opening had changed. The animation to the new scenes weren’t exactly, well, good quality. The backgrounds were fine, but Chihaya’s figure… wasn’t so great if we were to compare the Opening’s first version VS the second, despite the fact they adjusted it to her hair being blown in the wind from the passing trains and have her figure appear in different rooms.