Chihayafuru surprised me, I mean, really surprised me. When I looked at the case the artwork looked nice and simple, but reading the back I did not expect to find myself caring that much about an anime that follows a character playing a competitive poetry based card game that I had never even remotely heard of, let alone played. However, over the course of the 25 Season 1 episodes (and much sooner than that), the show really won me over with its mix of competitive gaming, but also showing a young girl working hard at her dreams regardless of how simple they might be.
The show follows a young girl named Chihaya who at age 12 meets Arata one of the finest Kurata players in Japan. Kurata is a game based on the memorization of 100 classic Japanese poems on cards. At that moment she decides she wants to be the finest player of the game in Japan (and thus the world). Her, Arata, and another friend soon part ways, but decide to meet up when they become exceptional players. The series then skips ahead to Chihaya’s high school years where her determination is let loose and she forms a Kurata club, and she begins to work to achieve her dream.
Chihayafuru is a wonderful anime that mixes “sports” with slice of life. It has very soft, but gorgeous animation, that really fits the tone of the series quite well. Also, the characters are quite well written, and really help to make a show about what is essentially an obscure and unknown card game (outside of Japan) a true delight.
So like how Season 2 picks up where Season 1 ended up so Season 3 ends where Season 2 ended with the team deciding to pick up and train for the Master and Queen competition and take on the Kurata Grandmasters. This is the central narrative for the series, but then we have more going on especially with Chihaya finding herself stuck between two potential romantic elements. Further, the show while kind of minimal and slice of life, seem to be more eventful this season, this is not a complaint, and just made me hope even more for a 4th season, as this is seriously becoming an anime favorite.
Sentai Filmworks presents Chihayafura with a splendid 1:78:1 1080p transfer. Detail is excellent here, colors are reproduced nicely, though the production in a quite soft style everything comes across solidly.
There are 2 audio options given a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in English and the other in Japanese. Both tracks are serviceable, but the Japanese track sounds more natural to characters and performances. I could not detect any issues with either track.The extras include a clean opening and closing, bumpers, and commercials. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!