Chihayafuru 3

Episode 1-2-3

It's been six years since the second season of Chihayafuru. Six years since Chihaya reunited with Arata again, six years since Mizusawa High School took the championship at the national team competition. 2013 feels like an eternity ago. That's when the PlayStation 4 came out. Two World Cups have taken place since then. Three Taylor Swift albums have been released. A lot has changed in the world… except for maybe the small but steady contingent of Chihayafuru fans who had been fervently crossing their fingers for a third season, and begging all their friends to please give this vastly underrated card game anime a chance.

So you'll have to forgive some of us for crying hysterically when the Chihayafuru piano theme starts playing again. It brings back a lot of memories, some of which have grown fuzzy over time. When did Chihaya get hand surgery again? Who are some of these club members? But no matter. After the brief recap-dressed-as-nostalgic-flashbacks, the series wastes no time in picking things up right where they left off. Chihaya and Taichi are headed to a sleep-away karuta training camp with rival team Fujisaki. There's no hanky-panky, much to the disappointment of their clubmates (and every fan on #TeamTaichi), but we get a chance to reacquaint ourselves with some of their best players, including vice-captain Rion. We also learn that their coach, the stern and brilliant Midori was once herself a karuta star, having been runner-up to the national Queen title five years in a row. She's since left the scene, presumably content to mentor Fujisaki's formidable team.

But… is she? The next big tournament introduces Haruka Inokuma, a wide-eyed mother of two who previously held the Queen title for four consecutive years, and the reason Midori always fell short. Although we only see her briefly in the first three episodes, she'll undoubtedly become one of this season's biggest characters, not only because she's Midori's eternal rival… but also because she's played by voice legend Maaya Sakamoto. You don't just bring on Sakamoto for a cameo; she's here to stay a while.

One of the cool things Chihayafuru teaches people about competitive karuta is that anyone can play. As long as you can rack up wins in sanctioned tournaments, you can rise through the Classes and Grades and continue playing in official matches, working your way through the annual gauntlet of regional and national competitions. Because of this, we always get to see a wide range of characters, including older adults. It's nice as a viewer to see characters besides your typical slate of hot TV teenagers, but it also gives the show latitude to bring in a more diverse set of players. It can be a lot to juggle at times, and these episodes don't shy away from piling on more names and faces, but it works well to illustrate this season's emerging theme—passion.

While the first season of Chihayafuru largely focused on Chihaya and her progression as a karuta player, and the second season centered on teamwork, this season seems to largely spotlight the notion of individual drive. Namely, why do these elite players keep playing karuta? Even Chihaya, who is single-mindedly obsessed with becoming Queen, can't quite pinpoint why she plays. Rion keeps playing simply because her karuta reader grandmother has promised that she'll give her family rice to eat as long as she continues to play. Taichi is fueled by his desire for technical perfection, and not insignificantly, by his feelings for Chihaya. Kana is motivated by seeing her teammates work hard, and her love of poetry.

But while these may be the reasons that all these player keep showing up to practice, people like Midori know that sometimes desire is just not enough. At the end of the day, raw talent and physical ability plays a part, and that's a lottery drawn at birth. We see this in a scene where she thinks back on all her frustrating Queen losses. At one point, Midori asks Haruka how she became so good at karuta, only to hear the naïve advice, “If you can hear better, you can take [the cards faster], too!”

It's a frustrating piece of non-advice that would probably resonate with Taichi or Tsutomu, players who may lack the natural-born talent of people like Chihaya, but try to make up for it with sheer grit and stubbornness. This isn't to say that Chihaya doesn't spend every waking moment thinking about karuta and practicing her tail off—of course she does—but as with many things in life, determination can only get you so far.

It'll be interesting to see how the series continues to run with these ideas as the season progresses. With Chihaya soon entering her third year, she'll have to deal with situations outside of karuta, namely the impending reality of life after high school. It speaks volumes when her reaction to a career questionnaire is a look of panic, and a hastily scrawled, “How do I become a high school teacher? I want to be a karuta club advisor.” For now, though, she just has to get through this tournament.

Chihayafuru 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.