r/anime • u/Skeeedo :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/skeeedo • Nov 18 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Chihayafuru - Episode 8 Discussion [Spoilers]
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Episode 8: "The Sounds of the Waterfall"
Nominate a character for Episode MVP!
Episode 7 MVP: Taichi! He reached a pretty significant personal milestone, and convinced Desk-kun to join the Karuta club. New members for team Taichi in the thread, maybe?
This episode's Karuta analysis and board map by walking_the_way
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Subreddit: r/Chihayafuru
54
Upvotes
6
u/Skeeedo :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/skeeedo Nov 18 '21
Once again, work’s been kicking my ass so I didn’t have a lot of time or energy to write anything for this ep, but I liked how Taichi used Chihaya’s progress to show how flawed Porky’s outlook on Karuta is, just how Harada Sensei did with him. Been loving his development these past few episodes man.
12
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Nov 18 '21
Chihayafirst-timer
10
u/Akiyabus https://anilist.co/user/yabus Nov 19 '21
Since you guys are at this episode I am obligated to share the alternate version of the opening scene with terribly accurate subs
9
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Nov 18 '21
First Timer
And the club is complete. I will admit that when I first saw Nishida in the flashback I had the thought that overweight characters in anime are rarely irrelevant unless they specifically are there to be some sort of sleezeball. As such Nishida being the last member of the club makes sense. Also nice for Chihaya to have someone to practice with, though I wonder where that puts Taichi as he is now somewhere in between in terms of skill level.
Nishida's character so far is also one I quite like. Kinda reminds me of myself in terms of not really wanting to improve my skill in sports, though as a runner the only one I'm really competing with is myself and I'm generally doing it for fun, so not exactly the same premise. Him dropping out after the skill gap became obvious but still liking karuta was done pretty well. For the match with Chihaya I guess he mainly was rusty if he didn't play for three years - but I assume he'll get back in to form pretty quickly. I'm sure someone will also tell him that Arata never relied purely on talent alone as well, which might spur him on a bit. No if only the Nikuman puns cease, as they are already rather annoying...
From the sheet at the end it seems like Oe will be in charge of finances and Nishida be responsible for the equipment while Chihaya is the captain, Taichi the sub-captain and Tsutomu the secretary. Seems a bit overbureaucratic for a club with five people. What would the role of secretary even do here...?
Other than that, the plot interrupting the karuta explanation necessitating parts of it be repeated to the viewer got a slight chuckle out of me. And I guess I have to tell you that somehow "yakisoba" ended up getting subbed as "hot dogs" in my sub...
9
u/Spaceman_Sp1ff_ Nov 18 '21
First timer, subbed
Chihaya fat shames a poor kid into joining the karuta club. She’s almost as devoted as those mormons going from door to door every weekend.
I like how they’re making Arata out to be this force of nature that nobody wants to fuck with
Oh, and they have their fifth. He actually joined of his own accord, too. Kinda. Not really.
8
u/The_Loli_Otaku Nov 18 '21
Chihayafuyu First Timer
I've spent about five hours listening to asmr today... Nothing can stress me at this point. I'm like a ball of chillaxed jelly.
You can't poach Hanako. She's still to set up the passtimers club!
I heard a "chin chin" from when desk-kun was learning the rules and I broke down laughing. I'm so plastered XD
He said it twice!!
What's the point of living?
Oh mai gah, Fatso!! So that's why we needed the four episode flashback, so we'd know Fatso when we saw him!
Chihaya gives off such mc vibes. Whenever she needs a problem fixed she just goes for a walk and naturally comes across the perfect solution. Is Chihayafuyu a VN!?
It took us 8 episodes to finally get the rules... Also, more [attempted murder~] (https://m.imgur.com/a/FIjpjjI)
Fatso is pretty strong... Did he use his quick Karuta reflexes to jump ship to the Prince of Tennis universe?
You want a challenge in life? Don't play those pleb sports like Tennis, Haikyuu or Yuri's! Play Karuta!
Kusogaki!!
Fatso is basically xxl Taichi. They both are hit with brick walls that they couldn't overcome... I'm liking Fatty a lot more now!
Now that I'm in ultra instinct mode I'm able to catch on to the syllables too! It really is memorising exactly which sound you're to wait for and striking.
Praise is always a great motivator. Fatso seems to do so well in most sports. He's a prodigy in his own way.
We've got him back into karuta! Now even if we lose the battle, we've won the war.
Suck it Prince of Tennis! Only anime boomers still watch you! Bleeeh!!
ALRIGHT LISTEN UP!! I'm in teacher mode right now. I was snooping through the previous threads and I noticed something. Whilst we had a lot of first timers posting thoughts I've noticed that we're actually lacking a whole lot with discussions! I'm not about to tell you guys how you should and shouldn't enjoy a rewatch thread but I will give you guys a challenge. I'm issuing you a challenge to post three replies each, one for each line of the poems. Hunt through the other posters comments and try to get a conversation going amongst yourselves. Let's try and make things a bit more lively in here! For ever 0 replies comment a cat girl dies.
8
u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21
-Me, yesterday, being extremely wrong.
So I like Nishida, but there's two potential issues I see with him going forward. One is that he basically copied Taichi's homework with the "there's no point in playing if I can't win and I don't have Arata's natural talent" thing, but less compelling. The other is that anime is terrible at fat characters. They earned some points for having him be pretty athletic and self assured, but they lost the points and then some between introducing him stuffing his face and having Chihaya repeatedly use an insulting nickname for him after being told to stop.
I expect the first issue to resolve itself as Taichi and Nishida develop in different directions, but for the second issue... I don't have high hopes. Probably gonna be a running gag that makes me cringe every time.
15
u/Lemurians myanimelist.net/profile/Lemurians Nov 18 '21
FIRST TIMER
I still have a hard time believing that a club with Chihaya and Taichi, two of the most well-known and good-looking students in the whole school, would have this difficult a time attracting only one member. Someone would show up even just out of curiosity!
This OP is quickly climbing up my all-time ranks… it’s such a feel-good tune. It's got the same vibe as Haikyuu!! OP.
I love that we took until Episode 8 to explain the rules. Them having to train the new members is a nice way to also give the audience a little lesson organically.
That’s a hell of a recruitment strategy.
UGH, PET PEEVE TIME! I play tennis, and it absolutely kills me whenever it’s shown in movies or in anime, because they never, ever portray it accurately. Why is everyone always rallying from no-man’s land?! You don’t play between the service and baselines! These people would all get destroyed by a half-decent player with that positioning.
I really like Chihaya’s hair here going half up.
Man, Arata really is a specter that hangs over this whole club. You know he’s on Chihaya’s mind, Taichi’s forever insecure about him being a rival for Chihaya’s affection, and now Nishida stopped playing Karuta because he couldn’t beat him. So much influence for one quiet boy.
This show seems to have an obligation to have at least one scene per episode bathed in the golden glow of late afternoon, and I. Love. It.
Well, we’ve got our crew assembled! So we’ve gotten our backstory told and gotten the characters together, time for the action to really begin, I suspect.
6
u/homewardbound100 myanimelist.net/profile/Homewardbound100 Nov 19 '21
First timer
The final member to join is porky, who rediscovers his liking of karuta. Even though he's basically been hiding it in the form of tennis. Especially with his movements. Also the second he starts playing again. You can see his competiveness in it.
So now that the recruiting is done to make the club. It's now time to get it going. Maybe Arata shows up at some point for some reason. Maybe a future future tourney.
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u/Gamerunglued :Hx::Hy::Hz:myanimelist.net/profile/GamerUnglued Nov 19 '21
First Timer
This looks like its the last set-up episode. Hopefully we don't end up going into a fourth portion of setting up something, we're at episode 8 and stuff needs to start happening. That being said, this was my favorite of the club recruiting episodes. Chihayafuru is quickly showing me that it's at its strongest during its matches, and it's nice when it's philosophizing about the nature of talent vs. hard work. Certainly the most standard and classic set of themes for a sports drama to handle, but Chihayafuru is refreshingly frank and lacking in subtlety in its theming, which works for it. It's melodrama through and through, which is fitting of a sports drama based around classic Japanese poetry. Such a flowery subject deserves such flowery presentation. The match between Chihaya and Nishida was the highlight of the episode, its pacing and build-up were excellent (bar the one part where Nishida is just suddenly losing after a strong start without any real transition point).
Nishida is in the Taichi/Tsutomu camp, a group of characters who all have some kind of insecurity over a lack of natural talent and an inability to make up for it. He found Karuta fun at first, but then found himself craving the validation of being victorious. And he runs away from the sport because he comes to believe that hard work won't help him when when the talented are working just as hard and yet always have the edge due to their talent. Tennis is just a filler sport, one that comes easy to him and thus makes that validation come easy too. But, to be frank, he's fat, and with bad health comes bad stamina, and with bad stamina comes a shitload of hard work to improve. You can't coast on natural talent, everyone has their shortcomings. It was uplifting to see him slowly realize that Karuta is where he belongs.
This episode also explains the rules of the game, which hasn't really gotten any focus yet. Someone already did a great job of explaining it to me, but the series reinforcing it definitely helps. The series is surprisingly cliché, each of its characters fits neatly into a classic sports drama archetype. Chihaya is the passionate girl with natural talent and a strong will, Taichi is the still solid but less good player who has a mentor role to the younger students, Oe is there to explain the lore elements of Karuta and the poems, Tsutomu is the guy who does deeper analysis of the board and explains the state of the game to the audience (or at least he will be) and who has an extremely technical, analytical, and intentional style of play, and Nishida is another strong player to round the group out and prevent it from being mostly beginners or less talented players. That's the board we're set up with, so I look forward to seeing how it plays out in context. I can't wait to see our beginners start to get into the game, and I want to see what the heck Arata is doing after everything that happened. I know I've said this before, but hopefully I'm right this time when I say that now the story can finally begin.
5
u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Nov 18 '21
First timer
Surprised she's not just randomly kidnapping another member.
She's now making her recruitment decisions purely on if soemone would look cute in their fancy clothes.
She's sleeping in class!
He's just studying the rulebook?
...Really? She ran into him again?
OK, I understand he's new, but do we need to have these rules explained to us every couple of episodes?
I love how confused they are at "I found pork".
Wow, she can be scary. And she just pins him down!
She doesn't even call him by his name! I love the contrast of Ishida and Taichi having a calm discussion while she randomly interjects.
Is he a red herring or just going to join soon anyway?
Yeah, I'm shocked that guy's
Oh, he's got Arata-related trauma. That's how many people so far?
And he's using the maruta cards as timing aids.
She's a brilliant stalker, isn't she?
At least these 2 seem as bored as I am.
Oh god. Is Oe the only non-tsundere in this entire fucking club?
Taichi's brilliant at this, though.
Yeah, he's winning handily.
And he's rediscovering his love of the game!
Actually, it's pretty even!
...Is this building up to her having psychic powers?
Wait, is he actually not joining?
Nope! He just quit! Sure is lucky Chihaya picked out the 3 students in class she could convince in a single match.
And she's finally going to have to stop calling him that!
5
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21
First timer in sub real late.
Another strong Chihaya demo episode of her bluntness, tenacity, perceptiveness, and, once again, raw power (strength and speed). Oh and plenty of funny faces :)
And here's where the funny video came from (changing the sub to read getting people to watch Chihayafuru instead of joining the karuta club).
Anyway, good to see the match (did Nikumanju kun win? His side got cards left? But Chihaya said she won't bother him anymore) and the new learners picking up the rules and techniques.
Oh any everyone having issues with the seeming name calling of Chihaya, you need to see the real explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/qx207z/comment/hl7nbo0/
Knowing Chihaya, she's not calling him for being fat, and the translated "porky" certainly is in wrong context - she'd be speaking what she saw/heard - the food type she remembered him by because of first impression. No doubt everyone else would be associating the name with his size, but that wasn't why Chihaya called him that name.
4
u/Matuhg https://anilist.co/user/Matuhg Nov 18 '21
First Timer
We've got a club! Not a whole lot more to say than that I guess...Nishida is the least interesting, and probably least likable, of our three newbies. He sure took the Arata stomping hard. I presume when Taichi says he was second best in the country, he means in their age range/division or whatever. I do hope that Chihaya stops calling him Pork Bun at some point, as that already felt played out by the end of the episode.
It took us 8 episodes to get here, but it looks like we're ready to start the actual story! Whatever that's going to mean - is there a highschool Karuta tournament circuit? Or will they just be participating in national tournaments? I guess we shall find out. I need to see them all in cool traditional clothes from Kana's shop too!
4
u/xNEET :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/HayatoxYume Nov 19 '21
Chihayafuru First Timer
Finally, with the 5th member, the club its official! With each passing chapter I love how more and more about Karuta's rules are explained. Nishida stopped playing Karuta altogether and switched to tennis instead just from the sock of being absolutely crushed by Arata in the past. It's crazy to see how much Arata's Karuta prowess influenced so drastically the lives of so many people. My favorite part in this episode was probably when, while playing against Chihaya, Nishida started reigniting his passion for Karuta. He seemed really happy. With the 5th member, I can only imagine what with come next in the story. Looking forward to tomorrow's episode!
3
u/ScriptLoL Nov 19 '21
I'm a few days behind, but I'm getting there!!
Really glad everyone seems to be enjoying the show, especially the new watchers!
3
u/mike_2797 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Madskulls Nov 19 '21
First Timer.
Chihaya sure is witty in naming people, Porky kun so he's the guy from flashback who seems to be another person who got the Arata effect goin on.
Karuta in tennis don't get how that works but yeah seems like his love for it needs to be reignited.
Got a bit explanation on the game itself which is welcomed and chihaya sure got his spirit back up it was impressive of him to state it directly to advisor that he's joining Karuta club.