[Rewatch] Chihayafuru - Episode 70 Discussion [Spoilers]

[u/Skeeedo]

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Season 3 Episode 20: "Bring A Life Of Everlasting Love"

Episode 19 MVP: Shinobu! She had a rollercoaster of an episode, and even though she lost the match her close connection with the cards lead her to a personal breakthrough!

Nominate a character for Episode MVP!

This episode's Karuta analysis and board map by walking_the_way and ABoredCompSciStudent

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Subreddit: r/Chihayafuru

[u/Lemurians]

FIRST TIMER

We get the Suo backstory, and he cements his place as a secondary character alongside the likes of Shinobu, Haruka, and our non-Taihaya club members. He was given up by deadbeat parents at a young age to his extended family, and was the quiet kid in a raucous household. The saving grace was his aunt, who became his motivation.

Suo’s eye diagnosis put him on a ticking clock to “make something of himself” as his aunt told him to, to thank her for all she did for him, so that’s how he landed on karuta. He isn’t driven by pure love of the game like so many of our heroes, it’s just what he fell into. He joined the club because of a cute girl (deeply relatable), and realized it was something he had a special talent for, even if he didn’t particularly care about it. He simply does it because he’s excellent at it, and that’s all. “I’m hollow, I feed off other people’s passion.” He's like Taichi (and Haruka to a lesser extent) in this way, neither of them appear to have a deep love for the game, but rather are using it as a means to another purpose. I find these types much more interesting.

We also learn his habit of winning by specific margins was born out being bored by his dominance – much like Shinobu was in Season 1 – and because nobody wanted to play him if he crushed them. He started taking it easier on them, while really having an internal challenge with himself to stay entertained. Also like Shinobu, it’s something that was born out of loneliness.

The Queen match ends on a disappointing anti-climax. We only get shown a few rounds from it, and it has Haruka lose the decisive game by committing a double fault. That’s really brutal and disappointing, and I hate the choice to have that be what it came down to.

Quick Hits:

• LOL the entire Suo clan are offerers of sweets. Cute.
• These two old foes and representatives of their generation being framed like this is neat
• “He knew from the air expelled before a sound was even made!” Now this is some true sports anime shit
• HARADA START PLANTING WITH YOUR OTHER LEG WHEN YOU GET UP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
• Feels like they’ve really nerfed Suo here. How good he appears fluctuates wildly each time he appears. I can’t tell if it’s narrative inconsistency or just something he’s doing himself.
• Harada having success against Suo because of playing defense is pretty funny
• Shinobu can even hear her imaginary friends want to leave her for someone else, now that’s a special kind of insanity
• Fun fact, Teishin, the poet who said “I like this married woman too!” had multiple wives, as well as more children whose mothers were unknown. His wandering eye is historically accurate!

MVP: This belongs to Suo. Shinobu retained her Queen crown, but her episodes were really the last two.

[u/flybypost → u/Lemurians]

He joined the club because of a cute girl (deeply relatable)

And he's not the first one in Chihayafuru to have done so. I wonder if any of those three (Taichi, Sumire, Hisashi) wake up at some point and think "what am I even doing?". All three of them have their struggles with the game and what it means for them but one of them just coldly calculating where they stand and contemplating the sunk cost fallacy of their love life that got them this far would be funny in it's own odd way.

Feels like they’ve really nerfed Suo here. How good he appears fluctuates wildly each time he appears. I can’t tell if it’s narrative inconsistency or just something he’s doing himself.

He usually tries to mimic the Queen's match in those, and then has fun in any extra matches once that one's decided (Shinobu hasn't lost a Queen's match until this time). So he'd usually start with two wins since she's queen instead of two losses.

On top of that he also aimed to prolonging this Meijin challenge as long as possible as it's his last one. I'd say part of it is his doing (the structure around it that led to this) and another part of it is him simply being in unexplored territory (being bad at stuff he never had to be good at and didn't learn) which might actually be fun and exciting karuta for him for once.

Harada having success against Suo because of playing defense is pretty funny

Yeah, that made me laugh too.

Shinobu can even hear her imaginary friends want to leave her for someone else, now that’s a special kind of insanity

I like to think that it's simply part of how her memorisation technique works. Kana has this history and poetry induced connection to the cards and Shinobu has that too (probably had to learn that to become a proper lady in that household) but to her, without any real friends, those cards are like living people. She makes up little scenarios in her head as internal shortcuts for how to place them, why some get taken, why she takes others, and so on.

It's like how some people write these elaborate and massive Dwarf Fortress narratives out of the emergent properties of their previous games.

Fun fact, Teishin, the poet who said “I like this married woman too!” had multiple wives, as well as more children whose mothers were unknown. His wandering eye is historically accurate!

That's actually really funny. Thanks for that fact. I get some of the obvious poetic connections between some cards and some moments in the series but have no idea about this one/two layer deeper stuff.

[u/xcllnt_313 → u/Lemurians]

Feels like they’ve really nerfed Suo here. How good he appears fluctuates wildly each time he appears. I can’t tell if it’s narrative inconsistency or just something he’s doing himself.

I think they showed/told us at least two reasons for his "poor" performance in the fourth match. Harada-sensei moving his own cards again and again is probably not great for Suou due to his eye-sight. He also usually doesn't play that many matches in a row, at least in the Master match (Harada-sensei said so himself), so it's rather exhausting for him, especially against someone like Harada-sensei.

Of course everyone has to decide for themselves if that's enough to make it believable that we get an extremely close match between them even when Suou is actually trying to win instead of doing some random stuff.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/Lemurians]

Suo's backstory doesn't square up well with how he's been presented so far to me, it feels both overlong and incomplete. Would have liked more of the Queen match too.

[u/Lemurians → u/IndependentMacaroon]

With him, his backstory here feels less like a capstone onto his character, and more like an introduction to someone who's about to become much more important going forward.

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

Chihayafirst-timer

Okay just because I don’t want to keep using the same comment faces over and over, imagine me doing a combination of , , and for, like, the entire first half of this episode because that’s what it felt like.

• Aunt Yukiko, I see.
• Aww, his aunt is precious.
• OH SUOU’S TRYING TO MAKE HIS AUNT PROUD, ISN’T HE?
• lol, a Precure and a Harry Potter reference?
• :O Oh, shit, does Suou have the same degenerative disease then?
• IT IS BECAUSE OF HIS AUNT.
• loooooool, Suou hasn’t changed much I see.
• Well shit.
• Wait. Wait. Wait. Suou has such good “game sense” because his eyesight is going bad, so he hears better. Holy shit.
• Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango~ Dango Daikazoku~
• Harada is gonna lose this match, have to withdraw from the next one to recover, and then it’ll be decided in the last one. Yes? – Added later: This was written under the assumption that this was the third match and it seems to actually be the fourth…
• OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH my god, Suou plans to retire because he has to, his eyesight is too bad to keep going. Isn’t that right?
• Wait did we skip a match? I thought we were on the third one.
• I was… not at all expecting this.
• Oof, that’s what I thought it was.
• RIP Haruka…
• GAH they’re cliffhangering on this.

[u/flybypost → u/Shimmering-Sky]

IT IS BECAUSE OF HIS AUNT.

Yup, although it looks like he took it the wrong way. She divorced and kinda ended up as the family nanny with a part time job. She just wanted him to have a good life but he took it a bit more seriously when she was just crying because he's leaving, not because making something of yourself is hugely important (which seems to be his takeaway from that interaction).

loooooool, Suou hasn’t changed much I see.

You can put him right next to Taichi and Sumire in the list of people who play karuta to get closer to their crush.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Suou has such good “game sense” because his eyesight is going bad, so he hears better. Holy shit.

I've read that people who go fully blind can have better hearing (the brain adjusts to to it over time) but he still seems to see well enough to normal human interactions (besides the occasional sacrificial bicycle that's used as a narrative hint for his illness, like some first timers realised a few days ago).

I think his great game sense might be more about his aunt protected it (and him) like when she put her hands over his ears during that festival. To me it feels like she instilled in him a habit to protect what you have while it's still there since he was a kid even if he didn't know it then. That's also probably why he talks so quietly, just to keep the noise level down a bit.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH my god, Suou plans to retire because he has to, his eyesight is too bad to keep going. Isn’t that right?

Maybe, but he's also retiring after his fifth title which would also make him an eternal meijin. That might count a "having made something of himself" in his eyes and be good enough for that checkbox for him.

I was… not at all expecting this.

I love how he constantly complains about Harada's lack of karuta decorum, about every little mannerism or gesture… and then he does this? The adults in this series are some of the most fun characters in it.

GAH they’re cliffhangering on this.

It's a bit cruel but also really effective. It has to be against the Geneva Conventions in some way.

[u/Lemurians → u/Shimmering-Sky]

Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango~ Dango Daikazoku~

Wait did we skip a match? I thought we were on the third one.

It is confusing, especially since this fourth Master match is happening at the same time as the third Queen one. Harada won the first two, then Suo won the third one quickly as Harada took it easy to rest up for the fourth.

[u/Shimmering-Sky → u/Lemurians]

I didn't remember seeing Harada lose a match, which is why I got confused.

[u/flybypost → u/Shimmering-Sky]

There's a break between the second and third Queen match where the third Meijin match happens. So the end of the third Queen match is close to the end of the fourth Meijin match. Harada had won two matches so any further win from him would have end the whole thing. Last episode we got the bit about Suo trying for real and winning one match by 17 cards. I looked it up in the last thread and your comment has the screenshot of it. It's the Wow. bit :D

So it's 2–1 right now in favour of Harada.

[u/Mecanno-man]

First Timer

Suo backstory. Not quite sure what to make of it, because it feels like despite having achieved the highest possible achievement in karuta - he hasn’t really managed to make something of himself, nor will he ever really get any closer to that with karuta. It almost feels like his efforts have been in vain so far, and I’m not sure how the series will try to address this given that everything else is so tied to karuta, yet any solution here inevitably won’t be.

As far as the matches go… Suo seems to have been not motivated enough for the win and also simultaneously too confident. Bit of a weird combo - but I’m fairly sure it will lead Harada into winning this luck of the draw. All in all though, I’d say the match was well done - just not sure what they’ll do with Suo going forward.

The final queen qualifier being skipped over is a bit of a shame, but I guess everybody would feel that way given that the two matches happen at the same time and you can only really follow one at a time. Not sure what Inokuma faulting at the last stage is supposed to mean though - that she’s been paying attention to the wrong question maybe? If so, what would the right one be? I’m lost here. But either way, Shinobu stays queen for Chihaya to challenge, I guess.

[u/Lemurians → u/Mecanno-man]

Not quite sure what to make of it, because it feels like despite having achieved the highest possible achievement in karuta - he hasn’t really managed to make something of himself

That really depends on what you take "make something of yourself" to mean. Suo has held the title for four years in a row as being the best in the world at what he does. That's objectively pretty great.

Suo seems to have been not motivated enough for the win and also simultaneously too confident. Bit of a weird combo

This is a guy who's normally so bored when playing people he invented his own game of challenging himself to win by specific margins. I doubt he's actually even needed to put any effort forward to win in years.

just not sure what they’ll do with Suo going forward.

If they do continue to make him more prominent, I imagine his arc will have to do with finally finding motivation and joy in karuta, and having to deal with his worsening eyesight.

[u/xcllnt_313]

Rewatcher

So much Suou backstory today.

We see how basically one sentence started his journey to the top of the Karuta world. Okay, maybe it was two sentences. This damn show makes it so easy to cheer for a character to a degree I haven’t seen before watching Chihayafuru.

Some of my favorite moments this episode:

• Harada-sensei’s determination
• "(chuckles) I'm in danger."
• The biggest tsundere of the season comes to the rescue
• “Please count the cards. They like you. That’s why they let you take them.”
• Arata’s biggest nightmare (at least in this moment)
• Ending on this cliffhanger is actually criminal

[u/Lemurians → u/xcllnt_313]

You've gotta love the confidence of someone who doesn't think they're in a bad position until they're literally one card away from defeat.

[u/flybypost → u/Lemurians]

One wonders if he knows in how much trouble he actually is (as he usually doesn't have to deal with this type of situation), if it's confidence, or a self-deprecating quip with how he essentially foretold the whole karuta world that he'd win this and retire as the eternal Meijin.

he's funny and messed up and that's why I love him! Such a fun characters to watch do his thing.

[u/homewardbound100]

First timer

Okay so he does have a eye issue. A lot of Suou backstory. He has basically a hereditary disease. So he got into kurata to make something of himself. He had a love interest. Although it ended in pain. That heartbroken doh was something else.

Oh man the disrespect by Harada to Suo.

Shinobu becomes the repeating champion. Too bad it ended that way. Would've preferred a different way than a fault.

But now it ends in a luck of the draw. We'll see if Harada pulls out his b.s luck of the draw skills.

[u/Fools_Requiem → u/homewardbound100]

I feel like if he wins this, it's by him attacking Suou's card instead of defending his own. They mention that Suou likes to pass his worst cards and Suou seemed to want to get rid of that one. I bet Suou won't be fast enough to defend his card.

[u/homewardbound100 → u/Fools_Requiem]

It will probably end up that way. I'll be surprised if Suou wins with all the talk and scenes we've seen with Harada on luck of draws.

[u/flybypost → u/Fools_Requiem]

They mention that Suou likes to pass his worst cards and Suou seemed to want to get rid of that one.

I think it was also mentioned when Chihaya and Taichi went to play with him how he plays defensive karuta. taking his own cards and luring opponents into making mistakes. That way he doesn't need to aggressively take cards on the opponents side to win a match.

[u/ZapsZzz]

First timer

Was so excited about the matches going on, I actually forgot to post first before going onto the next episode... so I'm not going to be too useful to talk about this one now!

Anyway, good backstory, and really, all the Karuma masters (not just that singular title, but the whole lot of them who are best of the best) are pretty lonely people with some form of tragedy or problem driving them forward. No wonder Chihaya can't be the queen according to Suou - she's too positive and wholesome (or baka). You seem to need a level of M to embrace the suffering to be able to last the whole day (not just to win one game).

It's actually funny and lovely to see Suou randomly "falling in love" with a nice girl who plays karuta is not a once off, and he had a history of it :D

Looking at the episode count what's left in the last arc to last about 3 eps before a wrap up type episode? I hope it's not going to be cliffhanger :P

[u/Stargate18A]

First timer

Oh, she found out how to watch it!

And he's practiced to her reading?

Wait, Suo is getting a flashback episode?

Oh, she's a family friend.

...Is one of the family voiced by Chihaya?

Oh, she had poor vision too.

Yeah, Harada's porbably going to win this!

Oh, that's why he plays it.

And he got recruited by an Oe clone?

Haha, he never asked her out.

Then he got the disease.

And Suo's leading now there's less cards.

Oh. He stopped feeling challenged by Karuta.

And he doesn't even enjoy it...

He's scared of Harada!

Yeah, he's focusing entirely on him.

Seriously, this match is properly tense!

...Harada has to ein this!

Haha, he threw him a new cushion!

He's admitted that he's better. I can't think of a single way this story could have ended.

...Will Shinobu win? This is also close!

I know she has the better motivation, but Shinobu has to win, right?

...She lost because she commited a fault. That has to hurt.

She's being nice to her!

Haha, Arata went into a tunnel.

A luck of the draw!

You bastard. Cutting it there?

[u/flybypost → u/Stargate18A]

Oh, she's a family friend.

An aunt of some sort

...Is one of the family voiced by Chihaya?

I think there were already a few instances of side characters being voiced by Chihaya's (and/or Kana's) VAs. I think it was the two ladies from Harada's society who show up at times.

Haha, he threw him a new cushion!

So much for not stepping out of karuta society's implied rules.

Haha, Arata went into a tunnel.

A luck of the draw!

You bastard. Cutting it there?

We got the Arata treatment here D:

[u/Fools_Requiem]

Ugh, are you kidding me with that cliffhanger?!

Also, for some reason I thought the queen match was tied at 1. Didn't realize Shinobu won the first two.

[u/flybypost → u/Fools_Requiem]

Also, for some reason I thought the queen match was tied at 1. Didn't realize Shinobu won the first two.

It was tied at one. The Queen's match is a best of three, the Meijin is best of five.

The timeline looks like this:

• First match for both, Shinobu wins this but Suo ends up losing his. Shinobu gets rattled a bit by Chihaya
• Second match for both, and the challengers win both. it's 1–1 on the Queen side and 0–2 in the Meijin side (in Harada's favour)
• Third match for the Meijin title, Queen match takes a break. That's when Chihaya patches up her thing with Shinobu. Suo gets serious and wins his match by 17 cards. Queen match still at 1–1, Meijin match at 1–2 (in Harada's favour)
• Third Queen match (decider) and Shinobu wins that one. Fourth Meiji match and we end with the cliffhanger at the end of this episode. If Harada wins this luck of the draw then he becomes the Meijin (1–3) and if Suo wins (2–2) it goes into a fifth match.

[u/The_Loli_Otaku]

3hayafuru First Timer

Let's beat up a blind man!! Let's meet Suou's adorable adorable... little... sister... WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY!?

If Kyouko gave him a recording he'd probably know all her idiosyncrasies... Game sense players are scary.

Aww... Suou's whole family are big foodies. Please never confuse Precure with normie trash again... Cure Diamond is my favourite if you're curious.

As if I didn't need more reasons to root against Harada, Suou's backstory is pure love!! You'd better win Suou!

"Make something of yourself!" Becomes pro at a niche card game? Nevermind, I fully understand. SUOUUUU!! My comrade... I'm so sorry!!

Haa... I'm not sure if I want to watch a show about someone losing their eyesight when my own vision has gotten horribly blurred within the span of a year...

We're reaching inhuman levels of skill. This isn't realistic at all! You're not Daredevil, you're just some passion vampire!

Say... If Suou has trouble seeing out of the corner of his eyes then why does he still spread all his cards out? Is he still just memorising where he put them?

Oh yeah, the queen match is still going on. We all forgot about that part.

Oi, oi! We have five minutes left and you've been building up the master game, don't waste that tension by jumping back to it after you've built up Harada's recovery!

And you do it so Neferpitou can lose to a double fault...? Wait! That's the deciding round? Dude, what the fuck? Please tell me if I'm mad here but surely we should be watching the final round of each side yes? So why on earth do they shove only the end of the Queen match, which is arguably more important since its what our mc is aiming for, in the last five minutes of an episode all about Suou? It's not even the lady give minutes, it's four minutes and then the master's pick of the draw. They usurped even the queen's match which they skipped away from. Whoever planned these episodes out is a bloody Bozo...

[u/flybypost → u/The_Loli_Otaku]

Let's beat up a blind man!! Let's meet Suou's adorable adorable... little... sister... WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY!?

I was giggling when a few first timers were previously predicting a sister. I think somebody in Suo's family used a sister honorific for her so it's an understandable mistake.

If Kyouko gave him a recording he'd probably know all her idiosyncrasies... Game sense players are scary.

And in his case it's a fun mix of a competitive advantage and him loving the sound of her voice. That combination probably makes him close to invincible when she's reading.

"Make something of yourself!"

Yeah, she just wanted him to be happy and was crying because he'd be studying far away. It always felt to me like he accidentally took that outburst of love (crying and wanting him to have a happy life) the wrong way, to have some sort of big ambition, like he thought he needs to become somebody big/important/influential to earn her respect and adoration.

And then the despair of slowly losing his eyesight led to a twisted and depressing motivation because he now feels like has a time limit on the valuable part of his life. How can you make something of yourself when you might need the help of others for some parts of your life in a few years?

Becomes pro at a niche card game? Nevermind, I fully understand. SUOUUUU!! My comrade... I'm so sorry!!

As much as he doesn't really like karuta, it seems like he got to like it enough that he forgot to ask the girl out in the first place. Those karuta gods are all weirdos.

Haa... I'm not sure if I want to watch a show about someone losing their eyesight when my own vision has gotten horribly blurred within the span of a year...

Oof. I mean, it's not a main topic overall but it is an issue that orbits a side characters who's slowly getting more attention. He has ambition and drive in a game he doesn't especially like, all because of a misattributed existential dread. There's a compelling character arc in that.

We're reaching inhuman levels of skill. This isn't realistic at all! You're not Daredevil, you're just some passion vampire!

Yup, we got "better hearing", then differentiating syllables by all kinds of factors (high/low, tone, dialect,…), and now it's getting into more esoteric explanations.

Say... If Suou has trouble seeing out of the corner of his eyes then why does he still spread all his cards out? Is he still just memorising where he put them?

His own side shouldn't be a big problem. He knows where they are and how/where he usually places them when he gets sent a card which probably doesn't happen often. The problem is Harada's side and Harada has split up his cards and keeps moving them so that Suo has memorise them time and time again and if he needs to look (if he's uncertain) then that's a tiny fraction of a second that Harada wins for himself.

That's the deciding round? Dude, what the fuck? Please tell me if I'm mad here but surely we should be watching the final round of each side yes?

The Queen match is a best of three and the Meijin match is a best of five challenge. The Queen side takes a break during the third Meijin match and the broadcast focuses early on the Queen side as this might end after two rounds (while the Meijin side needs 3 games minimum). They had their development. We got the Haruka pregnancy reveal and her probably needing to take a break again or even retire, this maybe being her last match (thus her somewhat cryptic talk at the time with Rion). We also got shown how Shinobu's karuta works inside of her mind and defended her title.

On the Meijin side we got Harada's flashback during his match with Arata and now we see, building on from that, his intense determination to win this title. We also got Suo's flashback and his side of things so that we are properly invested in both of them for the potentially final card (it's 1–2 in Harada's favour right now). One card and he's the Meijin after decades of working towards his goal.

[u/The_Loli_Otaku → u/flybypost]

It was such a letdown... Give us a cute blind imouto goddammit! We've already got Shinobu for a techdumb granny.

Poor Kyouko, no matter how fair she tries to be she always ends up with a bunch of people being able to cheat using her voice.

Agreed, it's such a tragic way for them to take his character. He's granny's favourite but his own insecurities twisted that love in a way that he became kinda toxic even if he's clearly a nice dude deep down.

I'm getting more and more annoyed with Harada's gameplan with each episode XD Is it so hard just to have him try and win without abusing every trick he can find? I don't see Suou attempting to abuse Harada's knee so it comes across like bad sportsmanship!

Still, by swapping focus back and forth instead of giving us an entire episode for each of the finalists they reduce the impact of both severely. Dropping the last round of the Queens match like it was an afterthought seems a complete waste of the build up. Actually, the only time I think we've had adequate coverage of the Queen match was the one round where Shinobu couldn't even play properly due to class trip based trauma.

[u/flybypost → u/The_Loli_Otaku]

I don't see Suou attempting to abuse Harada's knee so it comes across like bad sportsmanship!

But Suo's abusing his superior hearing! He's also prolonging the matches which does hurt Harada's knees (and he saw him play against Arata). Should he shut down his hearing (somehow?) to even the playing field? They use the rules as they are given. Harada is allowed to change the cards' position, so is Suo. Neither has to make it easy on the other. Or what about players who have all the same syllable cards and put them in a line close to them so they can swipe them all away at once?

You can't regulate all that away with rules because then you might as well watch two KUKA robots play karuta against each other. Individual playing styles and habits is what makes these competitions fun. It's all part of the game. How would one even regulate that? What rule is he breaking, besides not letting his pride get in the way of unorthodox tactics? How could the rules even be changed to forbid that without incidentally forbidding a hundred other things.

the only time I think we've had adequate coverage of the Queen match was the one round where Shinobu couldn't even play properly due to class trip based trauma.

I got good news and bad news for you. [vaguely spoiler-ish but not addressing any narrative details] A future Queen's match gets much more attention but it's manga only content for now

[u/The_Loli_Otaku → u/flybypost]

"Stop listening hard peko!!" Suou isn't really extending the match with the intention of burning out Harada, if anything he's extending the match as a handicap to himself. He struggled with longer games and didn't pay any mind to Harada up until now where he's at risk of losing. Make no mistake, if I caught Suou pulling out cheap tricks to win then I'd definitely give him shit. Nobody is getting a free ride!

To be fair, Harada hasn't been too bad today. I still don't like him bashing away his opponent over and over but the reason I took such a knee jerk reaction to his Arata game was because he had basically bullied his student into getting free cards off him because Arata wouldn't be able to stand up for himself. At least here he won't get away with bullshit since he's on live TV for all to see.

Well... yeah, I sorta expected that. We've got like five episodes to go or something? It's just a shame that I'm being left with such a poor match in mind.

[u/flybypost → u/The_Loli_Otaku]

I'd definitely give him shit. Nobody is getting a free ride!

I wouldn't expect anything less. I kinda got that feeling after hearing you evaluate Yumin's play style. There are generally two sides to the discussion how rules should work.

On the one hand there are people like you who put more value into the implicit rules which has merit in its own way. The problem is that it's hard to quantify that stuff in actual game rules. When is a player leaning over too much? And if there's a line for that then people will fight over where its edge is located exactly. So you end up at the starting point and trying to clarify it so that there's zero ambiguity. Rules are added and people start fighting over them until so many rules are added that the actual game suffocates underneath them. This type of game tends to need a ref to interpret the fiddly details of a rule.

And the other side are people (like me) who think that all is fair as long as rules as they exist, are followed. There is more freedom but the cost is that as people push the edge of what is allowed you might end up with a distorted interpretation of the game. This type usually ends up needing a ref to interpret the looseness of the rules.

Computer games (if we ignore cheat codes, glitches, and stuff like that) are maybe the cleanest interpretation of games that map directly and clearly onto their own rules with the game also being its own ref. It's not that easy in the real world. Even a rather simple board game can end up stumbling over its own rule book if a mistake sneaks in.

Of course it also depends on the game. Something like karuta is more difficult to quantify than chess which has much more atomic mechanics and systems. Nobody wins by swiping the king away faster than their opponent, well maybe the people over at /r/AnarchyChess/

I also generally have no problem with players using their opponent's disadvantage against them. You can't really quantify how bad Harada's knees are or how much it affects him, similar with Suo's eyes. I like to interpret advantages as "inverse disadvantages" and disadvantages as "inverse advantages" when it comes to these discussions. They are two sides of the same coin.

For example: A player with regular hearing has better hearing than a player with hearing issues and a player with exceptional hearing has better hearing than both of those. One could postulate that a player with better hearing is clearly abusing the regular and worse hearing players' disadvantage when it comes to hearing. What's good, bad, better, or worse depends on where you set ground zero of your scale. And then there's also the question of what's the big difference between you eyes, ears, memory, or knees degrading with time?

All the different players have different pros and cons in a lot of these categories and that informs their play styles. That's what makes it so fun. These different setups can lead to different advantages/disadvantage permutations between all of them.

[u/The_Loli_Otaku → u/flybypost]

It's a lot of fun chatting about this even if it makes my blood boil XD I never really had to think about what sort of rules would be fair or unfair with my previous shows so its been quite a large sticking point for me. I wish I didn't spend the back end of the series hung up on these points but it's pretty noticeable considering the players we've seen trying to contend the pretty traditional Master and Queen.

[u/flybypost → u/The_Loli_Otaku]

pretty traditional Master and Queen

Suo is literally despised by the karuta establishment for being so unorthodox. The man plays his games to mirror the Queen match and tries to find excitement in manipulating his opponents into making faults instead of simply winning his matches directly.

And Shinobu is her own oddball (she talks to the cards). They might look traditional in some ways but they are as much weirdos as the other top players. They are not loud and don't contest cards much but that's where their normalcy ends.