Chihayafuru Episode 20

This week’s episode starts off with Chihaya being forced to stay back and study for exams while Taichi goes to the last tournament before the Master/Queen qualifiers. Taichi is surprised to find Arata at the tournament as well. Arata’s presence ends up throwing Taichi off and he loses in the next round.

Chihaya ditches the study session to go see Taichi, and they both watch Arata play. Arata ends up losing, and he is forced to leave before he can talk with Chihaya too long. After the tournament, Harada offers to promote Taichi for his two second place finishes, despite it going against the society’s rules, but Taichi refuses.

I had a tough time with this episode. While I figured Harada would make the offer to promote Taichi, I couldn’t be sure what would happen. Taichi’s character was telling me he’d refuse because of his natural maturity. Still, Arata vs. Taichi just seems like such a destined rivalry, so I was thinking he had to make it somehow. The Master qualifiers just don’t seem like they’ll be interesting if both of them aren’t going at each other. Chihaya’s still searching for some new technique for karuta, and she needs to find it already. We’re slowly approaching the end, which I’m assuming is the Master/Queen qualifiers.