Hanae ( ハナエ )
The OP/ED single for Kamisama Hajimemashita (AKA Kamisama Kiss) was released TODAY! For those of you so unfortunate as to not have heard the opening and/or the ending song (both performed by Hanae), here are some promotional videos.
The OP, “Kamisama Hajimemashita”, grabbed me immediately. It has an interesting blend of traditional sound (koto) and modern groove (light-funk guitar)
The ED, “Kamisama Onegai”, is a cover of a pop tune by the Tempters. The new version seems to be referencing Surf-rock at times, whereas the original (1968) had a vaguely Psychedelic feel to it, instead.
Chihaya is bringing karuta back!
Normally I make some semblance of putting together a list of picks for an upcoming season, and then predict one that will stand out. Frankly, this season I can’t be bothered. Almost every single new show is certain to be crap. There is one show that I would have predicted as the greatest show of the season, it is the second season of Chihayafuru. Season 1 was the best show of 2012 (it actually started in 2011, but it ended Winter 2012). If you haven’t seen season 1, by all means take the time to do so. It is a great series, with fun characters, lots of emotion, excellent music, and solid direction. I’m really looking forward to Chihayafuru, even if there is nothing else worthy of being broadcast this season.
Chihayafuru season 2 begins, and Ayase Chihaya will rule the tatami mat once more.
The first episode of Chihayafuru season 2 was pretty good. there were some allusions to events and characters from the first season, but the show didn’t get bogged down in rehashing old material. New challenges surfaced without completely forgetting the promising direction things were going at the end of the first season. Obviously, as a first episode, the show is mostly setting expectations and introducing characters. It was great to see that the show will still look great, and have the mix of comedy and romance and competitive sports that were so successful in the first season. I also am very happy that Kousuke Hamada is credited with the music for this season, because the soundtrack to season 1 was really phenomenal.
Sumire Hanano gets a dose of reality.
As to the content of the episode itself, much of it was about the crisis revealed at the end of season 1. The Karuta club needs to increase membership, so they attempt to recruit freshmen. One of their new underclassmen is quite a handful, and we get to see the Karuta club from her perspective.
Bring on episode 2!
Chihaya Ayase knows how sad the cards must feel.
Season 2 of Chihayafuru is off to a great start. the second new character is introduced, and we have already seen some development in last week’s new-comer. There was also a little Karuta cultural moment, as an alternative form, played in Hokkaido was introduced. But, for me, the best part of this episode was Ms. Kanade Ooe bringing the HAMMER down on boy-crazy Sumire.
Kanade Ooe – believe me, you do NOT want to make her angry.
A show that so far has simple ideas, but a strong design sense.
This post is based on watching the first three episodes of Amnesia. The show has a very strong design sense; it is also clearly based on an otome game. Although (as with any otome-sourced anime) the show is largely an excuse to get a girl into a situation where she needs to interact with a bunch of guys, Amnesia actually manages to establish itself as a Mystery. Our nameless heroine doesn’t know how she relates to those around her, and her attachment to reality is demonstrated to be thin, right from the start. Instead of just presenting the story as the mystery of who she is and/or what happened to cause her to lose her memories, inexplicable, even supernatural, elements are added in ways that make little sense (but maybe in a good way?).
Amnesia’s nameless heroine.
The heroine quickly accepts that she can talk to a spirit creature that warns her to keep her memory loss a secret. We could accept Orion, her spirit-friend, at face value, but he could also be a sign the heroine has a profound mental problem. By the end of the third episode, inconsistencies in the narrative we as viewers have witnessed are made apparent. Events that we clearly witnessed are explicitly revoked in retelling by other participants. Are the people around the heroine lying to her? Is this merely a by-product of the heroine’s confused memories? Is the very nature of reality unmoored, so that people and events can change freely? Is the heroine completely delusional and living in a fictitious world of her own making? I really like the fact that the viewpoint character is so untrustworthy that even she can’t tell if what she is experiencing is reality. At this point I would have to say the mystery of what is going on is the second best thing that Amnesia has going for it.
The show demonstrates a very strong artistic vision.
The best thing Amnesia has going for it, however, is the strong sense of visual design. This is expressed in many ways, but one of the most obvious is through the clothing the characters wear. For example, in the screenshot #2 (above) shows the heroine in her street garb, which has a number of intricate details: Her hair has a braid on the left, and a bun on the right, her beret and jacket both have imitation roses, her handbag has an ornate strap, and the jacket has a strange double set of buttons. Also, and this is probably going to be difficult to seen in the screencap, most black fabrics (such as the heroine’s jacket) have a subtle pattern to them.
Ken knows the simple truth: you can NEVER wear too many buckles.
Ken, the character on the left in the immediately preceding screen shot, demonstrates a couple of other features present in the clothing design for this show. First, if your going to wear buckles, don’t stop at just one; several characters feature multiple buckles in their signature outfit. Second, if you look closely you can see that the pattern on Ken’s left pant leg is identical to that on Orion’s vest (he’s the right-most figure, the one with horns); this kind of repeating use of patterns and colors across characters is unnatural, but makes a strong visual impact. Also, it is difficult to read in this shot, but both Ken and Ikki (the blue-haired one sitting between the heroine and Orion) have symbols for the suits of playing cards incorporated into their designs; Ken has three club symbols on his coat, and Ikki has a tattoo of a spade on his face, just under his left eye.
In addition to making the show interesting to look at, the strong, if unnatural design elements really give the show the impression of being crafted as an aethetic whole. I actually think the decision to go with an unnatural, but aesthetically charged design is a good approach.
Of course, after only three episodes it is impossible to say whether Amnesia will be worth having watched once it reaches its end. Anime based on games of any type often seem to fall apart. I am intrigued by the strange approach to story-telling that is being used, however, and hope there is a strong story that can be developed in adapted form to match all of the effort that clearly went into the artwork.
Evangeline Yamamoto has her own plans for how everything will play out.
The highlight of Zetsuen no Tempest‘s first course turned out to be a multi-way logic game, with the different parties involved trying to convince each other of the superiority of their argument. The various tank battles and magical battles and so forth all were a mere backdrop to the shifts in who had the upper hand in a discourse that lasted about three episodes. The twists and turns were excellently played, not only in the argument itself, but in the inner monologues that revealed how much every character was keeping from the others.
These monologues continue to be a special feature of Zetsuen no Tempest, as is appropriate, given the recurring references to the plays of William Shakespeare. The inner turmoils, and the scheming, revealed when the characters speak their private thoughts seem to be the forces that give shape to reality. Meanwhile the actions and interactions in many ways are merely the visible effects of that hidden universe.
Episode 14 continues in this fashion, with various characters attempting to convince Mahiro that he might need to kill his childhood friend Yoshino to save the world, without giving him all of the information they have, or the entirety of their reasoning. For his part Mahiro agrees to do their bidding, all the while making his own hidden plans. Although the episode included a magical battle, one of the most interesting aspects was that the various plans that were being developed throughout the episode were upset when Yoshino calls those plotting against him to announce the discovery of the mage of Exodus.
This isn’t always the strongest show, and the idea of a giant tree taking over the Earth is difficult to swallow, but the psychological twists can be very satisfying.
The Misuzawa High Karuta team return to defend their title at the Tokyo Regional championship.
Chihayafuru season 2 episode 3 covers the start of the Tokyo Regional high school championship. We also get to see glimpses of Arata Wataya and Shinobu Wakamiya, indicating that a real showdown is not far off.
(L-R) Kanade Ooe, Sumire Hanano, and Chihaya Ayase are surprised by a last minute change to the team’s composition.
Again, much of the episode’s drama revolved around the first years. The returning characters however, each had moments to demonstrate their growth by acting as sempai: Kana dressing Sumire up in a hakama, Tsutomu making the last minute changes to the schedule to give the first years a chance to play, and the flashback of Yuusei teaching Akihiro.
Chihaya looks like some evil ghost taking the children away.
Although both of the first years lost their matches, they seemed to learn valuable lessons. I will enjoy seeing the rehabilitation, and hopefully a sweet moment of success for Sumire and Akihiro, but there was a much more exciting development in this episode. Both Arata and Shinobu are confirmed to be participating in the high school tournament. Further, there seems to be some history between Arata and Shinobu. I have been looking forward to seeing the inevitable rematch between Shinobu and Chihaya, and Arata was the shadow that was cast over the entire first season, so it will be very interesting to see how they use him now that he has returned to the world of Karuta.
Another week, another episode of the greatest anime of the past three years.
Chihayafuru season 2 episode 4 was more of the same, meaning more awesome than any other anime you are watching. How a series can be this consistently excellent, episode after episode, is beyond me. What I discuss in this post, instead, is what makes this episode a perfect sports show episode. Now some folks might ask, “why do you think this episode was better than any other episode of Chihayafuru?” I don’t. This show is extraordinary in the sustained level of quality it demonstrates.
Chihaya Ayase, Mizusawa High’s Karuta ace.
To make a great sports anime you need to do two contradictory things. You have to make the audience believe that there is something special about the subject (in this case the protagonists are Misuzawa High’s competitive Karuta club) that makes them deserve to win. At the same time you need to convince the audience that they probably won’t win. If the audience believes only the latter, they will give up — nobody wants to see an endless string of defeats. If they believe only the former they lose interest, because there is no suspense.
One way that shounen sports titles handle this is by constantly upping the level of the competition. Tournaments are great for this, because you can start with qualifiers, then move on to regionals, and then move up the ladders in the championship. Chihayafuru has incorporated some of that. We are in the middle of the Tokyo regionals, and a win in this episode would only put Mizusawa High in position to play for the regional title next week. There is, however, another element, and this episode was yet another demonstration of Chihayafuru‘s great handling of it.
Harada-sensei inspects Taichi Mashima before the match.
As was demonstrated in the last episode, the five-on-five team matches mean that an individual win or loss isn’t the deciding factor in determining which team will advance. A weak player can lose to a very strong player, and it has essentially no impact on the match, if you consider that the very strong player was going to win regardless of who they were facing. In other words, stopping Mizusawa High’s winning streak doesn’t require taking on Chihaya, their ace. All that is necessary is to deny them the third win. Thus Taichi becomes the logical target.
To convince the audience of the credibility of the threat, the episode begins (after some teasing about our friend in Fukui) with a discussion between Harada-sensei and some other members of the Shiranami Society about Taichi’s bad luck. Then it is revealed that the next team Mizusawa will be playing is a dark horse — this is already bad, because the lack of data prevents Tsutomu from offering guidance. The situation is even worse, however. The dark horse team is being advised by Tsuboguchi, who is an excellent Karuta player, and as another member of the Shiranami Society, has known Chihaya and Taichi for years.
Taichi’s opponent is a master of the dark arts.
The dark horse team (Homei) immediately starts using psychological tricks, like flustering Chihaya with romantic overtures, with the real aim being to distract Taichi, and thus knock out the third leg of Mizusawa’s stool. When Taichi starts losing, his opponent pushes the advantage by pretending to have some sort of occult skill in calling out the cards that will be read. The real aim here is to cause Taichi to question whether he has the natural talent to win. With Taichi slipping into despair the match appears to be slipping away.
Harada-sensei does not approve of the way the poetry is being read.
To make matters worse Mizusawa has two other handicaps. First the reader for the match was recently promoted to grade B, and is nervous in his new role. His reading is not following the proper rhythms, and his timing is bound to throw off an experienced team like Mizusawa more than newcomers like Homei. Second, the air conditioning unit above Mizusawa is broken, so they are playing in a punishing heat. As all of these problems crop up the Shiranami Society members from the beginning bemoan Taichi’s terrible luck. They even provide him with lucky talismans, but when Taichi reaches for a towel to wipe the sweat pouring down his face, he finds he only brought the talismans with him to the tatami mat.
This is the climax of the episode. Taichi is broken, everything that could possibly go against him, has. Despite our belief that Mizusawa — that Taichi — is deserving of victory, we can fully believe that he will lose, and take the whole team down with him. The team that we believed would go all the way to the final round of the championship now looks like the underdog. Something extraordinary must happen, and fast, to turn this around!
Team Taichi — all you had to do was ask.
As is typical for this show, the gameplay is complex and satisfying. Much of what has been discussed so far is psychological, but even after Taichi manages (with the help of those around him) to snap out of his toxic mindset, he still has to play a very good game to end a winner. The solution lies in a strength that Taichi has demonstrated before, as well as a peculiarity of Karuta that was discussed at the end of last week’s episode. There are 16 cards that start with “The” (or whatever the corresponding syllable is in Japanese). This normally makes it difficult to move on those cards, since you need to wait until more syllables have been read, but Taichi was aware of exactly which other cards had already been called, so he was able to make “the” a single-syllable card.
In short, through elaborate prepared layers of difficulties, the team that “should” win was turned into the underdog, with a seemingly slim chance of finishing on top. The turnaround wasn’t an instantaneous fluke that enabled them to skate to victory, it was an opportunity to use their innate talents and all of their hard work to make victory theirs in the end. Then, before we can get too smug about it, we get the reminder that a bigger challenge lies ahead: Hokuo Academy.
Sumire Hanano on the march.
Speaking of Hokuo, I was quite pleased that Sumire took the initiative to scout their next opponent. We’ll probably hear something about their secret weapon from her in the next episode, but beyond that, it is a very positive sign that she is taking her membership on the team seriously. She is starting to show, despite her distressing introduction, some actual potential, which is just another example of the kind of awesome Chihayafuru delivers regularly.
Kanade Ooe in battle gear
Nikuman-kun’s sister officially joins the cast.
Chihayafuru season 2, episode 5 begins the match against Hokuo Academy. Not only is this the final round in the Tokyo Regional, but it is a grudge match for Hokuo, since Mizusawa High denied them the opportunity to compete at the National championship at Omi Jingu last year. As such, this had to be a two-parter. What I wasn’t expecting was the appearance of several minor characters, and the strong foreshadowing of a Meijin battle to come.
Retro-kun (right) got himself a girlfriend!
When I heard about Hokuo having a secret weapon, I assumed it was some new player. Then the show performed some brilliant misdirection. First there was Hokuo’s strategy of targeting Taichi, Tsutomo, and Kanade (the three weakest players), and then there was the reveal that Retro-kun’s girlfriend is Nishida’s big sister! We met her unofficially in the season 1 recap episode, and I never expected to see her again. Neither of those were Hokuo’s secret weapon, but they did help to develop Retro-kun as a side character. Regardless of how bizarre he comes off, he cares about Karuta, and wants to win the right way, and that’s alright in my book.
Kanade Ooe demonstrates that Mizusawa High has a secret weapon of their own.
Mizusawa is at a disadvantage, because Akihito Sudou, who played with Hokuo Academy until recently, is the reader for the final round, thus Hokuo is already accustomed to playing to his rhythm. The Mizusawa team, however, are unexpectedly assisted in the final match by Miyauchi-sensei; she has made each member a tasuki, which is a used to tie up the flowing sleeves of the hakama that the Mizusawa team wears. I have seen tasuki before in period dramas, so their sudden appearance was one of those “of course!” moments. People wear hakama’s these days as formal attire, not for wood chopping, so using a tasuki wouldn’t normally leap to mind, but it obviously is a practical adaptation for Karuta matches, and it is easy to see how that would improve their play.
Oh, yeah, and Go Kana-chan!
Chihaya Ayase and the many faces of Shinobu Wakamiya.
The best thing about this episode, I thought, was the energy it put into foreshadowing the Meijin tournament. That’s a whole other tournament, and we are still in the middle of this one! I was thinking we might get to see Shinobu during the High School Nationals at Omi Jingu, but already Chihaya is shown to be working toward that rematch, and we even had call-backs to the discussions about the reigning Meijin, Hisashi Suo.
This is getting very exciting. Not only do we have an exciting match going on that I want to see, not only can we look forward to the High School Nationals, but they are ALREADY building up the story of the Meijin tournament!
Thoughts on the match: At the close of the episode, Nishida has already lost his game. This obviously puts Mizusawa at a disadvantage, but that was a straight match against one of their two A-class players. Despite ending the episode with a five card disadvantage, I think Chihaya will win her game against Hokuo’s other A-ranked player. Kanade is the one Mizusawa player they have shown as having a strong position, so I think she goes on to crush her opponent. That means only one win is required between Taichi and Tsutomu. I would imagine that Taichi is stronger than Retro-kun, since he has been within striking distance of A-class for so long.
Bonus Service (Miyauchi-sensei)
Miyauchi-sensei, the advisor of Mizusawa High’s Competitive Karuta club.
