This somewhat spoilery post captures what I love about this show: it humanises everyone. Not just the main characters, not just their team, but their parents, the other competitors, the judges, the other kids at their school,
everyone. We are given the point of view of the school band who are annoyed that the Karuta club gets such a big room despite being 1/8 the size and care just as much about aiming for
their Nationals. We see the thoughts of other Karuta teams as they strive to win against the main characters for their own entirely valid reasons. Even characters who are shown to be overall mean or in the wrong or are acting contrary to the main characters' goals have moments of sympathy. But there's still tension and conflict and change.
Some things I would have wanted to know going in:
1) the portrayal of fat characters is a mixture of good (they are as three dimensional and humanised as anyone else) and bad (it's seen as amusing and understandable to make fun of them for being fat, which gets old)
2) This is not a Shoujo Romance, there's a lot of character growth and evolution of relationships but while several of the
characters care a lot about romance the
narrative definitely considers it much less important than how everyone is doing as a Karuta player. On the plus side, at this point
I care more about how everyone is doing as a Karuta player (I am so invested in how many syllables it takes Chihaya to recognise a card omg) but the part of me that's gotten used to romance plots was a bit disappointed before I adjusted my expectations.
3) The dynamic between Taishi, Chihaya and Arata hasn't progressed anywhere near as quickly from the place it is was in at the start of Season 1 as I was expecting. I thought that was going to be the central arc of season 1 and it's really not. It's hypocritical to get annoyed at the characters for not Using Their Words when I was just as bad at 16, but I still want to thwap them :)
Still. Having adjusted, I actually really like watching a story about a female character where romance is a minor consideration at best, where the central arc is her growth as a player and the lessons she learns are about leadership, teamwork, practicality etc. And there are lots of other female characters with whom she has complex relationships. The way Karuta tournaments are mixed gender until the final bout creates nicely complex layers of rivalry: Chihaya plays against lots of male players and other mixed gender teams, but her ultimate rival for Best Player is another girl, and similarly for the male characters.
Finally: I am amused that the poem based episode titles have gone from evocative phrases like "Now to Flower Blooms" to "I feel as though my body is on fire with Ibuki mugwort". Maybe it sounds cooler in Japanese :)
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