^Admittedly, a lot of my feelings on the show have to do with these two right here, Taichi in particular. HE JUST TRIES SO HARD. ;____;
Seriously, each time he loses, I feel like someone just chiseled out a piece of my heart. His most recent loss literally made me want to stomp around my room, kicking things and screaming.
This anime is actually one of the few times a story has managed to genuinely leave me guessing in regards to which love interest will "win" in the end. You can make a fairly strong case for either guy:
- Arata is obviously the guy who Chihaya gives more special attention to. She practically worships him, and the series seems to be setting things up so that Arata and Chihaya will be the future karuta Master & Queen.
- But then again, you can easily make the argument that Chihaya only has very strong feelings of admiration towards Arata and admiration =/= love.
- As for Taichi, even though he's constantly in Arata's shadow, the narrative allows him so much screen time and forces the audience to sympathize with him so much that it is impossible to simply write him off.
- But then again, I imagine the series might take the Honey & Clover route and have Taichi eventually realize that he needs to move on. He keeps getting the shaft anyway, SO WHY NOT JUST CONTINUE THE TREND. ;___;
Obviously, I'm rooting for Team Taichi... even though I have the niggling feeling that this route only leads to Bad Ends. o_o
All that said, I must admit, karuta club seems like the type of thing I would've joined in high school. It wouldn't have even been all that weird either, considering how many random Asian kids sat in the hallways playing Mahjong at my school. :P
