Chihayafuru Season 2: Episode 22 FULL LENGTH Reaction!
Added 2026-02-12 14:00:14 +0000 UTC
Comments
This was a crazy episode and Chihaya’s battle with Shinobu was so good! Chihaya is just so good with her passion for Karuta – and you can’t blame anyone for wanting to be her friend or rival after playing her! I can totally see Chihaya and Shinobu just as friends platonically, so I hear you! Shinobu’s childhood coach just makes me sad, not letting her have friends and isolating her to make her a better plan. I hope that Shinobu gets to experience a proper rivalry now that she’s played Chihaya! And yes, what a tease at the end! I can’t wait to see Taichi be on fire against Retro at least! Thank you for the comment!
Romaniablack
2026-02-18 02:01:07 +0000 UTCI really loved this episode and Shinobu is SUCH a great character! Chihaya too pulled her weight and worth in this! Ahahaha THE DEGREE COMMENT - but seriously, just let them TALK! I do agree that they both put each other on pedestals and I was hoping this arc would give them time to break down those walls a little bit – hopefully after this tournament, they will start to warm up to talking to one another some more! That is honestly a great note about Arata and Taichi on the radar - I’ll have to bring that up in a future episode, so thank you for that and the comments!
Romaniablack
2026-02-17 23:28:45 +0000 UTCI agree -- I can see the strategy Coach Ise is using but for her, when she clearly wanted a friend her age...it's rough. And the fact that she made the Karuta cards her friends instead of having human ones? OOF. That is heartbreaking!
Romaniablack
2026-02-17 23:23:24 +0000 UTCGosh, this episode made me emotional, and I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, I wasn't expecting Chihaya to be able to win against Shinobu, not considering that her finger was hurt; but, it was still such a win to be able to see her give it her all without ever even thiking of giving up. I love how everyone who plays against Chihaya becomes infected with her passion for Karuta, and they start wanting to do better. It's really such a nice, inspiring trait for her to have. The Fujisaki coach not knowing who Arata is was wild. Yeah, it's true that if she had never encountered him before she had little reason to know about him, but she strikes me as a person that keeps tabs on everyone and is very well prepared... I guess this was the one thing she wasn't prepared for. While I understand, and totally support, when people ship Chihaya and Sinobu, to me, they are just more precious as friends. Shinobu wants a friend so much, and I think that her getting it in Chihaya is what she needs, someone that is passionate about Karuta but hasn't forgotten how to have fun with it. It truly is wild how Shinobu's childhood coach just decided to isolate her. I understand that he saw all her raw potential and wanted to nurture it, to help her become everything that she was capable of, and I can see that she needed to play with older players to truly grow... but she didn't need to be isolated from her peers, and the only other kid her age that we see her interacting with ever. I think allowing her to play normally with her friend and still getting her to play older players would have provided the balance that she needed to grow and also the companionship that is missing in her life. It sucks that now Chihaya's simple demonstration of kinship has such a strong effect on her because she is so lacking of it, but it's still heartwarming that Shinobu immediately latched to the offer and got the long-awaited relation. the end of the episode was such a darn tease and they knew exactly what they were doing with it. I can't wait to see how Taichi does against Retro.
Alexandra Q
2026-02-13 06:13:56 +0000 UTCI feel bad for Shinobu being barred from having friends her age and I have brought it up in previous episodes with the Arata incident that for the sake of tradition and preserving it these karuta administrators do some questionable things especially with Coach Ise who is chairman sacrificing a normal childhood for Shinobu to ensure that she remains the ideal symbol of karuta. His statement last episode of the team matches being messy shows what his priorities are. I think Shinobu reluctantly accepting that she needs to be isolated to be stronger when you think about it makes a lot of sense for her to do that because that loneliness allowed her to see the cards as her 100 friends and deepened her connection to karuta so while she wants friends she has seen the results of this decision.
sanime
2026-02-12 21:17:09 +0000 UTCThis was a really great episode. Shinobu is in my top 5 of characters and I enjoy any episode where she and Chihaya gets the center stage mwaah chef's kiss. Chihayafuru might be in a top 10 anime or manga list of mine but I wholeheartedly agree that the lengths to which this mangaka has kept these three from having a conversation is more effort than I put into my degree 😂 Jokes aside I think that if there is any reason that things are awkward between Chihaya and Arata it's because of the pedestals that they both put each other on Arata puts Chihaya on a pedestal because she was the first person to validate his passion and Arata found her dream. They are friends but I've always seen their relationship as two people who look up to each other and that's why they get so tongue tied. The first proper conversation Arata and Chihaya had was right before the team competition so I was also looking forward to what they would say to each other in person but the mangaka said nope I will delay and drag this to the ends of the earth. screams internally. I get Taichi not fully taking in his win tho I don't think thats weird or unrealistic he had to jump from winning to learning that Chihaya was hurt to that Arata conversation he has not really had a proper moment for himself to celebrate or think about his win other than the group hug when they won as a team. Arata just came back to competing not too long ago (almost a year or a little over a year) I'm not surprised that Sakurazawa has no info on him and I dont think that she views Manata as stronger than Arata because she is intrigued in his play style as someone who is known as tbe Eternal Master grandson . Arata is basically getting the same treatment that Chihaya did when playing her students "I'm observing you because you're dangerous." Arata is interesting because I don't think Arata as you said views other players like Shinobu does in terms of oh this person isn't worthy to face me or this person is strong or weak compared to himself but he has learned all his life to visualize his victory from his grandfather so I think he knows that he has that confidence of I know I have what it takes to win so subconsciously I don't think he views anyone else but the Master and those who are immediate threats to that title as rivals. I do agree tho that Arata most likely doesn't have Taichi on his radar at all. Taichi is in Class B and Arata has no clue whether Taichi has changed from being a coward who just plays for validation especially from Chihaya because they havent talked about it and he hasn't watched Taichi in a match.
sanime
2026-02-12 20:04:45 +0000 UTC
