I am embarrassed to see

The first blossoms of spring

Through moth holes in the curtains

Impassionate gods

I cannot be moved

My bathrobe is a fortress

No grass will interfere today

With the space between my toes

I live at the whim of TV shows

A slight breeze makes me nauseous

I wish I could delete everything I know about Chihayafuru from my brain and read it entirely, start-to-finish for the first time

au where karuta are like magical powers

Chihaya was listening to Tare when Taichi found her in high school. It was the same poem that secured her first win against Shinobu. Taichi's love was described as Shinoburedo and Koi su cho by Kana-chan--poems that talk about a strong love that cannot be hidden. Yura was the last poem read in their 2nd-year nationals competition, the card that Taichi offered to the gods and staked all his good fortune into while wishing for Chihaya to wake up and witness his fate. The Kaze wo poem provided the words of allegory for the heartbreak Chihaya experienced at Taichi's departure. Se was the poem Chihaya sent to Taichi on their 3rd-year regionals, a poem about asking fate for a chance to meet again. It was only when Chihayaburu was recited when Chihaya noticed Taichi's arrival in their 3rd-year nationals. Despite its disappearance, she thought it was okay as long as Taichi was with her. The same poem also helped Taichi win against Sudo despite disassociating himself from it; and against Arata's strong defense, leading to his first win against him. Fu was Taichi's second-best take from Arata, moving Chihaya to tears. It was also Chihaya's first card she took like a real karuta player and what Taichi admired ever since. Kimi ga tame described Taichi's secret support for Chihaya in the Queen match, collecting the 7 green herbs that symbolize luck for her. Chihaya took Su, a poem she described as "romantic", during her first realization that Taichi has always been with her, which happened after she recalled the memory of Taichi saying his feelings for her might fade away someday. Su was also the poem Taichi used to communicate with her during the Qualifier, motivating her not to give up despite having trouble with Makino-san’s reading. Tachi was the card Chihaya voluntarily kept and was the card of fate, winning her the Queen title. On the fusuma, Tachi is a poem that has always been a pair for Chiha for a thousand years. Tachi, the poem that reaffirmed Chihaya’s belief that Taichi is constantly with her from the very beginning. Chihaya described Taichi’s confession to her as a poem until it was her turn to recite her own poem to him with the simple words of “I love you”. 

Can Taichihaya get any more poetic than this???!!!

Does anyone else like Chihayafuru?

I usually dislike sport anime, but something about this one really made me like it.

Since there isn't a huge fanbase for the show, I decided to make my own lil Karuta charm! It's a reversible 2.5" wooden charm with Chihaya on the front, and her card verse on the back!

Get it here!

Or here on Etsy!

Have you ever heard the sound of blinking?

It is for your sake that I walk the fields in spring gathering green herbs.

Two weeks to go for Taichihaya week 2023 sneak peek.

立ち別れ

いなばの山の

峰に生ふる

まつとし聞かば

今帰り来む

__________

Though we may be apart,

On Inaba mountain's peak

growing pines.

If I hear that you pine for me

I shall at once return to you.

I heard the news about Chihayafuru..

I see that Karuta keeps it alive,

Karuta & hyakunin Isshu.... nothing else really ....

I should have moved on right?

I didn’t..

...

Just a few weeks after the end of the manga, mom was diagnosed with “dementia” and suddenly, I didn't know how to live anymore..

“dementia”…

A word I never cared about until I read it in Chihayafuru, it was an interesting “idea” in a fictional story,

Later I realized that it’s “utter hell” and Suetsugu did a very...not good job in using the “interesting idea” with one of her main characters.

sad, because she seemed to me more..brilliant.

I shared this with my therapist and he made me -among other things- look at some pages from Chihayafuru a lot, he told me to talk about it and face it because they are horrifying & traumatizing to me now ...

it's not just about karuta... dementia ...is slow torture ... for both patients and caregivers ....

I lost track of time & I didn’t realize it’s another November already..

November, the "WatanoharaYa" month of the year, I call it like that, it’s Arata’s month for me ..

I always said that I didn't relate to Arata, now he is more then relatable, he became a hero in my eyes ...

I can't move on & I don't want to...

And I definitely did not move on from Arachiha/chiharata either ...

Although my sentiment about Chihayafuru remains the same as before

but I kept loving what I could love, I made some new edits which I wanted to share during this month so i'll probably do.. but maybe later

And I hope I can make something happy for Arata's birthday too ....

-Admin Rawaa.

I love chihayafuru so much, i need a season 4 now

august 1, 2022 is both too soon and too far away :/

Hosoyan can influence me anyday

I am actively looking into Anime where he voices characters

so wise, so true anon

watch no.6 he sings in it.

And if you're up to it he also plays one of the main character of Chihayafuru which is one of my comfort anime!

I can never tell

what it is we’re fighting for

but I cannot stop.

Discomfort is my language

I was born into a storm

Having feelings about chihayafuru again

When winds are at their strongest,

the waves crash into the rocks, only to fall apart themselves.

Just like those waves, my own heart is in danger of breaking apart,

as I continue to pine endlessly for you.

- Minamoto Shigeyuki

Shinobu on the ship. Inspired by Ono no Takamura's poem:

わたの原

Wata no hara

O tell her, at least,

八十島かけて

Yasoshima kakete

that I’ve rowed out, heading towards

こぎ出ぬと

Kogi idenu to

the innumerable isles

人には告げよ

Hito ni wa tsugeyo

of the ocean’s wide plain,

あまのつり舟

Ama no tsuri no bune

you fishing boats of the sea-folk!

Source: https://100poets.com/2012/07/12/getting-exiled-isnt-fun-poem-number-11/

hello. im not too much into the circle of fandom but is it true that chihaya was told she needs to have a suitable relationship with taichi if she wants to know more about his life? i feel very confused over that line because i felt friendship was just important as romance for sensei so this quite jarring for me. and one more question if you don’t mind, but when do you think her feelings went from arata to taichi? the confession from what I read was lacking any content from her end.

I'm waiting for proper translations to come out, but from what I understand I think what Taichi says to Chihaya before she confesses to him is supposed to dispel the notion that she can't know certain things about his life because she's only a "friend" (which is something Tsutomu says to her when she finds out belatedly from the club advisor that Taichi's going to university in Kyoto). Taichi paraphrases what Chihaya said in their childhood about them always being able to see each other again so long as they have karuta, and personally I believe he says that because it doesn't even phase him to think of the distance between Tokyo and Kyoto as something unsurpassable. A huge focal point of his character arc (and for any of the trio's character arcs, really) has been learning to be okay with distance and taking it as a fact of life that's bearable and possible to overcome if some lifeline to overcome it exists and is maintained. I know some people are worried that him not telling Chihaya about where he's going to university is a sign of him regressing into imposed isolation again, but with the ultimate conclusions the last chapter is making about the story, I really do believe it's more emblematic of him being at peace with himself. The distance no longer scares him because he knows he'll always return. I don't think he perceives moving to Kyoto for university as being this huge, insurmountable thing so much as it is another movement forward in his life just as Chihaya and Arata's entrances into university are movements forward in theirs. The friendship between the three of them is strange and unique in that its punctuated by a lot of distance, and ultimately the solution to overcoming that distance isn't actually to do so physically or verbally, but to do so by way of faith. They have impenetrable faith in their bonds with each other, so that anxiety that existed prior about them not being able to maintain those bonds has finally begun to fade.

As for Chihaya's feelings, I'm not sure. I used to be of the belief prior that the nature of her response (or lack thereof) to Taichi's confession in comparison to her surety with regards to her feelings about Arata meant that the love triangle ended then and there, or that it never existed, and maybe I do still maintain the latter belief, just in a more roundabout way. I do think Chihaya has always been sure of what she's felt for Arata, in the sense that he's someone who introduced her to this whole world and who inspired her to push for her own dreams and to reach for that lofty peak. I do think Chihaya is someone who's never concerned herself with putting up a romantic fight between Arata and Taichi, because each of them are important to her in their respective ways. I do think Chihaya has spent a long time re-evaluating what place Taichi has in her life ever since it's revealed to both of them that their communication with each other is masked and stricken. But I guess the conclusion I'm coming to in light of this final chapter is that none of these things are necessarily mutually exclusive of each other. I don't think it's as if Chihaya's feelings for either boy are light switches to be turned on and off with respect to each other. Romance in real life doesn't work that way. It doesn't have strict structure or parameters as defined by the expected requirements of a story. Feelings shift and change and are muddled all along the way. The heart bows to no one other than its own haphazard whims. I don't know that we've ever needed to know when exactly it was that Chihaya established a certain perspective with regards to her feelings for either boy. The timing has never been important in comparison to the experience itself. Youth comes many times. You can experience it many, many times, so make sure you work hard each of those times, okay? Those are the words that keep playing over and over in my head and that I feel are more emblematic of the story as a whole than anything else. It's not about maintaining structure in all aspects of your life. It's about endeavoring to be honest with yourself so that the moments and emotional experiences you exist within you can wholeheartedly appreciate.