#elementary school arc

[huapaiqingyuan]

for what it’s worth, chihayafuru had a pretty faithful anime adaptation but within the first 5 minutes we already see a divergence in how the anime chooses to introduce the setting and the characters.

in the manga, the very first page we are treated to is chihaya playing her queen’s match in her third year of high school. this was established from the very start that she was always going to get there. it’s very brief—we don’t get who she’s playing against or how well she’s doing—and we are immediately transported to six years ago where she was still “clueless about passion”, to her very first meeting, as well as introduction to our second main character, arata. meanwhile taichi is briefly introduced a few pages later, but his character only really gets established in the second half. this first part focuses on chihaya’s introduction to karuta, how arata helps her find her own passion and dream beyond her elder sister’s successes and just generally fleshing out their characterisations.

look at how cute they were as children LOL

in the anime, it begins with chihaya pinning two karuta posters in her first year of highschool. at this point, she already has found her passion and is pulling off ridiculous stunts to get people to help her achieve her goals share the same passion. we see that everything she does (joining track) was in a way to further herself in karuta. as she lays in the grass reminiscing about the past—where we briefly see the then unnamed trio—we then get introduced to our second main character taichi.

the background, that one line, the whole scene. dare i say endgame foreshadowing?

it is only after we get a feel of their dynamics and their present* attitudes towards karuta, do we then get introduced to karuta itself via the flashback to their sixth grade days. it is only midway through the first episode that arata is then introduced to us beyond chihaya and taichi namedropping him with such a heavy atmosphere. 

*whilst the manga introduces chihaya in her third year, the bulk of the story chronologically follows her progress from her first year of highschool

why i found it pertinent to point out this divergence is that the manga focused more on introducing the audience to chihaya’s passion aka karuta and its rules. besides the first two pages, the manga is essentially chronological. meanwhile, the anime, by choosing to introduce chihaya in her first year before the flashback, focused more on fleshing out the dynamics of the characters’ relationships at present. 

i also remarked to a friend that the way the two talked about arata was similar to the anime trope of that one dead friend who inspired the main characters

in a way, i found the anime’s take more compelling because it made me want to learn more about each character. it also expanded upon the kids’ interactions whilst slowly introducing karuta via showing the students memorising poems. personally, the manga, by delving into karuta straight away, came off a little bit too technical for my liking. but perhaps it is because as a foreigner, i am quite literally coming into the manga blind while the average japanese most likely is already somewhat familiar with karuta. 

but besides the divergence, or my own personal preferences, is what it means to be the second main character. i’m out of touch with manga now, but a common trope back then was that the first male to be introduced is the male lead. that he is the one that will be the endgame love interest. 

in this sense, is chihayafuru a subversion of this trope? or does it bolster the theory that arata was initially supposed to be the endgame love interest? or is it because we are treated to a flashback scene at the very start that throws this “rule” out? perhaps this doesn’t even matter: romance, after all, isn’t the main focus of chihayafuru. 

regardless, the manga and the anime had different takes on how to handle exposition and i would absolutely love to hear the logic behind such a narrative decision by the anime team.

[huapaiqingyuan]

throughout the different stages of growing up, i swung wildly from identifying with arata and taichi even suo  a lot of their experiences and relationships mirror our own, making them characters that we can empathise with and understand easily

someone else brought this up and i agreed. this page did strike me as odd: is it a retcon as some suggest? or is arata looking back at his friendship with taichi through rose-tinted glasses? 

i touched a little upon how the anime and manga differed here but i don’t think this was a point where the anime and manga actually diverged, unlike what this tweet suggests. 

because taichi does notice that chihaya’s attention slips away from him, which is why the conversation shifted towards being about arata. 

(i’m just going to dub this the and the ensuing parts before they become karuta buddies the Chihaya Incident™ for clearer reference)

we then see that the class has a negative attitude towards him. 

that’s not to say the tweet is entirely wrong though. the anime did take the above page out. perhaps because it was too mean or explicit? regardless, the reality is that both manga and anime followed the same formula of chihaya notices arata → taichi is mean towards arata

now let’s examine the page again. why would arata then think taichi would have approached him first if not for chihaya? it’s clear that his classmates seems to be bullying him even prior to these few panels. 

if we find arata’s thinking to be odd, it’s because we assume that taichi was an active participant in his bullying prior to the Chihaya Incident™ but there is not textual evidence to actually suggest that. and there definitely would not have been an escalation in the ostracism that arata faced if not for the Chihaya Incident™ either. 

putting that aside, perhaps we assumed falsely and that taichi hadn’t been actively bullying arata. it does still seem like a huge leap for taichi to go from bystander to pro-actively befriending the class outcast.

except, maybe not really. because we don’t actually have much to work with here. so i don’t think it’s fair to say that this page was a retcon. there is no actual in-text contradiction occuring. upon reflection, this dissonance relies on a lot of our assumptions of these characters and how they behave outside of karuta and the Chihaya Incident™. we weren’t really privy to such info because they didn’t serve any purpose. if anything, this page was arata’s own retrospection that reflected more on his perceptions of taichi’s character than on taichi’s actual behavior. whether we believe taichi would have became besties with arata is one thing, it’s a completely separate matter if arata himself does. and at the end of the day, that is what actually matters.