Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

We’ve down this road a lot lately with Chihayfuru, gentle readers – it’s another tournament chapter. It’s good – I mean, this is Chihayafuru, they’re pretty much all good.  But as a blogger I’m at the combat fatigue stage – Chihayafuru has been so competition-driven over the last couple of years that I’ve pretty much run out of things to say about chapters like this one.

What’s interesting here?  Well, Mizusawa playing in t-shirts rather than hakama for one – it feels like an era has ended, somehow.  The glimpses into the thought processes of everyone playing.  Kana-chan sitting out yet again.  I kind of find myself hoping Tsukuba gets the chance to be a hero for once, because Suetsugu has never really given him any run as a character.

Arata is here too, of course, with his Fujioka squad taking on the favorites Hokuo in the other semifinal.  I assume they’ll win, because Arata vs. Chihaya is the obvious dramatic crescendo of this arc – but I’m still not feeling this tournament, really.  I hate to say it, but I’m kind of ready for it to be over.  I’m desperately hoping Chihayafuru does something to make me fall madly in love with it again, and I don’t think that’s going to happen in this tournament…