Chihayafuru 3

We're picking up steam as we went to the quarter final where Shiranami has 4 people still in the match, This one is really tense as we see the pairing was insane. And as promised from the last episode, we get to see Chihaya fought a strong opponent. It's fun to see that Chihaya isn't an all rounder master, with her opponent having weapons that she hasn't even considered before. On the other hand, the other characters also wasn't left out, we get to see Taichi's emotionally triggered, and how Tsuboguchi's team went to watch him. This was tense, but at the same time showing why these people are here right now.

We finally get to the top 16 and was greeted with some unexpected, but definitely welcomed matches. But first, the conversation between Arata and Taichi really dug deep into how Taichi is mentally, and I think I clocked this last season at their last conversation too, where they're in between rivals but also friends. And we get to see the true meaning of "Individual match is team match" in this episode, which is really nice to call back last episode. All in all, a great episode, especially with the promise of Chihaya's match next episode!

We slowly get to the swing of things as we get more conflict. There's a hiccup at school that was set up really nicely for further conflict, but for now the focus shifted to Yoshino tournament.

I always say this, but I like how Chihayafuru writes their side characters. We get to see Kana, Komano, and Nishida all shines here, enough but not taking Chihaya's spot. They have their ups and down, and that moment between Komano and Kana really captured it. As Taichi said, this is the real team match, especially after hearing Nishida's inner dialogue.