Finished the third season of Chihayafuru today. It was great! Chihayafuru is a sports/romance story about a girl who just wants to play karuta. Karuta is a simple game. A bunch of cards get laid on the floor between the two competitors. A poem is read, and the first player to touch the card with the corresponding poem gets rid of one of their cards. The first person to get rid of all of their cards wins. Sounds like it could get dull, but as with anything where humans are competing against one another it gets intense.

Pros:

• Insane main character. Only has a mind for karuta and breathing. TBH not super confident that she can even consistently remember to breathe.
• Fun supporting cast
• The art, voice acting, etc are all great.
• The romance is usually in the background, but when it bubbles up to the foreground it’s fun and well-written. It never feels like an afterthought.

Cons:

• The anime leaves off at a pretty reasonable spot, but it’s unfinished. I’m guessing it’s about halfway through the manga, though I haven’t found the time to read it yet. Season 3 aired in 2019 though, so there’s still hope!
• You’ll find yourself wanting to play a card game with an incredibly high barrier to entry (memorize 100 classical Japanese poems!) which isn’t even that popular in Japan and which nobody you knows is likely to want to play.