is a Japanese

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series written and illustrated by Yuki Suetsugu. It was serialized in

Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...

's manga magazine '' Be Love'' from December 2007 to August 2022, with its chapters collected in 50 volumes. It is about a school girl, Chihaya Ayase, who is inspired by a new classmate to take up ''

Hyakunin Isshu is a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred Japanese ''waka'' by one hundred poets. ''Hyakunin isshu'' can be translated to "one hundred people, one poem ach; it can also refer to the card game of '' uta-garuta'', which uses a deck compo ...

karuta are Culture of Japan, Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. The earliest indigenous ''karuta'' was invented in the ...

'' competitively. An

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

television series adaptation aired from October 2011 to March 2012. The second season aired from January to June 2013 and the third from October 2019 to March 2020. Three

live-action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games or ...

film adaptations were released from 2016 to 2018. By February 2025, ''Chihayafuru'' had over 29 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series. The manga has won the second

Manga Taishō The is a Japanese List of comics awards, comics award recognizing achievement in manga. It is awarded annually to a manga series published in the previous calendar year of eight or fewer Tankōbon, collected volumes in length. The Manga Taish� ...

and the 35th

Kodansha Manga Award is one of Japan's major manga awards. The event is sponsored by publisher Kodansha. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga in its third iteration since 1977. Categories The award was originally called the until 1968. In 1970, it was ...

. Its popularity has boosted the profile of

competitive karuta is an official Japanese card game that uses a deck of ''uta-garuta'' cards to play karuta, within the format and rules set by the All Japan Karuta Association. Overview Competitive karuta has been around since the start of the 19th century b ...

in Japan.

Plot

Chihaya Ayase is a girl who has spent most of her life simply supporting her sister in her modeling career. That changes when she meets a boy named Arata Wataya, a talented

player. After becoming friends, he believes that Chihaya has potential to become a great player. As Chihaya takes on a new dream of becoming Japan's best karuta player, she is soon separated from her karuta playing friends as they grow up. Now in high school, Chihaya is reunited with her childhood friend, Taichi Mashima. Together, they form the Mizusawa Karuta Club. With her teammates and friends supporting her, Chihaya strives to become the best karuta player in the world and to one day be with Arata again.

Development

Yuki Suetsugu belonged to a club in high school and feels that the school years are a period of a person's life where "you can dedicate the most genuine part of yourself to something." The name of the series is a poetic '' makurakotoba'', or pillow word, and comes from the first five syllables of the seventeenth poem in the ''

'' poetry anthology, a collection of 100 poems which are printed on the cards. In this poem ''chihayaburu'' is used as an epithet to and can be translated into English as "shaken in fury" and "swift in fury", according to Edwin A. Cranston, or "awesome", as offered by Joshua S. Mostow.

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Yuki Suetsugu, ''Chihayafuru'' was serialized in the manga magazine '' Be Love'' from 28 December 2007 to 1 August 2022, with a spinoff side-story chapter released on 1 November 2022. The series' 247 chapters and the side-story chapter were collected by publisher

into 50 volumes, released between 13 May 2008 and 13 December 2022. Kodansha has also published the first three volumes in a two-volume bilingual edition from 22 December 2011 to 24 February 2012, with English translations by Stuart Varnam Atkin and Yōko Toyozaki. On 14 February 2017 Kodansha Comics began publishing a digital edition of the series in English; 40 volumes have been released as of October 2023. The manga is licensed in French by Pika Édition, in Korean by Haksan Culture Company, in Taiwanese by Tong Li Publishing, and in Thai by Bongkoch Publishing. A manga adapting the midquel novels ''Chihayafuru: Chūgakusei-hen'', written by Yui Tokiumi and illustrated by Oto Tooda, was published in the same magazine from 13 October 2017 to 1 November 2018 and compiled into three volumes. A sequel manga series, titled , began serialization on 1 December 2023.

Anime

A 25-episode

television series adaptation, produced by the studio Madhouse under the direction of Morio Asaka, aired on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

from 4 October 2011 to 27 March 2012. The screenplay was written by Naoya Takayama and character designs were by Kunihiko Hamada. The music was composed by Kousuke Yamashita, and the sound director was Masafumi Mima of Techno Sound. The series was simulcast by

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service owned by Sony, Sony Group Corporation. The service primarily distributes fi ...

Animax Asia Animax is an Asian pay television channel owned by KC Global Media Asia. The channel was originally owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and took its name from the Japanese satellite TV network; which was then-majority owned by subsidiary Sony ...

aired an English version of the anime from 13 February to 18 March 2013. The series was released in nine DVD and Blu-ray Disc volumes from 21 December 2011 to 22 August 2012. A Blu-ray Disc box set was released on 18 July 2013. A second 25-episode season, ''Chihayafuru 2'', aired on Nippon Television between 11 January and 28 June 2013, and was simulcast by Crunchyroll. An

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and special episodes of a series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the ...

episode was released on DVD bundled with the special edition of the 22nd manga volume on 13 September 2013. The season was collected in a two-volume Blu-ray and DVD box set released on 22 May 2013 and 18 September 2013. A 24-episode third season was originally announced to premiere on Nippon Television's AnichU block in April 2019, with the main cast and staff reprising their roles, but was delayed and aired from 22 October 2019 to 24 March 2020. It was also simulcast by Crunchyroll. The season was collected in a two-volume Blu-ray and DVD box set released on 25 December 2019 and 25 March 2020. The first season's opening and ending themes are "Youthful" by 99RadioService and by

Asami Seto is a Japanese voice actress currently affiliated with StarCrew. Her debut role was as Yoshino Takatsuki in '' Wandering Son'', with major roles including Raphtalia in '' The Rising of the Shield Hero'', Mai Sakurajima in the '' Rascal Does Not ...

respectively. 99RadioService released "Youthful" as a single on 30 November 2011. The original soundtrack with character song albums was released in two volumes on 18 January and 28 March 2012. The second season's opening and ending themes are "Star" by 99RadioService and by Seto. The third season's opening and ending themes are "Colorful" by 99RadioService and by Band Harassment. In September 2016, Sentai Filmworks, announced that they had licensed the first two seasons of the anime series for home video and digital release in North America. The series' first season premiered with English subtitles on the Hidive streaming service on 15 June 2017, with the second premiering on 19 March 2018. Sentai Filmworks' dub is streamed by Hidive starting from 29 August 2017. The first season was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 12 September 2017 and the second on 20 March 2018. In December 2019, Sentai Filmworks announced that they had licensed the series' third season. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 27 July 2021, while its English dub was added to Hidive on 30 July.

Novels

A four-volume novel series, , was published by Kodansha under their KC Deluxe imprint between 9 September 2012, and 13 December 2013. The books were written by Yui Tokiumi and illustrated by Yuki Suetsugu and follow the middle-school years of the three protagonists. A three-volume novelization of the films, , was published by Kodansha under their KC Deluxe imprint. The first two volumes were released on 11 March 2016 and the third on 13 February 2018. The books were written by Tokiumi, based on the screenplay by Norihiro Koizumi. They were re-released in hardcover from 24 February 2017 to 28 February 2018. Another three-volume novelization of the films by Yūki Arisawa, , was published by Kodansha under their Kodansha Bunko imprint in 2018. The first two volumes were released on 16 January and the third on 15 February.

Live-action

On 11 April 2015, it was reported that the series would be adapted into a

film. A

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

titled '' Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku'' was released on 19 March 2016, with a second film, '' Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku'', released on 29 April 2016. '' Chihayafuru: Musubi'', a third and final feature-length film in the trilogy, was released on 17 March 2018. The films got a five-episode tie-in series on

Hulu Japan Hulu, known outside Japan as Hulu Japan, is a Japanese Subscription business model, subscription Streaming media, streaming service owned and operated by HJ Holdings, a subsidiary of Nippon Television, Nippon Television Network Corporation. Laun ...

on 28 February 2018. The series is titled , and connected the story of the second and third films. It also included behind-the-scenes footage and cast interviews. In addition, the third film got another tie-in titled on Hulu Japan on the same day that introduced the new members of the Mizusawa Karuta Club and explained the rules of karuta. A television series sequel to the third film is set to premiere on

in July 2025. The sequel is titled and is set ten years after the third film.

Other media

Kodansha released several guidebooks for the series, with the first released on 9 November 2011. It provided a study guide for the poetry and background for the story.

Reception

The manga had over 16 million copies in circulation in Japan by 2016; over 24 million by the end of 2019; over 27 million by the beginning of 2022; over 28 million by the end of 2022; and over 29 million copies in circulation by February 2025. ''Chihayafuru'' won the second

award, and the 35th

in the '' shōjo'' category. When ''Chihayafuru'' won the Manga Taishō award, it was commented that the series combines elements of the sport genre and literary elements with a discerning eye on the subject matter. It was one of the Jury Recommended Works in the Manga category at the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2012. Its popularity has boosted the popularity of competitive . The manga has regularly appeared on

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

's Japanese Comic Ranking chart. Between March 2009 and September 2011, the fourth through fourteenth volumes all appeared in the top 25 during the week of their release and the week after. Among North American reviewers, Gia Manry, writing about the first episode of ''Chihayafuru'', mentioned that despite the animators' efforts, there was an overuse of CG

sakura The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

, describing it as a "mixed bag". Bamboo Dong says that Chihaya's passion and characterisation make interesting. Carlo Santos felt that the series was the "first genuinely good show of the season", citing its characterisation, unusual subject, and polish of the first episode. Marcus Speer enjoyed the production values of the first episode, but felt that the theme songs were "standard fare". He was intrigued by how the characters' childhood impacted on their present interactions. Theron Martin appreciated the focus on the characters rather than the game, feeling that while the high school-aged Chihaya seemed "gimmicky", her younger self was "quite likable". Chris Beveridge praised the tension shown between Arata and Taichi in the second episode's match. Theron Martin felt the second episode's tournament was tense and compelling, and the plot unfolding in a good way, the execution made this good.

listed it in their "Top 100 best anime of the 2010s". ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

'' also listed ''Chihayafuru'' among the best anime series of the 2010s.

Notes

References

External links

*
''Chihayafuru''
at Kodansha Comics
Official NTV website
* {{Madhouse 2013 anime OVAs 2013 anime television series debuts 2013 Japanese television series endings Card games in anime and manga Josei manga Kodansha manga Madhouse (company) Madhouse (company) franchises Manga adapted into films Manga Taishō Nippon Television original programming Romance anime and manga Anime and manga set in schools Sentai Filmworks Slice of life anime and manga Sports anime and manga Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōjo)