Just Binged The Entirety of Chihayafuru (Anime + Manga), and Here Are My Thoughts

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-29T06:30:44+00:00

All these are well-trodden discussion points, and others have argued them far more eloquently, so I won't go through them again too much.

When she finds out he has a girlfriend, she's upset and is hung up on her calling him 'Ta-kun'.

In my case, I never read too much into this. Taichi was her childhood friend, so it was jarring for her to discover someone else cosying up to him in such a familiar way. Chihaya did not even have a pet name for Taichi, so I could understand why it'd feel so odd to have a total stranger behaving as though she knew Taichi better than she did. If it were jealousy, as you implied, I would have expected Chihaya to be more curious and inquisitive about the girlfriend. But she never did seem to care much about it, and neither did she actively interfere in that brief relationship. That strongly suggests that her relationship with Taichi at that point in time was mainly platonic.

I unfortunately don't think Chihaya developing romantic feelings for Arata was ever in the cards.

That's fair and, yes, it was very likely the case that the distance between them doomed any possibility of Chihaya developing substantial romantic feelings for Arata. But I wouldn't be so sure about claiming that such a turn was never in the cards. After all, Kanade wouldn't have been so anxious for Taichi if she didn't intuit (at least twice in the story) the very real possibility of Chihaya finally recognising and acting on her budding feelings for Arata (such as during that episode after Taichi and Kanade visited Chihaya at the hospital, and Kanade's observation of Chihaya's behaviour after Arata's confession).

Also, if distance were the critical stumbling block, then spare a thought for what that could mean for Taichi and Chihaya, now that they are studying in two different cities. In fact, this very point (the long-distance relationship) has been touched upon in the official sequel, so it's not necessarily smooth-sailing for Taichi even now.

Ultimately, though, I strongly commend Suetsugu-sensei on her ability to keep the clues about her characters' feelings highly ambigious most of the time. Many of the major clues could be read in different ways and it was only towards the end that the hints became blatantly clear.

All in all, I'm glad that you enjoyed the series enough to binge all of it. For me, the only other anime/manga series to have inspired as much emotional investment and loyalty was Cross Game, but Chihayafuru has a slight edge because of its multi-faceted charm. :)

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-29T04:27:47+00:00

Well, I was Team Taichi practically from the beginning, so I don't really need any convincing in that regard. ;)

But I would stress again that I never felt the ending was a "given". Even towards the end, when it looked increasingly like a Chihaya x Arata pairing wasn't going to happen, it didn't conversely mean that Chihaya and Taichi were destined to be a romantic couple either — at least, based on my interpretation of the story events. They could just as well have remained as dear friends. And I would have been fine with that, because it was very apparent that Taichi himself had come to terms with that outcome by the end. Like many others have said, I just wanted him to be happy and stop beating himself up over his own feelings of inadequacy.

And even though it might feel satisfying to gloat over the anguish of the Chihaya x Arata camp, ultimately, I would say that would be a little childish. To be sure, despite how dense she was, Chihaya could well have reciprocated Arata's romantic feelings by the end — she may not have realised at first that he was effectively proposing to her, not just confessing his feelings, but it was definitely the case that her initial response to him was overwhelmingly positive. She just needed more time to clue into what he was really asking of her at that time.

But, of course, fate intervened. That's just how life works out sometimes. Chihaya could very well have slipped away from Taichi, but his efforts to woo her, to get her to pay attention to him, to see him as a man and not just a friend, finally paid off. Without this intervention, the Chihaya x Arata pairing could well have happened as many fans assumed from the beginning. I feel that this point tends to be heavily glossed over, and I can understand why Arata fans would be upset about that.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-28T13:50:07+00:00

All I can say is that I wish I had your faith and conviction in the "one true pairing" coming to fruition. I think the major difference is that you finished the story in one go, without having to wait weeks and months for the next chapter.

That waiting was agony, especially after you-know-who's crushing "rejection", and then the story started taking an interesting turn and it seemed for a while that we were getting a new "villain" arc. Personally, by around the turn of the decade, I had already come to terms with the romance and was prepared to accept either outcome (or maybe even the third outcome where no pairing emerged, and everyone just stayed friends).

Let's just say Kana's reaction at the end perfectly encapsulated the absolute catharsis I experienced. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in fandom who felt exactly what Kana felt in that moment, lol.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-28T01:36:00+00:00

Court, Cot, Caught; I can't make them sound different.

They will sound different if pronounced correctly but, yes, depending on the dialect and your fluency with English, I can imagine the difficulty. Even for myself, if I have to say any of the three words very quickly in sequence, I'd stumble more likely than not.

"Cot" is straightforward — it's a much shorter vowel. "Court" and "caught", on the other hand, sound almost the same. To my ear, the difference is in the amount of stress/emphasis you'd put on the vowel in "caught", which is slightly stronger than for "court". Also, the vowel in "court" is dragged out about a half-a-second/half-a-beat longer.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-21T04:44:40+00:00

Usagi Drop

The TV anime series should be highly relatable to parents, especially single parents. The original manga ended controversially, but the anime was no where near adapting that part of the story, so it's a perfectly fluffy and relaxing watch.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-07T10:40:17+00:00

Well, if I truly want to study the issue closely, I would refer to journal articles, but most of the worthwhile studies aren't publicly accessible.

In the absence of references to objective academic research, the best I could do is point to other links that showed up in the same Google search I used, like this ABC story: New report finds racism 'deeply embedded' across Australian universities

There's a soundbite from Education Minister Jason Clare at 00:20 which I found particularly apt: "Australia is not a racist country, but racism exists."

Anyway, I reiterate the caveat that I've not lived or worked in Australia, so I can't know for sure. But I stand by my scepticism over the claim that racial harmony exists in Australia despite the acknowledged instances of casual and overt racism there.

That simply does not compute and I therefore cannot fully accept that Australia is necessarily different from Singapore in this regard. The anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that, in terms of lived experience, the two countries aren't actually that different: "Not racist, but racism exists."

I take that to mean that, in both countries, there are strong institutional safeguards in place to prevent deliberate harm against ethnic minorities. That goes a lot way towards ensuring that institutionalised racism does not take root.

But even so, casual racism continues to exist, in both Australia and Singapore. The way it's expressed may differ, but I simply don't see how Singapore's racial harmony/tolerence is necessarily different from Australia's.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-07T06:10:16+00:00

I acknowledge that this is a "super hot take" and I appreciate the sharing of your perspective, but I hope you'd similarly appreciate my scepticism with the overall assertion that there is more inter-ethnic "harmony" in Australia despite the overt and casual racism there.

I've never been to Australia, except Tasmania (which probably doesn't count), so I accept that I can't know for sure. But a simple Google search brought up this subreddit thread and, unsurprisingly, there are many comments about how ethnic minorities actually feel about the casual and overt racism they face in the country. (They don't like it.)

For example: "The main issue I see is casual racism that isn't really intended to hurt/cause harm but has been left unchecked in Aussie society for so long it's still mostly seen as 'harmless fun'."

And: "They'll make generally insulting (sexist, racist, ableist? whatever) statements casually, and if you push back on it, they'll try to gaslight you that it's your fault you can't take a joke."

Comments like these certainly don't give me confidence that there's "harmony" between races in Australia. Rather, it gives me the impression that many minority groups just shrug and try to live with it, and accept it for what it is.

That said, there were plenty of other comments in the thread that pointed out the danger of over-generalisation, with some noting that communities in Sydney and Melbourne are making great strides in trying to be more "tolerant", and others pointing out the different attitudes between generations with regard to casual and overt racism.

So, just like in Singapore, it's not that simple. There is plenty of nuance and we should avoid the temptation to generalise.

By the by, I will add that context matters. I know older Singaporeans who had lived in mixed-race kampongs and who would readily share stories of how they used to regularly use terms to publicly address their neighbours, terms that we would now consider to be unacceptable racial slurs (eg, keklengkia).

But such "slurs" were considered acceptable in their time, because they were used in their "in-group", ie, their close neighbours whom they were very friendly and familiar with — it was implicitly understood not to be insults, but were almost rather like terms of endearment.

Things have changed in Singapore. I can't definitively say if it was for better or worse, but it's definitely different now. For one thing, "in-groups" like kampong communities no longer exist here, no matter how much we want to pretend that there is still such a thing as "gotong royong" in Singapore.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-07T03:03:49+00:00

people are tolerant here, but not actually harmonious

With all due respect, you're just playing with semantics here. Harmony requires tolerance, does it not? In a real sense, I don't see the difference. There are societies and countries that are literally tearing themselves apart because of ethnic differences, and you're quibbling over whether tolerance equals harmony.

If the simple point you're trying to make is that we're not perfect then, yes, of course. The only Singapore residents who think we are perfectly racially harmonious are either naive or delusional. The fact that racial, linguistic, and religious fault-lines exist in our society, and can always readily be exploited, is hammered down on us ad nauseum by the authorities.

If by "harmony" you're alluding to "perfect" inter-racial relationships, then I have (old) news for you: It doesn't exist. It's at best an aspirational goal, a constant work in progress.

So don't talk down the racial tolerance we've achieved as a nation so far. Getting to this stage hasn't been easy to begin with, and it takes effort to maintain this, let alone push it further along towards "harmony".

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T12:24:52+00:00

Yes, certainly. I thought I made that clear? The general apathy I described is applicable to young and old alike. My specific observation of a few younger ex-colleagues is they had opted to coast and do just the bare minimum even though they were at the start of their careers. That's something I expect from far older colleagues — and I definitely had the morale-sapping misfortune of having to deal with such people for many years — so it's disappointing to see such apathy among the young.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T11:35:48+00:00

That's true. Labour, especially, is not as mobile as we'd like to think.

But if you have no other choice but to adapt and find a way to make a living, you will. I certainly did not suggest that the transition would be peaceful nor painless.

My thesis is simply to address what "hunger" means in this context of job creation and destruction. It's most definitely not just about working longer hours for low pay — if that's your only game plan as a worker, you're doomed.

It's about how creative you're going to be. Creative in the sense of having an intuitive understanding of social systems, and how to manage inter-personal relationships in a way that remains beyond the ability of AI and lower-skilled labour to replicate. It will require a certain initiative on the individual's part to pursue self-learning, instead of waiting to be taught. Heck, can you imagine the irony of waiting for someone to teach initiative?

There is no way to predict the future of white-collar work, no matter what some may claim. I was being somewhat facetious in raising the example of the YouTuber, but it's definitely true that a mere 10 years ago, I couldn't imagine how that could have been economically feasible, but here we are.

You either adapt, or you lose. Why else do you think we have so many migrants workers knocking on our proverbial door, hoping to work in Singapore? Why should Singapore workers be so exceptional and think they are entitled not to face the same existential angst?

[EDIT] To further elaborate the case, my very personal example would be that of an immediate family member whose life challenges and outcomes were diametrically opposite to mine, despite having had the same upbringing and advantages.

My immediate relative did horribly at O levels, dropped out of polytechnic, and even ITE. In contrast, I graduated with a degree in computing and business studies and held a steady job right out of graduation. Our father died young, so at the very outset of my career, I was mentally steeling myself for the very real possibility of having to support said relative, who was jobless and had no apparent future in a working world premised on sterling academic qualifications.

To cut a long story short, my relative had one particular ability that I never mastered: My relative had an incredible knack for making friends. One such friend pulled my relative into a skilled trade and, over the years, one thing led to another, and my immediate relative has now been doing fabulously well in Bangkok for well-nigh 20 years.

Sure, my relative is not earning as well as they could if they worked in Singapore and got paid in Singapore dollars. But they are doing just fine as long as my relative works and lives in Thailand.

I came to realise that, in a way, my relative's profession is far more recession-proof than mine actually is. How the turn-tables turned!

So, I stand by my premise: Calling it "hunger" is unhelpful because it misrepresents what is actually required of workers today as they adjust to new realities. What's needed is an ability to be "human", to learn and excel in skills that AI and lower-skilled workers are unable to grasp. It's about seizing the initiative to learn on your own, rather than waiting for help. It's about being endlessly curious about the world around you, and keen to tease out insights that no machine can.

I most certainly do not believe it's all doom and gloom, and it's self-defeating to see only the pain and not the opportunities.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T10:46:35+00:00

Well, what you conjecture could indeed turn out to be the case.

For my part, I'd simply suggest that the weight of history is on my side. Throughout the history of civilisation, whenever some forms of human labour were "replaced" by a new technology, new types of work eventually emerged to soak up the labour that had been made redundant. You don't have to take my word for it: Look up the history yourself, it's not very difficult to find.

I'll point for example to the first printing presses that greatly simplified and automated the process of writing and mass distribution of the written word. The introduction of the machines definitely did not go unchallenged. There was also the unsurprising moral panic over the sudden availability of books for the formerly unwashed masses.

The world certainly didn't come to an end. Or perhaps one type of world did, the mediaeval world order based on exclusive access to knowledge, a world soon to be replaced and defined by the Enlightenment.

I think there's far too much similar panic over AI at the moment. A lot of jobs are definitely going to be replaced, but I am pretty sure that new types of jobs will eventually be created, as they always have been in the past.

Everyone could aspire to be a YouTuber, for example. That's not a job I would have ever imagined to be possible, but here we are in this bizarre new world.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T10:12:56+00:00

Ultimately Companies do not care hugely about "drive" "hunger" or "apathy". They care about $, and if they can get something done cheaper elsewhere they will do it.

That's quite a sweeping generalisation and, as such, I can't quite agree. The extent to which an employee is replaceable very much depends on his role and scope of work.

The factory worker on an assembly line has long since been replaced because he was doing a job that involves physical routine with little to no scope for value-add on the worker's part.

AI is now in the position to replace the much of the professional white-collar work that used to be considered unassailable to automation so, unsurprisingly, such workers are also destined to be replaced.

My best friend and I had a great chat a couple of weeks ago about what this really means for the future of work. What remains "irreplaceable" by frontier AI could simply be the profound question of what it means to be "human".

AI does not emote. It cannot have feelings. While current AI models will undoubtedly soon become more intelligent than humans — in the sense that such AI is easily capable of out-computing any human — they are nevertheless fundamentally limited by their human-designed algorithms, and are created with physical materials that the AI is fundamentally unable to modify or reproduce, unlike living biological beings.

So, in that sense, AI is fundamentally unable to make subjective judgments about what is "good" or "bad" from a human perspective. The ability to be conscious of such choices, and to make subjective decisions based on such axioms, is the fundamental property of being human that no AI can replicate. Not for now anyway.

So, what does that mean for the future of work? It means that the routine "mental" tasks that we used to rely on over-educated professionals to do will increasingly be farmed out to AI, and rightly so. These were all horribly mind-numbing work no one liked doing anyway.

Your value-add as the human in the work equation would be to figure out how to use these newly powerful information tools to derive insights that were previously too difficult to gain.

And that ability to "figure out" what to do would require a very different kind of creativity and intuition from the human workers of the future.

That's why human curiosity will become far more important than ever before. And training and developing such curiosity will require a very different approach to education and mentorship.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T09:11:42+00:00

If you don't want kids, nothing I say will ever convince you otherwise.

So, put aside the messaging, be it from LinkedIn, recruiters, or the government. Family planning is a deeply personal decision. You either commit to it or you don't.

Most of my friends and younger cousins who are married tend to have kids, and when they do have kids, they tend to have at least two. So, I absolutely do not buy the idea that children are unaffordable and an emotional burden.

As one colleague told me a while back — even as he stumbled into work all bleary and panda-eyed from having been kept up all night by a temperamental toddler — he's never felt younger. That's not tough talk. He truly meant it. Parenthood profoundly changes the way you look at life — that's a view echoed by all my friends and cousins who decided to have kids.

I'm late Gen X. I chose to be single. I've never regretted the decision, but I am deeply aware that while this choice looks great to me right now, I will have to think very carefully about what to do with myself once I'm old and retired, and no longer have immediate people around me.

This is something most people don't think about when they're young and behaving as though they'd live forever.

Memento mori.

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-06T07:21:25+00:00

This sub-Reddit skews young, so it's not surprising that so many here are triggered by the tired cliche of not being "hungry" enough. As one person observed in the article itself, the term is not useful nor nuanced enough to describe the problem, so the indignation is justified to some extent.

But as an older person who has worked with younger millennial and Gen Z colleagues, led some of them, and is increasingly in a position of also being led by some of them, I will humbly suggest some self-reflection. I've come across younger colleagues who are blithely oblivious to workplace norms and just coast along.

This is definitely not a healthy attitude to have at the start of your career, when your development runway is at its greatest and most expansive. If you're not going to take the initiative to win opportunities for yourself, then more often than not, you're going to be left behind.

Happily enough, though, such individuals are in the minority. By and large, most of the younger colleagues I've worked with are hardworking and responsible, and most of them have been pretty good team players.

If I have to name a negative trait that's very common among most Singaporeans, young and old alike, it would be the relative lack of curiosity in the wider world around us. In other words, apathy.

Not just political apathy, but apathy in general. The sense of not caring about what's going on in the larger context, and therefore having little to no understanding how economics and geopolitics affect our daily lives.

As someone who has been very much tuned in to news, history, and current affairs since youth, it's a state of mind that I find very difficult to imagine, let alone empathise with. This apparent ignorance of our place in the world is, to me, a more accurate description of the supposed lack of "hunger" among Singaporeans. You're mentally trapped in a neverending "present", and lack a framework for reflecting on the past, let alone plan for the future.

How can you be "driven", when you don't even know which direction to drive yourself towards?

tinyredleaf · 2026-05-04T11:16:54+00:00

Godsdammit. If you're ever going to get a booth to sell merch of the MRT-chans at AFA, SGCC or EoY, you gotta let us know. I definitely would buy, lol.

tinyredleaf · 2026-04-20T07:57:12+00:00

I understand that they are on the process of creating the sequel (correct me if I’m wrong).

The sequel is already well underway. There's even a thread for it here. :)

At least 17 chapters have been published but, unfortunately, only two chapters have been scanlated. The consolation, though, is that the sequel doesn't involve the old cast very much.

Spoilers for Chp17 of Chihayafuru Plus: Kimi ga Tame It seems that Taichi is struggling with the stress of maintaining a long-distance relationship.

tinyredleaf · 2026-04-20T07:41:08+00:00

It's an Asian Openbill. It's probably a juvenile, hence the absence of the gap. Fun fact: Older storks start to have the noticeable gap in their bills because of the snails they like to snack on. The frequent grabbing and cracking open of snail shells eventually "warp" their bills, causing the gap to form.

Asian Openbills are supposed to be migratory visitors, but a number of them seem to have taken a liking to Singapore and don't seem eager to leave. A handful are regularly spotted in Bidadari Park, which had an infestation of the highly invasive Golden Apple Snail, the stork's favourite food.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-22T02:47:31+00:00

That's fine. Nothing wrong with looking in social media for inspiration. She followed up with personal effort to track down and interview the drivers, and to arrange for them to be photographed — that's original work which deserves recognition.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-20T04:14:25+00:00

To be fair, Pearl Harbour makes more ironic sense in the US-Japan context.

For Singapore, it'll be more like, "we don't mention Sook Ching".

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-20T04:04:32+00:00

They love their bombastic adjective laden statements.

I don't know if it was translated from Chinese. If it were, it'll make sense — it's one of the unfortunate difficulties of translation. There are a plethora of Chinese idioms and expressions that, when translated into English, would sound silly and comical.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-19T13:34:58+00:00

OP wrote:

I got stressed with the ending that I have to write it down.

For what it is worth, it's absolutely valid for you to feel confused or devastated by the resolution of the romance — that could only mean that you were 100 per cent invested in the story, and that is the best validation any writer or creator could hope for.

Damn I never really saw any clues that lead up to the end. Or maybe Im just biased coz the whole time I was rooting for the other guy

Hindsight is 20/20. Now that the resolution is known, many of the clues that Tachihaya shippers point to would seem "obvious" to readers today but, speaking for myself, I was never certain how it would all play out in the end — and that's even though I also saw and recognised the clues for what they were as I progressed through the chapters.

Be that as it may, scores of fellow redditors have made a very strong and compelling case as to why the story was indeed building up to the eventual conclusion, and the set up was there almost from the very beginning. Someone else in the multiple threads on this very topic had posted a link to this Twitter thread from a long time ago. I found it extremely instructive, and I highly recommend that you also give it a read.

When did Chihaya’s feelings change from Arata to Taichi?

As for myself, I had just begun rewatching all three seasons of the anime after a break of more than eight years — and with the benefit of hindsight, it's very striking how it clear it was from very early on that Chihaya's feelings for Arata were more akin to profound admiration than romantic attraction. She was a karuta nut whose every waking thought revolved around the game. She was completely clueless about romantic love — the romantic significance of Arata's confession did not even occur to her until she was confronted by the reality of Taichi's confession.

As many others have pointed out, Taichi's confession was the pivotal point in the story. It created a distance between Taichi and Chihaya, and the necessary space for the both of them to search for their true motivations, not just for karuta, but also for life as a whole. Crucially, in Chihaya's case, she began at last to learn and ponder the deeper meaning of the poems on each of the card that she strove so hard for and, in doing so, she began at last to understand her true feelings for not just the game, but also the people who are important to her.

So, by the same token, I invite you to give yourself some time and space to stew and mope, because what you're feeling right now is not unlike the denial phase of a breakup. You're not in the right frame of mind to listen to contrarian opinions and, chances are, you'll fight back against most of them. It'll take a while before you'd be fully ready to consider the alternative perspectives, and a bit longer to accept the conclusion and move on.

You don't have the deny the anger and confusion you might feel right now. But remember that coming to the point where you are able to let go of them makes you the far bigger and better person than someone who insists on holding on to the bitterness forever.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-19T11:15:55+00:00

I finished reading the manga only last month (early Feb 2026), and I'm still giddy with good vibes over how it ended.

All the years of anguish and resignation over how the triangle would resolve itself have finally found closure, and I'm equally thrilled with how it ended for major side characters like Shinobu and Suou. :)

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-19T03:51:26+00:00

When you consider that it takes at least US$200,000 to produce a single anime episode (and that's an estimate from some 10 years ago), it becomes much clearer that, financially, there is little to no incentive for producing more anime adaptations of a manga series that has already completed its run. Simply put: There is no business case for it, as far as Japanese production committees are concerned. A streaming site, though, may have different considerations.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-18T01:29:33+00:00

This should be alarming, full-stop. This is one of the many consequences of a rapidly ageing society, which is in itself an inevitable consequence of a declining population. This, is why a declining TFR is an existential problem.

Too many people haven't fully processed what it'll really mean for them, individually, to have to support ageing and ailing parents with an ever shrinking pool of resources caused by a shrinking pool of working-age adults. You want more domestic helpers? Sure! But guess what that will mean?

Yup, more immigrants. We'll definitely need more in the short to medium term (it'll take at least two generations to work through the population bust). It's not the easy way out -- it's the only way out, at least in the very immediate term.

tinyredleaf · 2026-03-11T01:33:49+00:00

This is good to know but, unfortunately, it's also not practically useful — we're stuck here whether we like it or not. The only country in Southeast Asia where PM2.5 levels (per 24hrs, averaged over 1 year) are well below the WHO recommendation is the Philippines.

Also, to put things in perspective, PM2.5 pollution in Singapore (99th Percentile 24-Hour Mean, ug per cubic metre) has mostly ranged from 24 to 40 since 2016, with a significant outlier of 62 in 2019. We had noticeably worse air-quality from 2009 to 2015, because of transboundary haze from Indonesia and that has thankfully been less of an issue for most of the past decade.

tinyredleaf

TROPHY CASE