The latest josei series to be animated.




Title: ちはやふる, Chihaya furu
Animation Production: Madhouse
Genre: Josei, Drama, Romance, Slice of Life
Airs: 10/04 24:59 NIPPON TV
Website: http://www.ntv.co.jp/chihayafuru/

Series Summary from J-Sis:

All her life, Chihaya's dream was to see her model sister become Japan's best... That is, until a quiet, unassuming transfer student named Arata tells her otherwise. A dream, he explains to her, is something she needs to work at herself.

Arata plays a competitive version of a traditional Japanese card game--known as Hyakunin Isshu--in a way Chihaya has never seen before. After taking Arata's place in a game, Chihaya discovers she has a passion for it. Now Chihaya wants to become number one in the world, the Queen of Karuta.

 Kenn's Comment: Kurata is a card game unique to Japan; I don't know of any other game like it. Wikipedia link for explanation. The manga this series is adapted from is the winner of two awards, the Manga Taisho Awards (2nd one) and the Kodansha Manga Award for Best Shoujo (I guess josei and shoujo are more or less interchangeable). I'm not usually a fan of josei, but so far, I think I've watched all of the recent adaptations of them (Nodame Cantabile, Kuragehime, Usagi Drop).

I'm not familiar with this one, but karuta is always interesting to learn about (if you watched Carnival Phantasm, it's the card game they played in the first episode; Lancer against Archer, with the latter winning by leaps and bounds). It has a strong voice cast, as well as a director with some impressive titles under his belt (Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, Kobato, NANA). I'm looking forward to this one, and I'm hopeful I'll enjoy it as much as I did with the other josei titles I've watched. No PV out yet. Will add it up when it surfaces.