is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yuki Suetsugu. It was serialized in Kodansha's josei manga magazine Be Love from December 2007 to August 2022, with its chapters collected in 50 tankōbon volumes. It is about a school girl, Chihaya Ayase, who is inspired by a new classmate to take up Hyakunin Isshu karuta competitively.
An anime 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 film adaptations were released from 2016 to 2018.
By December 2022, Chihayafuru had over 28 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series. The manga has won the second Manga Taishō and the 35th Kodansha Manga Award. Its popularity has boosted the profile of competitive karuta 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 karuta 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 karuta 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 Hyakunin Isshu poetry anthology, a collection of 100 poems which are printed on the karuta cards. In this poem chihayaburu is used as an epithet to kami 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 josei 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 Kodansha into 50 tankōbon volumes, released between 13 May 2008 and 13 December 2022. Kodansha has also published the first three volumes in a two-volume bilingual edition, 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 sequel manga series, titled Chihayafuru plus Kimi ga Tame, is set to begin serialization in the same magazine on 1 December 2023.
Anime
A 25-episode anime television series adaptation, produced by the studio Madhouse under the direction of Morio Asaka, aired on Nippon Television 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. Animax Asia 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 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. The season was collected in a two-volume Blu-ray and DVD box set released on 25 December 2019 and 25 March 2020.