The drama series "Chihayafuru -Meguri-" (NTV, Wednesdays at 10pm) starring actress Ami Touma. The synopsis and stills from the third episode, which will air on July 23rd, have been released.
Aizawa Meguru (Touma) retracts her plan to quit the club, and Shirano Fuki (Jun Saito), Murata Chieri (Arashi Rina), and Okuyama Haruma (Takamura Kahito) join the club. With the addition of Yono Sota (Soma Santoki), the Umezono High School Competitive Karuta Club now has five members, making it eligible to participate in team matches and aiming to compete in the national karuta tournament to be held at Omi Shrine in Shiga Prefecture.
However, Meguru is exhausted from the "praying practice" and Chieri is struggling to remember the song, and it is unclear whether they will be able to make it to the Tokyo qualifying tournament at their current pace. The anxious group decides to join a "Karuta Club", which can be considered a karuta club team, in addition to their club activities, in order to improve their level.
With the help of Oe Kanade (Mone Kamishiraishi), the Umezono members knock on the door of the local karuta club "Fuchu Yugiri-kai". The president of "Yugiri-kai" is Nishida Yusei (Yamoto Yuma), also known as "Nikuman-kun", an alumnus of the Mizusawa High School karuta club. You would think that being a classmate of Kanade would make it easy for him to join, but Nishida presents an entrance test, saying, "The condition for joining is to take three cards from me." Nishida, who is in the strongest class of "karuta", uses an endless parade of techniques such as "passing", "encircling", and "returning". Megumi and Chieri try together, but fail without taking a single card. Haruma also fails due to an unexpected problem, and only Fuki passes.
Meanwhile, Kanade is excited when she is invited to dinner by Nakanishi Izumi (Tomita Yasuko), a full-time reader whom she admires and met at the "Yugiri-kai". While Kanade is not in the mood, Megumi and Chieri start intensive training for the re-test in two weeks. Meanwhile, the reason why Chieri quit baseball becomes clear...
"Chihayafuru" is a manga by Yuki Suetsugu that was serialized in "BE・LOVE" (Kodansha) from 2007 to 2022. The story is about Ayase Chihaya, who awakens to the charm of competitive karuta through her encounter with transfer student Wataya Arata, and becomes passionate about karuta with her childhood friend Mashima Taichi and other unique members of the karuta club. The drama depicts an original story set 10 years after the trilogy of films "Kami no Ku" and "Shimo no Ku" in 2016 and "Musubi" in 2018.
