The seventh episode of the drama series "Chihayafuru: Meguri" (NTV, Wednesdays at 10 PM), starring actress Ami Touma, aired on August 20. In the episode, the master of competitive karuta, Arata Wataya (Mackenyu), appeared at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo qualifying tournament, sparking a stir on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers.
In episode 7, with just a few days until the Tokyo preliminaries for the Competitive High School Karuta Championship, Meguru (Touma) and the rest of the Umezono Karuta Club are finally in the final stretch of practice as they aim for Omi Shrine.
At the suggestion of Sota (Soma Santoki), Umezono begins scouting other schools ahead of the Tokyo preliminaries. In order for Umezono, who is inferior in ability, to win the preliminaries, he must gather as much data as possible from other schools and formulate a strategy, rather than going head-to-head. Now that Oe Kanade (Mone Kamishiraishi) has gone to Kyoto, Sota says he is the only one who can do this, and so he retires from playing and volunteers to take on the role of manager. Wanting to fulfill Sota's wish to remain a behind-the-scenes player in his final high school tournament, Megu and the others split up and go to other schools for training sessions to gather information.
And finally, the Tokyo qualifying round began. At the opening ceremony, the master Arata appeared... and so the story unfolded.
The episode depicts Arata declaring the tournament open as the tournament chairman. Looking nervous, Arata begins by stumbling over his words, saying, "As the tournament chairman..." Afterwards, Arata reveals that he also tried out for the tournament in his final year of high school and lost spectacularly, revealing his regret that he should have started team competitions sooner.
Arata began by saying, "That's why I want to tell everyone," and gave the players a cheer, "You can't undo past choices even if you regret them, but you can start making them the right choice from now on. Give it your all today and make it the right choice."
Many viewers were excited by Arata's appearance, and comments such as "Arata is here!", "Just Arata's appearance makes me cry", "Wow, so emotional", "Even his awkward timing is totally Arata!", "His accent is the same", "His constant tripping over of words is so Arata!", "He hasn't changed at all lol", "The way he speaks is the best", and "I'm in tears" were posted on social media.
