-Hello Ishizuka-san. You've worked on the storyboard for episode 2. Could you please share the thoughts you've put into this episode?

Ishizuka: Let's see. In terms of the karuta matches, I've focused on making clear comparison between Taichi and Arata's karuta. Taichi's match is originally not in the comic but when we were creating the script we've added into the animation series. There are 3 purpose for this addition; First is to present the "sports karuta" to the viewers, second is to show the "normal karuta" and then the third, as said before, to show the difference between Taichi and Arata's karuta skill.

-The first purpose is accomplished when Taichi's mother explains about the karuta during young Taichi's match?

Ishizuka: Yes, that's correct. It's a scene to smoothly introduce the audience into sports karuta. The specific request given to me for this episode is two things; to carefully depict sports karuta and to make sure that the entire karuta poems are read from beginning to the end. The others who work on the later episodes may have more difficulty getting down the "rhythm of the poem".

-What do you mean by getting down the rhythm?

Ishizuka: When these poems are read out loud, it sounds much longer than you expect. When the poem is read, there's a need to use more cuts to maintain the atmosphere of the scene. If there is a need to include the starting part of the poem, then there is a need for time for the poem to be read. After 2nd episode, there's a need for additional thought on how to execute the later half of the poem.

This is the scene where Taichi's mother explains about the first part of the poem. In this episode, the first song is still left in.

-Can you tell us further about showing the "normal karuta"?

Ishizuka: The normal karuta that we want to show here is the type of karuta that normal Japanese people would play. In normal karuta, they would listen to the whole song and then begin aimlessly searching for a karuta card. In Arata's karuta, he takes all the cards in matter of seconds. This sort of karuta is not a common elementary school karuta. Chihayafuru is about sports karuta but we made sure that like everyone plays sports karuta, the story begins from a normal Karuta.

-I see. Can you tell us about the third purpose, the comparison between Taichi and Arata's karuta.

Ishizuka: Unlike Taichi's karuta, Arata's karuta is animated with 3D. Fwooosh. Arata takes these cards out with an impact. These types of action are type of action associated with shonen or action packed series so I struggled to keep them or not. At the end, I made up my mind and presented my ideas to director Asaka. The cut doesn't quite match with the rest of the style so I was worried but I was glad when it made it to the screen. My challenge became to pack as much action into this episode. I've done an up-close shot of the hand, shot through from under the floor for an upshot, and I also wanted to get rid of all the surrounding noise so I've visually described it by darkening the background.

-You thought episode 2 was a good episode to challenge things?

Ishizuka: I wanted to challenge many things here since I knew that whatever I've done here could contribute to the methods used later in the series.

How Taichi takes a karuta. In Taichi's karuta, they look around for the cards and when they find them, their movements are sluggish

In Arata's scene（CUT73 74 75）, the background is darkened to rid of all the noise and show how focused Arata is. When the karuta card is taken, the card flies off in 3D.

-We'd love to hear more about the episode other than the karuta matches but since we're out of time, we'd like to take this to the next article. Thank you for joining and please look forward to the next article.