Chihayafuru

Chihayafuru

Chihayafuru is a manga written by Yuki Suetsugu and published by Kodansha. it is about a school girl, Chiyasa Ayase, who is inspired by a new classmate to take up Hyakunin Isshu Karuta competitively.

The manga has won the Manga Taisho Award and the Kodansha Manga Award. Since its fourth volume was released in March 2009, it has regularly appeared on the Japanese Comic Ranking Chart, and in August 2011 was estimated to have sold over 4.5 million copies.

Its popularity has boosted the profile of competitive karuta in Japan.

Chihaya Ayase is a girl who has spent most of her life simply supporting her sister in her model career. That changes when she meets a boy named Arata Wataya, a talented karuta player. He thinks that Chihaya has a potential to become a great player. As Chihaya takes on a 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 still continues to play karuta in the hope that she will one day meet her friends again.

Characters:

Chihaya Ayase

Taichi Mashima

Arata Wataya

Kanade Oe

Yusei Nishida

Tsutomu Komano

Sumire Hanano

Akihiro Tsukuba

Hidehiro Harada

Taeko Miyauchi

Shinobu Wakamiya

Yumi Yamamoto

Hisashi Suo

Chitose Ayase