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Crunchyroll to Stream Chihayafuru TV Anime

posted on by Egan Loo
Yuki Suetsugu's award-winning story about girl competing in traditional karuta game

The media site Crunchyroll announced on Tuesday that it will begin streaming the Chihayafuru television anime series at 1:30 p.m. EDT. The anime's streaming will be available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. 

In Yuki Suetsugu's award-winning women's manga that inspired the anime, a schoolgirl named Chihaya Ayase once only dreamed about her sister making it big as a fashion model, until she decides to forge her own path in life. After seeing a quiet transfer student named Arata Wataya play the game, Chihaya enters the competitive world of karuta cards. The story begins when Arata joins Chihaya's sixth-grade class, but most of the story takes place during Chihaya's high school years.

Morio Asaka (Aoi Bungaku Series, Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, NANA) is directing the project at the anime studio Madhouse, and Naoya Takayama (Supernatural the Animation) is in charge of the scripts. Kunihiko Hamada (NANA) is designing the characters.

The manga has been running in Kodansha's Be Love josei (women's) magazine since 2007. Kodansha shipped the 13th compiled volume in June, and there are over 4 million copies in print.

The manga won the second Manga Taisho (Cartoon Grand Prize) in 2009. It is the third Manga Taisho winner to receive a screen adaptation, after Gaku and Thermae Romae. (This year's 4th Manga Taisho winner is Chica Umino's March comes in like a lion.) Chihayafuru also won the shōjo manga category in this year's Kodansha Manga Awards, and took first place in the female category of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! awards last year.

Update: More background information added.

Image © Yuki Suetsugu/Kodansha Ltd. © VAP/NTV


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