#and we see arata get jealous bc he’s so far away

[formashimataichi]

do you think there’s a definite “better person” between taichi and arata?

Not really, to be honest? I think there are a lot of circumstancial differences between them that make it hard to compare whether one of them is a better person than the other. They both have their fair share of insecurities, they can be impulsively mean, they harbor individual jealousies, their initial perceptions of each other as rivals causes them to create rifts in their relationship with each other, etc. I think the whole point of their coinciding arc is to realize that competing against each other isn’t something that should be punctuated by all of their insecurities and judgements. They both deserve to be able to enjoy playing each other in earnest, and that’s why their challenger match was such a big deal—it was the first time that both of them loved playing against each other and even felt endeared to each other as a result. The two of them are only teenagers, barely eighteen, and for the level of their faults I don’t think there should really be any worry as to who is a better or worse person. In the end, they’re both growing people. Even if they weren’t perfect in the beginning, in the long run they’ve slowly grown to be better for their experiences and growing understanding of each other. That’s honestly why it bothers me a lot when people constantly pit them against each other outside of just karuta—it’s the farthest thing from the point. What matters most is that they heal as individuals and as friends, because how they address the rift between the two of them now may influence their relationship with each other forever (and this is just a tangent musing, but I think it can parallel a bit to Harada-sensei and that one coach he’s rivals with, and how their relationship in the long term was fractured because of misunderstandings that could easily have been resolved). It’s not worth it to let go of a good friendship because of insecurities or jealousies of each other, and I think that’s what they finally realized in the challenger match. The fact that a lot of people reduce their rivalry to who’s more deserving of winning a game or who’s the more noble potential recipient of Chihaya’s love, to me at least, really reduces their relationship to a bunch of cliches when it’s actually a lot more nuanced than that. I don’t really care who gets the girl or who’s the better person. I just want them to be happy in their friendships with each other, Chihaya included.