Chihaya Ayase

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Chihaya Ayase

Name	Chihaya Ayase
Kanji	綾瀬千早
Rōmaji	Ayase Chihaya
Characteristics
Race	Human
Gender	Female
Age	16^[1] (Freshman in High School)
Birthday	June 1
Hair Color	Light Brown
Eye Color	Brown
Height	167 cm (5'5.7")
Blood Type	B
Personal Status
Status	Alive
Relative(s)	Kenji Ayase (Father) Chieko Ayase (Mother) Chitose Ayase (Sister)
Karuta
Level	Class A, 4th Dan
Group	Mizusawa High School Karuta Club Shiranami Karuta Society
First Appearance
Manga Debut	Chapter 1
Anime Debut	Now the Flower Blooms
Portrayal
Japanese Voice	Asami Seto
Image Gallery

Chihaya Ayase (綾瀬千早 Ayase Chihaya) is a determined school girl who "possesses a remarkable hearing ability". She believes that by persevering in karuta, she will meet Arata again, and begins a karuta club at her high school with Taichi. She is the main protagonist in the Chihayafuru series.

1 Appearance
2 Personality
3 Relationships
- 3.1 Family
  - 3.1.1 Chieko Ayase
  - 3.1.2 Chitose Ayase
- 3.2 Friends
4 History
5 Synopsis
6 Trivia
7 References

AppearanceEdit

Chihaya is a tall and slim teenage girl with long brown hair and brown eyes. She is also considered beautiful.

Chihaya usually wears her school uniform when at school. When she isn't at school, she wears very fashionable clothes (hand-me-downs from her sister). She also wears many clothes with Daddy Bear on it, even her clothes when she practices karuta.

When she was 11 years old she had short hair, much like Taichi's current hair but shorter and showing her ears. She had a very tomboyish look back then. When she was in middle school, her hair grew longer about shoulder length, and she wore her school's uniform.

PersonalityEdit

She is very determined, and is a total tomboy. She is also very outgoing, and kind, with a short temper, and good reflexes. Chihaya is sort of absent minded, but can concentrates really well. Chihaya gives others her trust easily, and can be decieved just as easy. However when she talks she always says the first thing that pops into her head, so she doesn't always watch what she says sometimes. She is obsessed with "Daddy Bear", she is seen wearing the clothes with "Daddy Bear" on and also has a "Daddy Bear" on her school bag.

RelationshipsEdit

FamilyEdit

Chieko AyaseEdit

Chieko Ayase is Chihaya's mother.

Chitose AyaseEdit

Chitose Ayase is Chihaya's older sister, whom she really looked up to in terms of appearance. Prior to the series, her dream was to see Chitose succeed at modeling.

FriendsEdit

Arata WatayaEdit

Chihaya and Arata Wataya are childhood friends. He gave Chihaya her karuta dream to become the queen. He is seen as a 'Karuta God' by Chihaya. It is hinted that Chihaya has romantic feelings for Arata.

Taichi MashimaEdit

Chihaya and Taichi Mashima are childhood friends. He is helping and is a member of Chihaya's karuta club. He has feelings for her, even though he has a girlfriend.

Kanade ŌeEdit

Kanade Ōe is one of members of Chihaya's karuta club. Chihaya tried to persuade her to join her club. When Chihaya went to visit her family's shop, she taught the true meanings behind the 100 poems. It also improve Chihaya in karuta.

HistoryEdit

Chihaya used to be her sister's number 1 fan, and it was her dream to see her sister become the number 1 beauty in Japan. As a child, she was very opinionated, and tends to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, but she is still a straightforward and honest person in her teens. She has a strong sense of right and wrong, and when they were children despite her 6th grade classmates and Taichi picking and bullying Arata, Chiyaha stood up for the new transfer student. She even became Taichi's target and endured some of the bullying for Arata's sake.

After she met Arata and played karuta with him, he told her that she shouldn't superimpose her dreams onto other people. A dream was something she had to have, and achieve, on her own. During a school karuta tournament, Arata's glasses were stolen (by Taichi) so Chihaya took his place and won. Arata was the first one to recognize that Chihaya had an natural affinity for playing karuta, due to her quick reflexes, penchant for deep concentration when it counts, and near superhuman hearing that lets her hear the key syllables of the poems before her opponents can.

Chihaya lives in the shadow of her model sister, in a family that dotes on the conceited Chitose for being pretty and popular and their pride and joy. Her family doesn't recognize Chihaya's talents, her sister going so far as to describe Chiyaha as having "no redeeming qualities;" but Chiyaha hopes to win the national title so her parents can praise her as well with her dream. Because people from Tokyo rarely play karuta, her sister often describes it as being "lame."

SynopsisEdit

The story starts with a flashback of how Chihaya, Taichi and Arata met, and formed strong bonds of friendship. Their time was limited though, as Taichi graduated into an elevator school due to his high grades, and Arata moved back to his home town of Fukui.

Chihaya tries to create a new karuta club during her freshman year of a fairly prestigious Tokyo high school, Mizusawa High. Her reputation precedes her and she is well known as a "beauty" because of her sister's rising stardom. Unfortunately, she is also known as a "wasted beauty" because once she opens her mouth she has a tendency to drive people away with her Karuta fanaticism and they realize she's a bit of a nut. She has few friends in high school, aside from those who knew her in middle school on the track team, and is desperately seeking the bonds from her childhood which were broken with time and distance.

After Taichi returns from his escalator school because he was sick of the hour and half long commute, and Chihaya finds out they go to the same school, she wants to persuade Taichi to join and help with her karuta club if she becomes a Class-A karuta player. She succeeds and becomes a Class A karuta player by beating Yasuda and begins the Mizusawa High School Karuta Club. Taichi and her are the fist two members to begin with. They gather Kanade Ōe (Kana-chan), Tsutomu Komano (Desk-kun), and Yūsei Nishida (Nikkuman-kun). They become an official club after they gather Yūsei, but Taeko Miyauchi requests to change the club's president to anyone other than Chihaya, which everyone agrees to Taichi becoming the club's president, most likely due to Chihaya's often over-zealous passion for karuta that would likely drive off her team members if she was in charge, and so Chihaya becomes the "Captain" of the Karuta Club.

Each member of the club has a certain element to bring to the team. Taichi, first in their class, has a photographic memory and is seen as being a "tensai" without even studying. Truth is, he is a very hard working person who is extremely intelligent who is successful in both the social and academic fields. As a former athelete he has endurance and he is able to read people and situations. He has a lot more tact than Chihaya and is a capable leader.

Kana, whose love for everything dating back to the ancient periods of feudal Japan, adds culture and refinement to the team and the game. She understands the history behind the poems, the authors of the poems and the historical/political/romantic backdrop to the poems. She is able to teach Chihaya the true personality and "color" of each of the 100 cards, thus honing Chihaya's skills in Karuta further.

Nishida is extremely talented as a Karuta player, having a true love for the game as Chihaya does. He is strong in stressful, competetive situations and brings his experience to the table. Having been in the world of competetive Karuta longer than the others, he is able to recognize the members of the opposing teams and describe their adversaries in detail. He is also a formiddable sparring opponent for Chihaya to pratice with and can give her a run for her money.

Komano, second in their class, is competitive when it comes to Taichi Mashima, who always comes first academically. He is meticulous and carefully studies the strategies behind Karuta. Both he and Kana hope to catch up to the others soon, as to not be a burden to the team. He is willing to sacrifice himself to be paired with a stronger opposing player, just to increase his team's chances of winning.

In essence, Chihaya is the "heart" of the club, and her enthusiasm and profound ability to draw people in and make true friendships binds the team together. Her goal is to take them to the national chapionships and each step taken together with her friends is another step closer to achieving her title of "Queen," and one step closer to Arata, who is already the "God of Karuta" in her eyes.

For reasons not immediately known to Chihaya, she discovers that Arata quit competetive karuta a few years ago--around the same time they lost touch. She even goes so far as to drag Taichi with her to Fukui to see Arata, the one she's wanted to see for so long. The two friends discover that Arata had changed, and after giving up karuta became socially and emotionally isolated. Chihaya is devastated by the discovery and hopes to show Arata how far she can take her dream of becoming "Queen" of karuta.

The title of the series, "Chihayafuru," are the first syllables of a Karuta card that Arata once told her was her "namesake" card, a word that means "with deep feeling." Both would always see that particular card as special, and representative of their friendship. Incidentally, it becomes Chihaya's strongest card because her hand is always drawn to it. Kana later explains its true meaning as "a red colored love/passion that never fades."