Chihayafuru

This is a very very well written manga by Suetsugu Yuki, whom some may know as the author caught plagiarizing. This is her first work since the plagiarism incident, and I'm quite impressed with the story, with the characters, but most of all with the art. It won some big manga award too. All the Japanese raws can be found at http://www.raw-manga.com/2010/05/chihayafuruchihaya-full-manga-raw.html and I guarantee it is an awesome read.

Basically this story is about Chihaya, a pretty high school girl who is obsessed with the traditional Japanese card game, karuta.
Karuta is a competitive one-on-one game, in which two players race to grab the card corresponding to the waka poem being read outloud. Chihaya and her guy friend Taichi were first introduced to the world of karuta in sixth grade by their childhood friend Arata, grandson of a famous karuta player. Arata moves away but the three promise each other to continue playing karuta. Now in high school, Taichi and Chihaya attend the same high school and form a karuta club and are intent on winning the national high school karuta tournament. Along the way they reunite with Arata (who temporarily quit karuta, but is back stronger than ever!) and as of volume 10, their team has qualified for the national tournament.

OK, so what's really great about this manga, of course, is the subtle relationship between Arata, Taichi, and Chihaya. Both guys have feelings for Chihaya, who unfortunately is one of those REALLY oblivious girls - oblivious to their feelings, oblivious to her own attractiveness, basically oblivious to everything NOT pertaining to karuta. Sometimes that kind of girl can be annoying - you kinda forgive Chihaya because despite being gorgeous, guys are turned off by her weirdness and her obsession with karuta. It seems as though she has always had feelings for Arata but the author doesn't do much relationship development (my one complaint - TOO MUCH KARUTA).  Arata is a very strong karuta player. Taichi is also pretty strong, but he's too smart, thinks too much during play; he's one of those hyperaware people, and is often sidetracked by how his teammates' are doing. But he's super duper adorable and considerate towards Chihaya, and I love love love him (sorry, Arata). At one point (I think in vol 9) he tells this underclassman girl that he wants to pick his own girl and work to get her (not just agree to dating some random girl fawning for him). He's perfect. READ THIS MANGA.

Another added bonus to reading this manga is that you learn a lot about the karuta tradition, which I knew very little of prior to reading. Did I mention beautiful art?

Would anybody care to read detailed summaries of each volume? It appears that J-Sis, scanlation group working on this manga, has put this project on hold...