Ayase, Chihaya

Chihaya Ayase enters her story as a bright, headstrong girl who has decided, with total sincerity, that the ancient card game karuta is the most important thing in the world. She wants her friend Arata to be recognized as a genius, and later wants to become Queen herself, chasing that goal with a single-mindedness that leaves little room for subtlety.

She's a sports-anime protagonist transplanted into a game of poetry cards, and the show commits fully to that joke and that sincerity at once. Asami Seto plays her loud, guileless enthusiasm without ever making it grating, so her clumsiness with people and her fierce, almost holy devotion to karuta feel like two sides of the same open heart.