The only Chihaya amv I've seen that has very understandable story, even if it is just the anime's for the most part. I liked the focus on Chihaya rather than an even split of focusing on all three characters, since it definitely gives the video more direction.
The simple black and white scenes for past events/flashbacks was perfect and didn't confuse me any. Motion in these + blur was exceptionally great (regular Gaussian blur, in and out, on normal clips was also good, but it looks especially good here for some reason). I liked how you drew comparisons between the flashbacks and the matches she was "currently" playing at (As at 1:14-1:25), even though in the series there would be no direct correlation (also with the pushing scene in the beginning. This made me think that you were going to have a different storyline at first though! Haha, like Chihaya still being in love with Arata despite abuse or something.
First 36 seconds I have no complaints.
I disliked the effect at :49 and :41 where you fade through different zooms/angles on the scene. I think perhaps it is better than nothing, which is how I would have edited it and then it would have been boring considering all else that is happening in the amv, but it looks "cheap." I say that because, unlike your radial blur transition things, which although there were a few that had too much blur or whatever, it's not an easy recreation. I still don't know how to correctly use motion and blur when transitioning so it flows into the scene just right. The jumpy things, while easy to recreate (which isn't bad at all) just looked like it took less effort than everything else. I also thing another reason I dislike it is because each different zoom/ in/out was the same opacity or
something as the original. From where I've seen it used before, which I can't recall where specifically but I have, the next clip is either darker, and then darker again, etc, or it has blur or idk. I'd have to mess with it myself to know if that's right.
I don't think I said all of that exactly how I wanted to, but I just didn't like those thingies haha.
As for the rest of the transitions, I liked them for the most part and had no huge issues. However, some I didn't like, and it's hard because it's not always consistent so I can't just say -the ones that did this.- It mainly has to do with how much blur there is. Like I said, I can't get this right myself, but when viewing say 1:04 (yt version), I get the definite feeling like there was too much blur, or the blur ended too soon, or the clip (this one specifically) was unique in that it just looks wrong coming up from the bottom of the screen. Even though I haven't done the effect/transition specifically myself, I know just when using a regular Gaussian blur on a clip that if you have too much and it fades out too fast, it looks hideous.
But at 1:11, it goes really well, because it looks like there is less blur, and the motion of the clip is constantly moving in the same direction as it came in, and it looks right for THAT clip. It's really just something that depends specifically on the clip, so you have to weigh in how much blur to use and where the pan should be going, etc. For the most part, I think you got it right (1:19-1:25 is the best example for me.)
In general though I can say I hated the transitions in which the bottom went not just up, but right or left, as in 1:29. Thankfully there weren't a lot of them.
Mask transitions toward the end when the song changed up were nice. I'm not a huge fan of them in general because people don't know when to fade the background clip or enter in a new one, but the beats of this song made it easily recognizable, so it's much better in this case.
2:53, where Arata was being introduced again, I feel like the transition could have been more unique or something could have been done with levels, idk, just to add more impact on the card slapping scene with the big beat. Since it's coming back in from a slower/different part of the song, I felt like it deserved more of an "entrance" as well.
Rest of it is very simple, the way I like it. The storyline was easily followable and also unique for a Chihayafuru amv for its focus on Chihaya. Nice job