Sounds like mission accomplished, considering what he set out to do.
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Chapter 31 gets high marks from me, if only for Urushi mentioning my favorite Japanese food お好み焼き. Another amusing chapter.
Page 23
Fourth panel: うっき うっき ? It isn’t in katakana like all of the other onomatopoeic words, and it probably isn’t 鬱気. ウーキー sound monkey makes, it’s fitting for the panel but again, not katakana here.
Fifth Panel: ウチは個人の展示とかで お茶を濁すらしく
I’m all over the place with this sentence.
ウチは個人の展示とかで saying something like within personal display
お茶を濁すくらしく to give an evasive answer -ish
とかで in the Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar: "a conjunction that is used to give an uncertain reason for s.t. Also notes, “since toka de is used to express what the speaker/ writer has heard from someone as a reason for a an action/ state, the subject cannot be the speaker/ writer himself.” Which actually confuses me further.
Page 24
I love this facial expression, but what is すーん doing there?
Page 27
Panel 3, ずいっ Panel 5, ずい. I assume these are “straightforwardly; readily; without hesitation” but then Panel 6 adds an extra ず. I didn’t find ずずい listed in the dictionary. A google search shocked me with a funny but graphic wooden doll. I’m thinking its like the first two usages but maybe with more emphasis?
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Page 23
I believe this is
To be in high spirits in particular.
Onomatopoeic words are very elastic; うっき うっき is like an うきうき with more emphasis.
I’m not very confident about this either, but my interpretation is:
個人 => I believe here it’s used in the sense of individual, as each person (in the class) puts own whatever they wish to display.
とかで => I feel this is とか (“and the like” / “or something”) followed by the で particles (due to / by means of).
“In our class (ウチは), due to (で) we just doing an individual display and stuff (とか), (I) can only give you an ambiguous-like answer… so… not in particular (とくには）”
とくには is very often the abbreviation of とくにはない; in this case he refers to the fact that they are not in particular making anything delicious like she asked.
I don’t have a copy of DIJG, so I can’t comment on the とかで you see there…
Page 27
I’m not sure, but my understanding is that ずぃ is the sound of sliding pieces in the Shogi board. The ぃ at the end is the indicator of the sliding stopping. The パチ sound is the sound of the piece falling into place.
It’s very normal for this onomatopoeic sounds to be repeated when an action happens continuously or for a longer period of time; ずずぃ would be a piece sliding for a longer distance (like a piece moving a long distance in the board).
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Oh no, burned by 浮き浮き again! 
Why パチ in katakana and ずい in hiragana? Just to frustrate? 
Thanks for your help
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Pg. 24
I think the すーん is the second meaning here:
Urushi just has a poor poker face, so it fails, and it’s elongated for emphasis because onomatopeia seems to just do whatever it likes.
Edit to add: I think the パチ is in katakana because it’s supposed to be louder, whereas the ずずい is a softer sound. But that’s just a guess.
And one more edit, in case you don’t know about this resource: Japanese-to-English SFX Sound Effects Translations @ The JADED Network
That website is what I use when searching for onomatopeic words. If I don’t find it by searching something like すーん, then I’ll edit the search to just すん, but it’s been pretty useful!
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Alright, I’ve finished my readings of both chapters entirely now, and I think I have a couple questions left that I’m not totally sure about. Chapter 31 was super easy reading, but Chapter 30 definitely had a few things I don’t feel super comfortable about.
Pg. 12
田中ー私のマネっこしてるだろうこれー
I read this as, “Tanaka, you’re copying my behavior, right?”
I’m not really sure about the っこ, though. Is it just the diminutive, like in おしっこ?
Pg. 15
こいつはこいつで真剣なんだな…
I read it as, “This guy is serious…”
I’m just not sure about the こいつはこいつで. I’ve seen similar constructs, and hear similar things all the time, and I get, “Noun is what noun is” vibes from it, but I’m not really confident about it, and I’m also not sure why it would be this instead of just こいつは on its own. Is it stronger emphasis, “This guy is who he is, and he’s serious…” Trying to sorta emphasize that he’s really serious?
Pg. 16
マネ将棋潰し
I read this, (roughly), as “I will smash you in imitation shogi.”
But I don’t really understand why 潰す is in that form without actually being connected to something.
Pg. 17
First off, I have a weird box that looks like the cut-off part of a panel at the top of this page. Does anybody else have that?
Second:
何か摑めたか?
I feel like this should be an obvious one, but for some reason, I’m not really understanding it at all.
I read it as along the lines of, “Did you get something (out of this?)”
As in, Urushi is asking if Ayumu came to understand something by imitating her, but I’m not positive of that interpretation. How did you guys read it?
Other than that, both of these chapters were goldmines for Urushi expressions (and Ayumu’s impersonations 
)…
Some of my favorites
Sometimes the simple expressions are best, and I really like the slight smile here, though I also adore the irritation on her face in the next panel just as much.
As for chapter 31, how could I possibly pick?
10/10
10/10
I think you get the picture…
But still… 10/10 
I also really enjoyed the artwork of her as the 売り子 after the chapter. Very cute!
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Page 12
I’m not sure either, but according to weblio.jp one of the possible uses of っこ is to say that something/someone is in a state of being. So 真似っこ would be used when someone is in the state of imitating, while 真似 would be imitation in general.
Page 15
The difference is that the Noun は noun で indicates that the verb (in this case, “being serious”) happens within the limits of that noun. It indicates that the state or action is unique to the Noun in contrast to other possible nouns.
So something like 夏は夏で暑い means that a certain summer is hot to the degree that a summer can be hot. You may have a spring that is pretty hot, but it’s not the same level of hot as the summer-hot.
こいつはこいつで真剣 would be a degree of seriousness that is particular to Ayumu, different from the seriousness you would get from other people.
Page 16
I believe this is not a sentence, but a compound noun. 潰し is the noun form of 潰す and it means smashing / crushing. The previous panel says:
そろそろ見せてゃろう => it’s about time I showed you
Show what exactly? “The imitation-shogi smashing”.
Page 17
My understanding is that this “empty panel” indicates that a span of time has passed since the previous panel (in the previous page, in this case) and the next one (at the start of this page). It basically means that Ayumu didn’t give up immediately, but that Urushi defeating him in a serious of moves that have been skipped.
掴む has within it’s meanings “to comprehend” or “to grasp”. 摑める would be the potential form of that.
“Were you able to comprehend/grasp/learn something (from this)?”.
So yes, I agree with your interpretation.
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Thanks to this I realised お茶を濁す is a fixed expression.
I didn’t understand the sentence completely either, so I somehow thought everyone is doing a personal exhibition and they are serving (muddy??) tea alongside it…
“Making muddy tea” feels like a very ambigious way to give an evasive answer. 
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I concur. What’s interesting is that Urushi’s move before the span of time passes is the 17th move, and the whole match ends at 19 moves. Since move 18 took out the piece from move 17, I can’t imagine it took a lot of thought (time). Thus, that span of time could have been less than a minute. But still important to let us know that subsequent moves took place.
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It seems like Ayumu has started following the letter of his vow rather than the spirit. If he never manages to beat her at Shogi, I guess he could just propose to her without ever admitting he likes her 
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I didn’t notice at first before that we had a one chapter week, so I read 30 a little bit ago. Which will I learn first – Japanese to a decent degree of fluency, or to check what/when I’m supposed to read before doing it, for once?
31 wasn’t difficult to read with a little guidance and lookups, certainly, but it has a weirdly high quantity of the words that have been bugging me recently. A lot of them are constructions of pieces you see everywhere so I mix them up: eg, it’s hard to make 何が何でも stick. Same for remembering わけ(が)ない, mainly because my brain hasn’t fully pulled it apart from stuff like わけではない. Would probably do me some good to reread this chapter soon.
I can relate to happy Urushi talking about food. Excited to see next chapter’s, umm, “探す.” Definitely that, and only that.
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Page 23 reply
I believe your interpretation is right, but I think で is not the particle but the connective form of the copula だ, which gives it the meaning of “due to” in the sentence. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant, it’s hard to keep track of all the nomenclature haha
I know it has already been posted but
This is precious
Page 14
I suck at reading this author’s “handwriting” (at least i think that’s what it is), is this なんで私が怒られてるみたいに?
It’s what I think makes sense, but that れ looks so weird if it is what it is gaaaahh
Page 22
It shouldn’t be legal to have these many negatives in one sentence.
I don’t really understand 訳ない, the dictionary says it’s still reason, what would the difference be with 訳?
If they mean the same it would be something like “There is no reason not to go” but if the ない makes it no-reason or something this wouldn’t make sense. ないないないないないないない
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I think you’re right on 14 but I’ll leave that for someone else – handwritten style writing is still the absolute worst for me in pretty much any manga.
Page 22
This one I’m relatively confident on, I think. 訳がない can be thought of as sort of a single set phrase meaning there’s no way you’d do the thing it’s attached to. I think this manga is my first time seeing it with the が dropped, but jisho confirmed that’s fine and just means the same thing. What I’m pretty sure you have here is just 行かないわけない → “there’s no way I won’t go,” then a じゃないですか tag at the end, like “isn’t it?” More naturally, just, a way to sort of kick it over to the other person for confirmation. Like, “There’s no way I could miss it, right?”
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Edit: I missed @Daisoujou’s reply, so consider mine overlapping for emphasis =D
It is れ, and I may have written it that way myself from time to time.
With the mangaka doing all that manga drawing, as well as writing in all the dialogue (word balloon dialogue of course gets replaced before going to print), I think it’s a bit understandable that sometimes the aside comments come out a bit sloppy.
Missed opportunity: “Shouldn’t it not be illegal to have these many negatives in one sentences?”
訳ない is short for 訳がない, meaning essentially “reason is non-existent” or “reason does not exist”.
The “reason” is whatever clause modifies 訳, so he’s saying there’s no reason for 行かない:
“There’s no reason not to go.”
Then, adding じゃない gives us “isn’t it?”, but that sounds a bit odd in this sentence in English. We can use “is there?” as a translation, which while isn’t a negative, does imply that it’s asking for a negative:
“There’s no reason not to go, is there?”
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Ohh, I saw it and thought for some reason that 訳じゃない was some wacky (訳y?) way of saying 訳がない (in this case thinking 訳ない is 訳 but now I undestand the actual structure, thankss
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It’s finally time for the 文化祭 
For now I only read chapter 32:
Chapter 32
It was a bit troublesome to read the hiragana in this font, at first I thought it is a weird む, which does not make sense. But after staring at it for a few minutes, I finally figured it out:
はい！！じゃあデートしましょう
(Also lets appreciate embarassed Urushi’s expression)
While reading I was wondering how many of the noodles Ayumu did eat:
(As I guessed he complained he ate too much at the end haha.)
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Finished chapter 33 today and actually no problems here as well. I think both chapters were quite easy this time around.
For chapter 33 the only thing that was bothering me was the way words were sometimes written.
For example:
テキトー - てきとう ( here jisho lists the katakana as alternate form though)
くるしゅーない - 苦しゅうない ( when you type in くるしゅ jisho finds this, but I couldn’t find the form with ー anywhere)
This is the face of evil 
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I’m a little behind schedule this week, but I just finished up both chapters today! I agree that it seems like the chapters were pretty easy this time around, but I can’t say that’s much of a surprise considering it’s the 文化祭 arc. They’re all fairly similar, and anyone who watches/reads a lot of slice of life anime/manga has probably seen a million of them by now!
Story Comments and Standout Panels
Urushi’s little jump of surprise genuinely made me laugh.
I loved the little transition panels with Ayumu slurping down the noodles the entire time.
I also really enjoyed this series of reactions from Urushi.
And of course, can’t forget these panels! D’awwww.
I knew right away that Chapter 33 was going to be a treasure trove of adorable reactions, and it delivered immediately. 
The face of, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Of course, this chapter was just chock full of Smug™
And the inevitable shattering thereof…
Overall, I was definitely looking forward to the 文化祭 chapters when they were mentioned in the little teaser last volume, so I’m glad we got to them fairly early. They were definitely worth the bit of the wait, though. Adorable, as always. (And this might just be me, but as much as I find shogi interesting, I do like when they get away from it every now and then. Livens up the chapters and gives a bit of variety!)
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The bottom of page 32 was one of those times my brain just insisted on forgetting anything I know about particles and deciding the subject must be the 売り子 or something, and then twisted itself in knots for like 5 minutes straight. I got there eventually, though.
Otherwise, no problems! This is very much a comfort read for me right now. It’s nice to keep returning to the thing I started with.
Few thoughts
-
I really enjoyed overly loud Ayumu. Since Urushi is so much more expressive, she’s normally taken most of my attention, so I like the little bits of new Ayumu quirks that have come up recently.
-
That ring toss panel puts us a little too close to the faceless background people. I know they’re often around, but I get weird vibes out of that one, haha.
-
You both already totally covered the excellent art in these two chapters. I’m right there with MrGeneric on enjoying the breaks from the clubroom, for variety’s sake.
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I was waiting a bit to see if anyone else would post it first, but I really enjoyed this one expression by Maki.
I feel like we’re seeing her taking a few moments to process that her teasing unexpectedly hit the mark.
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