Hey guys! I’ve ordered all of the volumes that are available on Amazon JP and they’ll be arriving soon! I’m still going through volume 2 right now, but I hope I can catch up with you guys soon and then I should be able to start Volume 5 along side you all!
Really enjoying the series, despite how long it’s taking me 
Great to have you on board! Don’t forget, you’re always welcome to comment on and ask questions regarding any of the previous volumes.
I just wrapped up my reading for both chapters. Always a treat to sit down and read this manga!
One question I have is actually more in regard to the vocabulary sheet, and the word that has a question mark in the notes section:
不格好
I could be wrong, but from the context in the chapter, isn’t it more likely that should be a shortened version of this word?:
Edit: Or perhaps the other meaning of 不格好? The “misshapen” meaning as opposed to “clumsy?”
What does everybody think? I didn’t want to update the vocab sheet with that change until I got some other opinions.
Anyway!
I love these little subtle jokes that are easy to miss if you’re just scanning quickly over the panels. 
Adorable smile! 
Both of their faces here make me laugh. I have to admit, Maki has grown on me as a character (frog-eyes aside. 
)
He’s getting bolder and bolder! Though, he is really skating the line of breaking the spirit of his rule while following the letter of it, eh?
This volume is stock full of a bunch of images that are going straight into the “potential avatar” folder, I have to say!
She’s so pleased. 
If I don’t limit myself to just one, I’ll basically just post the whole chapter, so for this chapter, this was my favorite panel from Chapter 46. I love that it feels like we are making some progress here!
あ, indeed, Urushi. I had much the same reaction you did.
I said one…but… I can’t resist posting this too!
From what I can find, the kanji is correct, but it’s most commonly written in kana. In the context of clothing, it seems it may refer to oversized and/or loose-fitting clothing.
Edit:
Was reading through and adding items while waiting on a boiler technician. Really wanted to get opinions on whether it would be misshapen or clumsy. However, before I could even finish the chapter, I was dealing with my boiler technician and then had to head out to a late Christmas party. I added the kanji and the note for conversation purposes but ran out of time to bring it up before I had to leave.
After putting my initial guess in but before reading further into Ayumu’s dialogue later on the same page, I was thinking ‘cute’ in the clumsy kind of way. Clearly that isn’t what he was leading into to.
Personally, I started to lean away from Jishos first listing because it included an example sentence that made it just sound like ‘ugly.’
Listing number one it is then? misshapen
I just noticed something I missed in my earlier reply.
The kanji was for ぶかっこう, but the word on the page is ぶかっとする. The latter is used to refer to oversized clothing.
This too. I was finding the oversized clothing with images search of ぶかっと. However, was failing to land on a dictionary entry that matched better than ぶかっこう and was wondering if he dropped and smashed some grammar in there.
Again, I was working on it and ran out of time to start the conversation. My apologies.
edit: I only just got back to being able to look at it.
edit 2: per @ChristopherFritz この「ぶかっとした」は「ぶかぶかとした」と同じ意味でしょうか。 Nice call @anon99047008
I second this! I hope I didn’t come across as critical or anything, I just wasn’t sure that 不格好 felt like the right fit! (Though as @ChristopherFritz pointed out, the two are likely related in some way, anyway). I definitely see why you would’ve thought the “clumsy as cute” vibe, though! Fwiw, I’ve seen ポン used that way more than anything else, so that’s the only reason I wouldn’t have leaned in that direction.
ぶかぶか was a shot in the dark based on the following シルエット, but yeah, there definitely doesn’t seem to be a dictionary entry anywhere for ぶかっとする, so I understand the struggle (and that’s why I asked about it here). It’s probably more of a grammar thing, in the end anyway, no? ぶかぶか (second half chopped off for some mysterious reason) + とする？I’m not sure how to formulate that connection, though, since none of the meanings I know for とする really line up. 
Not at all, I really had tried to form that entry in a way that meant it was there for further discussion.
At the moment I’m leaving it with ぶか in the kana column and ぶかぶか in the notes. Until we discuss it further. Im pretty beat for the day though.
For those who aren’t familiar with it yet, this is fairly common. For example:
Is doing that just turning those onomatopeia words into an adverb of sorts?
Edit:
More specific to our case, though, looking at とする in Jisho gives one potential definition of:
to feel (e.g. after sound symbolism or psychological experience word); to look; to feel like
So our noun phrase could be something like:
“That silhouette which looked loose fitting/baggy”
It doesn’t sound like natural English at all, of course, and I’m not super happy about it being in an “already completed” sense, but that’s the gist I think.
But my interpretation if I were to translate the whole thing into a more natural phrasing would be,
“That baggy/loose fitting/too large clothes silhouette is very cute, I think.”
Which lines up with the overall Vibe™ I got while reading in the first place, and seems to make sense with とする. That could just be a case of confirmation bias, though, tbh. What do y’all think?
The book “Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia” talks about repeated sounds and those ending with っと, but I can’t really figure how to apply them to ぶかぶか and ぶかっと.
Repeated sounds: “When referring to conditions and states of being”–that’s the closest section I can find to our word–“repetitive onomatopoeia primarily indicates that a static condition has come into being.”
Ending in っと: “In terms of conditions that have already been established, the glottal stop type captures the moment the condition comes into being.”
Looking for other examples, in episode 11 of Kokoro Connect, when one of the characters suddenly goes from teenager to child, she looks at her now-oversized clothes and says 「服 ぶかぶか」.
In episode 7 of Toradora, one student taunts the female lead character on being late to come to the pool during swimming class: 「もしかして水着がぶかぶかでみっともなくて出てこれないのかと思っちゃった」
I don’t have any examples of ぶかっと though.
You have convinced me to read the book. It has been sitting on my desk shelf for years and I only look at it as dictionary. Your input today taught me that there may be more valuable information in the book(should I sit down and read it).
About the grammar:
Not sure about the onomatopeia, but I feel like it could be this: Xとした usage and grammar? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange
noun/adjective + とした
Also my thoughts on the chapter:
Honestly I just love Maki. I think she’s a good friend! Look at how adorable these two are!
And finally Ayumu decided to say something about how beautiful the 振袖 are! He really always has his own pace. He’s a bit too slow, but somewhat this also makes him more predictable I guess?!
I’ve had it forever, and this is my second time reading through the opening. The first time back when I bought it, it was all over my head and thus really boring. Now that I’ve done a lot of manga reading in Japanese, and have encountered a lot of onomatopoeia, it makes a bit more sense (outside of our current word).
While in English I think of silhouette as a black figure/outline on a lit background, one meaning of 「シルエット」 is the outline (such as of clothing) or overall shape. I’d probably translate ぶかっとしたシルエット more as “oversized look”, as in “the oversized look is very cute”. Although, this does sound a bit odd wording in English as well.
Interesting that you think of it that way first; my initial thought is actually the latter. I think of the overall shape/outline without necessarily thinking of black on light, so I didn’t even think to rephrase it in my interpretation. I do have the same impression as you. The “oversized look” is probably closer to sounding natural, though!
Going off-topic here, but as I’m reading volume five of 「恋に恋するユカリちゃん」, I see Yukari has imagined Takagi with a familiar hairstyle:
In this chapter, Takagi and Nishikata are on library duty, and are both reading books.
As Yukari spies on the two from outside the library door, she listens in and hears Takagi say 「好きだよ。」
When Nishikata gets flustered, Takagi acts like she’s reading a passage from the book she’s holding:
Yukari is familiar with the book and knows that there’re no such lines in the book.
Note: There are no それでも spoilers here. The Takagi-san version of this chapter came out probably shortly before それでも’s first chapter published. The Yukari version, with the included character シルエット artwork, came out about a year later. (Looks like I successfully returned back on-topic!)
Supplemental Note: If それでも ends up including these lines, it will mean Takagi really does have some kind of omnipotent powers after all.
Time for another chapter of Ayumu 
No questions for these chapters, just some thoughts here.
Now I somewhat feel like this could be a different manga altogether. Who would have guessed Urushi could make this kind of poker/evil face? But I highly suspect she dropped it during the game anyway.
Also Ayumu just doesn’t know how to use such an opportunity. He should have made her do something! Well… Didn’t expect anything else from Ayumu either way. I’m surprised Urushi still expects those kind of things.
When Urushi started to talk about the gazes that follow her, honestly I already suspected Ayumu to be the cause. Naturally he did watch over her in secret. (He should not have told her. )
Also back to cute Urushi!
Ayumu sometimes gets a bit… overzealous in his affection
