If you need any general info about the book, please check the Nomination post for more details (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) Also, note that this is an offshoot club’s thread, meaning that we have already finished reading the first volume, that you can find at それでも歩は寄せてくる ・ When will Ayumu Make his Move? - Volume 1 thread (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Reading Schedule
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| — | — | — | — | — | — | Week|Start date|Chapter|Page Numbers|Page count*|
Week 1 | March 19th|第55局|03-13|8|
Week 2 | March 25th |第56-57局|12-33|16|
Week 3 | April 1st |第58-59局|33-53|16|
Week 4 | April 8th |第60-61局|53-73|16|
Week 5 | April 15th |第62-63局|73-95|18|
Week 6 | April 22nd |第64-65局|95-115|16|
Week 7 | April 29th |第66-67局 |115-127|24|
Week 8 | June 6th |第68局 + おまけ |129-139|10|
*in the page count, white/unwritten pages aren’t considered.
Vocabulary List
Please read the guidelines on the first page of the sheet before adding any words.
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After I finally managed to read the omake of volume four …
It’s time for Ayumu again!
Chapter 55
This chapter was so cute! I somehow love the dynamic between Urushi and Sakurako!! I hope we get to see more of them.
I especially loved how Urushi thought she was hated but in the end it was not the case. Glad it turned out that way. I wonder if someday Sakurako will join the club as well…
I actually have a question for chapter 56, but just realised/saw I was not supposed to read that yet. So I guess I’ll wait with my question until next week!
I’m so glad to be back! Though, I guess it wouldn’t be quite right to say back with “these two” yet, given that this chapter focused on Sakurako and Urushi. I’m definitely glad to see more of Sakurako, though. She’s probably my favorite side character!
I found this silently sliding over incredibly endearing. I can definitely relate to Sakurako being a bit awkward. I’m very much the same way. I’m definitely going to memorize 人見知り. I will get a lot of mileage out of that one!
Even without Ayumu here, we get the sudden fall from Urushi.
I’m glad I saw you post this before I read; I would have done the exact same thing. I’m playing a bit of catch-up this weekend, as well, since I had marked that I was going to read along with Mitsuboshi Colors Volume 2, then promptly forgot to do so last week. I’m all caught up now though! Well, with that… I still need to go through Chapters 5 and 6 for 寄るカフェ’s vocabulary sheet. I’ll do that tomorrow after my tutor session, though, I think. I’ve done a lot of reading today, and I’d probably just make a bunch of mistakes if I tried to do it now.
I’m interested to learn why Sakurako objects to joining the Shogi Club, and why she doesn’t want Takeru to go too often. Of course, it’s probably the most obvious reason of her not wanting to lose her time alone with him, but it will be fun when the story addresses it
I don’t have the page, but I’m pretty sure she also said she wants to read after school in the library.
So shougi club would mean less time for reading.
From context, I feel like this means something like “they laugh at me”, but I’m having trouble getting that meaning. Here’s what I’ve put together so far:
笑う - To laugh
笑える - Potential: can laugh / to be funny
笑えー - The something-stem or just unfinished exclamation?
p. 16
First of all… Don’t be sad Urushi!
Second of all… I can’t for the life of me decipher this sentence:
将棋だと歩は一番小さいコマなのにでっかくてさー
Specific parts that are tripping me up:
と - Is this the “if/when” usage of と, meaning “when it’s shogi…”?
コマ - I feel like I’ve seen this before, but I can’t figure out what it means here.
If I would try to put this together, it would be: “When it’s shogi (in shogi) despite the pawn being the smallest, it’s still big-”
I’m not 100% on this, but my theory is it’s a bit of a lazy version of 笑いえ, “funny picture,” and she is essentially saying that people view her as a bit of a laughingstock/she has a comedic image because of her height. I wanted to see what folks thought about that interpretation, so glad you asked about!
Pg. 16
My interpretation was pretty close to yours,
“When it’s shogi, despite the pawn being the smallest piece (コマ/駒), it’s big.”
I think you have the right use of と, and コマ is referring to a shogi piece, I think. I also think the “big” is carrying connotations of “important.”
You’re definitely right about コマ referring to a piece. I’ve been using Hans Geuns’ Basic Shogi Vocabulary to look up shogi terms. Of course it uses the kanji+romaji, so my search of hiragana/katakana search didn’t come up with anything.
So I just went to add this to my personal list of shogi vocab that keeps coming up in Ayumu… and it’s already there, but I only wrote down the kanji. Such is the process of learning.
My interpretation is that this is the imperative わらえ, something along the lines “go ahead and laugh!”. In the previous panel Urushi ends her sentence saying how she’s panicking and drinking milk to try to get taller. She realizes that idea is silly and laughable, that’s why in frustration she’s ordering Ayumu to laugh at her.
I agree with @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz . I think she’s just extending it, the way one might say “why meeee” or “no waaaaaay” in English.
p. 16
Yeah, I agree with @MrGeneric here. She’s doing wordplay with his name and the name of the Shogi piece, saying that even though 歩 (ふ, the Shogi piece) is small, 歩 (あゆむ, the person) is big.
将棋だと = When it’s Shogi
歩は一番小さいコマ = 歩 is the smallest piece
なのに = even though (of course, in English, this would go in the beginning)
でっかくて = (you’re) big
さー = I think particle definition 2 in Jisho, and she’s extending it again.
I realized I actually forgot to put this thread on watching so I missed all the discussion!
I also forgot what my question for chapter 56 was, but I might re-check later. Could be the one that was already addressed here.
Chapter 57
I can totally relate to Urushi. My body is sort of stiff too even though I always try to practice stretching!
I expected Ayumu to be super flexible, since he does a lot of sports. But as far as I could tell he did not completely fold over right?
I feel like it might be an unfinished 笑えない, hence the - at the end. Her just saying 笑え seems weird to me in the situation, unless it’s some sort of japanese thing that I don’t understand
Finished this weeks reading, overall it was a nice read but I got a question for p. 37:
どうも後輩の男子が自分のことを好きみたいなんだけど。
My understanding
I think I understand the general gist as the sentence means “There is a junior who likes the main character.” but I have trouble with the grammar, so I’ll try to break it down.
どうも - not sure what the correct translation is in this context, it’s definitely not thanks. Maybe “somehow”, “mostly”?
後輩の男子が - male junior
自分のことを - this is the part that confuses me the most, since it means something like “myself”(?) my first impression would be that this addresses the male junior, but I don’t think the sentence means “The male junior loves himself” So my guess here is, because the sentences is lacking a は it’s still using the topic from the sentence before this one. (主人公は) So this refers to the self of the main character.(?)
好きみたい - it seems like he likes her
なん - honestly I’m always troubled with these kind of words, so I’m not sure what the correct translation is for this.
だけど - however
So after the breakdown I would guess:
“However it’s mostly about a male junior who seems to like the main character.”
Story comment chapter 59
Let’s take a look at the face of a person with a very troubling future ahead:
Honestly I don’t know why no one would tell Ayumu that it’s a close to impossible goal. I mean I was not expecting much from Takeru, but at least Sakurako could have said something. But that’s probably a fact no one wants to hear in this story! haha
I mean Urushi is so very serious about shougi and I suspect she practices a lot, so I can’t imagine how it would be possible that Ayumu spontaneously starts shougi and gets better than her in a reasonable timeframe. Especially since he doesn’t want to count a win if she is giving him a handicap.
But I guess that’s the point of the story and it would be boring if it ends too fast, right?
In my experience, 「どうも～みたいだ」 has a sense of “apparently”.
In other words, it seems the kouhai likes the senpai, but it’s not definite (to the reader?), so rather than saying he likes her, Urushi says “apparently” he likes her.
Looking online (which risks finding false positives), I came across this Japanese posting which says the English word “apparently” is like 「そうらしいね」 and 「どうもそうみたいだね」 in Japanese, but also mentions 「どうも～みたいだ」 as the kind of situation you would use “apparently”.
In other words: 「subjectが自分」 can be tricky to know who 自分 refers to, so you just kind of need to feel your way through based on context.
…is what I get out of it.
I’d figure since the conversation is about the main character, that’s (how we can determine) who 自分 is referring to.
When you see a word that normally ends in だ, such as みたい, and instead it ends in なんだ, that means it’s the explanatory の. I’ve posted an explanation and examples, based on what helped me finally properly grasp the explanatory の.
Story comments chapter 59
What if we found out after all this time that Urushi is actually really bad at shogi, but we couldn’t see it because she had no one to play against except a total beginner?
I’m playing a bit of catch-up this weekend, as well, since I had marked that I was going to read along with Mitsuboshi Colors Volume 2, then promptly forgot to do so last week. 
Such is the process of learning.
But that’s probably a fact no one wants to hear in this story! haha
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