Just to set expectations, I wouldn’t expect any sort of overarching plot here - the chapters are pretty much just cute vignettes, but aren’t likely to move beyond the status quo. Nothing wrong with that, it means you can jump in at any point and not get lost really, however it’s not going to satisfy you much if you want something to happen
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This is a low-level rank castle, and it is certainly better than not setting up a castle at all. As happens with an Anaguma castle, at least the king will certainly not be checkmated. It is reasonably strong against attacks from the front, but very weak against side attacks.
I don’t know much about shogi, but I’ve read it’s a formation expert users don’t make use of (unless making fun of beginner players).
For those curious on this point, I’ve read through volume four, and it’s exactly as VikingSchism says.
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Still unrelated? Yes, still unrelated.
Yeah, I definitely understand time constraints - I also mentioned above how right now I don’t have any time or mental space to actually put any new words I read into Anki on top of everything else I’m doing. And I remember WK taking a ton of time too. I was just surprised that this actually works. I feel like I’d just continue to look up all words forever and never learn anything, haha. Glad that it’s working for you!
Btw, https://bunpro.jp is a nice grammar SRS that usually just takes a few minutes a day for me. It’s definitely much less time intensive than WK.
Pekora, Korone and Okayu are my favourites, so we have definitely have some similarities there! Okayu is my “super chill vibes” one. I love her singing voice (e.g. here or here)! And yeah, I only got into her because of OkaKoro collabs, haha. I haven’t had any chances to watch Botan, Nene or Mel yet. And lately I’ve been picking up a bit of Ninomae Ina’nis - she’s cute and lighthearted, and I like her puns maybe a little too much considering how bad some of them are 
Argh, it seems I kinda skipped that whole post. And while I obviously can’t dispel your social anxiety, I’d at least like to comment on one of the worries you voiced there:
This is something that I worry about when talking to anyone except a tutor, because:
- Unlike with a stranger, you’re not wasting their time. Waiting while you struggle to form a sentence, repeating stuff, talking slower, waiting for you to puzzle your way through a sentence and correcting you is literally what you pay them for.
- If the input is too hard, your tutor will realize and adjust to you.
…and I’m saying both of these things as someone who has to ask his tutor several times a session to repeat (or even write down) the last sentence because my vocab is so limited.
So, I think the right time to get a tutor is literally any time you want to start learning how to speak. How well you understand doesn’t really matter because your tutor will likely be patient and adjust to your level anyway.
But of course it also depends on what you want to get out of this. For example, my primary goal is being able to have conversations while travelling, so I got a tutor 3 months after I started learning. You can imagine how low my listening comprehension was at that point and still, everything worked out! (Ah, and conversations aren’t my only goal, of course - I’d also very much like to understand native media like anime, vtubers, games and novels at some point.)
P.S.: The Discord server I linked earlier is also nice for just listening to people talking while being muted. I feel that might be a decent way to get familiar to it before working up the courage to talk, maybe?
P.P.S.: If you use Discord and would like to sometimes chat about vtubers and whatnot - wanna add each other there?
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Still unrelated (sorry for derailing the thread a bit, y'all!)
There are times it feels that way , but I also try and make sure that if a word feels familiar, I sit and stew on it for a minute to see if I can recall the meaning before looking it up. Similarly, if I see a new word made up of kanji I know, I try and guess the meaning before searching it to confirm. 無敵囲い from one of these chapters is a good example in that I guessed it meant “invincible enclosure” and intuited it was probably a move formation before looking up to confirm that (though, it is a “castle” as opposed to “enclosure,” since it’s Shogi-specific.)
I have heard a lot of good things about Bunpro. It is in my list to start, probably once I hit about level 55 in WK, to begin segueing (that reads wrong, but oh well) into a new SRS system towards the tail end of WK.
She definitely gives off super chill vibes, yes! And I also love her singing voice. Suisei still tops the chart for me for singing, though. I dunno about the rest of her content, but her music honestly gives me chills sometimes.
This video (English subbed, so you don’t have to work too hard at it) was the first one I ever saw for both Botan and Nene. Nene is a bit…airheaded, but it’s part of her charm.
I will look up Ninomae. I don’t know that I’ve heard of her, at all, but I’m always down for lame puns.
That is definitely reassuring. Thank you. (: ultimately, I do want to be able to converse, but primarily, I want to be able to consume native content easily!
As for Discord, yes, let’s add each other, if only so we don’t derail the thread further.
My username is: MisterGeneric#7017
If anybody else reading this wants to add me, also, please, feel free!
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Once again, since I don’t have much to directly respond with, I really appreciate the help from everyone. Had a rough few days and reading some of that helped to reaffirm my faith when I needed it. I’m finally getting back around to reading this, so I’m going to unload all the stuff I have to ask on chapter 9. Will likely read 10 tomorrow. Overall, I’m leaning on the vocab sheet a bunch, but I’m getting through it decently, and I THINK I was able to work through almost every piece of grammar. I feel obnoxious saying that right after talking about all the trouble I’ve been having, but days like that come and go, I guess. Since starting Japanese I’ve had about two sudden “oh no can I actually do this?” moments and both times I came out the other side feeling like I might have suddenly improved immensely. Brains are weird.
I had a recent general revelation that I think seeing なんだ tripped me up way too much everywhere because, while I’m very comfortable with the general concept of んです and its various forms, and I do technically know that na adjectives and nouns have to add な first… but as soon as I see it in reading I go “Hey that’s a word!” and then my brain shuts off and I get really confused at how “what the!” or something would make sense, heh.
83 on Bookwalker
サボっちゃいますか is the “ちゃう” shortening of “てしまう”, right? This line isn’t causing me problems, just verifying and proving that I’m maybe capable of learning things, because missing this is something I asked about last time, hah. I’ve been seeing it EVERYWHERE since then.
Same page
The line Urushi responds with confused me for a bit, but maybe I’ve got it? It didn’t help that I didn’t realize 元気づけて was its own combination word… on one hand, I should probably remember that there would have to be a particle or something between 元気 and a verb? Then again, colloquial speech drops things like that a lot, and I’m way too new to this to have a sense for what is and isn’t valid to drop, so it’s hard to trust how it “should be.”
Anyway, musing aside, is this より (それより) the kind used in comparisons? I think this is just very unlike how English would construct it, but the general meaning I’m getting is “Rather than that, I’ll ask you to do something for me like cheer me up.” Cumbersome phrasing since I’m working in the individual parts as best as I can, but you get me, I hope.
Actually let's just talk about this page and only this page lmao
Ayumu’s final response is almost clear to me. I think he’s saying “Even if you aren’t able to do atheletics/exercise/etc, it isn’t a problem because you are cute (and more, given the し).” What puzzles me is that くらい – if it’s the meaning I’m thinking of, I’ve only really seen it applied to numerical amounts, sort of like “approximately.” Am I on the right track? And here would it add the nuance of… it’s not “that much of” a problem? It also seems a bit run on with “It isn’t a problem you are cute” but I figure something is getting dropped casually there? Or am I wrong and that string is correct? — Wait, just realized くらい is labelled a particle on jisho, so that might be it. I’ve learned the approximate meaning but had no idea it functioned that way? Sorry I keep editing this, I can’t quite get this last point phrased how I want haha.
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Due to some bad learning on my part long ago, なんだ continues to trip me up to this day =(
Whenever I see it, I should take a moment to visually connect な to the word before it, separating it from んだ. Maybe that’ll help me out a bit.
That is correct.
I do see dropped particles quire a bit in speech. I’m not certain if that’s the case with 元気づけて (it may be), but I do know that つく seems to like to attach to things. For example:
- 気付く = to notice (気 + attach)
- 傷付く = to be wounded (wound + attach)
- 張り付く = to stick to (stick + attach)
- 近付く = to get close (near + attach)
You could also go with “more importantly” if you wanted to get a bit less Japanese and more English (for meaning comparison).
The くれる provides direction of the action, but it doesn’t need to be literally translated (unless you’re going for very literal rather than something that sounds more natural in English). Leaving off the る makes it more like a command, such as “Rather than that, do something to cheer me up.”
くらい is one of those ones that get you used to over time.
I’m not going to say I’m fully there yet, but I read this くらい as an extent such as, “Because you’re cute to the extent that it’s not a problem even if you can’t do exercises.”
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Excellent! Glad I’m mostly there. Yeah in all the cases there I intentionally leaned HEAVILY on overly translating every Japanese bit, even though it sounded off in English. “something for me like” was especially me forcing in the なんか though it’s obviously not meant to be so stiff and awkward. Definitely not how I’d phrase it anywhere but in a question like this, heh. Though… while I did intentionally awkwardly incorporate the くれ, I don’t think I knew leaving off る changed the implication (kind of just went “oh those casual talkers and their dropped sounds”), so that’s good to know!
Edit: Oh, and I didn’t mean to say I suspected 元気づけて was lacking a particle! Rather, that on first approaching this unfamiliar thing I was thinking more like 元気 + separate verb was what was going on, but that, unless there is a totally dropped particle, grammatically they have to be attached the way they actually are. If that makes sense. So sometimes if I’m approaching a block of text that I can’t parse I should consider what a LACK of a particle might indicate.
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Further reading:
Do a web image search for 止まれ to see it in action =D
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Wait, I’m familiar with imperative form, but isn’t the usual way of constructing them with ichidan verbs (such as くれる）to make the final る into ろ rather than dropping?
Edit: Ahh, a quick search says that one is just irregular? Good thing to know, thanks.
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I’ll admit, this is one I got to know it through lots of exposure (manga reading) rather than strictly reading about the grammar. Reading on how things conjugate never worked for me, so instead I’ve just picked it up through immersion and couldn’t give the rules on any of it.
I should probably read a bit more on such things before relaying them!
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Ok, Chapter 10 time. I think I just have one bit of grammar I want to bring up.
First thing Urushi says
I’m guessing this comes out to something like “I wonder if you have some sort of secret plan?” but the でも … right after a noun the way I’ve usually come to think of it is like “even if,” thus far. Very much in a causitive sense. I wonder if there’s a sort of usage to でも that I haven’t seen yet. Always good to make sure I’m understanding what I think I am, too 
That picture of Urushi laughing is too much, wow. And I finally remembered こいつ after forgetting that about 100 times seeing it through 2 volumes of Yotsubato. Progress!
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Got chapter 9 down! And thanks to the vocab sheet, jisho.org, ichi.moe (thanks, @ChristopherFritz!) a bit of DeepL for confirmation or especially hard sentences I actually only had one question left. Nice.
My question was the same as @MrGeneric asked above about page 83, basically. And now after reading それでも歩は寄せてくる | Week 6 Discussion ♟ - #22 by ChristopherFritz I’m curious which of @ChristopherFritz’ interpretations is the right one, so if I have time during my tutor session in two days I’ll ask her what she thinks.
And agreed, this was a really cute chapter! I’m kinda looking forward to the anime when we can actually hear him say all this sweet stuff with such a stoic face, haha.
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I totally don't have an answer on でもある, so instead I'll ramble a bit on what I kind of know here and there.
Please bring a few grains of 
to take with what I write here.
I’ve read that だ is sort of like this modern form of である. In other words, in the past, saying “noun[1] is noun[2]” used to end in である, whereas today it would end in だ. (Again, if I understand correctly.)
Moving into the modern era, I’ve also seen that just as you have certain words followed by な＋のだ for the “explanatory の”, when following certain nouns don’t change だ to な. Instead you change だ to である, resulting in である＋のだ. (And of course that final だ can be left off, including before adding a かな to the end.)
Next, we have も. I don’t actually know the difference between “noun + particle” and “nounで + particle”. But I do know that if 「である」 means “to be”, that 「でもある」 is “to also be”, and is used when this statement is true on top of a prior statement having been true.
I don’t know if there’s any nuance of “if that’s true, then this is true” or not. One example I’ve seen it is when Person A accuses Person B of stealing something, and Person B asks if there’s proof, ending the sentence in 「証拠でもあるのかい？」 I imagine this as something like, “(If it’s true that I stole it), then is it that you have proof also?”
Thus, I wonder if the nuance here is that after Ayumu more or less says he’ll win, Urushi responds along the lines of, “(If it’s true that you’ll win), then is it that you have some kind of secret plan also?”
This isn’t at all a satisfying explanation, but I can’t find anything better upon looking!
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First thing Urushi says
I think it’s definition 4 in Jisho. “Do you have a secret plan or something?”
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Oh. Well that’s almost disappointingly easy. Even for someone as new as me, でも is one of those words you see so often that I didn’t feel like there would be any reason to just look it up. Oops. Thanks!
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I know what you mean! You never think it’s going to be as easy as just looking it up, but it turned out to be exactly that easy enough times that it’s become my first instinct.
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Phew, I finally had time to read chapter 10! And not a moment too soon before the next thread starts.
p. 91
- Is she channeling her inner “invincible castle of the heart” here to counteract his “backhanded compliments”? (If so, that doesn’t sound like a good move considering how weak of a move the “invincible castle” is apparently (OH WAIT THAT’S THE JOKE ISN’T IT. HOW DID I MISS THIS.))
p. 92
- そして前からの攻めには強い
While reading this I thought it was the noun 攻め, but the vocab sheet says that the 攻め is the verb 攻める. Is that a mistake in the vocab sheet, or is stem + に/には some grammar that I don’t know yet?
p. 93
- いける。。。テキトーな思いつきの心の無敵囲い
I… I got nothing. I’m not sure what the いける means, and thanks to the vocab sheet I know all the meanings of the words in the second sentence, but the combination doesn’t make sense to me. “Invincible castle of the heart of the suitable plan/idea”? “Suitable plan/idea’s invincible castle of the heart”?
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p. 91
Yes. I am guessing most people noticed this, but it took me a few minutes before I realized he defeated her invincible castle by attacking from the side, which is the same thing that would happen in Shogi.
p. 92
I agree with your assessment that here the sentence is using the noun 攻め.
p. 93
Not very confident about this one either, but here’s my understanding.
いける is a very common phrase that means “to go well”. In this particular case it’s being used in the sense that something is working or being effective. In the second bubble, she’s just explain what is going well - her plan to use the invincible defense of her heart.
My pain point here is てきとう. Sadly, this is one of those words that from being overused in an ironic sense has acquired both the original meaning (suitable, adequate), but also the opposite meaning (randomly, sloppy, lazy, unreliable). This is my personal impression, but it seems it’s not rare for someone to use the second meaning in a non-ironic way anymore.
I can see both cases here… from one point of view you could say the defense is suitable, since she seems to think it’s working. This is currently what makes most sense to me.
From another point of view, you could say she came up with the idea by just lazily taking whatever was at hand, which would be the impregnable castle defense idea, and now she’s surprised to see it working. So maybe that’s what she means. I don’t find it very likely though.
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It literally took me until I finished writing my post!
And I really like the joke, but it feels a bit weird for her to use a move she knows is weak as a metaphor for her mental defense. I guess I shouldn’t overthink this, haha.
Thanks for answering my questions!
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If you imagine Ayumu will only be sitting in front of Urushi when using his verbal attacks (during their current match), it may make sense for her to use a defense that is strong only in the front. After all, it’s not like he’d move to her exposed side or anything.
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