可愛いだけじゃない式守さん・ Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie ❤️‍🩹 Week 6 Discussion Thread (Absolute Beginners Book Club)

[Gorbit99]

Welcome to Week 6 of the Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie book club!

We are reading as part of the Absolute Beginner Book Club!

Week 6	January 20 2024
Pages	55-64
Chapter	9
Previous Week	Week 5
Next week	Week 7
Home Thread	可愛いだけじゃない式守さん・ Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie

Vocabulary

可愛いだけじゃない式守さ Volume 1 Vocabulary List - Google Sheets

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Please note that this was auto-generated and might need some additional editing, but it should serve as a solid starting point. If you have any questions/doubts, please post them in this thread!

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

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Example

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This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

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Membership

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• I’m reading along
• I’ve finished this part
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For our newer readers

How are you doing so far?

• It’s going really well
• It’s going well
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• I have read harder manga/books than tlhis one but I still need to click a poll option

Handwritten Text

p55

式守りさんに
やってもらった

p58

根が真面目

p59

ふぁ

p63

セイ！！

やったー！！
ぼく勝っ…

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[macalys]

All finished !
There are a lot of vocabulary I knew or I could guess from what I’ve learnt on WK and my shojo anime intense binge watching
I struggled on some sentences, but not enough to be unable to eventually break them.

Quick thought on the chapter

I’m glad that Izumi has finally a topic on which he can compete with Shikimori ^^ It makes their relationship more balanced

When I read this manga, i feel like I’m improving a lot, and then I go back to ホリミヤ and I cry

[Gorbit99]

@macalys

When I read this manga, i feel like I’m improving a lot, and then I go back to ホリミヤ and I cry

Gotta remember, Horimiya is very much still the hardest manga I’d still consider ABBC level. I’ve been reading for the better part of 1.5 years now and it still has some challenging parts for me.

[macalys]

Thank you for sharing this. I feel less lonely now

[pandoravakarian]

Page 56

集中しなきゃ → Is this the grammar point “なければいけません” / “Must” just shortened very much? So this means “Must focus”?

[Gorbit99]

Yes

[pandoravakarian]

Thanks! It’s very rewarding at low level to pick out the grammar used, especially when I’ve mostly just studied grammar and not seen it in practise

[soggyboy]

@Gorbit99

Horimiya is very much still the hardest manga I’d still consider ABBC level.

Agreed that Horimiya was hard. I definitely ignored a lot of stuff that I didn’t understand when I read it.

[soggyboy]

Yes, and I believe this point was covered in chapter 12 of Genki 1 if you need a reference

[araigoshi]

The previous week link thread seems to go to the home thread?

[Gorbit99]

Fixed, thank you

[araigoshi]

Ok, now I’ve read the right chapter this time… I still prefer the skiing chapter. But this one is ok too.

[Belthazar]

@macalys

I’m glad that Izumi has finally a topic on which he can compete with Shikimori

Though only just.

[Till]

p.56

What’s the 破壊力 that Izumi references? The dictionary says “destructive power”, but that seems odd, at least in a literal reading.

[MikeyDC65]

p.56

I also understood it as literally being destructive power and think that is correct. It’s just that you wouldn’t really say it that way in English and it’s more metaphorical. Perhaps something more like “A force to be reckoned with.” As in “Shikimori’s a force to be reckoned with when she’s wearing glasses”.

EDIT: In case that wasn’t super clear what I was getting at there, taking the liberty to entirely reword it, I understand it to be along the lines of “Uh oh, look out! Shikimori’s got her glasses on!”

[aamunoz]

p.56

@MikeyDC65

I also understood it as literally being destructive power and think that is correct. It’s just that you wouldn’t really say it that way in English and it’s more metaphorical. Perhaps something more like “A force to be reckoned with.” As in “Shikimori’s a force to be reckoned with when she’s wearing glasses”.

EDIT: In case that wasn’t super clear what I was getting at there, taking the liberty to entirely reword it, I understand it to be along the lines of “Uh oh, look out! Shikimori’s got her glasses on!”

Yeah, it’s definitely metaphorical. But I think it’s more about how cute he thinks she is Not that she is formidable as a student or something like that. I guess she has a formidable effect on his heart

Story comments

So, he asked her to wear glasses? Did one of them happen to have non-prescription glasses she could wear? Or does she normally wear contacts?

[macalys]

Glasses

I understood it more like she put glasses for a role play. It happens a lot in manga when characters want to give them a more serious / sexy / scary look.

[Greymanic]

Page 58

I’m a bit confused on the exchange in the final panel.

すうがくのこの問題毎回計算ミスしちゃうんだよね…
I’m (Izumi) making a mistake on this math problem everytime…

Then after that I run into confusion I assume:

でた！！
You are?

大学入試問題に出やすいと噂の所ですよね
It’s common knowledge that only easy to get problems appear on the college entrance exams.

So I assume the situation is just: Izumi is constantly getting a problem wrong and Shikimori is surprised, stating she thought the entrance exam only had easy questions?

Page 63

I’m either blind or misunderstand the Japanese grading system.

I thought the point of the story was Izumi was a higher grade than Shikimori, but she said she wouldn’t lose. Am I reading it wrong or did she not lose again?

[Jintor]

@Greymanic

大学入試問題に出やすいと噂の所ですよね
It’s common knowledge that only easy to get problems appear on the college entrance exams.

I may be interpreting this wrong but this is more like ‘This is a math point/point to be tested that is rumoured to often appear on the entrance exams’ （出やすい’s dictionary definition is a bit odd but here I think it means ‘appears easily’ or ‘likely to appear’)

[Gorbit99]

p58

@Greymanic

大学入試問題に出やすいと噂の所ですよね
It’s common knowledge that only easy to get problems appear on the college entrance exams.

やすい here is “tend to”, so "It’s rumored, that this question comes up often (comes up easily) on university entrance exams.

I think what’s essentially happening here is:
イ: “I always make a mistake when solving this problem”
シ: “There it is” (read: it’s that problem)
シ: “It’s rumored that that problem comes up often during university entrance exams”

p63

@Greymanic

I thought the point of the story was Izumi was a higher grade than Shikimori, but she said she wouldn’t lose. Am I reading it wrong or did she not lose again?

This is class (and school grade) ranking. 位 being “position counter”. So lower number here means better.