When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

それでも歩は寄せてくる (Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru)

7.0(60,126)

MAL Score

Ranked #4885

Popularity #1508

Comedy
Romance
Love Status Quo
School
Strategy Game

Episodes: 12
Duration: 24 min per ep
Aired: Jul 8, 2022 to Sep 23, 2022
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Middle school kendo standout Ayumu Tanaka starts high school by choosing an unexpected club: the unofficial Shogi Club. His reason is simple—he’s smitten with Urushi Yaotome, the club president and its lone member, and joining is the best way to stay by her side. Ayumu sets one condition for himself, though: he won’t confess his feelings until he can defeat Urushi in a fair match.

That promise proves difficult to keep. Urushi’s experience lets her read his plans with ease, even as Ayumu—stoic-faced and disarmingly straightforward—can’t help but compliment her appearance, her talent, and even her smile. With each game, he learns more about shogi and the girl across the board, edging closer to the moment he’s been waiting for, one careful move at a time.

Otaku Consensus

Otaku Consensus: When Will Ayumu Make His Move? earns its 7/10 reputation as a tidy, low-friction rom-com: SILVER LINK's restrained direction, steady pacing, and deadpan-versus-flustered comic timing preserve Soichiro Yamamoto's teasing-room dynamic without overcomplicating it. The common complaint is equally consistent: it is charming but safe, with thin character evolution and shogi used more as a status-quo device than as a source of strategic or emotional drama.

Why You Should Watch

If you want a romance that stays in the blush zone without harem detours, melodrama, or confession-whiplash, this is calibrated for you. It scratches the same itch as Teasing Master Takagi-san in its two-person rhythm, but swaps prank warfare for board-game patience and a deadpan boy who says the embarrassing part out loud. Viewers coming from Kaguya-sama should expect the opposite temperature: no operatic mind games, just small social checkmates, clubroom pauses, and jokes built on one character refusing to be as smooth as he sounds. The 12-episode length also helps; it is a compact Summer 2022 comfort watch for fans who like romantic progress measured in glances, botched composure, and tiny victories rather than plot explosions.

Key Characters

A
Ayumu Tanaka(VA: Youhei Azakami)
Ayumu's appeal is his weaponized straight face: he turns ordinary compliments into comedy because he delivers them with the seriousness of a match-winning move.
U
Urushi Yaotome(VA: Kanna Nakamura)
Urushi is the series' main reaction engine, a capable player whose composure collapses in ways that give the romance its teasing, Takagi-adjacent rhythm.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
SILVER LINK produced the 12-episode TV anime as a modest, clean school rom-com rather than a flashy visual showcase; user reviews consistently rated the animation as solid and genre-appropriate rather than exceptional.
2
The shogi-board setup functions as scene grammar more than sports-anime spectacle. Critics repeatedly noted that the show does not mine shogi for deep strategic drama, which makes its priorities clear: timing, reactions, and romantic delay.
3
Its structure is built around the Love Status Quo theme, turning progress into a repeated comic ritual instead of a rapid relationship arc. That gives the series a deliberately small scale, closer to teasing-comedy cadence than high-stakes romantic escalation.
4
Reception has settled into a very specific middle lane: recommended by multiple user reviewers at 7/10 and 8/10, but described by critics as familiar, inoffensive, and only lightly ambitious.
5
The anime's public profile reflects niche affection rather than breakout dominance: on MyAnimeList it holds a 7/10 score from 60,080 votes, with a popularity rank of #1508 and overall rank of #4884.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: The TV anime aired as a Summer 2022 series, running 12 episodes from July 8 to September 23, 2022.
Fun fact 2: The manga source comes from Soichiro Yamamoto, the creator strongly associated with Teasing Master Takagi-san, which helps explain why reviewers and fans often frame Ayumu around teasing-comedy rhythms rather than conventional rom-com plotting.
Fun fact 3: The UK Complete Collection release came via MVM using Sentai Filmworks materials, with Japanese audio and English subtitles but no English dub.
Fun fact 4: The Blu-ray extras were minimal: clean opening animation, clean closing animation, and disc credits, matching reviewers' description of the release as a straightforward episodes-on-disc package.
Fun fact 5: One recommended user review scored the animation, characters, and comedy all at 7/10, a neat snapshot of the wider consensus that the show is pleasant and consistent rather than a genre standout.