Oct 09, 2026
Author's Commentary #10:
Time to talk about Chapter 10: Red n' black, eagle front n' back.
With a title like that, you can tell some Albanians are going debut, and that's exactly what happens. And with the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour kicking off around the time I was writing this mini-arc, Chess 960 was naturally on the mind, which is why there was a game of it in this chapter. Now let's do some bios.
フィヨヤ・ジョナジ (Fjolla Gjonaj) is how Fjolla's name would be spelled in katakana.
Her birthday is April 20th, because she likes to smoke.
Her favorite piece is the queen.
Fjolla is Albania's current president, Venera's biological mother, and a Desperado. As such, she's naturally heard of Okisato.
ヘンリック・シャール (Henrik Schal) is how Henrik's name would be spelled in katakana. His surname is German for "scarf", which is fitting since he's always wearing scarfs.
(If I made any mistakes with the translation, feel free to correct me).
His birthday is September 10th, which he shares with German entrepreneur, Jan Henric Buettner.
His favorite piece is the king, since he believes the king of chess, Magnus Carlsen, is the key to making Chess 960 more popular.
Henrik is an obvious parody of Jan Henric Buettner, the German entrepreneur financing the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. In real life, there's lots of tension between Freestyle chess and FIDE, but in the story, that drama is nonexistent, as the WWCF has no problem with Chess 960 tournaments being held. In fact, the WWCF is more than happy to help organize tournaments with people at no additional charge.
Getting back to Henrik, he's the DSPCM of Wangles, and is one of the few German DSPCMs not under Red Reaper's thumb. For those that don't know, Wangles is where the Gut Weißenhaus resort is located. This resort is owned by Buettner and served as the site of the first leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. Naturally, a parody of this resort exists within the world of the story, and is where Henrik's secret puzzle cafe is located.
As for the game, I decided to have the match be a chess 960 one for the aforementioned reasons, but decided to still have Okisato play a Hammerschlag-esque opening. One final thing to note about the game is that the official name for the initial piece setup is Setup 445. This is mentioned in the chapter, but I thought I'd clarify it here as well.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
