Apr 25, 2026
Author's Commentary #14:
Time to talk about Chapter 14: Collette and Mizuse.
Before the match concluded, I felt it was best to throw in Collette's backstory. I imagine it might ruffle some feathers, but I feel it's necessary both for her character and Mizuse's.
Like with the Tenju-Daria match in Volume 5, I feel this is a rare case where me deciding to revise what happened in the original, Mizuse's death in this case, resulted in a negative impact to the story. There, Collette had justifiable rage as it was Mimoko who played the brainwashed Mizuse and beat her, while Daria was the one who allowed it to happen thanks to getting ensnared by Michiko. Here, I had to make Collette just plain jealous of Mimoko as Mizuse is alive and well here. I feel that does negatively affect her character significantly as now she feels more like a clingy jerk.
On the other hand, Iori's line now has far more impact thanks to all the games now ending with mate on the board. Remember, Iori is no hero.
And now that Round 1 has concluded, time to talk about it as a whole. It was challenging to write considering I had to consistently flip between two or even three different tabs with chess games on them and play them all out, in the proper order. However, the Japan vs France match on the women's side was lots of fun to write, and this is just the beginning. Round 2 won't start immediately, but there will be more build-up to the potential opponents.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
