Jul 11, 2025
Author's Commentary #494:
Time to talk about Chapter 494: Vanity queen.
And now, we're at the final round of the tournament. The men are taking on Hungary while the women get America. This means Mimoko can properly face off against Kuon. Now lets do the bios for the new characters.
ラウル・カサブランカ (Raúl Casablanca) is how Raúl's name would be spelled in katakana.
His birthday is November 19th, which he shares with Cuban chess master and 3rd World Chess Champion, José Raúl Capablanca.
His favorite piece is the bishop.
While this match is important to the series, I will confirm outright it will be offscreened. My apologies if this disappoints you. I will confirm though that Casablanca is a DSPCM.
モーティ・シャーカ (Morty Szarka) is how Morty's name would be spelled in katakana.
His birthday is March 29th. I chose the date at random, so there's no greater significance behind why this date is his birthday.
His favorite piece is the pawn.
ナンドール・ニーストール (Nándor Nyisztor) is how Nándor's name would be spelled in katakana.
His birthday is March 27th, which is the day What We Do in the Shadows first began airing.
His favorite piece is the king.
Nándor is easily one of the surprise favorites of the bunch. He's a crazy chuuni with wizard powers, and that alone makes him fun to write. I'll have more to say on him in future commentaries.
ペタル・ラントス (Petar Lantos) is how Petar's name would be spelled int katakana.
His birthday is September 8th, which he shares with Hungarian grandmaster and chess commentator, Peter Leko.
His favorite piece is the bishop.
アコス・オルシャーグ (Ákos Országh) is how Ákos' name would be spelled in katakana.
His birthday is August 29th, which he shares with Hungarian grandmaster, Zoltán Almási.
His favorite piece is the king.
Originally, I had no idea who the men's final round opponent would be as the Ginji fight looked to be the big finale to their saga. Russia was originally considered to be it, but after Rasputin's introduction, I slotted them to round 8. Hungary made a bit of sense for me because they are the host nation. In the IRL chess Olympiads, the host nation will always play at table 2 regardless of how well they're doing.
America was obviously planned from the start to be the final opponent for the women as with the final round of the tournament comes the permissible use of DESPERs. Since Nyoan has been set free, Kuon can now use her to drag Mimoko into a DESPER match.
Speaking of which, I'll just come out and confirm that the Mimoko-Kuon game will be an extension of the Daria-Xiao Lin game from round 6. I'll explain more on why when we reach that point in the series.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
