May 07, 2025
Author's Commentary #293:
Time to talk about Chapter 293: The one who's paying for dinner.
With the 3rd round over, it's time for some downtime, meaning I'm going to introduce some more new characters. As such, this commentary will naturally focus on the bios for all these new characters, so without further ado, let's begin.
ジャスティン・ベバー (Justin Beaver) is how Justin's name would be spelled in katakana. His name is an obvious parody of Justin Bieber. Since Beaver in Japanese is literally ビーバー, which is the same as Bieber's last name, I changed the katakana from ビーバー to ベバー for Justin's official Japanese name. As for the mop bucket bit, it stems from the fact that over a decade ago, Justin Bieber infamously peed in a mop bucket. For some reason, that's always stuck with me so when I created a Justin Bieber parody character, this was the top trait I slapped on to him.
His birthday is March 1st, which he shares with Canadian pop icon, Justin Bieber.
His favorite piece is the knight because he said so.
グリズリー・スナッグラー (Grizzly Snuggler) is how Grizzly's name would be spelled in katakana. He's an obvious parody of Bear Hugger from Punch-Out!!. Grizzly actually appeared way back in Chapter 268, as he was the one standing atop the table with the maple syrup.
His birthday is October 24th, which is when Super Punch-Out!! first released.
His favorite piece is the pawn, mainly because they're the simplest piece on the board.
イネス・ペレヤ (Inez Pereya) is how Inez's name would be spelled in katakana.
Her birthday is May 25th which is World Football day, making the fact that she despises the sport all the more ironic.
Her favorite piece is the bishop.
マリナ・ドラクレシュティ (Mălina Drăculești) is how Mălina's name is spelled in katakana.
Her birthday is November 2nd, which she shares with Voivode of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler.
Her favorite piece is the queen.
アヤネ・ロドリゲス (Ayane Rodrigues) is how Ayane's name is spelled in katakana. Her name in kanji is 明夜音, and means "reveal", "night", and "sound".
マヤネ・ロドリゲス (Mayane Rodrigues) is how Mayane's name is spelled in katakana. Her name in kanji is 麻耶音, and means "hemp", "irony", and "noise".
イノリ・ロドリゲス (Inori Rodrigues) is how Inori's name is spelled in katakana. Like her daughters, she does have a kanji spelling of her name with it being, 祈理, which means "pray" and "reason".
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
Inori and the twins' birthday is May 5th, which they share with Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki from the Quintessential Quintuplets.
Ayane's favorite piece is the knight since it can hop over everything, while Mayane's favorite piece is the queen as it is the most powerful piece on the board. Inori's favorite piece is the queen as well.
The twins and their mother are yet another homage to the Quintessential Quintuplets. In fact, the twins actually are quintuplets, though not all their siblings are present in Budapest. There's also an intriguing behind-the-scenes story with these characters. In the original upload of art of the Brazilian team, Inori Rodrigues was a completely different character, but after deciding to have there be twins, the original Inori was given a new name and ported over to another team. Mayane was then dubbed Inori with the current Inori being dubbed, Shinobu. However, I ultimately decided to change Inori's name to Mayane, as I feel it works better in the grander scheme of things, meaning Shinobu was now the new Inori Rodrigues. It's crazy how that name has now been given to three different characters.
As such, it resulted in Inori now debuting here as I felt it would be best to have her debut alongside her daughters. This might cause some confusion for readers that aren't aware of this retcon, but if you're aware of it, just know that any mention of Inori in the story refers to the mother, while Mayane refers to Ayane's sister. And one final thing to note about Inori is that she is a DSPCM. Since she's not competing, it means she's helping out with the staff and working overtime to manage the secret puzzle cafes of the SPCMs and DSPCMs competing.
And with that, all the new characters have been introduced, but now things shift towards the match between Mălina and Mimoko. Unlike the previous 3 times, Okisato won't be having a midnight match so to say. I'll go more in depth on this though in my commentary for the next chapter.
That's all for his commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.