Dec 24, 2025
Author's Commentary #663:
Time to talk about Chapter 663: Christmas Eve for the En Passant Grandmaster cast.
And now we're paralleling the real-life calendar by lining up Christmas Eve 2024 in-universe with the Christmas Eve 2025 release date of the chapter. This one's mostly a fun and cozy chapter, featuring characters from my other series like Madoka, Emeri, and Leona. And speaking of which, I'm not sure if I've done Emeri's bio here, so I'll do it just in case.
倉守 英芽里 (Kuramori Emeri) is how her name is spelled in kanji. 英芽里 means "excellence", "sprout", and "village" , but can also mean "beautiful" which Emeri certainly is. 倉守 means "warehouse" and "protect". Originally, Emeri was going to be a hikkikomori living in a heavily fortified house, but I decided to make her Madoka's cousin and have her live in the Ginkawa mansion instead. She used to be incredibly shy, still is to some degree, which led to her wearing a helmet in public before her face was publicly revealed. Her stage alias is Rolly Polly and is spelled, ローリー・ポリー in katakana. The Rolly Polly name is actually in reference to pill bugs which roll up into a ball.
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
Her birthday is July 25th. There was no significance behind it, I just chose it at random. Though since Emeri is older than Madoka, she tends to act as an older sister to her, and is often the voice of reason in the Ginkawa household.
Her favorite piece is the queen.
Now all that's left for the Troitsky plotline is to hear Okisato's findings on the matter. I'll have a lot to say on that one.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
