Mar 04, 2025
Author's Commentary #368:
Time to talk about Chapter 368: Atomic artiljerija.
Finally, a break from new character introductions, meaning I don't need to spend an hour writing the commentary. Diederich is back, and now has a new rival in the form of Miralem. I was originally going to have them play a proper game against each other, but due to burnout at the time and a desire to have Miralem play and win an atomic chess match, I decided against it. I feel it worked out well as it allowed for a greater focus on the character interactions.
Speaking of cut content, I was originally going to feature the game between Okisato and Alya, but decided to scrap it. The reason for that was due to the fact that Alya pretty much throws the game due to being depressed about Anastasia. Though originally, I was planning on having the match be a duck chess one, but when my 1000-elo brain tried to craft a game from scratch, burnout checkmated me and that was it for that. Don't worry though, I will properly showcase Alya's chess prowess on-screen, perhaps even as early as round 7 of the tournament.
As for the game, it was a typical atomic chess match, complete with Bosnian artiljerija. Yeah, it's obvious why I wanted to have Miralem play an atomic chess match. One other thing to note about Miralem is that he's one of the tallest characters in the series, standing at a whopping 205 cm tall. Diederich is 204 cm tall by comparison while Tvrtko and Red Reaper are 202 cm tall and 203 cm tall, respectively. And on the topic of height, all the Russian men stand above 200 cm tall, with Tsar Grigori being 203 cm tall and Rasputin being a staggering 223 cm tall, making him the tallest character in the series as Zanni is only 213 cm tall.
Shifting back to the main subject of the chapter, I'm sure many will theorize that this chapter will set-up a clash between Prussia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in round 7. To that, I'd say the chances of it happening are high. Not just that, but many of the clashes between teams that occur here will likely serve as setups for clashes in the main tournament. I hope you're looking forward to it.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
