Sep 27, 2026
Author's Commentary #1:
It's time to discuss the first chapter of Volume 8, Chapter 1: Baltic Balkan brawl.
It's Estonia vs Serbia in this epic clash, meaning Õnne-chan is back. It's been a while since we last saw her, but before I start talking too much about her, let's do the bios for all the new characters.
スラジャナ・マジャール (Slađana Madžar) is how Slađana's name would be spelled in katakana. Слађана Маџар (Slađana Madžar) is how it would be spelled in Serbian (Cyrillic).
Her birthday is March 18th, which she shares with Serbian women's grandmaster, Svetlana Prudnikova.
Her favorite piece is the pawn because she likes round things.
Slađana's main selling point is her design. That's pretty much it. Though I do have an idea what to do with her character.
ニコリーナ・コジッチ (Nikolina Kozić) is how Nikolina's name would be spelled in katakana. Николина Козић (Nikolina Kozić) is how it would be spelled in Serbian (Cyrillic).
Her birthday is February 15th, which is Statehood Day in Serbia.
Her favorite piece is the queen, since she sees herself as Serbia's warrior queen.
Originally, Nikolina started out as nothing more than a character based off of Nino Nakano from the Quintessential Quintuplets. She didn't really have any defining traits, until I decided to add the Bosnians to the story, which in turn, led to me further fleshing out all the Balkan nations. As a result, Nikolina is now one of the darker characters in the series. This largely stems from the fact that she was orphaned as an infant during the Yugoslav wars, which led to her gaining an unbridled hatred for Albanians, as it was Albanian forces that killed her family and nearly her as well.
ヨバナ・ヤニッチ (Jovana Janić) is how Jovana's name would be spelled in katakana. Јована Јанић (Jovana Janić) is how it would be spelled in Serbian (Cyrillic).
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
Her birthday is December 6th, which she shares with American poker player and Chess master, Fan Harrington.
Her favorite piece is the king, since she believes it's the most valued piece.
Jovana is a poker player who also decided to dabble in chess. There are actually quite a few professional chess players that play poker as well, so it made sense to include such a character here. And since Jovana was a blank slate, it made sense to give her that backstory and personality.
Now getting back to the main topic, since it had been a while since Õnne had last shown up, I felt it was time to check back in with her. I also wanted to showcase her in a game taking place in the main tournament, which is why I went with this.
And speaking of the game, it features a Villemson Gambit, which can be considered a delayed Bongcloud if the main line is followed. As shown in the game, it has some tricks and traps, which combined with Õnne's prowess, made taking down Slađana look easy.
Of course, the match is far from over, as now it's time to see how some of the other players play. One final thing I'll mention is that originally I was just going to feature a game with Õnne, but decided to do a full match. Listening to the Estonian folk song, Kui mina ükskord noores eas, võtsin vana naise is the main reason why, as it not only gave me the inspiration on what to do with the Estonian team, but I even went and gave Estonia a men's team when I originally had no such plans to. Just goes to show music truly is the greatest source of inspiration for me.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
