Chess in Manga (I’m in Love with the Villainess)

“What’s this game you speak of? Chess? I heard you’re good.”

Thane Bauer

I absolutely love I’m in Love with the Villainess. It’s one of the light novels I’m current reading along with Adachi to Shimamura. I plan to explore these stories in more depth one day, but I’m currently busy analyzing the No Game No Life‘s light novels. But since I’ve got these plans in mind, I like to take little notes while reading. I wonder- how do you feel about taking notes while consuming media? I do it all the time! It’s useful for remembering the important ideas and lessons the creators want to share. While I initially took notes for academic material, it’s become a wonderful habit for general media- or at least those that I’m interested in remembering. It’s especially useful for interpretation. I’ve got nearly 20 pages of quotes and notes for 100 pages of No Game No Life Volume 6. Lots of metaphorical representations of dualism whether it be light vs dark, human vs machine, cloudy vs clear, or games vs life. Linguistic elements and narrative spaces- oh how I love analysis. It shaves my life away until the middle of the night- oh, I forgot to eat breakfast! More on that in the future! However, notetaking requires quite a long time- I’ll admit that (sometimes triple the time it takes to normally read/watch). But I’ll convince you why it’s valuable with this little detail I noticed: wtf are the characters talking about?

As a chess player, I like to see what’s going on when media represents the game. It’s quite exciting to observe the different ideas represented through the board- it’s a form of storytelling too! A cool example is When Will Ayumu Make His Move?– and while it focuses on shogi (instead of chess), the author actually pays attention to how the board is orientated. Sometimes they’ll draw the board a bit too small and decide to depict an irrelevant position, but there are many moments when the board actually matters. Little opening schemes such as “Invincible Castle” are shown on the board along with the characters’ reactions to them. This allows merit to common depictions of “skill”, where characters are described to be playing the game with aggression, certain tactics, positionally, etc.

To be fair, When Will Ayumu Make His Move? is a manga centered around shogi. It’s expected to be detailed in its approach, and I’m in Love with the Villainess focuses on the tactics of reality rather than the board. Most media tend to use chess as an idea- it doesn’t matter if it’s not reflected on the board, what matters is how it’s reflected on the characters. But… when I read this:

“Rae is deliberately baiting you into attacking her and then guiding your pieces to places that are convenient for her. If you want to beat her, you’ll have to change your strategy.”

Yu Bauer

When I read that… I just had see what they meant on the board. And lucky me- they actually drew it in the manga adaptation!

This is the first of 2 positions we’re provided in the manga. Here we see Claire (black) play 4…Bg4. This pins the knight to the queen- a very standard move in these sorts of opening positions. But the first oddity we see is Claire saying “check”. Dafuck u mean? None of your pieces are looking at the king. It’s literally still move 4!

And then Rae (white) plays the most natural response: 5. h3 – this forces the bishop to either take the knight or retreat.

And then… not sure why but- Claire reacted like this???

I mean… it’s just h3. When you pin the knight like that, you’re almost guaranteed to provoke a flank pawn push. Claire should know these sorts of responses- they’re almost always present in 90% of chess games you’ll play. It’s a natural move for opening principles: first open up the position with a push of a center pawn, and then bring out your knights or bishops. Knights almost always come out first as they’re the most versatile- and how do you make them less flexible? Well, you pin them to the queen.

Okay- I’m not going to explain all this through text, so you’re going to have to trust me if you’re not familiar with this stuff. But this isn’t the only problem:

Did you read what this dude said? He came out of nowhere and had the balls to interpret the position and suggest an illegal move. Let me explain:

It’s black to move after white goes h3. But… this dude Yu suggests Qf4? The queen? Okay here ya go:

I can’t even put an arrow directly to f4… the dude said “one move”. Bruh. Even if the queen could miraculously arrive on f4 in one move, it’s just ridiculous: the bishop is still hanging, d4 is a threat as it’s a discovered attack on the queen, white’s far more developed, and you’re absolutely fucked!

Anyways, I don’t expect manga artists to accurately depict every single thing- it’s already a nightmare to deal with the physics of anatomy. But it’s still quite noticeable when you’re familiar with what they get wrong. The light novel has the luxury of not needing to depict the game- they can just say “Saitama is a very positional player” without presenting it on the board. It’s what No Game No Life did, although the anime actually used a real game for the first episode. You can check out my analysis of it in one of my first blog posts! And another note: this was an adaptation of a light novel. They’re using dialogue from the source material, so it’s understandable that they won’t know how to accurately depict it. Personally, they could have at least changed what the characters said, or just went through the trouble of making an accurate position that matches the dialogue. But this is a minor issue that… honestly- who cares? I would prefer an accurate representation for the chess nerds (me) out there, but it’s a preference. I still love the series! And… I’m hoping the anime adaptation tries a bit more… hoping…

What was the point of this post? Ehh, I just wanted to talk about a yuri manga/light novel I’m reading. I’ve tried writing about Bloom into You and Adachi to Shimamura, but they’re currently in draft form- waiting to be revisited. The topics I focused on were far too interesting for me to half-ass about (unlike this post LOL). Weird thing- the light novel for this particular series (I’m in Love with the Villainess) is so much more interesting to me than the manga. I’d honestly drop it if I read the manga first. I think it has a lot to do with the tone writers provide in their ABCs- narration. The characters genuinely seem quite interesting when provided a deeper perspective rather than an omniscient representation. I like to point to one of my favourite works The Garden Party for how it shows the possible limits of third person narratives. At the end of the story, the narrator essentially loses understanding of the protagonist- they don’t know what she’s thinking about. This reveals the potential bias in the narrator’s point of view.

I’ll further elaborate on that in the future, but I think text is generally further developed in the sense of narration. Manga tends to lack that depth. Subtext can be provided in the drawings- don’t get me wrong. But it’s not often as prevalent as artists may focus more on “aesthetic” rather than using techniques such as blocking. I think… idk.

Basically, text is quite fun to read! Don’t be discouraged from it, just give it a try! Why limit yourself to only reading manga? HMPH!!!