Mitsuishi-san is Being Weird This Year - Ch. 22 - Barking and Meowing All Night With That Girl From Another Class
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Seems like mother in law is getting ready to have grandkids 
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Man, if I had a classmate like her, show up dressed like that... I would have been an honor student within a week just to keep it up! Or just get a 0 on every exam from then on, whatever works
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Seems like she thinks her son's already executing the plan. I'm not sure whether the truth will make her relieved or what.Seems like mother in law is getting ready to have grandkids
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This author is creative with their jokes. I've never seen this much build up before a joke and they actually make me chuckle.
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Some lowkey bondage and humiliation play this chapter
Kids these days...
Kids these days...
It's Silfir's Chess Accuracy corner!
Undeniably, this manga scores extremely high in multiple categories for middle school romcom manga, including the two most important - Horniness (top marks!), and Chess Verisimilitude!
We begin with Hajime holding some manner of possibly wooden box with hinges and a square grid pattern. Note that the pattern is entirely decorative. For one, it does not have alternating darker and lighter squares. For a very brief moment, I suspected we were going to see some shogi, but obviously that's impossible, since the box clearly folds out to eight rows of squares in at least one dimension, going by the picture, but shogi is played on a 9x9 board. And on the very next page, we see the board from a different angle, and it turns out that it's only four squares in the other dimension. Folded out, it will form an 8x4 grid. What a disappointment. Except, you absolutely can play chess like that! I'm going to assume, however, that the box Hajime is holding is just a box for holding pieces in. They play on an actual 8x8 chessboard, after all. Except - that one is also foldable. It probably also held pieces - I don't think they'd fit in the small box Hajime is also holding!
(Just realized - the squares are rectangular, but not actually square. I really don't think it's for playing on. But then, who manufactures actual 4x8 foldable chess sets? The box may have been designed for something else, and could just be repurposed for holding chess pieces.)
Which, to my delight, is played on an actual chessboard. 8x8 squares! The bottom right square from each player's view is a light square! Both kings are still around, the position is legal, and what's most stunning - the story says one player is losing, and one player is actually losing. Displaying commendable confidence, the mangaka even showed the board a second time with a different position, and gets that one right too! The only change is that two pawns have moved one square each - the white pawns on b3 and c3 end up on b4 and c4. They move away from Mitsuishi - which is exactly what they would do if Mitsuishi is playing White. And White is the player who is losing! Bravo!
(Note: foldable chessboards made out of wood almost always fold into a box that can hold the pieces for the game, forming one easily stowable chess set. If not for this piece of convenience, it would be sacrilege to saw a perfectly lovely massive wooden board in half.)
So, is there even anything that's wrong?
What about the fact that Black doesn't seem to have made any moves while White moved twice inbetween the two positions? Well, Black has rooks and Kings that can move back and forth. Why? Because chess is 90% psychology. He wants to be winning and for Mitsuishi to resign. Why would he deprive himself of the sight of her squirming to deliver a paltry checkmate? The goal is to be in the position of one who is winning, rather than to actually win. Get me?
What about the fact that he owns a Switch, but only has chess on it? That would be at least very strange - if he wasn't clearly lying. He wants to play chess. Chances are he knew there was a chance Mitsuishi wouldn't stand a chance and he'd get to watch her squirm. And also impress her with his intellectual prowess. All according to keikaku.
(Note: being good at chess doesn't mean you're smart. It just means you're good at chess. There are tons of skilled chess grandmasters who are tremendous jackasses away from the board. I won't name names, but at least one of the names I won't name rhymes with Franz Riemann.)
Just one more question. Why did Mitsuishi resign in the exact spot she did? She still has a passed pawn on b5. If it were to promote, a queen has at least an outside chance of fighting back against the rooks. My guess is that the preceding move was ...Re7+, forcing the white king to the back rank, cutting it off from being able to advance the pawn to b6. With that in mind, advancing the b and c pawns behind it is in fact the only thing that still makes sense to try, and we see that's what she does! Except, in the position she resigns in (she asks for another game in the next panel), she still has bxc5, forming a set of connected passed pawns, which could in fact save the game! Black still wins with ...Rf8 - any White move is followed by the discovered checkmate ...Kf7# - but that's not entirely obvious to find, and it's the last opportunity to do so - another mindless shuffle, and White can play c6 and c7, with the pawn heroically shielding against the ladder mate. It was at least worth a shot! Why make the moves c4 and b4, attacking c5, and when Hajime just shuffles rooks back and forth, resign instead of taking on c5? It's inconsistent, at the very least.
One thing I left to the last, because it's clearly way too pedantic even for this feature, is counting the pieces scattered all across the room, moments before the hilarious misunderstanding, and here is where it all comes crashing down: there are 17 White pieces. Go ahead and count them yourself. There are nine white pawns. If not, one of the bishops had its head cut off, and there are three bishops. There is no way to count to 17 with one set of chess pieces. "Ah, but the large board they play on is shown to be foldable, and clearly distinct from the smaller box Hajime is holding earlier - if there are two boxes designed to hold chess pieces in, clearly there are at least two sets of chess pieces!" To which I say "Geez, get a life, chess weirdo", but also "The smaller box by logic should be holding smaller pieces, but all nine White pawns are the same size". Checkmate, that other guy. (Again - I don't think the smaller box holds a set of 32 full-size pieces. Admittedly, it might hold the 16 pieces needed for 4x8 chess!)
(Counted the black pieces too. There are fifteen. But since two of them are already visible on the floor, it doesn't make for much of a mystery. It's under or behind the table or something. Snore.)
...
Actually, scratch that, I think I've cracked the mystery. The panel with the scattered chess pieces is not hand-drawn. The number one giveaway are the rooks and kings - compare the massively exaggarated cross on the king's crown and the rooks' crenellations, respectively, in the earlier panels that show the game position, and the classic Staunton-esque design in that panel. It is very likely traced by a reference - in this case a photograph of a set of scattered chess pieces and a board. Probably by an assistant not knowledgeable about chess - who proceeded to get one of the pawn's colors wrong. Instant firing offense in my book. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
In all seriousness - we were very close to perfection here. Zero rule violations! And from a narrative standpoint, we get a very plausible scenario here. Hajime hates studying, but he can hang with Mitsuishi intellectually in general, and his particular set of skills include the less monetizable, but far sexier art of playing chess. Absolutely he would want to beat Mitsuishi at chess to establish dominance, and absolutely he would get ahead by two rooks and then just play with his food until the food gives in. Were it not for one little continuity error and Mitsuishi resigning instead of forming connected passers, the perfect 5 would have been in reach. But the manga already ranks 5 out of 5 in horniness and that is good enough for me!
Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
(I solemnly swear that if a later chapter shows the 4x8 chess variant being played with the other foldable box, I will retire as a chess accuracy in manga columnist and revise this rating to Infinity out of 5.)
(Actually, I retract the earlier statement, since it would be 4x8 chess played on a non-square rectangular grid. Ew! I'll just uptick to 4.75/5 if I'm feeling generous.)
Undeniably, this manga scores extremely high in multiple categories for middle school romcom manga, including the two most important - Horniness (top marks!), and Chess Verisimilitude!
We begin with Hajime holding some manner of possibly wooden box with hinges and a square grid pattern. Note that the pattern is entirely decorative. For one, it does not have alternating darker and lighter squares. For a very brief moment, I suspected we were going to see some shogi, but obviously that's impossible, since the box clearly folds out to eight rows of squares in at least one dimension, going by the picture, but shogi is played on a 9x9 board. And on the very next page, we see the board from a different angle, and it turns out that it's only four squares in the other dimension. Folded out, it will form an 8x4 grid. What a disappointment. Except, you absolutely can play chess like that! I'm going to assume, however, that the box Hajime is holding is just a box for holding pieces in. They play on an actual 8x8 chessboard, after all. Except - that one is also foldable. It probably also held pieces - I don't think they'd fit in the small box Hajime is also holding!
(Just realized - the squares are rectangular, but not actually square. I really don't think it's for playing on. But then, who manufactures actual 4x8 foldable chess sets? The box may have been designed for something else, and could just be repurposed for holding chess pieces.)
Which, to my delight, is played on an actual chessboard. 8x8 squares! The bottom right square from each player's view is a light square! Both kings are still around, the position is legal, and what's most stunning - the story says one player is losing, and one player is actually losing. Displaying commendable confidence, the mangaka even showed the board a second time with a different position, and gets that one right too! The only change is that two pawns have moved one square each - the white pawns on b3 and c3 end up on b4 and c4. They move away from Mitsuishi - which is exactly what they would do if Mitsuishi is playing White. And White is the player who is losing! Bravo!
(Note: foldable chessboards made out of wood almost always fold into a box that can hold the pieces for the game, forming one easily stowable chess set. If not for this piece of convenience, it would be sacrilege to saw a perfectly lovely massive wooden board in half.)
So, is there even anything that's wrong?
What about the fact that Black doesn't seem to have made any moves while White moved twice inbetween the two positions? Well, Black has rooks and Kings that can move back and forth. Why? Because chess is 90% psychology. He wants to be winning and for Mitsuishi to resign. Why would he deprive himself of the sight of her squirming to deliver a paltry checkmate? The goal is to be in the position of one who is winning, rather than to actually win. Get me?
What about the fact that he owns a Switch, but only has chess on it? That would be at least very strange - if he wasn't clearly lying. He wants to play chess. Chances are he knew there was a chance Mitsuishi wouldn't stand a chance and he'd get to watch her squirm. And also impress her with his intellectual prowess. All according to keikaku.
(Note: being good at chess doesn't mean you're smart. It just means you're good at chess. There are tons of skilled chess grandmasters who are tremendous jackasses away from the board. I won't name names, but at least one of the names I won't name rhymes with Franz Riemann.)
Just one more question. Why did Mitsuishi resign in the exact spot she did? She still has a passed pawn on b5. If it were to promote, a queen has at least an outside chance of fighting back against the rooks. My guess is that the preceding move was ...Re7+, forcing the white king to the back rank, cutting it off from being able to advance the pawn to b6. With that in mind, advancing the b and c pawns behind it is in fact the only thing that still makes sense to try, and we see that's what she does! Except, in the position she resigns in (she asks for another game in the next panel), she still has bxc5, forming a set of connected passed pawns, which could in fact save the game! Black still wins with ...Rf8 - any White move is followed by the discovered checkmate ...Kf7# - but that's not entirely obvious to find, and it's the last opportunity to do so - another mindless shuffle, and White can play c6 and c7, with the pawn heroically shielding against the ladder mate. It was at least worth a shot! Why make the moves c4 and b4, attacking c5, and when Hajime just shuffles rooks back and forth, resign instead of taking on c5? It's inconsistent, at the very least.
One thing I left to the last, because it's clearly way too pedantic even for this feature, is counting the pieces scattered all across the room, moments before the hilarious misunderstanding, and here is where it all comes crashing down: there are 17 White pieces. Go ahead and count them yourself. There are nine white pawns. If not, one of the bishops had its head cut off, and there are three bishops. There is no way to count to 17 with one set of chess pieces. "Ah, but the large board they play on is shown to be foldable, and clearly distinct from the smaller box Hajime is holding earlier - if there are two boxes designed to hold chess pieces in, clearly there are at least two sets of chess pieces!" To which I say "Geez, get a life, chess weirdo", but also "The smaller box by logic should be holding smaller pieces, but all nine White pawns are the same size". Checkmate, that other guy. (Again - I don't think the smaller box holds a set of 32 full-size pieces. Admittedly, it might hold the 16 pieces needed for 4x8 chess!)
(Counted the black pieces too. There are fifteen. But since two of them are already visible on the floor, it doesn't make for much of a mystery. It's under or behind the table or something. Snore.)
...
Actually, scratch that, I think I've cracked the mystery. The panel with the scattered chess pieces is not hand-drawn. The number one giveaway are the rooks and kings - compare the massively exaggarated cross on the king's crown and the rooks' crenellations, respectively, in the earlier panels that show the game position, and the classic Staunton-esque design in that panel. It is very likely traced by a reference - in this case a photograph of a set of scattered chess pieces and a board. Probably by an assistant not knowledgeable about chess - who proceeded to get one of the pawn's colors wrong. Instant firing offense in my book. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
In all seriousness - we were very close to perfection here. Zero rule violations! And from a narrative standpoint, we get a very plausible scenario here. Hajime hates studying, but he can hang with Mitsuishi intellectually in general, and his particular set of skills include the less monetizable, but far sexier art of playing chess. Absolutely he would want to beat Mitsuishi at chess to establish dominance, and absolutely he would get ahead by two rooks and then just play with his food until the food gives in. Were it not for one little continuity error and Mitsuishi resigning instead of forming connected passers, the perfect 5 would have been in reach. But the manga already ranks 5 out of 5 in horniness and that is good enough for me!
Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
(I solemnly swear that if a later chapter shows the 4x8 chess variant being played with the other foldable box, I will retire as a chess accuracy in manga columnist and revise this rating to Infinity out of 5.)
(Actually, I retract the earlier statement, since it would be 4x8 chess played on a non-square rectangular grid. Ew! I'll just uptick to 4.75/5 if I'm feeling generous.)
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