Tonari no Seki-kun - Vol. 1 Ch. 8 - 8th Period
- Thread starter MangaDex
- Start date
I've recently formed the resolve to analyze every depiction of chess in a manga on this site, wherever I find it in terms of accuracy. So here we are.
Now, this is clearly a nonsense manga, so it's not at all strange for the chess to be nonsense chess. I'm not going to hold this chapter to high standards as a result.
Plus column:
- The board has the correct dimensions - 8x8.
- It's set up correctly, with the white square in the bottom right.
- The first narration box in the first panel correctly describes the general rules of chess with reasonable accuracy.
- Seki must have raided a ton of chess sets to make his tower. This does not elude Yoyoi, who asks herself in exasperation where on Earth he actually got all the pieces from.
- The position is legal - it could have arisen as a sequence of legal moves.
Minus column:
- What color is the pawn on d4? It looks like none of the other pieces on the board - is it a white piece that's hit by a different source of light, or a black piece and an assistant goofed up?
- The one chess position shown in the first panel is legal, but nonsensical. White must have spent several moves swapping the position of the light-squared bishop and the queen. Black's pieces are partially obscured. What we can see is mostly correct except the queen and the king have inexplicably swapped places. Perhaps the most baffling is the position of White's dark-squared bishop. How did it get from c1 to f2? Did the king move to make room and go back on e1? Can't be. Did it go the long way through Black's side of the board? Surely it would have been captured. So my best guess is that was developed to the kingside before White moved a pawn to e3.
- The huge chess piece runs into some continuity errors. On page 2, it seems to consist of layers of rooks - pawns - bishops - queens - kings, but it's not completed at that point. On page 4, however, it now has two layers of rooks at the bottom, followed by pawns - but the bishops are gone. It's now rooks - rooks - pawns - queens - kings - more kings. One page later, after he's used the huge piece to stomp some poor white pieces into plastic debris, it seems to have shrunk. As best as I can tell, the pawn layer disappeared, or only consists of the pawns' heads - it's fully gone one page later, only to reappear on the second to last page.
- I count at least twenty kings at the top of the tower on page four. But in fact it must be even more kings than that, since the second layer from the top should be more kings, as per the top panel of the second page. Seki-kun must have bought at least thirty sets of chess pieces, plus the one that's actually on the board. 31 x 32 is just short of one thousand chess pieces. All in his school bag? Let's assume he left most of his White pieces at home, I suppose. (You can buy chess sets in bulk and without the board, and he's clearly using the cheapest plastic there is, but still - this is just one day's entertainment. Guy must be loaded.)
- Predecessors to chess have existed in India since roughly ancient times, but the claim that the game was "beloved by countries all over the world" since ancient times is spurious at best.
Further analysis:
- White must be winning in that initial position - Black likely sacrificed a knight on f2, but doesn't appear to have an attack that would justify such a rash action. White's king is loose, but reasonably well defended. No wonder Black decided to opt for a much cruder approach in the War.
Final verdict:
Considering this is clearly supposed to be nonsense chess, there are no particularly glaring issues. Just showing a legal chess position may be more effort than you could have reasonably expected from Seki-kun. Still, it was clearly a nightmare to keep the continuity of the chess monolith straight throughout the chapter, and the author stumbled. I'm giving 3.75/5.
Now, this is clearly a nonsense manga, so it's not at all strange for the chess to be nonsense chess. I'm not going to hold this chapter to high standards as a result.
Plus column:
- The board has the correct dimensions - 8x8.
- It's set up correctly, with the white square in the bottom right.
- The first narration box in the first panel correctly describes the general rules of chess with reasonable accuracy.
- Seki must have raided a ton of chess sets to make his tower. This does not elude Yoyoi, who asks herself in exasperation where on Earth he actually got all the pieces from.
- The position is legal - it could have arisen as a sequence of legal moves.
Minus column:
- What color is the pawn on d4? It looks like none of the other pieces on the board - is it a white piece that's hit by a different source of light, or a black piece and an assistant goofed up?
- The one chess position shown in the first panel is legal, but nonsensical. White must have spent several moves swapping the position of the light-squared bishop and the queen. Black's pieces are partially obscured. What we can see is mostly correct except the queen and the king have inexplicably swapped places. Perhaps the most baffling is the position of White's dark-squared bishop. How did it get from c1 to f2? Did the king move to make room and go back on e1? Can't be. Did it go the long way through Black's side of the board? Surely it would have been captured. So my best guess is that was developed to the kingside before White moved a pawn to e3.
- The huge chess piece runs into some continuity errors. On page 2, it seems to consist of layers of rooks - pawns - bishops - queens - kings, but it's not completed at that point. On page 4, however, it now has two layers of rooks at the bottom, followed by pawns - but the bishops are gone. It's now rooks - rooks - pawns - queens - kings - more kings. One page later, after he's used the huge piece to stomp some poor white pieces into plastic debris, it seems to have shrunk. As best as I can tell, the pawn layer disappeared, or only consists of the pawns' heads - it's fully gone one page later, only to reappear on the second to last page.
- I count at least twenty kings at the top of the tower on page four. But in fact it must be even more kings than that, since the second layer from the top should be more kings, as per the top panel of the second page. Seki-kun must have bought at least thirty sets of chess pieces, plus the one that's actually on the board. 31 x 32 is just short of one thousand chess pieces. All in his school bag? Let's assume he left most of his White pieces at home, I suppose. (You can buy chess sets in bulk and without the board, and he's clearly using the cheapest plastic there is, but still - this is just one day's entertainment. Guy must be loaded.)
- Predecessors to chess have existed in India since roughly ancient times, but the claim that the game was "beloved by countries all over the world" since ancient times is spurious at best.
Further analysis:
- White must be winning in that initial position - Black likely sacrificed a knight on f2, but doesn't appear to have an attack that would justify such a rash action. White's king is loose, but reasonably well defended. No wonder Black decided to opt for a much cruder approach in the War.
Final verdict:
Considering this is clearly supposed to be nonsense chess, there are no particularly glaring issues. Just showing a legal chess position may be more effort than you could have reasonably expected from Seki-kun. Still, it was clearly a nightmare to keep the continuity of the chess monolith straight throughout the chapter, and the author stumbled. I'm giving 3.75/5.
