Fed-Kun's army
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I wanna headpat and hold hands with Lady Claire too
Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou - Vol. 2 Ch. 6 - The Princes' Games
- Thread starter MangaDex
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Thanks for picking this up my guy
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@Nyashi
Some feedback:
1. Pretty good for someone new. I'd suggest experimenting with fonts so your work looks more presentable. There's a typesetting guide you can read here: https://mangadex.org/title/43627/anonblack-s-typesetting-guide
2. Your translation is good, but it needs some work when it comes to phrasing certain lines. For example, in page 6, instead of "Such lack of respect towards His Highness-!" you could have written "How dare you disrespect His Highness!" instead. Try to imagine the characters saying what you wrote in your head check if it sounds natural.
3. While I'm not completely against sniping, I can't say that this was the best series to do this on. That's all.
Good luck on your endeavors.
Some feedback:
1. Pretty good for someone new. I'd suggest experimenting with fonts so your work looks more presentable. There's a typesetting guide you can read here: https://mangadex.org/title/43627/anonblack-s-typesetting-guide
2. Your translation is good, but it needs some work when it comes to phrasing certain lines. For example, in page 6, instead of "Such lack of respect towards His Highness-!" you could have written "How dare you disrespect His Highness!" instead. Try to imagine the characters saying what you wrote in your head check if it sounds natural.
3. While I'm not completely against sniping, I can't say that this was the best series to do this on. That's all.
Good luck on your endeavors.
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Thank you so much for picking this up and all the hard work in getting this to us. I absolutely love this chapter. Chess has always been my favorite game ever
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Lack of sleep can kill you eventually. Try and fit some more in.
"Such lack of respect towards His Highness-!" Perfect line if you're complaining about rei behind her back. Was the crowd or Rei being addressed? This line actually might be the better choice. But I'm to tired to at anybody let alone check the chapter.
"Such lack of respect towards His Highness-!" Perfect line if you're complaining about rei behind her back. Was the crowd or Rei being addressed? This line actually might be the better choice. But I'm to tired to at anybody let alone check the chapter.
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How the fuck do you checkmate when you're in check this make me so salty wtf was that
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Accidental duplicate haha.
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I enjoy Rei's character. She's quite intelligent without rubbing our faces in it or breaking the suspension of disbelief. I'm a little curious what on earth she's thinking here though.
Permit me to indulge in some speculation though. Realistically, an average modern day person would be much better at certain things than nobles from older eras (science and mathematics especially), but far worse at things that we don't prioritise. In our own world, before the modern era huge emphasis was placed on memorization and language learning. Any educated man could recite pages or even entire books from memory, and the vast majority of nobles knew four or five languages. Depending on when and where you lived, your mother tongue, French, Latin, German, and English were usually considered the bare minimum for the nobility. Elizabeth I spoke eleven languages, and many native speakers wrote that she spoke them well. Many protestant leaders and Catholic priests could recite the ENTIRE bible from memory, and old stories like Homer's epics were intended to be completely memorized even by uneducated peasants. The modern day has stripped most people of this ability, paper and computers are dirt cheap and there's no need for that kind of memorization any more. All the same, if someone actually was isekai'd into a medieval society, I think that would be the largest academic thing they would struggle with. Modern brains just aren't developed for that kind of work.
Permit me to indulge in some speculation though. Realistically, an average modern day person would be much better at certain things than nobles from older eras (science and mathematics especially), but far worse at things that we don't prioritise. In our own world, before the modern era huge emphasis was placed on memorization and language learning. Any educated man could recite pages or even entire books from memory, and the vast majority of nobles knew four or five languages. Depending on when and where you lived, your mother tongue, French, Latin, German, and English were usually considered the bare minimum for the nobility. Elizabeth I spoke eleven languages, and many native speakers wrote that she spoke them well. Many protestant leaders and Catholic priests could recite the ENTIRE bible from memory, and old stories like Homer's epics were intended to be completely memorized even by uneducated peasants. The modern day has stripped most people of this ability, paper and computers are dirt cheap and there's no need for that kind of memorization any more. All the same, if someone actually was isekai'd into a medieval society, I think that would be the largest academic thing they would struggle with. Modern brains just aren't developed for that kind of work.
It's Silfir's Chess Accuracy Corner! The Semi-Regular Column No One Asked For!
Sadly, today was not a particularly good day for all of us die hard fans of accurate depictions of chess in manga.
Let's start with the game between Rei and Prince Rodd. There are all manner of continuity issues between the shots we get of their game; for instance, between the first image we get and the second all pieces shown jump one square to the bottom left of the board (from Rodd's) perspective and the white pawn disappears. What is remarkable about the position seen at the bottom of page 5 is that it actually does feature a check that can be directly answered with a checkmate. Rei's queen delivering check is unprotected, and once Rodd takes it with his rook, that rook, the black queen and the black knight that is depicted standing next to a black bishop combine for checkmate. It seems like the author of the adaptation, Aono Shimo, tried specifically to construct a position to match the script.
To confirm this theory, I checked a translation of the webnovel chapter:
Far from being an instant checkmate, the novel seems to suggest that Rodd was simply announcing that he had a forced checkmate in a certain number of moves, though it follows up with an explanation of the position that doesn't suggest checkmate is in any way imminent - if Rodd is going to have to convert a pawn into a queen first, checkmate is many moves away, even if the position is hopeless. I don't exactly blame the author of the adaptation for misunderstanding this, because it's a thankless task to be asked to re-create a chess game visually that is very unlikely to have actually existed in a real sense, especially without any chess knowledge. (The effort that IM Silman went through to "reconstruct" the chess game at the end of Sorcerer's Stone for the movie is evidence that it's difficult even if you do know chess.) Page 5 looks very much like the result of someone frantically trying to construct a position in which a check by the queen is countered by an instant checkmate with the rook.
The position is complete gobbledygook by any reasonable standard - as a position that could be reached with one of the players being actually any good at the game. Both kings are so hopelessly exposed that checkmate should have happened a long time ago. Any talk between characters that suggests this game is evidence of any sort of skill is laughable; only two complete beginners could have ended up in this position.
The second game we are privy to is played between Rei and Claire. This one at first follows a path that is perfectly plausible, and can be reproduced as follows:
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 d6
4. Nc3 Bg4
But after that it looks like the artist simply gave up. Claire announces check, but Bg4 doesn't check anything. Some panels later, 5.h3 by Rei follows (perfectly reasonable move) and that's when so-called strategic genius Yuu Bauer pipes up and suggests Qf4. This is a syntactically correct chess move. It is, however a) illegal, b) not very good if it was legal, c) actually, the board is set up wrong and the kings and queens are swapped on both sides of the chess board anyway. In this case the web novel author deserves some credit:
This sequence is quite plausible and accurately describes how to interpret Qf4. It's very much plausible for Qf4 to be a move that decides a kingside attack, given the right position. It's fairly likely to be a "silent, but strong" type of move that creates a threat that can't be parried, or only by sacrificing so much material that the attacker will win eventually anyway. It appears the manga author simply punted on trying to construct that position and went for a basic position that may arise out of the Italian opening (if Black doesn't really know what they're doing).
In conclusion - points should be awarded for the physical aspect of the adaptation; aside from minor continuity errors and swapping the queen and king by accident, the board has the correct number of squares, aesthetically correct pieces and even is set up with the white square in the bottom right corner, as it should. As for the actual chess, I get the impression that a light novel author with some chess knowledge matched up with a mangaka without it, and while both clearly put in a reasonable amount of research, it doesn't add up to something convincing.
Bonus!!! Poker Accuracy Corner!
Both web novel author and the mangaka deserve some credit for creating a logical course of events that matches the cards each player received (though for some reason the mangaka opted for different cards), and their decisions to exchange cards. It's also pointed out by the author explicitly that there was no betting involved. Of course, that completely removes virtually any element of actual skill, running into the age-old trope of showing someone is great at poker by having them show off a four of a kind or (god forbid) a royal flush, which proves nothing about their actual abilities at their game - at best, like here, it proves they're great at cheating at cards. And there is little more pathetic than cheating at cards when there isn't even any money involved. What a tool, that Yuu Bauer. Though at least you can interpret this scene as Yuu testing the other players involved - anyone who is genuinely impressed by his win can be dismissed as a complete idiot, and it seems only Rei passed his test.
Sadly, today was not a particularly good day for all of us die hard fans of accurate depictions of chess in manga.
Let's start with the game between Rei and Prince Rodd. There are all manner of continuity issues between the shots we get of their game; for instance, between the first image we get and the second all pieces shown jump one square to the bottom left of the board (from Rodd's) perspective and the white pawn disappears. What is remarkable about the position seen at the bottom of page 5 is that it actually does feature a check that can be directly answered with a checkmate. Rei's queen delivering check is unprotected, and once Rodd takes it with his rook, that rook, the black queen and the black knight that is depicted standing next to a black bishop combine for checkmate. It seems like the author of the adaptation, Aono Shimo, tried specifically to construct a position to match the script.
To confirm this theory, I checked a translation of the webnovel chapter:
Far from being an instant checkmate, the novel seems to suggest that Rodd was simply announcing that he had a forced checkmate in a certain number of moves, though it follows up with an explanation of the position that doesn't suggest checkmate is in any way imminent - if Rodd is going to have to convert a pawn into a queen first, checkmate is many moves away, even if the position is hopeless. I don't exactly blame the author of the adaptation for misunderstanding this, because it's a thankless task to be asked to re-create a chess game visually that is very unlikely to have actually existed in a real sense, especially without any chess knowledge. (The effort that IM Silman went through to "reconstruct" the chess game at the end of Sorcerer's Stone for the movie is evidence that it's difficult even if you do know chess.) Page 5 looks very much like the result of someone frantically trying to construct a position in which a check by the queen is countered by an instant checkmate with the rook.
The position is complete gobbledygook by any reasonable standard - as a position that could be reached with one of the players being actually any good at the game. Both kings are so hopelessly exposed that checkmate should have happened a long time ago. Any talk between characters that suggests this game is evidence of any sort of skill is laughable; only two complete beginners could have ended up in this position.
The second game we are privy to is played between Rei and Claire. This one at first follows a path that is perfectly plausible, and can be reproduced as follows:
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 d6
4. Nc3 Bg4
But after that it looks like the artist simply gave up. Claire announces check, but Bg4 doesn't check anything. Some panels later, 5.h3 by Rei follows (perfectly reasonable move) and that's when so-called strategic genius Yuu Bauer pipes up and suggests Qf4. This is a syntactically correct chess move. It is, however a) illegal, b) not very good if it was legal, c) actually, the board is set up wrong and the kings and queens are swapped on both sides of the chess board anyway. In this case the web novel author deserves some credit:
This sequence is quite plausible and accurately describes how to interpret Qf4. It's very much plausible for Qf4 to be a move that decides a kingside attack, given the right position. It's fairly likely to be a "silent, but strong" type of move that creates a threat that can't be parried, or only by sacrificing so much material that the attacker will win eventually anyway. It appears the manga author simply punted on trying to construct that position and went for a basic position that may arise out of the Italian opening (if Black doesn't really know what they're doing).
In conclusion - points should be awarded for the physical aspect of the adaptation; aside from minor continuity errors and swapping the queen and king by accident, the board has the correct number of squares, aesthetically correct pieces and even is set up with the white square in the bottom right corner, as it should. As for the actual chess, I get the impression that a light novel author with some chess knowledge matched up with a mangaka without it, and while both clearly put in a reasonable amount of research, it doesn't add up to something convincing.
Bonus!!! Poker Accuracy Corner!
Both web novel author and the mangaka deserve some credit for creating a logical course of events that matches the cards each player received (though for some reason the mangaka opted for different cards), and their decisions to exchange cards. It's also pointed out by the author explicitly that there was no betting involved. Of course, that completely removes virtually any element of actual skill, running into the age-old trope of showing someone is great at poker by having them show off a four of a kind or (god forbid) a royal flush, which proves nothing about their actual abilities at their game - at best, like here, it proves they're great at cheating at cards. And there is little more pathetic than cheating at cards when there isn't even any money involved. What a tool, that Yuu Bauer. Though at least you can interpret this scene as Yuu testing the other players involved - anyone who is genuinely impressed by his win can be dismissed as a complete idiot, and it seems only Rei passed his test.
@MrSometimer
Here's the quote from the web novel:
With both kings lined up with the queen on the same file and no obstructions, a rook taking the queen will both remove the check and give check to the other king, which can then be checkmate.
The better question is what on Earth are people smoking when they're saying Rei was doing well after she blundered her queen.
Here's the quote from the web novel:
With both kings lined up with the queen on the same file and no obstructions, a rook taking the queen will both remove the check and give check to the other king, which can then be checkmate.
The better question is what on Earth are people smoking when they're saying Rei was doing well after she blundered her queen.
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@afkeroge
1. Thank you for the feedback, I read that guide a long time ago so I'm long overdue on a refresher.
2. Again, thank you for the feedback, I'll work on that aspect if i end up editing chapter 6 too (I'm partway through 7 right now)
3. And this is more of a general disclaimer than a reply so i'll keep it outside the numbered list
I have absolutely 0 intention to snipe the series from Bucci Gang; they've done a great job on chapters 1-5, much better than what i can put out for sure. If they want to upload their own (better) versions of the chapters i uploaded I'll remove mine, consider these a band-aid fix until the pros gets to it and nothing more.
1. Thank you for the feedback, I read that guide a long time ago so I'm long overdue on a refresher.
2. Again, thank you for the feedback, I'll work on that aspect if i end up editing chapter 6 too (I'm partway through 7 right now)
3. And this is more of a general disclaimer than a reply so i'll keep it outside the numbered list
I have absolutely 0 intention to snipe the series from Bucci Gang; they've done a great job on chapters 1-5, much better than what i can put out for sure. If they want to upload their own (better) versions of the chapters i uploaded I'll remove mine, consider these a band-aid fix until the pros gets to it and nothing more.
Dex-chan lover
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@Silfir Lol I guess in fantasy land chess standards might be way lower, I guess? It makes sense to a degree, they don't have the same readily available learning resources, but, well.
More than anything I'd just chalk it up to the author (either of the source or the adaptation) not being that great themselves, though I do genuinely believe a world without the internet would have lower average chess levels. Pretty sure getting good at chess was a bit harder in our world pre internet too, and even then we had better information exchange than a world like theirs seems to pre internet too.
Anyways, hey, not besmirching your posts, it's cool to see input from someone with more insight, after mildly wondering about how the chess in this chapter was, myself.
More than anything I'd just chalk it up to the author (either of the source or the adaptation) not being that great themselves, though I do genuinely believe a world without the internet would have lower average chess levels. Pretty sure getting good at chess was a bit harder in our world pre internet too, and even then we had better information exchange than a world like theirs seems to pre internet too.
Anyways, hey, not besmirching your posts, it's cool to see input from someone with more insight, after mildly wondering about how the chess in this chapter was, myself.
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