BLITZ Proves Manga Can Make Anything Dramatic

Ablaze is diving into the world of competitive chess with its latest manga series, Blitz, coming out on September 14 to local comic shops and to bookstores on September 27. Written by Cédric Biscay and Harumo Sanazaki with artwork by Daitaro Nishihara, Blitz will tell the story of Tom, a young high school student smitten with fellow classmate Harmony.

When Tom learns of her love of chess, he immediately joins the chess club where he must quickly learn the game to impress his love. Soon he discovers a virtual reality machine that helps him analyze the most famous matches of chess Grandmaster and World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. Soon, in an unexpected twist Tom will be granted access to the highest echelons of the chess world.

This manga seems aimed at a very niche audience, those who not only really like playing chess, but also like reading about playing chess. This one will be a hard pass from me, not only is it about a game I don’t particularly enjoy, but it sounds like it will have one of my least favorite tropes in it of a guy who doesn’t know anything about a thing wants to impress a girl who is really into and good at the thing, and immediately becomes the greatest of all time with relatively no training. I have a hard time imagining this continuing as a series for very long. Maybe I’m just missing something about the appeal of this story, does it sound interesting to you?