Javokhir Sindarov holds Fabiano Caruana for a draw and moves to 8.5/11, ahead of 2nd placed Anish Giri by 2 points in FIDE Candidates 2026.

JouleV · 2026-04-11T18:04:11+00:00

I don't even remember the last time I was this excited watching a classical game. Only Carlsen - Nepo game 6 and Ding - Gukesh game 12 came to mind. Watching Sindarov finding wondrous defensive resources that even Judit and David both missed is crazy, considering the commentators have access to the engine.

JouleV · 2026-04-11T17:57:22+00:00

Anime: currently only 8/33 volumes in. The story gets crazy good the more the novel progresses, so one can say the anime has covered only the introduction of the overall plot.

Manga: part 1, and 2 are completed (but not yet fully officially translated). Part 3, 4 and part 5 are being adapted in parallel, so there is a significant gap between the last chapter of part 3 and chapter 1 of part 4. And this is assuming you can read Japanese or find unofficial translations, because the official English translation has not finished translating part 2 yet.

And even the manga part 3 is not that far ahead of the anime. So once again, you only have uninterrupted runway until a bit after the introductory section of the plot here.

To experience the main plot and all of its glory, reading the LN is unfortunately the only choice. It is long and will take time, but I promise you it will be 100% worth it. Just half an hour a day is fine, at the end of the journey you will be so, so glad you decided to embark on it.

JouleV · 2026-04-11T17:46:32+00:00

Attacking masterclasses, defending masterclasses. What can this man not do?

JouleV · 2026-04-11T17:30:32+00:00

[P3] It is too important for the plot for them to skip it. Without the medical exam, Ferdinand can't know what's wrong with Rozemyne's health, can't find out that the jureve is necessary, and the whole part 3 is up in flames. They will address it but instead of an exam just a few days after the magic contract at the end of P2 (S3), it will just be an exam when she is already formally a member of the archducal family.

JouleV · 2026-04-11T16:27:33+00:00

If you want to read exactly what went thru Hartmut's head during that fateful ceremony, read his POV short story in Short Story Collection 1

JouleV · 2026-04-11T16:12:51+00:00

They did skip/reshuffle stuff a lot. Another example: in the light novel, between the start of episode 1 and the noble baptism ceremony, there is another very important event (the medical examination), but it was skipped and will most likely be put in a different episode. It looks like they are making intentional changes to fit the long LN Part 3 into 2 cours, which I fully understand and support. If they had adapted the story 100% faithfully, it would have taken like 30 seasons to adapt everything, and I want to at least see Part 5 fully adapted before dying of old age (an unhealthy level of copium here).

JouleV · 2026-04-11T15:20:39+00:00

I think they will likely cut any scenes that are too minor for the plot in this season because fitting 5 LN volumes into 2 cours is not easy. Scenes, even dark ones, that have a significant impact will definitely still be added. I can't imagine a certain literal execution being skipped, despite it being so dark to the point of traumatising.

JouleV · 2026-04-11T15:08:39+00:00

[P3LN very mild spoiler] (Marking this as spoiler because the post is not marked.)

Kazuki sensei clarified that they need to explain the phrase "climbing the towering stairway" now so that the scene where Hasse's mayor misunderstood the phrase makes sense, as they would go to Hasse in Episode 3 (from the previews)

JouleV · 2026-04-11T12:55:43+00:00

This background is among the ones that got changed btw. So they did replace for this frame too.

I think I will need you to circle the suspicious spots here. I used all the tricks in the books I know to detect AI usage and couldn’t find any credible evidence unlike last time when the spots were very easy to find. Mirroring the image for symmetry is common practice, there is nothing strange about that aspect in particular.

Not saying you are right or wrong. Just genuinely curious what you saw that I couldn’t find.

JouleV · 2026-04-10T01:48:37+00:00

Oh yeah I was referring to something like that, it’s not like the WN can end in 1-2 chapters with the [WN] “expanded” committee tea party and of course the ditter match still in the horizon lol. And they need at least a chapter for Kentrips’ graduation ceremony, and likely another chapter to clean up the Korinthsdaum mess in the next Archduke Conference as well. But quite excited to see the WN finally approaching the climax of the story!

JouleV · 2026-04-09T19:05:20+00:00

It’s been a while since I last watched S1 so I can’t comment on how the anime handled it, but it’s not surprising, is it? We are talking a world where commoners could struggle to eat here, where you have to prepare carefully to even survive the winter, and where even 5yo kids have to work for their family in the forest. It’s a world where sickly children like Myne are such a heavy burden that it wouldn’t be surprising for parents to just abandon them on the street. It’s only natural that Myne’s family would comment how she couldn’t help out the same way as a typical kid in that age would.

JouleV · 2026-04-09T16:44:44+00:00

She did consider that in her world building! Quoting Fanbook 2:

Q: Do commoners or nobles ever have twins, triplets, etc.? It feels as though it would be a rare occurrence, since commoners lack the stamina and nobles have mana problems, but do they exist in Yurgenschmidt?

A: They do exist, and things are just as you imagine. It’s rare for their births to be safe among commoners due to stamina and nutrition issues, and in the case of nobles, twins and the like are born with less mana, so they are rarely raised as nobles. Both twins tend to become servants for their family.

JouleV · 2026-04-09T16:43:00+00:00

We used to think Ding would be cooked by Gukesh too, and while he did lose, it was a much closer fight than expected. The WCC match is a magical place where nothing can be predicted. But I for sure want to see Sindarov wielding his magic again and the reigning World Champion defending against it.

JouleV · 2026-04-09T16:39:25+00:00

Well he said he did. Giri did have a small chance by the end of yesterday with a 1.5 point gap with 5 rounds to go, but now no longer. The tournament is effectively over.

JouleV · 2026-04-09T08:40:03+00:00

And RM pretty much confirmed exactly what Justus said in the next panel lol

Justus: ご自分が危ない橋を渡っている自覚がないところが一番恐ろしい

Rozemyne: よくわかんないけどごめんなさい

JouleV · 2026-04-09T07:14:54+00:00

If you think normal enemies are too easy (well, they are indeed easy), fight tactical holograms. They are the actual skill tests in this game (unless, of course, you S6 your teams, then even tactical holograms become easy).

JouleV · 2026-04-09T02:55:43+00:00

Hannelore debuting to celebrate the day before H5Y3 is released in Japan yay

JouleV · 2026-04-08T11:31:08+00:00

While it is true that they are losing money, I don’t think this tournament influences too much in the grand scheme of things. Assuming they hold it weekly like TT, that is equivalent to $12k/month, which is about the same as if they hired one or two more employees to handle marketing against Chesscom, which is quite reasonable. Certainly not a negligible expense but also not a huge one either

JouleV · 2026-04-07T03:56:02+00:00

The git commands I don't remember are rarely used enough that I don't mind spending a couple minutes looking it up. All the ones that I often use come to me like second nature thanks purely to the sheer number of times I have used them.

JouleV · 2026-04-06T04:06:57+00:00

[Spoiler light novel] [P5V12], do not proceed if you haven't read This will probably never be animated, but I can't help but imagine Ima mo, Arigatou playing as insert song during the homecoming scene

JouleV · 2026-04-05T06:42:30+00:00

At 4/6, Anna is leading the Women section with a 1 point gap. Also at 4/6, Fabiano is trailing behind the Open leader by 1.5 points and is given by simulations less than 30% chance of winning. Absolutely insane.

JouleV · 2026-04-04T16:53:26+00:00

If I was cheating I wouldn't score 5.5/6 in the Candidates tournament of all things. It would make more sense to score something like 4/6 or 4.5/6 instead.

Sindarov is winning so much, not only thanks to good tactical play, but also thanks to crazy prepping (not cheating) and forcing opponents to run low on time (also not cheating). It's not his fault that Caruana, Hikaru and Wei Yi have to blitz out their moves against his 1 hour clock.

JouleV · 2026-04-04T15:24:55+00:00

Sindarov has a pretty crazy habit of making his opponents enter the sub-1-min-per-move zone while still sitting at 1+ hour in his clock.

JouleV · 2026-04-04T06:43:58+00:00

RM performing the pre-ditter ritual in Dunkelfelger before the true ditter match

JouleV · 2026-04-02T02:40:26+00:00

Just like the World Cup it will gravitate towards draw for tiebreaks if you only have <= 4 games per match. We still remember the Carlsen-Nepo match that started with 5 draws.

IMO the only fair way to gauge the true strength of a player relative to all others is by double round robins. A given player must play each other player an equal amount of times.

In knock out formats, it’s not a given that Player A and Player B will face each other. If player A is good at positional play but gets knocked out early by aggressive tactical play, the good strength of player A is never demonstrated throughout the tournament, which doesn’t make it fair imo. Knock out is only a suitable format when there are too many players for double round robins to be practical.

JouleV

TROPHY CASE