Since I noticed a lack of reviews for this series I will be writing one, but a short one, nevertheless.

En passant is a chess move which can occur "immediately after a player moves a pawn two squares forward from its starting position, and an enemy pawn could have captured it had it moved only one square forward. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn as if taking it "as it passes" through the first square" (Wikipedia). It makes sense for a series with Chess as the plot theme.

I had no high expectations at first and I was just expecting a nice read. But I was disappointed soon and it took no longer than a few chapters, sadly. En passant is an example of bad pacing and wasted potential filled with poorly developed clichéd characters. At the end of the last chapter I was asking myself "why did I kept reading?" for I could have seen the ending being as insipid as the water inside my glass.

What was supposed to be the last arc of the story felt bland and rushed and full of deus ex machina. The side characters had no background information and little to no development. Nothing much was said about Verde (also known as Valde, I think) and the war between dark square and withe square. The formation of En Passant felt forced and the character relationships aren't fully explored in those 20 chapters. Twenty chapters aren't a lot, I know, but as the author you can manage somehow a fair development of events, interactions and a memorable finale. Unfortunately, this is not the case here.

I don't have much to say about the art, "not good enough" would be the right expression. But I will stick to "average, ordinary" and that's it.

In short what I mean to say through this review is: En Passant has nothing to make it a memorable series and it could be a lot more than just a generic chess-themed "battle shounen" if the author (a) had the time (b) had the means (c) made it longer (d) had put more effort into it.