Take a good look at the picture below. It comes from the music video for the song In the name of justice by the metal band D.1 What country do you think they come from? Finland, maybe? After all, they are known to send demonic heavy metal to Eurovision. But alas! no. Norway then? It’s one of the death metal hotspot! But again, no. Turns out they’re from Japan. Apparently, they do not just produce overly saccharine pop ditties by cute looking girl groups but also gothic metal. With a chessboard in their music video.
Don’t worry, I did not attempt to reconstruct the position just from this picture. There are some shots that show the board more closely and, — well, it ain’t pretty.
It starts about a minute in, when a bunch of chess pieces on a board flash by in a split second. I had to freeze-frame there, but the board was relatively clear. Disgustingly so, in fact:2
Yes, that’s a 10×10 board. No, I don’t know who the culprit is. Yes, I suspect he is still at large. Probably, someone had one of those two-in-one chess and checkers sets lying about. He rightfully thought that the chess set was more photogenic but wrongfully put them on the checkers board. Of course, the result is an abomination unto god and in any country but Japan, such degeneracy would be severely punished.
One of the band members starts fondling the queen here, and presumably drops her off somewhere. Then they seem to focus more on some drumming and guitaring, with a sprinkling of singing. The nightmare is over.
Or so you think! After a short time we see a small corner of the board, where the pieces are arranged as follows:
The rook, might be another piece, to be fair. You may think that this looks pretty inoffensive. Sure, the white bishop is strangely placed, but at leats it’s an actual chess position. But now one of the band members deems the time come for showing the brutality of death metal: he3 takes the b8 bishop and ostentatiously slides it to d8! The horror!
One by one, the band members are shown putting pieces down on the board. They show some modicum of decency and do nothing untoward. Until…
Yes, another fragment of the board come in shot. Again, one of the horrid heretics slides the bishop from its white square to the black square on its left.4 No! You shouldn’t abuse the pieces like this!
No, not like that either! Have you no decency, sir?5 Have you no decency? For Pete’s sake, the song is called In the name of justice! Show some justice!
Realism: -/5 This is so bad it’s not even wrong.
Probable winner: The powers of evil.
1. [I guess that was their fourth attempt to start a band.]↩
2. [D stands for diagram.]↩
3. [Or she. I can’t tell.]↩
4. [You might also take umbrage at the pawn in the corner, but that’s okay, actually; the board clearly continues in that direction and what’s shown here as the eighth rank for convenience might actually be the a-file. Such excuses do no apply, alas, to the following diagram.]↩
5. [Or miss. Again I can’t tell.]↩