Kaido Nokaidan

Background
Kaido Nokaidan, “Kai,” is the protagonist of My Game Chess. He is in his second year of high school and living with his maternal-grandfather, a retired history professor at local university, Hisato Naoyuki, while Kai’s parents travel in the Peace Corps. Kai is an “average” looking kid, not particularly handsome, and prefers to hangout by himself most of the time reading manga. He has lived in a lot of different places while his parents have travelled the world, staying with different relatives, and occasionally joining his parents on their trips, but recently his parents decided that it would best if Kai remained in one place for high school, so now he is staying with his grandfather, Hisato-san, in present day Tokyo.

Kai’s hidden strength that sets him apart from all the chess geniuses he faces is that he has an uncanny ability to utilize and ultimately promote his pawns

All the other players are focused on grand power plays that involve crushing blows by the most valuable pieces, often sacrificing the lower value pieces (especially pawns). Kai sees through this and realizes that not only is there in strength in numbers, but within each pawn is a queen, or even a knight, that can work as a team to bring himself and everyone he loves to victory

Dude that's so amazing. It'll be even more symbolic because on the social hierarchy, Kai is just a pawn, not in the sense

that he's controlled by someone else, but that he's seen as dispensable, a nobody. He absolutely resends anyone who thinks their pawns are invaluable

Quotes
“Here is why the pawn is worth 9...”

“There are two knights, two bishops, and two rooks. Only one queen and one king. There are EIGHT pawns. The way I see it, there is only one body of pawns, like a complex organism that is made up of lots of small cells. When one pawn is lost, it is one health point subtracted from the body of pawns, which functions as a group and as a mini team on this board of swirling chaos, anarchy and bloodshed. Therefore, the pawn is worth 9. Not individual pawns, but THE pawn. The singular, unitary pawn. You may not see it this way, but that is why your health so rapidly decreases, simultaneously increasing the vulnerability of your so-called ‘major pieces’. Without the pawn body as a component, all pieces become like dust in the wind, with no one backing them... with no support... with no love.”