Now that the book has been edited enough that 'even' and 'just' aren't a problem, everything is spelled correctly, etc., what is holding this book back? It can't be presentation. After 37 bouts of proofreading the presentation is definitely at a professional level. Sadly it took all 37 bouts for this to be true, but nevertheless that issue is solved.
I'll offer some obvious explanations and then debunk each of them in turn.
It can't be my endorsement of polygamy. '100 Girlfriends,' even using the same polygamous size, is a famous, popular manga that's getting an anime adaption this fall. Polygamy is mainstream and millions of fans are happy to support it.
It can't be my endorsement of incest. After all, there's no actual incest in the book, Christopher is unrelated to fictional characters from Japan. Besides, there are plenty of pro-incest works of great popularity coming out of Japan, from Oreimo to Eromanga Sensei to Hoshizora no Memoria to Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka to Da Capo. These works have millions of fans and nobody minded.
It can't be my endorsement of pedophilia. After all, all the lolis in the series were originally sexualized in some other series, like Ryuuou no Oshigoto!, SAO, PapaKiki, Utawarerumono, Nanoha, Haganai, To Love ru, etc., all of which were extremely popular and won lots of awards. The attractive lolis were made attractive by other, successful authors long before I started talking about them.
Is the book too pornographic? That might deter women readers, but male readers should if anything like the book more for that. There are millions of fans of explicit visual novels where sex is not only narrated in detail but shown with pictures. Most men watch porn regularly, a pornographic book is not too embarrassing for them. The modern generation aren't prudes. Heck, I suspect most women have watched porn too these days.
Is it because there simply aren't any male readers of any books anymore? Have they all taken to video games and forsaken the written word? That can't be true, there are very male oriented light novel series that still sell well in America, like Sword Art Online, so any fans of SAO should at least also be fans of '100 Waifus.'
Are readers familiar with these waifus offended by their depiction? They think the waifu should have acted like x or y, or said b or c, and it gripes them so much when the waifu does something they didn't expect they throw the book at the wall? People are very protective about their waifus, so I can understand that reaction, but at the very beginning of the book it's made clear that the waifus are modified to fit Christopher's needs so any incongruence should be understandable to the reader. Everyone admits these girls aren't the exact same as their originals. Since, in the end, all the waifus receive nothing but praise, any fan of said waifu should ultimately be a fan of this book. Who is getting offended and why?
It can't be my support for fascism. Code Geass is popular, as is Gundam, both of which had genuinely fascist main characters. Many other popular series depict main characters ruling as absolute dictators or kings, which amounts to the same thing.
So is it the particular political program Christopher actually puts into place which is the issue? For instance, Petralka is Empress in Outbreak Company, but she doesn't do anything tyrannical with her power, so everyone is fine with her dictatorship, but Christopher actually uses his power to make his country and subjects better and that's problematic?
Yes of course that will offend large portions of the population. But there's still a sizable proportion of the population of the United States that believes LGBT behavior is morally wrong, 40% or so, so you'd think they'd like a book that stands up for them for once and argues their case. There are 330 million Americans so being anti-gay should not completely eliminate a book's readership. Especially since I give a fair representative of the other side of the question and let both sides have their say.
A large portion of the country is race realist and shouldn't mind my dissing of blacks and Muslims in the book, especially since it's a minor footnote in the story. Again there should still be tens of millions of readers who are actually encouraged by these swipes at groups they dislike.
Men are the intended audience of this book, I doubt many women are interested in reading about having sex with 100 different women (though they should be, this book is so good everyone should read it), so I don't see why they would be offended by the mandatory marriage law. That should come as a pleasant daydream, that every guy could finally get a girl and could no longer be arbitrarily divorced. Since most men who are interested in reading about sex are also single, none of the anti-feminist laws in this book should come across as objectionable. It should be inspiriting to read about a wonderful land in another world where men can actually get women and keep them.
Most Americans still think drug use and crime and the like are bad, so a government that bans them doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me. As far as Christopher's tyranny goes, it all seems quite mild and unobjectionable to me, especially for my target audience, young single otaku. It's not like he tortures his enemies or enslaves them or puts them in gulags or anything, all he does is deport them if they can't get with the system, that's as mild a fascism as you're going to get. How many people are really going to get upset with that?
Nothing in this book is more extreme than Andrew Anglin, it's actually less extreme, but he has millions of fans. So why aren't they fans of this book, if no one else, which would already be a plenty large audience?
Are people intimidated by the number of characters and series I reference? Do they feel they can't enjoy the book unless they have read and watched and played every single story every single character mentioned is based upon? Of course that's silly. Yes, all these characters came from different stories, but they work just as well as original characters in an original story. You can follow the plot without knowing these girls' back stories, everything is reset from a year 0, where nothing in the past affects the future. If anything is necessary to know about it's mentioned in '100 Waifus' so everyone can get up to speed immediately.
Ideally people will know all the characters referenced and will smile with delight every time they notice an 'easter egg' reference to their original works. That is the maximal way to enjoy this story, but it's not necessary. The book has its own story to tell and is perfectly fine if you know nothing but what you read here. Just assume there's these random 100 nice girls that Christopher needs to charm before the end of the book and there's a compelling story already.
Do people think the book is too monotonous because it's just Christopher flirting with one girl after the next forever? That's not the case. Christopher has to overcome a lot of challenges that vary drastically over the course of the book. He has to put his life on the line, convince people of important philosophical or political truths, overcome crises of self-doubt, build a city and then an Empire, educate the youth into good values, resist temptation, memorize lots of names, give worthy names to 1000 different children, host parties, make speeches -- and after all that the book often switches to the perspective of other characters who aren't thinking of flirting at the moment, people talking about the multiverse, heaven and hell, theology, history, politics, puppies, you name it. Of course flirting is the mainstay of the story, it's a romance of all romances, a romance with 101 different wives, but it's not monotonous. Between those romances, within those romances, amidst those romances a lot of different topics come up, a lot of different situations come up, and Christopher is tested by them all. And it's not like every single romance can be done on autopilot, every girl has feelings and wants them to be addressed appropriately, he has to choose his words carefully in order to please them, and every girl requires a different approach because they're all different people. That's the biggest challenge of them all.
Do people object to how effective Christopher is at overcoming his challenges? The previous argument was that his life was too easy, that there's nothing to learn from his example, he's not an inspirational figure, because he lives a charmed life a drooling moron could navigate. But I assure you 99.99999% of people would have failed somewhere along the way if faced with the exact same challenges as Christopher faced over the 600+ years the book covers. Anyone who reads the book closely can see the many fracture points where other men worse than he would have failed, would have fallen along the wayside, would have given up on their dreams and settled for something less. Every time he's given an opportunity to give up, to settle, to compromise his values, he refuses and chooses the more difficult, more rewarding road instead.
So is the real objection that Christopher is too grand an existence and overpowered, and therefore things that should be challenges weren't?
That objection is also nonsense. It's stressed throughout the book that Christopher is weak, frail, has low self-esteem, low memory retention, isn't particularly smart, can get stressed out, afraid, contrite, or run out of ideas. He relies on others for the things he can't do himself, and thanks them when they come to his aid. He constantly asks for advice and takes their advice. He changes his mind and implements others' suggestions. It's never suggested anywhere in the book that Christopher is some sort of perfect being that far outshines his handpicked waifus. It's highly insinuated that they're the ones lifting him up and not the other way around. The only thing he's praised for is his good judgment, his ability to discern value in things and other people. There should be no objection to a protagonist having one good thing going for him.
Is it the combination of all the different criticisms working together? So for instance people who aren't offended by polygamy still get offended by overpowered protagonists or overly convenient settings, etc., so one way or another I end up losing every single fan? The problem with that is if the story is entertaining enough, if people only object to one thing but are fine with everything else, normally speaking you would ignore the quibble and read on for the things you like. So regardless of whether people do find one thing objectionable in the book, that shouldn't sort out every single reader and make them all despair. The only way each individual complaint would make you put the book down and stop reading is if there wasn't a single moment of entertainment before then. It would require the entire book, every romance, every conversation, every philosophical tangent, to be boring and unappealing.
I can't believe that's the case, if nothing else no one could possibly find Chapter 13 boring. You'd have to be a cadaver for that not to appeal.
There should be millions of readers, tens of millions of readers, who are open minded enough to engage with these premises, see how the story plays out, and have enough pleasant memories of good scenes that even if they object to one chapter or another they would still want to read on in the hopes of more good scenes. Other series with 'edgy' premises have succeeded. '100 Girlfriends' exists. It doesn't make sense that '100 Waifus' can't exist alongside '100 Girlfriends.' There's something people are objecting to but I have no Earthly idea what. I can't see the flaw they're all so fixated upon. It doesn't exist. The book is perfect, it's flawless, so whatever flaw they see is only in their own heads.
Is it just an advertising problem? There would be millions of fans but they don't know about the book? But other books posted on Scribble Hub have gotten much more attention and larger readerships. The book was as advertised as any other work on that website, or close enough, so that shouldn't be the issue. By continuously rereading and re-editing the book and talking about it here on this blog I've given it more than enough advertising, there's no reason why it shouldn't have been embraced and word of mouth spread from there.
Is it the long lists of names? But of course if you object to them so much you can just scroll through them, ignore them, and continue reading the normal adventure sections of the story. The names aren't vital to understanding the story, they're names of children he'll likely never meet or talk to all book long, if you don't like them ignore them and move on. That can't be the problem, anyway, because the names don't start in earnest until Chapter 25. If the problem were the names, there would be millions of readers up until Chapter 25 and then everyone would stop reading, but people aren't reading Chapters 1-24 either.
Is it possibly, I find this ludicrous, it is possible that boys only care about fighting so a story with insufficient blood or ki beam clashes is rejected categorically, without even giving the book a chance? And then only girls care about romance and they look at the title and say, "Oh, a romance, too bad it's with 100 girls, my dream isn't to be one among many," and so they reject it too? And because men are that primordially fixated on one stupid thing they can't enjoy a book about anything else? I guess it's as good a theory as any, despite how stupid that would make men. There has to be something stupid going on, because in a just world this would be the most popular book on Earth.
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