Clive > Setzer:

I'm still looking for ways to improve '100 Waifus', as is obvious from yesterday, in the hopes that by the time I read the book for the 40th time I won't need to edit anything, at which point I can call the book truly complete.

And the easiest improvement that stood out to me was replacing Setzer as Yuna's son with Clive.  Clive is the protagonist of FF 16 whereas Setzer is a minor side character in FF 6.  And FF 16 barely has any characters other than Clive, calling him the protagonist is somewhat misleading.  Maybe I should call him the sole-tagonist or something.  So an awful lot of effort went into characterizing Clive.  He also looks infinitely better than Setzer, considering the difference in graphics quality between the SNES and the PS5.

Clive saves the world at the expense of his life, cares about his family and pets, has the guts to actually have sex with his girlfriend (a rare thing in Japan), is an easy conversationalist who moves discussions along in a businesslike fashion while not offending anyone by seeming dismissive, is ridiculously strong as well as versatile in his moveset, stunningly handsome, a prince, fashionable (like me he prefers black), a charismatic leader of an entire army/city, helpful towards all the random people he meets and cooperates with around the world -- so basically has every trait you would ever want in a man.  I suppose this happens when you center the entire game around one person, his virtues just keep piling up.

In contrast who is Setzer?  I only have a dim memory of him.  He's good at throwing darts.  He owns an airship.  He has long flowing hair.  He once loved some dead girl.  That's it.  That's all I know about him.  I'm pretty sure that's all the characterization he received in FF 6, as the game had a lot of characters and he wasn't one of the vital ones.  Does that make him one of the best 405 men in fiction?  I kinda doubt it.

When you think about it for five seconds it's obvious Clive is better than Setzer, but honoring Clive requires I honor FF 16 as well.  Is it worth it to improve the name gallery?  I think so.  FF 16 really isn't that bad.  The graphics are amazing, I like Clive, Jill, Torgal and Joshua.  The gameplay is pretty fun, better than FF 15's was.  It has forgettable music, an overly grim setting that leads to an overly grim plot, a terrible English translation (the game is like, twice as good in Japanese as English), but none of that kills my respect for the experience as a whole.  There were lots of epic moments where I was excited and totally engaged with the story/challenge.  The fight with Odin and Bahamut was amazing.  Jill nude on the beach was amazing.  Working with Jill in that fire cavern or Cid to break the first crystal was really fun, you could tell what good friends they were.

FF 15 had lots of problems too, but Noctis is already in my fictional character hall of fame.  If Noctis can get in then so can Clive.

Meanwhile I merged 6 short fanfares from FF Tactics into one song (still only 23 seconds long, and most of those seconds are the silence between fanfares.  I'm talking really short fanfares.)  This opens up room for my 3 new 5-star songs to enter my music hall of fame without overflowing the song limit.  Actually now I need 2 more great songs to fill things out, but I figure they'll come along in the form of anime openings or endings this season or next season.  Too few is a better situation than too many.

As for who to demote to fit these new 3 in, I figure I'll just wait and if I see a good chance to demote a song I'll do it then, upon spontaneously hearing it, because it's too much effort to find a bad song by actively searching for one.  I figure the music will eventually sort itself out, just like I'll eventually find two more songs to add.  The important thing to note is my 3 new songs really are 5-star caliber and should be treated as such.

Two new anime debuted lately, Pluto and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto.  I won't say they have no redeeming features, but they're not worth watching.  They're both ultimately boring shows with nothing to say, nothing to learn from, that seem somewhat aimless.  So much more happens in one chapter of One Piece than either of these series.

I finished my rewatch of Edens Zero S2, which was also a little aimless.  The crew goes around fighting a bunch of minor punks who are nothing compared to Drakken Joe who they've already beaten, so it just feels like a waste of time.  The third season should be better, now that they're taking on a big boss again.

Based on what's been announced, we're going from 10 great series airing this fall to 1 in the winter of 2024.  Sousou no Frieren, that's it.  If Idolm@ster Shiny Colors is great, spring 2024 is scheduled to have 2 great series airing.  Anime is about to fall off a cliff, so enjoy this fall season while it lasts.