It all started with the new knowledge gained from reading Ryuuou no Oshigoto volume 18, that Ai was suffering from some mysterious illness that was eroding her ability to play top level shogi. Well, if she were suffering from an illness, then she should have lined up with the other girls in Chapter 1 to be cured of that illness -- which the newly edited version of the book now has her do. Now she can go on playing professional level shogi in my story regardless of her problems in the original.
Since I had to make that edit, I figured I may as well make some other edits too, since the gates of hell were already opened. As a result I fixed multiple other minor errors -- Rydia referring to the Kingdom of Baron as an 'Empire' has been fixed to its proper title of 'kingdom.' And Christopher now claps twice, not thrice, before praying at the shrine, in keeping with Shinto tradition. A sentence that could be read as calling for a 'thousand classrooms' was clarified to specifically mean a 'thousand students' for the sake of the reader, 'depend on' was changed to 'depend upon', three commas were deleted and a 'that' added to make sentences flow better. 'Delight' was deemed redundant as a virtue given that 'joy' was already listed by Cute and was therefore replaced with 'devotion.' 'Still' was deemed redundant since Kobato was already described as 'motionless' so it was replaced with 'silent,' which had been my original intent.
In addition, I switched out a child's name from Botan to Ruka. This is because Heaven Burns Red is a video game/visual novel by the greatest composer and storyteller who has ever lived, Jun Maeda, that's already made me cry multiple times while Kitakubu is a pointless empty comedy series best known for its random seals in the background. Honestly Heaven is a better comedy than Kitakubu too, so it's just strictly superior. The actually tough part here wasn't whether Heaven should take Kitakubu's place, it's which character should represent Heaven. Because Heaven Burns Red uses comic exaggeration to help differentiate its 50 characters, virtually every character in the game is flawed/annoying in some way. Some of the girls are normal, but they're such minor characters it's hard to make them the banner girl of the whole franchise (this tanked Misato's chances.) Sumomo, Tama and Tsukasa are all beautiful girls who would serve, except that all their names are repeats and the last thing I need is more repeat names in '100 Waifus.' So by order of elimination Ruka was the only reasonable option left, the main character of the whole game. Ruka too is flawed but somebody has to represent this artistic masterpiece, and she is a great warrior, a good friend and an inspired musician. Surely that's enough to make the cut. (The 'who gets which song' 100 Waifus appendix post was also updated to accommodate the change.)
None of these edits were proof that I needed to reread the book for the 48th time, just minor adjustments of a few words. But if I'm going to go through the entire effort of rereading the book I may as well take advantage of the opportunities to improve it when they present themselves. Undoubtedly I will reread the book for a 48th time, just for fun, someday down the road, when it's faded from my short-term memory. But I'm no longer required to do so, because this project is officially done. And when I do so, it will just be as a reader, not a writer anymore, because I refuse to write this book any longer. Six years of editing is enough. The book is as good as I can possibly make it. So for people who have waited to read it until they're assured it's the final product, here it is, the final product:
I'm still of the firm opinion that this is the best book ever written. It would be impossible to read a book 47 times and think otherwise. Even for the 47th time, the book was overpoweringly erotic. But it was also overpoweringly heartwarming and insightful too. I came away from the story fully convinced that the love the characters displayed towards one another was the ideal romantic love no one in real life or any other story has ever matched, that the things they said to each other were the most loving things anyone has ever said to anyone in real life or fiction. And what's so amazing about this book is there are 101 romances in it, so right after you read one confession that's more loving than anyone in real life has ever said to anyone, there's another, and another, and another, all of them surpassing your wildest dreams.
I was a bigger fan of the sections of the book that had more content and fewer long name lists, but that's mostly due to my fatigue of having to read those names 47 times in a row. I would be more forgiving of the name-centered chapters if the book was actually new to me and I was looking forward to learning who had reached the 'fictional character hall of fame' generation by generation like a normal reader. But for anyone daunted by the long name lists, go ahead and skip them all, they aren't vital to the plot and can be ignored at no cost to the comprehension and appreciation of the rest of the book.
I would classify this book under the 'romance' genre, but that kind of obscures its real genre, which is straight out holy writ. The book creates a new, reasonable God people of the modern world can actually believe in. A new reasonable afterlife people can believe in. A new reasonable Utopia people can aspire to build. A new reasonable Ten Commandments people actually need to follow. Within the book I discuss how children are taught a new Bible, the 'Book of Cute,' as a vital part of their education, but in truth '100 Waifus' is that very 'Book of Cute,' the new Bible the whole world needs to read and learn from. It has all the answers, and more importantly, it has the answers to the intractable problems the modern world faces today and is drowning under. '100 Waifus' is the way, the truth, and the light, and the world will either embrace it or perish.
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