Now that I've seen the first episode of Hirogaru Sky! Precure I'm fairly confident that none of the characters from this show are worth hall of fame representation. It doesn't seem like it will be a great anime either, though who knows, maybe it will surprise me. I hope it's at least better than Delicious Party Precure but I'm not even sure of that. The obnoxious front and center transgender man is gone, but now you have a woman acting more like a boy than a girl as the lead. At least she still retains a cute sidetail proving she isn't pretending to be a boy, she's just similar in mindset and behavior to a boy. That's a step up.
This means I was free to fill up the four remaining name slots with whoever I wanted, which meant 3 characters from the Fire Emblem Engage game I just finished playing and admiring plus Seiya from Amagi Brilliant Park (the male protagonist.)
Seiya replaces Ludger from Tales of Xillia 2. I felt like Ludger was an emotionless cypher, I never really understood him. He went around killing people and destroying universes like it was nothing, including his own older brother. It was all for a good cause, sure, but it left a bad taste in my mouth all the same. Seiya also has faults (or I wouldn't have waited this long to include him), but his virtues make up for it. He has a keen business sense, a sense of dedication and perseverance that means you can rely on him to fulfill his duties no matter how demanding they become, and a creative mindset that can jump to unorthodox solutions to problems that seem unresolvable to everybody else. He has an empathetic heart that deeply wants to save Latifah and take care of the rest of his employees, and it doesn't hurt that he's really handsome. His quickness to participate in meaningless fights and narcissism can be forgiven after all that.
Claus is replaced by Diamant, the crown prince of Brodia, from Fire Emblem Engage. He's the one male character who didn't have some stupid comic foible or fixation on something meaningless like food or alpacas or whatever. Perhaps there were some other decent males in the game like Kagetsu or Zelkov, but they're too minor and barely have any lines or presence in the story. Diamant is front and center to the story while also being a reassuring and inspiring presence to all around him. He's not just an impressive warrior, he's got a sharp mind that can see problems coming from afar and act to prevent them. He's extremely good looking in a manly way, with a deep seductive voice appropriate for a man. On top of all that he's very sensitive, he can immediately see why someone around him is feeling uncomfortable or pensive and alleviate it with the perfect disarming comment or advice. Honestly, I came away from the game feeling like Diamant was the perfect man, a flawless gem like he's named after.
There's nothing particularly wrong with Claus, but he's not a memorable figure either. A powerful summoner mage from the original Tales of Phantasia, he wears a distinctive wide-brimmed hat and coat, sits in the background during battle and chants. But other than that, what? Did he ever say anything important or care about anyone? Did anyone care about him? He feels more like a chess piece on the battlefield than an individual.
Alear can be played as either a man or a woman, but it's clear to me she's really a woman. She's a very emotional and caring person, who acts out of a wish to please others and meet their expectations. I of course played her as a woman, and her beautiful design for the female version better suits her than the male version design suited the male version. To me that makes it even more clear that the original artist's intent was for Alear to be a woman. To not only have heterochroma red and blue eyes, but even mixed up red and blue hair, is a truly unique and spectacular look, a new addition to human beauty. (Though technically not human beauty since she's a dragon.) She also has a wonderful female voice actor who I can't imagine being replaced by her male version saying the lines nearly as well. Since I've already set the precedent with Byleth it's fine to include Alear despite her indeterminate gender too.
Alear always tries to bring people down to Earth when they're being silly, but makes sure never to insult them while doing so. It's such a delicate balance that only girls can really pull off. With friends she's always kind, but when facing enemies she has a backbone of steel. She doesn't flinch when faced with hostage crises, she doesn't bend when the going gets tough, and she doesn't hesitate to condemn and execute evil people who won't listen to reason. (Though she's wonderfully forgiving to anyone who will.) Like Diamant, I can't think of a single flaw in Alear, she's the perfect woman, though I do admit she has some superhuman advantages like the whole world literally worshiping her, inhuman beauty and strength, and immortality. I guess with enough advantages anyone can be impressive.
Alear replaces Lymle from Star Ocean, who is cute and strong but semi-retarded, which isn't exactly inspiring to be named after.
Veyle is Alear's little sister and likewise a dragon posing as a beautiful girl. At first she's naive and confused about herself and the world, easily misled and verbally injured, but it turns out that's because she's under the influence of malign magic and an abusive father (her mother died so she only ever experiences abuse). If it stayed like that throughout she'd just be a pitiable victim, but what makes Veyle amazing is she slowly grows throughout the game into someone who can overcome her tribulations. She throws off her curse through sheer force of will (plus the help and encouragement of her friends), then disavows her abusive parents and eventually destroys them in battle. As a fell dragon she's got plenty of power to set things right when she sets her mind to it. By the end of the game she's become a completely indomitable, reliable leader. Combine that steely determination with yet again beautiful looks and voice (Reina Ueda, who also plays Kanao from Kimetsu no Yaiba, Naru from Hanayamata, and Mira from Dimension W), and her doting adoration of her big sister Alear, and you've got a match made in heaven.
Veyle replaces Hikari, a Pretty Cure who shares a name with two other Hikari's from the book, so is best off getting off stage and freeing up memory space for the beleaguered reader. Hikari isn't even a Pretty Cure, but some sort of goddess who chooses to associate with the mortal world and ends up fighting alongside the Pretty Cure. She isn't very pretty (in her human or divine form), or very smart, or very decisive, or very anything. She's sort of lackluster and half-baked, thus unworthy of being a fictional character 'hall of fame' entry, despite of course having a good heart. Replacing her gets my unique name count up to 806, which sounds even less prearranged than 805, which is always nice.
These four might well be the last name changes I make to '100 Waifus.' This is because I'm not discontent with any of the names left, so even if better characters do come along in the future, it would be okay to ignore them, because the gallery we have before us is already worthy. Then again, if some new great anime appears and replaces Ghost in the Shell, I'll need a replacement for Motoko when that time arrives, so who knows. Are there going to be any new great anime anymore? Isekai Nonbiri Nouka certainly surprised me, so I suppose more surprises can also be expected. In any case, I doubt there will be any further name changes for a long time. Not only have I completed the long awaited Tales of Arise, but also the long awaited Fire Emblem Engage. There's nothing long awaited coming up, so this really is the end of the rope.
If I want to make more edits to '100 Waifus' it will have to be to the actual content of the story, like I managed a month ago. A much harder hurdle than the edits I've been doing up until now. But now that everything is set in steel, re-reading '100 Waifus' and seeing how all the recent edits and additions went isn't a bad idea. Before then I'd need to finish Heaven Cent, the current Xanth book I'm on, but all in good time.
I downloaded the original soundtrack of Fire Emblem Engage and am currently listening to it 100 times so that it can qualify for promotion to my music hall of fame. The soundtrack started at 170 songs, but after deleting short songs, remixes and bad songs it's all the way down to 24 potential winners. And that's just potential, there's a long ways to go before reaching the 100 listens mark. Among these 24 songs are potential 5-star tracks, so a lot is on the line. Needless to say, 24 songs from a single game is really impressive, Xenoblade 3 for instance only had 19, and its music was incredible. I can't tell which composer composed which song in this soundtrack (a lot of people worked on it), so I'll just label all the songs as by Hiroki Morishita, who at least has a long history of great Fire Emblem compositions, which probably makes him the lead composer to this game too.
Due to how good Engage was, I also promoted Fire Emblem's overall video game hall of fame ranking to 4th place, right behind Xenoblade and right ahead of World of Warcraft. That gives you a sense of how phenomenal these two games have been in uplifting the franchise.
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