After replacing Setsuna with Noa as one of Cute's daughters, after wandering in the wilderness for a while, I decided to bring Setsuna back into the book by kicking out Kyou from Hatsukoi 1/1. Nothing against Kyou, she can have a good home in my wonderful list, but her name is a repeat and I needed more unique names like Setsuna. In addition, it would create a plot hole if Setsuna weren't used yet but Christopher couldn't think of her as a suitable vessel for a new kid of Cute, since she's an almost ideal kid of Cute, which is why she was a kid of Cute up until now. Only by having Setsuna already accounted for does the conversation in Chapter 58 make sense. For the same reason, I had to include Gallica, the flying fairy, as the daughter of someone else, or people would start to wonder why she wasn't a candidate as Cute's daughter. Gallica is musical, like her mother Yui, and she comes from a better franchise (Metaphor ReFantazio) than Yuri (from Alien Nine), and her name is unique unlike Yuri's, so everything pushed in the same direction -- Gallica in, Yuri out.
I had no plans to edit this book again, but it all went sideways when I noticed heterochromia was misspelled. The moment I corrected that my paperback was already out of date and needed replacing -- at that point rather than settling for a mere spelling correction, it would be better to improve the book however I could -- which led to eliminating some unnecessary 'justs' in Chapter 11 as well as the introduction of Noa as Cute's daughter. This Setsuna change is a necessary consequence of Noa's forceful entry and really should be treated as part of the same edit.
Meanwhile, I corrected the spelling of Charle in Chapter 58 to Charles. Even though the name is pronounced 'Sharuru' for whatever reason it's spelled Charles so Charles it is.
I also cut a couple unnecessary commas from Chapter 54.
Other than that the book read smoothly enough. There are still too many 'justs' and 'evens' but it's too much work to replace them all. I hadn't planned on editing anything anymore, so this little update will have to do.
Despite being the 49th time, the book was still sexy. That has to be a world record.
The changes are so minor that it would have been fine to read the book last year, but for completionists here is the fully updated version of the story:
The long lists of names are tough sledding, so feel free to skip them, they have no important impact on the plot whether you memorize them or not. Only I have to read through them all religiously as the actual author claiming to have reread the book in full 49 times. The names serve multiple purposes -- they remind you of the 100 waifus' existences whether they've had recent screen time or not -- they help characterize the mothers (children are generally assigned to the mothers they're assigned to because of something they have in common) -- they honor all the greatest people and stories in fiction -- they show how much Christopher cares about his kids, that he actually takes time to recognize each of them individually -- they make for a fun minigame where you can test your memorization skills by figuring out which fictional character is being referred to for each kid. But only the reader can decide whether the effort it takes to read all those names is worth the reward. Presumably if it's only the first time one reads the book the task won't feel so arduous.
Since I had to make changes this readthrough, I'm on the hook to reread the book for a 50th time as well. But that's not such a bad thing. It's always best to end on a nice round number like 50. And I don't have to do it any time soon, just someday.
My love for these waifus is immeasurable, including the one I invented myself, Cute. I can't imagine anyone better than her as a person or a lover or a God. My belief in God skyrocketed after I imagined Cute as what God could and should be, if God did exist. Once I figured out what a good God would be thinking by making a universe like ours, it became clear that such a good God really did think those things and really did make our universe. The universe makes less sense if Cute doesn't exist than if she does. The God I worship is Cute-sama. '100 Waifus' is the Book of Cute.
Cute is the perfect God, but all the waifus are the perfect something. They've all maxed out some virtue or attractive feature in an unsurpassable manner which makes them unforgettable. Hopefully '100 Waifus' shows off that charm point, captures its essence from the original story, and presents it to the reader unspoiled. But it would be better for everyone if they not only read '100 Waifus', but all the source works that fuel it too, to learn the true nature of how dazzling all these waifus are. Obviously the combined length of the source works far surpasses '100 Waifus,' meaning all the waifus are given more time to show off there than here. '100 Waifus' would still be worthwhile, as a work of art, if all it does is encourage people to go read/watch/play the source material instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment