Two years later, I would attempt to conduct my first remake project on the fan site. It was supposed to be a graphical overhaul with an updated Bootstrap 4 to boot, adding hand-made graphics from me, and reusing a lot of written context via copy-and-paste. Due to reusing content and a minor change in style, it was done relatively fast.

But then one day, a cup of coffee was poured on top of the Macbook it was worked and stored on. In mere minutes, the keyboards started to malfunction, then the computer itself just sort of died. I was without a properly functioning computer for about a month, and then stuff happened in my personal life over the next few years forced me to shelf the remake forever.

With a good look at the original fan site, going through a lot of personal turmoil that was thrusted upon my shoulders without warning, and having no potential career prospects for the last few years. The mere idea of leaving the fansite as it is was off the tables, for I wanted it to be something more than just a simple fansite. Throwing out any planning or documentation writing out the window, I decided that I wanted to make it better and rewrite everything about the fansite.

Created as both an apology and a celebration to both the translator and those involved with Kuniko Takahashi indirectly and/or directly, and an apology towards myself for letting my personal issues hinder the development of my skills and personal growth as a person. Though this project isn't about me as a person but to see how far I've come since those days as a front-end developer.

This remake utilizes the recent release of Bootstrap 5 bundled with HTML5, CSS3, and bits of Javascript. This is more or less a complete overhaul and remake on both the writing and graphical fronts, with custom-made graphical backgrounds and thought-out and researched writing. The goal is to see how far I've come and to give Kuniko Takahashi's work a proper fansite that both I and everyone else can be proud of.

My thoughts on the completion, the design, and changes

As of June 25th of 2024, the writing portion of the remake has been completed and I mean the portions that exclusively include the entries in their entirety. That means everything from the entry page, the homepage, the about page, the glossary page, the new page, and all of the entries that were translated by VGPerson and others, and my co-collaborator ChairGTables's parody. I think I started the design aspects of the remake around September and/or October, taking at least a month designing the website with the goal of emulating the source material to a T, and then another month adding in features that would help make the experience as sensible as possible.

Many of the issues I've had with the original were the first things in order to be patched up.

Such as the deceptive nature of the series and making sure any potential reader/viewer would be eased in and informed of the nature of the series. A special introduction on the homepage of the remake and on every entry to give the readers/viewers an understanding of what is kind of going on despite the deceptive nature, to basically inform and downplay its nature to garner some sort of interest.

And the total disregard that the tone of the original was one of the most critically problematic things I was told. Instead of doing what the remake did such as keeping things self-contained and moderated unless otherwise, the original in my eyes was a complete whiplash in what it was trying to be and show. Many many people were turned away from it because the deceptive nature was quite glaring and right in your face.

The first thing you see in the homepage of the original were the deceptive title screens of some entries and when I looked at it back in 2023, even I had an issue and kind of cringed. Like I mentioned, a lot of people thought of me as weird whenever I showed the original fansite to them - hence why I made it my mission to correct the glaring aspects.

The glossary of the original was lacking and thus it got a sorely needed expansion. I wanted to give the proper respects to Kuniko Takahashi that the original fansite could never ever do and it was a very hard journey to say the least. Instead of the screenshots of the title screens, text headers styled and akin to each of their respect entries was made with any potential sound effects from that entry. With the help of ChairGTables we got said sound effects, Samurai Vs Ninja, video links to most tracks used, video links related to fan-related things, the Japanese Wiki, and other sound effects... and cat.

The reception towards the remake has been wildly different and hugely successful which puts my heart at ease.

My thoughts on the writing overhaul

And I did a huge overhaul on the writing aspects of the remake, making sure to be comedic and/or informative and engaging as much as possible. Every entry has a special introduction and "Personal Thoughts" bit where I talk about the narrative, characters, and my overall feelings and if it should be watched or not. I also went out of my way to spend time looking through the tropes and analyzing them to the best of my ability in case some ever wanted to make a TVTropes page for the series.

Although, I'm sure I've missed a few Tropes. I just never expected to basically write almost three to five thousand words on my thoughts on most of the entries. When I originally started writing these entries, the entries that were first translated by VGPerson were tackled in the order the YouTube Playlist she made on the rerelease of the original translations. The first four entries were the easiest to write due to a few key factors that were not apparent in the later ones, and I was able to knock out four entries per week for like two to three weeks.

Gonna list them right down here.

• Simple storylines, simple characters
• Smaller cast
• Less usage of tropes
• Shorter run time of five to ten minutes
• Four hours of total writing time per entry

The later entries gave me a good number of trouble and I'm speaking as the one who wrote the individual entries and not speaking as a writer, and I do enjoy writing said entries. If any of you read any of the later entries on my personal thoughts, you'll see it has gotten complicated and incredibly long. What started from a steady pace turned into huge slog of writing, I started at 1000 Words or more for the early entries but as things got complicated fast, I ended up batting 2000 to 3000 Words for the medium lengthened entries and 3000 to 5000 words for the longer ones. The total word count of all the entries regardless of spelling and grammatical errors would be around and/or above 90,000 words which is quite insane for a fansite to do even if it is dedicated.

I will list down what I encountered while writing these entries. And if anyone was asking which entry was the hardest to tackle or at least which one - it'd be almost every entry in the Late Era. (Reference the "Want To Write Your Own" page for that terminology.)

• Well-written storylines, complicated and complex characters
• Moderately sized cast
• Everything and everyone are filled with tropes
• Deconstruction of tropes
• Fifteen to twenty minutes long
• Eight to twelve hours writing per entry

My biggest problem is that I severely underestimated the scope of doing a complete writing overhaul, and the writing power and quality of Kuniko Takahashi. I just never thought that a supposedly popular Japanese Meme would have stellar writing and well-written characters to boot, and you're not supposed to be using your brain for it.

The more I wrote, the deeper the writing quality and storytelling got - the more I got invested in delivering. I personally think the quality is fine even if it is a little bit inconsistent at certain points. Can't get mad at me, just imagine writing non-stop and trying to be consistent throughout.

Of course, I did take proper breaks and gave myself enough time to chill out and relax. I'm only one human being who thinks dedicating bits of his life to a Meme is perfectly fine.

Not long after finishing up the writing portion, I suffered my first case of Writer's Block on this series after starting the "Want To Write Your Own?". Despite having the advantage of knowing the series to the best of my knowledge and having a general idea what I wanted with the page, I ultimately faltered at starting the page itself. Most of the problems are all about determining what and how to deliver nearly two decades worth of videos into digestible information that can easily be understood and used. Separating them into several different sections, categories, and segments that can be picked up and returned to at anytime.

The hardest part was making sure there was a clear line and definition of Narrative Writing, Character Writing, and a list of Tropes. With two decades worth of stories and characters made, the means of defining them was as hard as writing a script for voice acting without any proper experience and reference. I had to develop terminology that would be understood and translated like a block of Legos.

Establishing Eras wasn't as easy as pie, but with dozens of videos made as well as the quality of them. Separating them into the Early, Middle, and Late Eras helped establishing how the narratives and characters were written.

The Tropes were a completely different issue because I took a whole month and hypersped the processing of what Tropes I used in every My Personal Thoughts of all the entries. TVTropes is extremely complicated of how a Trope is defined and used in its application. It is to the point that even I'm not sure if my usage was correct, but it's completely normal since every Trope on TVTropes has their own phases of what it is.

A good example would be the Stock Light-Novel Hero Trope. Its basic definition structure was super simple before the early 2020s when the protagonists of Light Novels were indistinguishable from each other, Kirito from Sword Art Online comes to mind. As more anime adaptations came out with different protagonists to boot, the Trope evolved from explaining the base template to defining the different takes and interpretations of a Stock Light-Novel Hero. Instead of the Trope being exclusively male-centric and Japanese-centric, it has evolved to include female protagonists, the different settings and plots, and even the origin of the source material.

Solo Leveling and The Beginning After The End, their main characters each exhibit different takes of the Stock Light-Novel Hero but the both of them are written from authors in different countries. One of them is from a Web Novel while the other is from a Novel but the both of them have received a Webtoons or Manhwa adaptation.

The only reason why the two mentioned stories are on TVTropes is because the Webtoons or Manhwa adaptation, were seen first. Not many people care to read the source material since many of them would prefer not reading pages full of words.

It's like how many Wiki articles of many popular characters use the anime and/or Webtoons adaptation instead of the source material. Not everybody wants a black and white visual of their favorite character, a colorized version depicts them better no matter who drew them in the adaptations.

My final thoughts on all of this?

This entire remake project had some ups and downs just like my love-hate relationship with The Warrior Returns. Regardless of how it turned out in the end, what matters to me is that a goal was set and we all worked on it as a team. No matter how big or small the contributions that everyone made, all of us made a difference that aided in the completion of the remake or otherwise. Even if a bulk of the remake was made by my hands, I'm not going to say I did everything.

Coding and developing this remake was one thing and writing all the entries in an eight month timespan with errors is another. Finding all the information, the music and sound effects, finding the Japanese Wiki and creating the TVTropes Page is just as and/or even more important than what I did because the remake's quality wouldn't exist without any of these. All I did was simply write stuff, but everyone else who was involved deserves the credit.

You all know who you are with all the credits spread across the remake like peanut butter and jelly. Can't have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without all of you eating with me and stuff. It's not my sandwich, it's our sandwich.

Anyhow, I'll continue updating the remake whenever new information is found, whenever a new entry is released, when a parody is made, and whatever mess is found.

Can't forget that Bulgaria deserves some credit too... like for the original fansite anyways. Hosting I mean.