I'll try to clarify step by step why the update was done this way and breakdown all my decissions.
Let's talk about NORDE and Colemak & Dvorak first: those two kits were too far to reach MOQ. Given how the poll, the GH thread, and Massdrop talk have gone, I can't justify having these two kits. There has only been one time when these two kits have reached MOQ, and that was Nautilus, which had objectively way more hype than Serika. As the designer of the set, I don't think it is reasonable from my side to keep this going on for every set that is run through Massdrop just for the sake of it when there's clearly not enough interest for those two kits.
Otherwise we end up with unsustainable situations.Now, let's talk about the base kit changes and removing the Hiragana kit. First of all, I'm perfectly aware of how polarizing this changes are. For some people, this is a deal breaker, and for some others a the set is now a must have. I've been always interested in sublegends and I like them a lot as they make sets very appealing, and as some of you already know, Serika's name is a reference to a manga (Space Brothers). So there has always been a thematic pretext to have those Hiragana legends added to the set since the very first moment I publicaly released the set. In fact, some of my early sketches for this set back in 2016 when the set was unnamed, had either Hiragana or Hangul sublegends. However, back in 2016 having those sublegends on a GMK set wasn't possible, and that's why I initially sticked to the more "standard" look.
Soon after update #1 was released, which added Hiragana and Micons, I started to become more and more uncomfortable with the set and its kits. For every single set, and specially for the GMK ones, the base kit is the core of the set, and everyone should get it. All base kits should be as affordable as possible, which can be achieved by having the right amount of keycaps and also reaching higher order quantities. By adding those two kits I was achieving the exact opposite of what I wanted, splitting the orders between 2 options in detriment of the core kit.
I've thought a lot about this decission, and as I've said before, I'm completely aware that for some of you is a dealbreaker, so I apologize to those of you. However, I do believe that these changes are for good.
Just to make things clear: there won't be any other major update. I don't plan to add any kits, or remove any of the present ones. I do not plan to add yellow spacebars, latin alphas, or NORDE.