While he was making work progress further, he noticed that a common view which was believed in those days about the differences among the manuscripts of The Tale of Genji was wrong; it was said that 'there are a lot of tiny differences among the manuscripts and woodblock books of The Tale of Genji, which were due to simple mistakes made in copying, but there is almost nothing which affects the meanings of sentence or the plot.'
さらに作業を進めていく中で、源氏物語本文の写本ごとの異なりが当時一般に言われていたような「源氏物語の本文には、写本や版本によって単純な写し間違いなどに起因すると見られる細かい差異は多数存在するものの、文の意味や話の筋立てに影響を及ぼすような違いはほとんど存在しない」という状況ではなく、古注の解釈の上でも無視できない差異がしばしば見られることが明らかになった。