THEN SUDDENLY: Now you are the Akane-bashers.

[sarsaparilla]

Ok, I managed to get through the entire manga. It actually got better (from my point of view) towards the end as there was in general less fighting and more comedy, and I just quickly browsed through any multi-page confrontations that didn't really contribute anything to the plot.

I think that the aging mushroom story was my overall favorite. Besides that kid!Ranma and kid!Ryoga were simply adorable, for just once their behavior was in perfect accordance with their apparent age! ^_^

you haven't gotten to the Battle Dougi arc

Oh well, that was ... heartless. It's not hard to see how somebody could interpret that as "Akane is a psycho who lashes out as soon as she thinks that she can get away with it". But then again, pretty much every (supposedly) sympathetic character gets a story that shows them in a very unflattering light (from the top of my head, the reversal jewel for Ranma, the koi rod for Ryoga). It's a symptom of the requirements of the plot (Rule of Funny, Comedic Sociopathy and Status Quo is God) trumping character integrity and that doesn't really bother me as long as it's obvious enough.

Ok, I said earlier that I won't start writing Ranma fics, and that ... kind of ... still applies, the reason for the reservation being that I'm rather tempted to draw a Ranma doujinshi, a manga story in original flavor and in the exactly same style (Takahashi's drawing technique is simple enough that I should be able to emulate it with perfect fidelity). A make-believe extra chapter to the manga, if you wish. >_> The idea that I got was as below:

Situated somewhere in the middle of the canon (exact location not important). First act: the magic MacGuffin of the week applies phlebotinum which causes Ranma and Akane to swap bodies. Hilarity ensues. Second act: attempts to reverse the situation cause a cascade of further swaps through the entire cast until even the characters themselves lose track on who is in whose body, causing utter chaos. The story can stop there, or make a cut to the restoration of status quo with an implied Aesop.

But ... I guess that this is such a blindingly obvious idea that it's already done to death in the fandom, right? And drawing requires a lot of work compared to writing, anyway. But ... but ... I can already see all the hilarious expressions in my mind ... ugh, I feel conflicted @.@

(right after the first swap)
ranma!Akane: But ... I'm a man!
akane!Ranma: *unimpressed, pours a can of water on ranma!Akane's head* Better now?
girl!ranma!Akane: *pops a vein*

[Muphrid]

Akane (in Ranma's body) pours water on Ranma (in Akane's body), which, because he's in Akane's body, has no effect?  Or Akane in Ranma's body is the one originally complaining?

Props for chewing through the manga so fast.  You're quite right; basically every character has one story that really paints them badly.  I've tried to write off, for example, the reversal jewel arc as Ranma's pride clouding his better judgment, but it still takes a lot of handwaving to do that in a sympathetic fashion.  To me, the attitudes characters have toward each other are overriding compared to how people in the "real world" would classify their behaviors.  Nobody in-story thinks of Ryoga as a scumbag for coercing Ranma with the fishing rod--in part because they don't know he was going for Akane, granted, but even Akane seems more compassionate and sympathetic toward Ryoga in that story than would be justified.  But that's all over the place in the manga, so either it's accepted and you can keep going, or it isn't, I guess.

[sarsaparilla]

Akane (in Ranma's body) pours water on Ranma (in Akane's body), which, because he's in Akane's body, has no effect?  Or Akane in Ranma's body is the one originally complaining?

Akane in male!Ranma's body freaks out after the swap, avoids hot water after having been turned to female!Ranma, Ranma in Akane's body is overall not particularly bothered because being genderswapped is not a big deal for him, though now he cannot take a bath at all because Akane won't allow it (for obvious reasons). Add a couple of hilarious misunderstandings by other cast members and that's one (manga) chapter worth of comedy right there.

[Brian]

Depending on how you look at it, you can also play the card that the reversal jewel arc occurred immediately after Ranma discovered the truth of his mother.  If (giving Takahashi too much credit, probably) you interpret that as Ranma being depressed over that, it becomes slightly more sympathetic.

And likewise, you can turn the dougi arc around and point out that in the Takahashi universe, not much value is given to damage done (across the board, pretty much), and outside of Ranma himself, most people don't actually care who wins or loses the smaller fights.

As far as Ranma and Akane switching bodies, I do recall a fic or two about it -- it's almost always played off as Ranma being able to handle it better than Akane (mostly).  Sometimes Akane flips out a little over Ranma having ... access to her body.  Hm, I recall one specific scene where Ranma complains that Akane's body wouldn't be much to look at, and then she (in his body) whallops him.

Oops.

Hmm.  Trying to remember the titles....  Dune?

[Anastasia]

Rings a bell, let me see if I can remember it. Processing, processing, processing...

http://home.comcast.net/~kmresponse/ranma_fanfic_categories.html#Body%20Swapping

Check here, it's dated but has some examples.

[Brian]

Yeah, the other one I was thinking was that ... squicktacular PhysicalGod!Akane-hits-her-head,-thinks-she's-Ranma story from Allyn Yonge.

That was ... horrifying, the way the Tendos immediately forced Ranma to 'be Akane' for that 'Ranma'.  Your link is a better take on it. :x

[Anastasia]

Got a link to that one? I sorta feel like reading a possible trainwreck today.

[Brian]

Yeesh.

Atrocities within:

Spoiler: ShowHide

This is a reocities site, so:

http://reocities.com/ayongedarling/NoFrames.html

Specifically:

http://reocities.com/ayongedarling/ImaGuyChapter1.html

Dune, I forget what a glutton for punishment you are ... anyway.  It's abandoned and incomplete.

Good luck -- you'll need it!

[Anastasia]

Yellow and black? Wow, the background was enough to scare me off.

[sarsaparilla]

As far as Ranma and Akane switching bodies, I do recall a fic or two about it -- it's almost always played off as Ranma being able to handle it better than Akane (mostly).  Sometimes Akane flips out a little over Ranma having ... access to her body.  Hm, I recall one specific scene where Ranma complains that Akane's body wouldn't be much to look at, and then she (in his body) whallops him.

That is kind of unavoidable in such a scenario. However, I was thinking that once Ranma realizes that he can't use pretty much any of his skills in the swapped body (though he knows in principle how to do them he would have to retrain Akane's body), he's suddenly even more eager than Akane to get the situation reversed.

And of course, that was only supposed to be the warm-up round, with the major wackiness being derived from the attempts to cure the swap that turn into further swaps instead. Maybe first a few swaps by accident, then people swapping intentionally as a last ditch attempt to prevent the situation from escalating (which fails, of course) or to prevent certain secrets from getting revealed to certain persons (which narrowly succeeds) until it runs completely out of control. At some point Happosai gets swapped with one of the girls and gets mesmerized by his new body which disgusts and enrages everybody else to the extent that they gang up against him in order to save the situation but then it gets so tangled up that nobody knows who's who any more. Basically, a chaotic in-universe character shuffle.

For such a scenario to work the MacGuffin should be something that does the swapping in close physical proximity and through a mechanism that is easy to trigger accidentally.

Aw, now I'm really starting to want to do this. Must stick to Haruhi-verse....

[thepanda]

For such a scenario to work the MacGuffin should be something that does the swapping in close physical proximity and through a mechanism that is easy to trigger accidentally.

A magical item with an ominous, impressive name that turns out to like like some second grader's attempt at pottery. Something like that urn/pot-thing in the Terrible Master Urd arc of A!MS?

[Brian]

I can understand the temptation; I've written quite a few fics of my own in the fandom, after all (frighteningly, jusenkyo.wikia tells me that it's nearly 50 ... at least most of them are chapters of Compass Points or spamfics ... I think).  For what it's worth, it was actually dissatisfaction with the original series that led me to write fanfiction in the first place, not admiration.

A less than pure origin point, I suppose....

Anyway, I was frustrated by the manga's utter lack of progress and character growth -- the enslavement to the status quo, basically.  It says something that everything I ever wrote was a marked counterpoint to that.  Then again, it was over a decade ago when I discovered it, so my perspective has shifted somewhat.  <_<;;

As has been paraphrased elsewhere in the fandom: "Takahashi wrote a 38 volume story about two people not getting together.  Fanfiction aims to change that a little."

The anime/manga arguments usually crop up in here, since the anime has quite a few non-manga elements (and most of the characters are a bit more flanderized than the manga).  Effectively, the anime is even more episodic and relies on status quo to undo pretty much every anime-only episode's content by the end. :\

[sarsaparilla]

Yes, there is a general lack of progress in the story but then again, I saw it more as a sitcom than a plot-driven series, so it didn't really bother me any more than Bart Simpson being in the same class after, what, 23 years of studying.

As has been paraphrased elsewhere in the fandom: "Takahashi wrote a 38 volume story about two people not getting together.  Fanfiction aims to change that a little."

Actually, my final take of the series was slightly more optimistic (if I wasn't misled by some fanslation quirks that weren't in the original material). Basically, I thought that by the end of the series Ranma and Akane had admitted to themselves and to each other that they will indeed get married at some point, but that right now they are still too young (and at school!) and thus they aren't in a hurry. Once they grow some more they'll be able to do it on their own initiative instead of being pushed into it by their families.

I know that the series didn't state so, I just felt that out of all plausible conclusions it was the one I liked the most.

[Brian]

To be fair, that's generally what Takahashi was aiming for ... but she isn't actually very good about concluding series -- look at Urusei Yatsura for that.

OTOH, contrast Ranma to Maison Ikoku, which I liked quite a bit more (because of the character development, and the fact that the slapstick elements get downplayed there).  So it's not like she can't, as much as it seems she won't if she thinks it'll upset the fans.

That all hearkens back to what I dislike about the 'harem' aspect of these things in general: If one happy couple results, what about everyone who gets left behind (assuming they were genuine) -- and avoiding the eye-roll of a Pair the Spares scenario (done so very, very tiresomely often, and generally poorly...).

Lum (from UY) was originally supposed to be a one-shot character who appeared in Ataru's life as a symptom of the insanity in it.  Over the course of the series, his intended love interest (Shinobu) gets reduced to a side-character, while Lum gets more and more screentime (more-or-less overtaking the 'main character' spot, really).

Shampoo was introduced in Ranma as an Expy/nod to Lum; she was likewise supposed to be a one-shot character who appears briefly in Ranma's life to showcase the insanity there (but the fans wanted her around; this is probably why Shampoo gets slightly more screen time in general than Ukyou).  So, I do have to wonder what the story would have been if Shampoo hadn't stuck around, and then Cologne hadn't bumped Tofu out of the 'wise mentor' role -- but then, probably, that story would have had Ukyou leaving/backing off, too.

(Incidentally, Ukyou's my favorite among the cast. ;)  I don't dislike Akane, I just like Ukyou better. ^_^)

So, your ending is the one the series (I believe) tries to project.

OTOH, most fanfiction writers take it more seriously, and thus you get most Ranma 1/2 fanfics.

[Dracos]

Well, as can be seen, there's a part of the actual canon that you can take for any character you want and use to justify both considerable positive and negative traits.  The worship of the status quo means that authors that do this really aren't doing anything wrong.

It's the dissatisfaction with the original combined with the draw of the characters that is at least partially responsible for the healthy fanficdom that appeared around it.

Naruto heavily benefits from the same.  The original author is often incoherent and slapstick, random, and spur of the moment, but introduces grand conflicts that often resolve in unsatisfying ways.  Because of this, a large number of authors have a good foothold of "And what if this part went right?"  "What if this character wasn't retarded?"

In comparison, One Piece gets 'draw of characters combined with satisfaction and few good hook points' for people that continue to read it (instead of simply waving it off) :P.   The end result?  The monumental mass of fanfiction in that area is SI driven, with basically the story 'as is' being something to continue (or replicate).  The exception being that since there is a lack of romance, those unsatisfied with that have found plentiful ground to add such.