[Ranma 1/2] Power

[Bjorn]

Power, by Intrasonic, is a moderate-length Ranma 1/2 fic (now hosted on fanfiction.net).  The premise is simple: Akane is given a chance to achieve martial arts mastery without the inconvenience of training.  Ranma then does his best to defeat Akane at all costs, and in the course of this, everyone learns something important about the sort of person Ranma is, and the sort of person he'd be happy with.

That's a pretty bland review in an attempt to keep from spoiling it overmuch, and probably makes it sound worse than it is.  In fact, it's a solid fic.  The writing style is functional, if short of art, the characterizations are mostly unbiased and sympathetic, and the premise and plot are intriguing.

It's clear that this fic was written to make a point about Ranma's character, and that's fine, as far as it goes.  In doing so, though, the author glosses over a few points, most of which serve to end up treating Akane a bit unfairly.  The most glaring of this is the claim that Akane might take mystical means to gain power, but not a real martial artist; a position that's a bit hard to defend by the canon.

On the other hand, the bar for Akane-bashing has been set very high, and this story is far from being one of the worst.  Ukyou fans will be a bit disappointed, as she utterly fails to appear, but I still think most people will find this worth a read.

[Dracos]

Link doesn't work, Bjorn.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Link doesn't work, Bjorn.

It does work, ff.net is just being wonky.  Keep refreshing and sooner or later it will pop up.

[Dracos]

Ah, okay.

Dracos
He of many classes.

[kpjam]

I remember reading this, and I skimmed the last chapter again after you posted.  It was a nice fic.  Pretty even portrayal.  Explored an idea through storytelling, though the author did put some sermons in.  I liked and a decent read.

[Ranma_007]

I remember this one as well. Decent fic, if a little preachy about Akane's character.

[DB]

Ah yes, I remember this one.  I definitely enjoyed it. The only real problem I had was the author having Akane make a snap decision at the very end regarding Ranma. There was no need for the decision to be so extreme.  Implication of what would happen woudl have been better.  And it was preachy here and there, but overall for the type of fic it was it was very well handled.

As to Ukyou not popping up in it, that's a good thing since she wasn't useful to the story. One of the worst thing a writer can do is put characters in just for the sake of putting them in rather than it being for a purpose. Takahashi herself left characters out for numorous volumes of the manga if she didn't need them.

DB Sommer