Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 01:14:03 PM
Read through it a bit before leaving for work.
My normal apathy for "And now Ranma is a girl, because this is a sailor moon crossover!" in general (and Ozz in particular) aside, I found it very 'Meh' at prologue + half of chapter one. It's launching itself wholly into ANC/OC territory, with shades of characters I care about imprinted on them. Maybe if I cared more for the original SM canon, but I'm under the impression that Crystal Tokyo in general is hardcore fanon, so....
...yeah.
Yeah, evil Crystal Tokyo is fanon and bullshit. That said this isn't really Crystal Tokyo at all, though it takes a lot more to get into. I don't really disagree with most of what you said, either. It's a quirky fic that's interesting enough on the 'see what happens next' merits more than anything else.
Here is hoping that Kodansha's updated rerelease of the Sailor Moon manga will finally kill some of that fannon dead.
Heh, fanon takes on a malevolent sentience of its own.
It's kind of a meme, really. A horrific, trolling meme.
Yeah, fanon refuses to die. I doubt rereleasing SM will do anything to slay it.
Heh, true. At least I'll get larger books (and hopefully a better translation) out of it. Oh, and some material we never got over here before as well.
Wait, are you saying Crystal Tokyo itself is fanon? Or merely the 'shining dystopia' version a lot of people like to use?
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 04:44:19 PM
Wait, are you saying Crystal Tokyo itself is fanon? Or merely the 'shining dystopia' version a lot of people like to use?
The latter, d'oh.
I think it's a reasonable enough interpretation from the limited facts at hand, though a terribly overused and eventually weakened trope.
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 05:08:25 PM
I think it's a reasonable enough interpretation from the limited facts at hand
How so? The facts we know about it
1) Ruled by Serenity
2) Kicked out a bunch of terrorists
3) Was attacked by descendants of said terrorists
4) May have been founded before the senshi made it back to Earth
It's also ruled by the Grand Council of ninja family members from Naruto.
Wait. Hang on.
Ranma is inevitably either a girl more often, or gets powers as a girl in SM crossovers.
Ranma is inevitably WAY more badass in Naruto (on acount of Naruto canon being featherweight compared to Ranma naturally (google your own eyeroll gag here)) crossovers.
If you cross Naruto over with Ranma ... does that make Ranma/Naruto the matchup to abolish Crystal Tokyo?
Naruto: "I'm gonna be Serenity!"
...I think we should stop.
Now.
Quote from: thepanda on May 11, 2011, 06:25:04 PM
How so? The facts we know about it
1) Ruled by Serenity
2) Kicked out a bunch of terrorists
3) Was attacked by descendants of said terrorists
4) May have been founded before the senshi made it back to Earth
I could have sworn the whole "purification" thing was merely an exaggeration, not something invented wholesale, but I can't be arsed to look it up while I'm at work; I'll take a look later.
But also the whole "ChibiUsa is a kid for 900 years, we have NO IDEA why"? Highly suspicious.
Forgot to throw this out:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UndeadHorseTrope
Secondly, consider that the fans tend to think things through long after the creator's moved on; these could be throwaway lines that people are making too much out of.
Like "I haven't seen that chart in 100 years!" (Dr. Tofu's 'famous' last line in the Ranma manga before he abruptly vanishes, as Cologne filled the role of Wise Old Mentor more hilariously than a rival for Akane's affection).
Then again, exactly as above, that doesn't mean cool fic can't come from odd idea.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:04:26 PM
Ranma is inevitably either a girl more often, or gets powers as a girl in SM crossovers.
Me, I wanna find out if there's a way to do "Ranma is an axis around which the timeline can be changed" without falling into "Ranma is a chaos machine who must be directly opposed by Setsuna".
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 07:26:35 PMMe, I wanna find out if there's a way to do "Ranma is an axis around which the timeline can be changed" without falling into "Ranma is a chaos machine who must be directly opposed by Setsuna".
Nothing is stopping you from writing a Ranma/Haruhi fusion. :3
For what it's worth, there are a good number of fics out there that are pretty much what you're suggesting, though. Either Ranma is chosen by Setsuna because he's the best chance of bringing Crystal Tokyo around, or Setsuna just chooses him out of desparation. I think people just _like_ the uber-shonen aspect of, "Enough punching will killbliterate your 'only love can overcome me' monsters!", many of them not realizing that they are kind of kicking the original shoujo vibe at the same time.
And what better way to introduce Ranma as capable than to make Setsuna aware and unable to stop him?
Though, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone. I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.
Well, I mean don't even bring Setsuna's manipulation into it. She doesn't have to be the goddamn chessmaster all the time.
And don't tell me to write it. I have an idea, I just have no idea how to flesh it out right now.
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 08:04:07 PMWell, I mean don't even bring Setsuna's manipulation into it. She doesn't have to be the goddamn chessmaster all the time.
I want to argue that she's supposed to be that, though.
Then again, canon demonstrates that even if she's supposed to, she frequently isn't.
Haha, a fic where Ranma stumbles into the scene and Setsuna's actually pleasantly surprised -- but has no clue who he is. That would be worth seeing.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 08:25:47 PM
Haha, a fic where Ranma stumbles into the scene and Setsuna's actually pleasantly surprised -- but has no clue who he is. That would be worth seeing.
I'm imagining a Tennant-esque "What." (http://www.myremoteradio.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/DoctorWho_What.jpg)
Anyhow, commenting on the original spinoff fic:
What was interesting about it: It took Dystopian Crystal Tokyo WAY off the deep end. Everything has been flattened into unrecognizagable parodies of human behavior, not even the royalty retain a sense of Identity. Yadda yadda, things have gone terribly rotten.
What's not: Ranma. Ryoga.
...I'm kind of a character driven reader. That's a show-stopper for me.
Quote from: Dracos on May 11, 2011, 09:03:01 PM
Anyhow, commenting on the original spinoff fic:
What was [not interesting]: Ranma. Ryoga.
...I'm kind of a character driven reader. That's a show-stopper for me.
Yeah, I think that's the summary with a bullet for why it didn't interest me either.
Man, I killed the chatter hard :3
QuoteThough, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone. I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.
This. This, this, this, this, this! With the exception of one fic, I've never seen this done well. Plus it's been ground to death at least a dozen times over. Urgh.
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 07:10:53 PM
Quote from: thepanda on May 11, 2011, 06:25:04 PM
How so? The facts we know about it
1) Ruled by Serenity
2) Kicked out a bunch of terrorists
3) Was attacked by descendants of said terrorists
4) May have been founded before the senshi made it back to Earth
I could have sworn the whole "purification" thing was merely an exaggeration, not something invented wholesale, but I can't be arsed to look it up while I'm at work; I'll take a look later.
But also the whole "ChibiUsa is a kid for 900 years, we have NO IDEA why"? Highly suspicious.
I need to read that arc again, but if I recall correctly that was a huge extrapolation based off a false premise that was floating around some of the major Sailor Moon fan sites back in the day. That premise being that Pluto is a chessmaster manipulating the timeline to produce Crystal Tokyo, something completely unsubstantiated in the manga. Its like people forget the whole 'Even knowing of my existance is a death sentence. Now die' bit she pulled when we're first introduced to her. They also forget that the gate facilitates a single path through time. Anyone with the power to reach the same plane and the know-how to travel around in it could time travel without the gate, which Chaos, its imperfect incarnations, and the Black Moon family all did at some point. Pluto sure as hell wasn't omniscient.
A lot of Sailor Moon fanon came from those sites. Remember when one site had people believing Haruka was really a man? And then when that got debunked it turned into 'was a man in the Silver Millennium'? Or how no one ever remembers that Tux-boy had an actual effective one-hit-kill attack? Ok, admittedly everyone had one hit kill attacks in the manga, but still. I maintain that 'Tuxedo the Smoking Bomber' is an awesome name for an attack that could only be more awesome if he, in fact, bombed at midnight.
The Chibi-Usa age thing... yeah, I got nothin'. They suggest it might have something to do with her being a child of the Silver Millennium born into Crystal Tokyo, but nothing concrete. We do know she does eventually start aging, though.
And the Sailor Moon timeline is screwy. Why doesn't anyone ever comment on that?
Quote from: thepanda on May 11, 2011, 11:47:39 PM
And the Sailor Moon timeline is screwy. Why doesn't anyone ever comment on that?
Well, I have half an outline for a story that explains that neatly as "the universe is completely falling apart". Unfortunately, it's mostly the last half of the outline.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 11, 2011, 11:20:29 PM
QuoteThough, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone. I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.
This. This, this, this, this, this! With the exception of one fic, I've never seen this done well. Plus it's been ground to death at least a dozen times over. Urgh.
Ranma isn't a weirdness magnet; he's a main character in a Rumic World story. Weird Shit Happens (to the point of becoming mundane). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inJnkSqNpAY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inJnkSqNpAY) This is average, every day stuff for these people.
Man, crystal tokyo threads, always popular thing to complain about.
On the Chibi-Usa thing, her being 900 year old and still a kid isn't explained...but helps highlight just how stupid the fanon of Crystal Tokyo's purification is. The kid was bullied very, very badly because she didn't have a moon mark visible (never showed until she started time traveling), her whole not growing up situation, being a crybaby, not being refined, etc. Hell, being bullied was what -led- to the whole mess between her and the future silver crystal and why she was such easy pickings for Wiseman.
I find it hard to believe that if purification happened on the scale fanon tends to say, that any kid (let alone the supposed princess) would get bullied to that point.
Quote from: Merc on May 12, 2011, 12:06:15 AM
Man, crystal tokyo threads, always popular thing to complain about.
On the Chibi-Usa thing, her being 900 year old and still a kid isn't explained...but helps highlight just how stupid the fanon of Crystal Tokyo's purification is. The kid was bullied very, very badly because she didn't have a moon mark visible (never showed until she started time traveling), her whole not growing up situation, being a crybaby, not being refined, etc. Hell, being bullied was what -led- to the whole mess between her and the future silver crystal and why she was such easy pickings for Wiseman.
I find it hard to believe that if purification happened on the scale fanon tends to say, that any kid (let alone the supposed princess) would get bullied to that point.
But Setsuna is the evil mastermind bitch! She'd set it up so that people had to bully her, so the timeline is intact!
Gah, too tired to look through the whole arc, but did they even say people got purified? I know people got longevity (average life span = 1000 years, stop aging after they mature) after Usagi became queen of Crystal Tokyo but I don't exactly recall what the purification was supposed to be about. I keep thinking 'anime only'.
TVTropes confirms anime-only, and says it's basically comparable to an exorcism. About what I expected, but I can see how that could be exaggerated.
Depends on the source. I can't speak for the dub, and Doi's website (a very old SM resource website, that a lot of people that wanted 'authenticity' for their fics used) claims that:
QuoteSometime in the future, the world will undergo a frozen sleep. Neo-Queen Serenity used her power to awaken it, and then created the Utopia known as Crystal Tokyo. However, in order to do this, the people of Earth had to undergo a type of purification by her crystal. There were those who didn't want to be cleansed by the crystal and rebelled. Together, Endymion and Serenity defeated the rebellion. Those who still refused cleansing chose to leave Earth and were never heard from since...that is until the Dark Moon attack.
That said...
My SM DVD subs, for that episode itself have the lines:
"A great calamity befell the Earth that you live on now."
"And the Earth settled into a cold sleep. It slumbered on for a long, long time."
"In time it became the thirtieth century, and with the power of the Silver Crystal and Neo Queen Serenity, Earth was awakened."
"With Neo Queen Serenity as their queen, Earth began to prosper, centered around the future city, Crystal Tokyo."
"But evil beings appeared who wanted to conquer this peaceful world. After fighting numerous intense battles, we suppresed those evil beings."
"However many of them did not want to be cleansed by the Silver Crystal and they journeyed out into space."
"After that, Crystal Tokyo prospered more than ever and the people led peaceful lives...until Nemesis."
Going by -that- instead? Purification was the typical 'turn youma back human' thing, not a worldwide phenomenom.
And as for the manga, the manga only mentions that "But after sending one extremely severe criminal to Nemesis several hundreds of years ago, it was closed off. A forbidden planet."
Nothing about purification.
Edit:
And for completeness' sake, dug up the episode dub (ep 76 as opposed to 83. Oh, SM cuts, how I'd forgotten you), which goes fairly close to the sub:
"The earth was devastated by ecological disaster. The entire planet froze over and all living beings were placed in a state of dormancy."
"They slept until the thirtieth century when Neo Queen Serenity came onto the throne and used thep owers silver crystal to reawaken the planet."
"Earth was prosperous again and Crystal Tokyo was the bustling hub of business and the arts. But unfortunately these prosperous times were not to last."
"Beligerent forces from beyond the universe appeared, intent on conquering Earth. After a lengthy and costly war we repelled them. Some of our enemies accepted cleansing from the silver crystal, but most refused and were banished back to space."
"Crystal Tokyo was once again peaceful...until the Nemesis appeared."
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 11:58:30 PM
Well, I have half an outline for a story that explains that neatly as "the universe is completely falling apart". Unfortunately, it's mostly the last half of the outline.
At least four different timelines.
!) Present time line. Usagi and co die at the center of the galaxy and are reborn on Earth in the 30th millennium. May or may not have permanently offed Chaos. All Major baddies we imperfect incarnations of Chaos sent through time to retrieve Sailor Moon's crystal. Source of the multiple timelines coming into existence.
2) Dark Moon time line. Usagi becomes Queen in the 21st millennium at the age of 22. Grants her subjects longevity. Eventually comes to rule the Earth. Seldom leaves the palace. Banishes Dictator Phantom and the Dark Moon religious terrorists. Mother of Chibi-usa. Time line best fit for Wheels of Time crossover/fusion.
3) Sailor Cosmos timeline. In the grim, dark future of the Sailorverse there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods. Sailor Cosmos, having lost all that was important to her to Sailor Chaos' rampage, chooses to go to the past when Chaos' powers were not so great and guide Eternal Sailor Moon (her past self?) to destroy it so that her time line never comes to be.
4) Original time line. Unknown. This time line is never shown, but since everything from the fall of the Silver Millennium is a direct result of Chaos dicking around we can assume a time line exists where Queen Metallia never manipulated Beryl into attacking the Moon (or giving her the power to succeed).
Edit: Forgot there was an edit function. This is what I get for making Warhammer 40k jokes.
You have two original timelines up there! =p
Quote from: Merc on May 12, 2011, 01:14:53 AM
You have two original timelines up there! =p
Doh! Thought I'd erased that from the Cosmos time line. Number 4 is the orginal; Cosmos vs Sailor Chaos isn't.
I tend to attribute Chibi Usa's age to the typical tendancy of anime writers to (when given the opportunity to name a time) name a value that is absurdly high. "Have not seen this for Hundred(s) of years!" "You're Five Hundred Years Too Early to Face Me!" "Beware Thousands of Years of Chinese Amazon History!"
It's all over the place and very few authors avoid doing it at least once. It NEVER makes sense.
Actually, the 900 yr old thing is from the manga, Drac. I can't recall for sure, but I believe in the anime she was only 6-7 years old.
Sorry, I used 'anime' when I really meant "Japanese Authors". Manga, Anime, it really doesn't matter. It is used frequently and retconned out for being stupid just as frequently.
Eeh, I don't think it's really that stupid as you make it out to be. In most of those cases it's purely hyperbole (the examples you list tend to be martial arts posturing, for example), and in cases where it's not, like say DBZ, it was originally kept to reasonable numbers early on, but as the scale of conflict grew exponentially with the appearance of Freeza and 'stages', so would the power levels, and they simply stopped mentioning them at all (though never really retconned either).
Chibi-Usa's age, while rather large, does by certain plot points in the manga -have- to be large. It could have admittedly been something like 300yrs old and still not be out of place, but it did need to be a large number. The anime doesn't have some of those plot points, or changes them a fair deal, which is why there she can get away with being 6-7 yrs old rather than complicate things.
What Merc said. It does relate somewhat to the plot in the manga.
I'm curious what some of those plot-points are.
Quote from: Jon on May 12, 2011, 07:14:18 PM
I'm curious what some of those plot-points are.
After Usagi takes the throne she eventually gives everyone longevity. The average person's lifespan is 1000 years. They stop aging once they mature. If she wasn't abnormally old and locked in a child's body she wouldn't have received the harassment that drove her to take the crystal in the future, allowing Nemesis to launch and attack and more-or-less destroy the world. 900 years of being locked in the body and mind of a small child, constantly harassed, friendless, distanced from her family, and knowing her screw up caused the end of the world; Doom Phantom was able to take advantage of this and used it to create Black Lady.
Relating to the plot makes it make sense?
The majority of bleach folks are in the several hundred years old. This is plot relevent as various issues from lifetimes ago show up. The only old guy is supposed to be 2000+ years old. The youngest non-teenager cast is hundreds of years old.
...The vast majority still act 20 year olds or younger, and reflect training that matches that.
Chibi-usa acts like a six year old. There's no mysterious 'I'm a wise old loli' about her. There's no sense that she'd be bored out of her mind studying basic arthimatic with girls her physical age or that she more easily relates with older cast members. Just plot claiming 'she's 900' or needing her to be so for some sense of sanity doesn't make it any less ridiculous than four hundred year old elves who are on par with 16 year olds.
It's not a huge crime or anything, but I don't take it seriously at all and just instantly phase out when folks do that and its not backed with surreal experience/capabilities or at least physical maturity.
QuoteJust plot claiming 'she's 900' or needing her to be so for some sense of sanity doesn't make it any less ridiculous than four hundred year old elves who are on par with 16 year olds.
Oh, -that- sort of stupidity. Yeah, okay that's fair. I've just been numbed to that bit of suspension of disbelief because it's so common for long-aged species to somehow mature/learn much slower.
...But that's not exactly a japanese thing -either-, so you're gonna have to extend that even further from "Japanese Authors" to "Every freaking storyteller in the world with fantasy/sci-fi elements in their story that results in different longetivity of species". =p
Quote from: Dracos on May 12, 2011, 08:20:28 PM
Relating to the plot makes it make sense?
Um, yes? Sure, it didn't have to be 900 years, just old enough to note she wasn't aging properly as motivation. But so long as it is internally consist I don't see any reason to call shenanigans. It isn't like it goes against anything in the series.
You may as well ask why people who touch their past selves disappear in time travel stories. "The same object cannot occupy the same space" doesn't make sense when you're talking about living things that grow. But if that's the rule they establish you just roll with it unless something comes up in story that contradicts it, right?
[Also, did something just happen to Soulriders? The forum wouldn't load for a while.]
Quote from: thepanda on May 12, 2011, 09:44:13 PMYou may as well ask why people who touch their past selves disappear in time travel stories. "The same object cannot occupy the same space" doesn't make sense when you're talking about living things that grow. But if that's the rule they establish you just roll with it unless something comes up in story that contradicts it, right?
[Also, did something just happen to Soulriders? The forum wouldn't load for a while.]
Pluto takes exception to this whole discussion, obviously. :3
Though, I do agree that Drac makes a sound point. I'm going to veer away from created/fantasy races and stick just with humans/modified humans. There is something strange about the idea that, in a format where power can equal lifespan (and frequently does), the 200 year old dude is only a LITTLE more powerful than his 16 year old student.
I think what he's getting at is, "That span of years feels arbitrary, since it doesn't seem to mean much." It's surprising how little flavor you can give that elder figure without things starting to get kind of strange, or needing to really, really amp up the student....
Quote from: Brian on May 12, 2011, 10:25:37 PMThere is something strange about the idea that, in a format where power can equal lifespan (and frequently does), the 200 year old dude is only a LITTLE more powerful than his 16 year old student.
The student is usually a prodigy or genius or has some kind of special circumstance (is really half demon/god/space aliens/digidestined/heir to a powerful family/ has hax eyes/ect).
Start of story: Bad guy > teachers > hero
After training: Bad guys > hero > teacher
Sometime in the middle of fight, probably after getting really motivated: Hero > Bad guys > teacher
And even then the old folks often show at some point why they were considered badases.
I just re-read the manga to look over Chibi-Usa's behavior and in general she behaves a lot more mature and intelligently than the anime. Of course, ALL the characters are more mature in the manga as the anime made them more flawed due to its syndicated nature, but still outside of her early bickering with Usagi, she's unusually mature for a 'kid' in the manga.
Actually, if one were to sum up her major flaws early on, it'd be that she's attention starved and socially awkward...which makes SENSE given what we discussed of her life in the future. Most of her shows of strong emotion are directly related to those flaws or to her guilt (feeling she was responsible for everything that happened with the Dark Moon) and worry over her family in the future.
She actually loosens up -after- the Dark Moon matter gets resolved. Though she's still fairly mature, she tries to have fun and enjoy herself due to not having the concerns of the future hanging over her head anymore. She's there for training as a senshi, sure, but she's clearly seeing it as almost a vacation of sorts.
When she gets enrolled in school, her first day she considers the other kids to be nosy immature brats, and it's not until her and her classmates deal with a vampire attack that she starts opening up to them more as opposed to preferring to hang out with the senshi. By the next time school comes up in the manga, she's fairly popular and has gone on to become both class president and a member of the gardening club. As for schoolwork, it only gets mentioned twice.
One time she sighs about having to do homework, and has a clearly bored or annoyed expression. It could be interpretted as dread, but she's clearly the one to bring it up, not just for her own sake but for Usagi's sake who actually does have a much clearer expression of dread, so she's certainly more responsible whereas her mom is just lazy.
The other time, she does ask for help with her assignment...and yet it's in her strongest/favorite subject (art according to the data pages), and she very clearly does it for other reasons than needing help. Usagi/Mamoru had a fight, and she convinces both of them to help her with her homework, even stopping Usagi from leaving, and then pretends to fall asleep so they can talk things out while they finish the project for her. Stupid she clearly isn't, and there's other scenes that show she's good at manipulating people.
Not saying it's a clear interpretation either way, but there's nothing that really conflicts with her being a 900 year old human either or feels too stretched. And as mentioned, in the anime where she's much more flawed/immature, she actually IS a kid. So in this case, while I can see what Drac was arguing, I'm still willing to suspend my disbelief easily enough.
I was half ignoring it, but that's not fair. This deserves a "Well Researched." Good going, Merc.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 02:25:35 PMHeh, fanon takes on a malevolent sentience of its own..
Fanon may be malevolent, but I question its sentience. Or the sentience of many of its fans, for that matter.
Some fanon is trivial and does not contradict anything, like Mrs. Tendo's personal name. Other fanon not just contradicts canon, it does it so blatantly that you question whether the person ever read the original series.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:15:54 PMSecondly, consider that the fans tend to think things through long after the creator's moved on; these could be throwaway lines that people are making too much out of.
I've seen someone carefully calculate the weight of the huge chunks of ice Ryouga throws in the Martial Arts Ice Skating to "prove' exactly how strong the Lost Boy is. They treat their assumptions on how far way the ice is as objective fact and ignore times that Ms. Takahashi was wildly inconsistent on perspective.
Or there's the people who try to force their often extreme view of the Amazon culture of Greek mythology onto the Chinese Amazons of Ranma ½, when Ms. Takahashi never actually called them Amazons.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:15:54 PMLike "I haven't seen that chart in 100 years!" (Dr. Tofu's 'famous' last line in the Ranma manga before he abruptly vanishes, as Cologne filled the role of Wise Old Mentor more hilariously than a rival for Akane's affection).
Then again, exactly as above, that doesn't mean cool fic can't come from odd idea.
Brian modestly fails to mention his own excellent fic And Lo' The Mighty have Fallen, where Tofu is a lot older than he appears to be. The line is probably a mistranslation or a comic exaggeration, but there's room for something very interesting if it's taken literally.
Ditto for Tofu's disappearance. Barring fourth wall shattering fics, none of the cast would know who Rumiko Takahashi is, so there needs to be an in-story explanation for Tofu's death/kidnapping/extended training trip/elopement//time traveling back to the Heian Era/whatever.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:45:12 PM
Quote from: Jon on May 11, 2011, 07:26:35 PMMe, I wanna find out if there's a way to do "Ranma is an axis around which the timeline can be changed" without falling into "Ranma is a chaos machine who must be directly opposed by Setsuna".
Nothing is stopping you from writing a Ranma/Haruhi fusion. :3
Heh. Or you can integrate Ranma into the setting as an ally, such as Brian does in another excellent fic, Forging and Temperance. (/ME reminds self to dust off his notes on the Ranma/Sailor Moon/Escaflowne idea.)
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:45:12 PMI think people just _like_ the uber-shonen aspect of, "Enough punching will killbliterate your 'only love can overcome me' monsters!", many of them not realizing that they are kind of kicking the original shoujo vibe at the same time.
My impression was Sailor Moon had plenty of monsters that were killbliterated by hooping gobs o' magic deathiness. But you do make point, the tropes of shonen and shojo are different. A lot of people just mash settings together in a crossover instead of thinking about their differences.
Quote from: Brian on May 11, 2011, 07:45:12 PMThough, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone. I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.
Ataru Morobishi is the poster boy for weirdness. In his first outing he plays tag for the fate of the Earth and acquires a flying alien fiancée when he already has a girlfriend. He then gets haunted by dozens of bucktoothed demons thanks to a bungling Buddhist monk. And in his third story he's forced to participate in a silly ritual that accidentally summons an alien taxi that charges the Earth's entire oil reserves, which is later rained back onto the Earth.
In the same page count Ranma had only met the Tendos and Dr Tofu and still hadn't made it to his first day of school at Furinkan High.
Ranma being an 'engine of chaos' is more than overdone, it meshes poorly with the original series.
Admittingly, almost nobody seems to like ataru as a main protagonist, aside from That Guy. I admit, I don't go hunting for it, but equally so, his series doesn't get crossed over with him being a winner in any of the places I have gone reading. So while he might be vastly more suited for it, equally so, fewer people seem to be interested in writing about him at all.