On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, Aaron Stolz wrote:
Now the Ranma crud I *can* do without...I can see why Mr. MegaZone hates
Ranma so much...the Ranma dir on the archives is getting to be almost as
Well, he hated it before it all started appearing. He doesn't like the
Ranma series, period.
He doesn't like having a bajillion Ranma stories either, but that's
another matter :)
large as the Miscellaneous dir is...and to tell everyone the truth, many of
the Ranma 1/2 'fics I've read HAVEN'T been all that great...there's some,
like Chiseai(SP!), that BGC/Ranma crossover(the SERIOUS one...I think it's
Chesai
called RanmaPunk), um...I can't remember the name of it...the one with
RanmaPunk 2033, by me :)
Ryouga and Ukyou getting together after Ranma and Akane confess their love
for one another...and the one that's set right before that...ARGH I wish I
Kunoichi's lemon series or some other story?
could remember the name...Some others that escept my frail teenage
memory...that are really great, but the majority of 'em are of the like of
really pointless crossovers (Like Project Ranko, apologies to whoever wrote
that) and/or are so small it's almost pointless to compress them...but
Is smallness evil? Not that I can manage smallness myself, mind you :)
worst of all are te ones that haven't been finished and simply end with
"Stay tuned for next chapter" and the like...I just wish that for a month
people could stop writing new Ranma stories (continue the ones already
started, by all means) and write somthing ELSE...
People will write what interests them. Just switching from Ranma to some
other series will not make the quality of fanfiction out there
automatically improve. It's pointless to simply complain there are too many
Ranma stories...if you think these stories are bad, tell the authors!
Make comments! They'll either improve or they'll give up, and if not, no
one is gonna make you read them.
If you wanna see stories based on other series, WRITE them! Flood RAAC
with Hime-chan No Ribbon Stories or whatever...But frankly, I think it's
obnoxious to tell people what to write.
Also, this raises the question of an audience for fanfics. One reason so
many Ranma stories get written is they have a definite audience...If you
write a Blue Seed Fanfic, It might be brilliant, but no one has seen it,
so the odds are that no one will read it unless you've made a brilliant
name for yourself elsewhere.
For that matter, even if you have a brilliant name for yourself, you
still many not have anyone read it. Some series have anti-fans, who
automatically won't read a story based on a certain series, no matter how
good or bad it is. If the series is really obscure, they may not want to
bother having to try to figure it all out from just your work.
Furthermore, some series are harder to write than others. I can't write
science fiction series because I can't keep track of all the hardware and
psuedo scientific jargon. I'd like to write a BGC story, but I couldn't
tell the difference between a 33-S and a 456-QT if they bit me on the
butt :)
However, I disagree with the theory that Ranma gets the most fiction
because it's simplistic...There are a hell of a lot more simple anime
series, or series just as simple that don't get a lot of fanfiction.
Sure, most of the chars in Ranma 1/2 can be described with one sentence
fairly accurately and their reactions to certain stimuli easily judged,
but that applies to a lot of other series as well, ranging from Legend of
the Galactic Heroes (where I can usually predict the entire episode after
the first five minutes), Kimagure Orange Road, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei
Yatsura, A large percentage of Sailor Moon Episodes, Dirty Pair,
Moldiver, and a large # of other series.
Most characters in fiction are easy to predict, truly 3-D characters are
rare, and often take a long time to develop in those series that do
possess them. In Sailor Moon, Usagi becomes a three dimensional
character, but it takes a long time. The same for Mamoru. The rest of
the cast takes on some depth, but it is a slow process.
Those series that attract large amounts of fanfic, in my opionion, need
certain qualities:
1. Easily predicatable characters so you don't have to read/see the
entire series to write a decent story.
I think anyone can agree Ranma works here :0
2. An open-ended plot that leaves a lot of room for new stories. Thus
Maison Ikkoku which has clearly ended and wrapped itself up leaves less
room than something like UY.
Ranma used to fit this really well, less well now that it's over, but
most fans are only dimly aware it ended or how...and the ending wasn't
very conclusive either.
3. Wide fan exposure: The more people who've seen a series, the easier
it is to get people to read your fanfic, and the more people who want to
write one. This is perhaps the most important quality...Ranma and Sailor
Moon Fanfic went through the roof after those series gained wide exposure.
#3 is a BIG factor in why we've had so much Ranma fanfiction...and why so
many series that are subtitle only don't generate as much fic.
4. No need to memorize a lot of background stuff, technical jargon,
etc. If writing a fanfic requires you to memorize fifty kinds of
ammunition, most people won't make the effort.
Again, Ranma doesn't require memorizing a vast amount of background info
to write a fic that makes sense.
Well, there's my rant :)
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~ranma/falcon.html
http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
If you've ever watched the game warden through a gun sight...
You might be a redneck.