David Lerman wrote:

Some cursory first impressions -

At 07:45 PM 5/30/98 GMT, David Yellope wrote:

      Akane threw Ranma on his bed and slammed the door behind her.
She then turned to Ranma, "And what the heck was THAT about Ranma?"
She turned her force four glare on Ranma, who was too busy trying to
stay conscious to answer. "This isn't the polite fights you've been in
before Ranma, the Lightning Fists believe that rules as well as bones
are made to be broken! You expect them to fight clean, they're going
to clean up on you. And you'll let your team down."

  Since when have Ranma's fights been polite?  Did any of the major
opponents (Tarou, Saffron, Herb) fight clean?  Tarou does fight dirty (as
he would put it, he fights to win) and Saffron and Herb have attacks that
are so powerful that they don't need to fight dirty even if it occurred to
them.  Do you think that Ryouga learned the 'Bakusai Tenketsu' to fight a
nice fight?  And I don't think that Ukyou's use of a giant grill and flour
bombs would be considered polite.

For that matter, Akane's habit of decking him with improvised weapons 
whenever he irritates her isn't exactly on a high level of politeness.

       Akane had prepared for this. She spoke quietly, but her voice
had great emphasis. "You know, your dad would be cursing you out right
now. He taught you to be a warrior. Not a whiner. Not someone going
out and looking to hurt somebody. And right now, you don't have focus.
If you headed out there to fight the Lightning Fists, you'd be wild.
You'd take chances. And you'd lose. You're a martial artist. Time to
act like one."

Akane is too rational and analytical in this fic.  Are you sure that Nabiki
didn't come along?  And if Ranma went out to hurt someone then the greatest
worry is that Ranma would hurt someone.  There are three things Ranma takes
very seriously in life - honor, food, and the Art.  I confess to not having
read every available Ranma volume, but from what I have read, part of what
makes Ranma so good is that he is able to think effectively in combat and
he always seems to have focus.

This is kind of weird.  Ranma has always operated by getting his 
opponents to lose their tempers.  While he's easily distracted and has 
some odd scruples, women have been cold-cocking him forever without 
really getting him that upset.  In fact Brown kicking him in the crotch 
would probably make him a better fighter by curing his reluctance to hit 
a female in her case.  Ranma's one of those people who doesn't get mad, 
he gets even.  The exception however, which might explain his reaction 
in this case, are threats to his masculinity. 

      Mustafa, as he usually did, took the information without
blinking. Brown shivered slightly. For all people knew, The Thai
Kickboxer wasn't born, he was chisled out of ice. For the longest
time, he was only happy when he was breaking somebody's bones. Now he
smiled more, because he now got paid to figure out how best to cause
pain and agony.

  I am not familiar with Street Fighter, but since when was Mustafa a Thai
name?

It isn't.  But Thai Kick Boxing is a specific martial art.  (Mind you 
the Mustafa I remember _wasn't_ a kick boxer but some kind of wrestler, 
but that's the author's business.)

  What I found difficult to believe about the fight was that Akane takes
out two fighters just by normal fighting while Ranma only takes out one and
only by using one of his two most powerful attacks.  Ranma is a much better
fighter than Akane.  And he would use the Amaguriken or (forget name, the
confidence based attack) before using the Hiryu Shoten Ha because it is so
powerful.  So I need to ask: Where are the real Ranma and Akane and what
did you with them?

Actually the HSH shouldn't be used in a routine fight like this.  It's 
dangerously random, excessively powerful, slow as all get out.  The 
Tenshin Amaguriken is fine.  It's just Ranma's version of Chun-Li's
Lightning Kick or the Hyperfist.  The Mouko Takabisha also works, since 
basicly it's a routine fireball attack.  But the HSH is an ultimate 
technique that shouldn't be revealed to his opponents except in the most 
dire of circumstances.  

                                                                   dml