Hoo Kay. I have to reply to this one. Please forgive the ramblings of my
fragmented thoughts.

Tyree (10 o'Clock) wrote:

Gary Kleppe wrote:

Here's a little challenge of mine: write fics based on whatever manga or
anime you have ideas for, whether they be popular or obscure. Read
whichever fics interest you, and C&C them. Leave the rest of us to make
our own choices.

That was sent to me 5/4/99.  This is the price being played for everyone
else making their own choices.  "This is life, pal.  Deal with the
issues," writes Brian Payne.  "You're beating a very dead horse," writes
Gary.  No, I'm sorry.  I will not put this to sleep.

    Taken JUST a bit out of context, I think.

First of all I don't really understand why Ranma is so great.  First of
all, the lead character (Ranma) insults the heroine (Akane), and she
mallots him.  He doesn't duck, he doesn't fight back; all he gets is
pain from the beating.  And all the other characters within the series.
They all seem to lack any normal knowledge what-so-ever.

This, first of all, is a creation of one person.  Rumiku Takahashi can
make shows that can touch the sences and not just a few tired-out ones.
But to me she has failed miserably with Ranma 1/2.  What I thought was a
great martial arts cartoon turned out to be a concurrent lesson in
domestic violence.  Remember, the door swings both ways.

    Question: Have you A: watched the anime, B: read the manga, or C: read
other fanfictions, and base Ranma 1/2 off those? I ask because there are
good/bad points to each one.

    A= is bad if your just started watching Ranma  now from where VIZ is,
because I believe these were more with the company that put it out, than T.R.
herself. Just "fillers" to bridge the main story lines. Also, the graphics are
terrible compared to later on (this was the 80's) in the series. If this is
the case, please find some of the earlier ones they put out, the movies and
OAV (excellent quality), and the tv eps. covered in 'The Breaking Point'
(personal favorite), and others around that time if you're looking for martial
arts. Gee, can you say run on sentence?

    B=is good, because even if the translation is off, it's still all Rumiko.
It also seems to be the best of the three choices to get the feel of the
series. If you want to look that up and don't want to wait for VIZ, try
alt.binaries.pictures.anime. The chapters not yet done are being translated
and posted there.

    C=is, no offense to anyone, a bad way to judge the series. I say this
because some fanfics tend to move away from the main points of the series, and
focus more on the author's perspective or fanfic conventions, i.e. S.B.Akane
"MALLETING"(gawd, how I hate that thing) Ranma every five seconds. While Akane
does beat Ranma's A$$ more often than not, and has been know to use
"MALLET-SAMA" more that the others (I can't believe someone actually counted
that), she doesn't use it every time, and relies more on her body(hentai!) or
objects lying around. Don't get me wrong, alot of the fics out there are
really incredible. But I believe to really get a feel for it, you should go to
the source.*opinion*

    Comment: Although I think Ranma1/2 is a great M.A. series, it's mainly a
romantic comedy, and much more light hearted than one might think.

    Excuse me, but I'm going to skip ahead for just a bit though the message.
I agree with alot of what you said, but I just don't see how it fits in the
discussion. All I was trying to do above is was give you a better view of the
series, not pressure you into it. I realize that fans may have tapered off
from when it first started, probably due to people already knowing how it
ends, or new anime coming out, but there are still alot of people who like
Ranma, and like to write/read  fics about it. And being a fan myself, I hope
they keep it up^_^x    I like to read fics based on other series too, but it's
mainly up to people to decide for themselves what they do/don't want to read
or write.

    Another thing could be what I mentioned earlier. People have a basic
familiarity with Ranma, and the story is pretty flexible. I sometimes avoid a
fic based on a series I know little to none about, for fear of *spoilers*.

My constant complaint is the fact that people will take anything they
recieve from the hands of well known organizations and except them to be
as is.  It's like with the Jesuits and the Inquisition in
Post-Renaissance Europe.  "They show me a piece of white paper and tell
me it's black.  Then they ask me what color the paper is, and I say that
it's black."  This is the type of mentality occuring all over the
place.  And someone has to step on people like me because I think that
there's something wrong.

    Okay.

I tried my hardest, mind you.  Eva, Oh My Goddess, Nadesico, Idol
Project, several of my crossovers.  I've managed to get some replies.
But it didn't cause any long "Re: Flame Wars" which I've been witnessing
since I joined the FFML.  I also gave my replies to some of the works in
there.  Just to let them know that they have a thing going there.

    ....Okay.*Snip, Skip*

And that shooting at that poor Colorado high school.  Do you people
actually believe that video games, movies, etc adn made these teens go
in and blow some heads off?  Let's look at their lives and families
first.  Maybe they were little Shinji's when they were young.  Maybe
they hate how happy everyone else's life is compared to theirs; and
decided to get everyone as messed up as they are.  The First Lady is
wrong:  It takes good parents to raise a child.  The village has got
other problems to deal with.

    I definitely agree to that.

My bottom line is that you can't just sit by and idly let people feed
you their ideas.  Because maybe their ideas don't coincide with yours.
Sometimes you have to get off from your butt and make things happen.
The following will come afterwards, they always do.  Thinking for
oneself is a gift and a responsibility.  Forgo that gift, and I assure
you there will be millions of other that will gladly fill the spaces in
your mind with anything they please.

    I agree. You shouldn't read/write a fic on a series just because everybody
else does, or because the anime is popular or not. You should do it because
you want to, responses, or no.

    I didn't think I'd like "Hearts of Ice", either because it was to far in
the series (17), or everybody and their mother was raving about it (pretty
stupid reasons, actually). However, one skim thur one of Krista Perry's post
to the list, and I was able to enjoy a well crafted and interesting story^_^x.
Who knew?