"Thomas Scroggs" <trscrogg@unity.ncsu.edu> wrote:
This is going to be my first post in a REALLY long time, so please just bare with me here.
I'd really rather stay clothed for this. :p
To be more specific it goes a little like this. Instead of Soun training with Genma under Happosai Mr. Kuonji does instead. They form the same 'marry our children and combine the schools' pact and Genma still takes Ranma on the training trip.
During the training trip Genma cons the Tendo's (who he has never meet before) engaging Ranma to Akane. Genma makes off with the dowry (the deed to the dojo?) and causes Akane to loose face in the process, putting her in the 'pound Ranma flat' vengeance mood.
In the manga, Genma never "conned" Mr. Kuonji into the Ukyo engagement.
It was Kuonji who suggested the arrangement and persuaded Genma to agree
to it. We don't really know why Kuonji was so eager to give up his
daughter that he'd engage her at the drop of a hat, but the same is
unlikely to be true of Soun.
What's more, even if it does happen, Akane is unlikely to react the same
way that Ukyo did in the manga. Akane does have a bad temper, but her
anger tends to be a short-term thing; she's never held a grudge for an
extended period the way Ukyo or Ryoga do. Most likely she'd be pissed at
Genma for a while and then forget about it.
Well, what do you think? Please make all replies private unless the mailing list as a whole can benefit from your wisdom.
Sorry, but I thought the point here was general enough for the list as a
whole.
Good Alt Universes aren't easy to do. The changes you make should follow
logically and consistently from your premise, and the story needs to end
up being substantially different from the original while still
containing enough conflict to be interesting.
In your case, it seems to me that this idea has a bad case of "Still the
Same" syndrome. Your idea is basically a rewrite of the Ranma manga with
the name "Akane Tendo" erased and "Ukyo Kuonji" written in place of it,
and vice-versa. If you take into account the very real personality
differences between Akane and Ukyo, then you might have something, but
you run the danger of losing all the interesting conflict in the story.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html