"Sydney Kyle" <jantzen77@hotmail.com> wrote:

Someone just recently made me realize a fact about Ranma fanfics--there 
seem to be at least two types of characterizations of the cast: the 
"stereotyped" characterizations and the "in-depth" ones. The former 
portrays the characters true to the manga and anime: Shampoo seems 
hellbent on nothing but marrying Ranma and getting him to eat her 
passion spice;

Actually, passion spice is a fanfiction invention.

I guess the thing here is that while some people prefer to read some 
characters portrayed the way they usually act instead of reading about 
those same characters portrayed in a way that gives the readers more 
insight into their personalities, other people prefer otherwise. And 
while I don't really see anything wrong in either depiction of Rumiko 
Takahashi's creations, I'm still in the dark in how they should be 
portrayed should I ever write another fic.

Since this is the kind of SPAM discussion that can inspire hundreds of
posts and still end up with absolutely nothing useful having been said
:-), I'll only make one comment: I find some of the "serious" fanfic
characterizations -- even in what I consider to be overall good fics --
to be quite a bit more one-dimensional than the characters are in the
original. For example, in fics Nodoka is typically portrayed as an
all-wise matriarch, ready to whip her family into shape when necessary,
but deep down loving them unconditionally.

Say what you want about Takahashi-sama's characterizations, but *no one*
in canonical Ranma 1/2 is portrayed as always wanting what's best for
all concerned.

Gary Kleppe, Takahashi fanboy/worshipper :-)
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics