I was just looking over some manga and anime episodes of Ranma 1/2, and I 
noticed that one of the Fanfic worlds favourite cliches, that all would 
be well if Ranma managed to say "I love you" to Akane is not supported by 
the evidence.

On two occasions in the series that I could find, the "Nabiki iinazuke" and 
"Mariko the Cheerleader" stories, Ranma has said, in front of witnesses 
and where Akane can hear him, that he loves Akane.  Both situations were (of 
course) mistakes, but Akane never knew that.  Ranma never denied his 
statement, even after he got over the shock caused by realising what he 
had done.

In the aftermath of both situation Akane is shown as being quite happy 
about it, but you do not see Akane doing anything tangible to follow up 
on Ranma's (accidental) declaration of love.

This follows a pattern Takahashi set fairly early in series (anime 
episode 3 or 4 - When Akane notices Ranma following her and goes up to 
him and works out that he likes her) of Ranma making some small gesture 
of affection that Akane accepts, but does not reciprocate.

As far as I can tell Akane has never said *ANYTHING* to Ranma to make him 
think that she likes him.  Akane, by her actions, does appear to hold 
some feelings for Ranma but has not tried to respond to any of the 
opportunities that Ranma has given her.  That the relationship between 
Ranma and Akane has not developed cannot then be said to be Ranma's 
fault, he has (however accidentally) revealed his love to Akane - the 
problem is that Akane merely smiles about it and totally fails to make 
the reciprocal statement.

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David M. Bateson                | 
                                |  "Funny Games, Strange Cartoons, Confusing
                                |     Computers and too many Books!  No 
major@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au     |     wonder you're weird."
                                |       - My Sister.
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