On Mon, 4 Mar 1996, Helen Suh wrote:

I don't think so.....if Ranma really wanted a normal life....all he has 
to do is marry Akane and be done with it.....if I may turn your attention 
to the OVA Despertly Seeking Shampoo.....when Ranma noticed that Shampoo 
was not in love with him anymore, he went out of his way to win her love 
back.....does that sound like what a person who has no interest in his 
other fiancees and wants a normal life would do?.....I don't think so.

Yeah, but that's kind of an oddball story...Shampoo acts both out of 
touch with Japanese culture and completely as an airhead in that story, 
instead of just out of touch with the reality she is living in like she 
usually does...

It's the only story I know of where Ranma makes any real effort to 
romance any of his fiancees for a reason other than wiggling something 
out of them (And even in this case he's trying to get something out of 
them)

And why doesn't Ranma just marry Akane?  Because they fight endlessly and 
he has no way of being sure she won't just laugh at him if he does try 
to be romantic with her?

Because if he picks one fiancee, the other three will home in and make 
that one's life even more of a living hell than it already is?

Not to mention, it is noted over and over that Ranma is rather 
incompetent in dealing with women...

John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu   http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~ranma/index.html 
"Love is the image you place around your significant other, and how close 
it is to being true love depends on how closely he or she fits into 
the mold."--Orlando de La Cruz