At 12:04 AM 05/09/96 -0500, you wrote:

So what? RT, and indeed most artist, don't color their own work. Coloring
is tedeous and she has better things to do, like draw more Ranma :). She
probably didn't even know that the color was being used for Ranma-chan's
hair. The colorer maybe did it in response to th anime. Or maybe he/she
just plain goofed and thought Ranma-chan was SUPPOSED to have red hair.
This kind of miscommunication occurs all the time in comic industry here,
and I imagine the same things happen there.

Furthermore, the early jackets for the volumes have Ranma-chan with black hair.

Um I meant when R.T. herself colours the art, she now draws Ranma-chan with
red hair.  Also the colour jackets have Ranma-chan in all sorts of colour.
The later
works have her consistently with red hair.  The earlier works are what I
consider
R.T. just playing around and seeing which colour works best.
As for anime being totally based on real life Japanese characteristics, I 
consider the anime Japanese to have certain different physical differences like
any colour hair possible.  Kuno doesn't call  Ranma-chan: "red-headed girl"
because 1. R.T. hasn't finalize which colour works best yet. 2.  How is she
suppose
to show red in a black and white manga. 3. Lots of other people may have
red hair but Ranma-chan consistently has one pigtail that stands up at the back
of her head.  4.  "Pig-tail girl" and the Japanese equivalent is much
funnier than
"red-headed girl" anyday of the week.
Also how about "normal Japanese" characters like Akari whom R.T. has given
green hair with pink stripes.  If that's normal, red hair should be no problem.

--Ilsa, OAA and COR