Um I meant when R.T. herself colours the art, she now draws Ranma-chan with
red hair.

R.T. doesn't color her work. Period. The furthest she probably gets is to
ink her work. Going from adding color is a long, involved process, and
R.T.'s time is better spent doing the raw drawings. So the solution is to
pass the drawings to a dedicated colorer.

Also the colour jackets have Ranma-chan in all sorts of colour.

This is true. The second volume has a Ranma-chan with GREEN hair on the spine.

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.

Or whoever was _really_ in charge of color.

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.

Doesn't hold water <groan>. Although every color is availible to the anime
Japanese, blue, red, green, purple, ect. are still MUCH rarer than J Random
Anime Extra black.

Ranma-chan may not be unique in having an oddball hair color, but there is
NO ONE else in the manga or anime that has her color hair.

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.

She never had to think about Ranma's hair color.

3. Lots of other people may have
red hair but Ranma-chan consistently has one pigtail that stands up at the back

No one else has red hair in the Ranmaverse (except maybe Herb's monkey),
but pigtails are common. I saw in Vis volume three a girl who wore her hair
like that (and it wasn't Ranma-chan).

of her head.  4.  "Pig-tail girl" and the Japanese equivalent is much
funnier than
"red-headed girl" anyday of the week.

"Akikage no Onna"
"Osage no Onna"
I donno...

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.

Normal, but not exactly common. There may not be anything strange about a
green-haired girl in animeland (everyone's seen at least one person with
each color), but it's still uncommon.

Besides, we are not really discussing what WE see, but what the characters
see. It's alright if we say that Ranma-chan has red hair, but not alright
if characters in the story do, because they don't!

First, people with odd-colored hair don't seem to be regarded as strange
because of it (although for other things, there might be some discussion).
It may be because the average Joe just doesnt see it.

Second, when Ranma changes forms, the change in hair color is a striking
change. People just don't change hair colors in a few seconds with just an
application of water. Yet, when Ranma jumps into the pool his first day
(changing into a she), the students don't seem to notice it, instead
focusing on the more vague notion of size (which is inaccurate at far
distances). If they could see Ranma-chan's screen hair color, surely
someone should've picked up on it.

Third, although more common in animeland, odd-color hair is still much less
common than basic black. It's not considered odd to have odd-colored hair,
but it's still something you would note, since it does mark you as unusual.

For these reasons, I think that (whatever happens) the characters see
Ranma-chan's hair as black, whatever color we see it. If you can find a
reference where someone says Ranma-chan's hair is red in the manga or in
the anime (and I doubt that), then you might have an arguing point.

                           ---------------------
-wyrm(AKA Tom Jefferys; Time Lord for Hire, "Have TARDIS; Will Travel.")
<wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>                       <JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu>
Member of the AFSS          Depraived Kawaii Thing of the First Order, Martin
   =<SIG>= Wyrm-chan @_@ H-Wyrm @_@ Ten @_@ Chibi-Usa @_@ Azusa =</SIG>=
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