From:        Sebastian Weinberg, bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de

On Tue, 5 Nov 96 13:44:44 -0600 Travis Butler wrote:

: >	Noriko leaped back to give herself more space. *No, can't do 
: >that...he's more dangerous at far range. Got to get inside his strike 
: >zone!* She flung herself into the center of the storm of bokken thrusts, 
: >blocking each as best as she could. *The attacker is most vulnerable when 
: >executing his attack...if I can only get through...* A blow slipped 
: >through Noriko's defenses, but the strike lacked its full force at such 
: >close range. Another one got through, this time hitting near Noriko's 
: >wound. She bit her lip and pressed on, not bothering to resist the tears 
: >of pain that rolled down her cheeks. More and more blows buffeted Noriko, 
: >but they had considerably less power than Kuno's individual strikes. 
: 
: Windir: I suppose this was the only feasible way of engendering her 
: victory, but it still seems implausible. Although Kuno is defeated by the 
: regular cast on a regular basis... one must remember that to the rest of 
: the school, he is a formidable force; not one person challenged him when 
: he set his conditions for dating Akane. To have her defeat him in a 
: straight martial arts battle seems odd. I would recommend either an 
: attack more strongly based on intelligence -- pitting her strength 
: against his weakness -- or <sigh> a deus ex machina, something that 
: distracted him and left her an opening.

Wasn't that *exactly* what he did?  I liked this fighting scene
especially because Noriko won not through superior proficiency
(like Ranma) but through intelligence and analysis.

No... I could see that was what he was *trying* to do, but it didn't work 
for me.

It's simple physics:  The far end of a swinging bokken will
inflict more damage than any other point.  Noriko realized that
Kunou was far to strong a fighter for her to hope beating him
conventionally, so she figured out how to circumvent his
strengths.  Instead of staying where he expected her to stay - at
the outer reaches of his bokken range, where he would eventually
be able to land a few devestating blows - she moved in, where he
was sure to hit her, *but* the blows would not incapacitate her
immediately due to decreased leverage, so she could take him out. 
She decided to do the unthinkable and take the damage, because she
had analysed his strength and weakness and could weigh her chances
of success against the losses she would have to sustain.  An
intelligence-based victory, if I ever saw one.

I hate to disagree, but... well, as far as someone who hasn't studied 
martial arts himself can say... I don't really think that she could 
succeed in breaking through the outer perimeter of his 
strike-strike-strike attack, nor do I like the chances of her outlasting 
*that* much damage even inside his bokken range. Remember, his bokken was 
moving so fast that you couldn't see the blade itself, just a motion 
blur, IIRC, like you'd see with a fan blade. And like a fan blade, if you 
try to go through that blur, you're almost certainly going to get hit by 
the tip, unless you've got Ranma's unnatural speed and agility. Going 
inside is smarter than just staying outside to get hit, but it's still 
too much a case of playing her weakness head-on against his strength. 
Instead of doing something clever to disrupt or work around his attack, 
she charges right into the heart of it, hoping to take him down before 
going out herself.

What *would* make sense... hmmm. I admit, the best thing I can come up 
with is using something to trap or interrupt the blade -- like poking a 
stick into that fan blade -- which would then give her enough of a chance 
to get inside and attack. Or maybe she could tumble and roll under the 
blade... hmmm again.

It's kinda like sticking your fingers into the barrel of a
shotgun: "Yes, I know that my fingers are gonna look like charcoal
- but it's *your* face that's gonna look like swiss cheese."  (I'm
not quite sure if that would actually work or was just a bluff,
but when I saw that scene in a film, I laughed so hard that I gave
the film an additional +5 bonus points on coolness.)

I dunno; I'm not so optimistic about the containment force of fingers vs. 
a shotgun breach... I'd have to see a bit more convincing evidence before 
I'd buy it even as a bluff.

: >    Looong fight scene! I am not a particularly big fan of lengthy fight 
: >scenes in fanfiction, thinking them rather tiresome after a while. Still, 
: >the scene with Noriko and Kuno ended up being quite a large section. What 
: >do you think? Riveting? A yawner? More detail, less?
: 
: Windir: I would retain the same level of detail -- I doubt you could 
: achieve the effect you wish without it -- but I would, as we noted above, 
: find a somewhat more realistic way for her to beat him. Someone with 
: Noriko's stated lack of experience should *not* be able to charge head-on 
: into his attack and emerge successfully, I would believe.

As you noted yourself, she emerged successful, but by no means
unscathed - and the author knew and acknowledged this.  I liked it
a lot.

I like the effect Raphael was striving for, but I couldn't suspend my 
disbelief on the way he did it. 

Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.