On Fri, 31 Jan 1997 22:33:44 -0600 (CST) Hitomi Ichinohei wrote:

: On Fri, 31 Jan 1997, Henry J. Cobb wrote:
: 
: > Uh, Bast, isn't this story turning into Ranko 1/2?
: 
: No.

And she's right.  I like a *lot* of the ideas implications in this
fic.  I love them so much that I hope to be able to integrate some
of them into _Ranko 1/2_, pending the authors' permission, of


: > The biggest difference I've spotted so far is that you (in Ranko 1/2)
: > haven't gotten Ranko to admit her true feelings to Akane yet...
: 
: This is somewhat an exploration of Ranmas feeling than anything else.

The whole viewpoint is different.  Ranko has been living a lie,
and quite consciously so, for her father's sake.  Now that she
lives at the Tendous' home and has found a friend in Akane, she
has no qualms about shedding the male disguise more and more often
and just be female like she always wanted.  There is no
exploration or sense of wonder here, since she always knew that
she was female underneath.

With Ranma in this fic it's practically the opposite.  It was his
true form that confined him.  He was under permanent pressure to
"keep up appearances" so that nobody could doubt his maleness and
thus he head to suppress his curiousity about his female form and
other aspects of his personality that might be viewed as
"effeminate".  That's neither natural nor healthy, so he build up
a tension inside that manifested in the form a desire to "live out
his girl side" completely.  When he is finally able to do so,
there is such a feling of joy, wonder and amazement that pervades
the entire story - it makes this fic something very special.

For all the humor I put in, _Ranko 1/2_ is a much more somber
story, basically.  It's about a girl who has unexpectedly been
granted her wish and now stands before the baffling and definitely
not easy task of finding out what to make of it.

Not very similar, once you think about it, is it?


Sebastian
--
       <http://enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de/~bastian/>
                         Comics reviewed 
-- 
America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after
him, until people got tired of living in a place called
"Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America".
        - Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
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