On Thu, 3 Apr 1997 urbanm@enigma.rider.edu wrote:

Has anyone noticed the trend toward addressing major social issues?  
"Happi's Delight," "Never Too Old," and now "Bitter End" all address 
major social problems which face society.  I'm very interested in hearing 
from the authors regarding whether the drew inspiration from each other 
or not.  I am currently writing an issue into a fic of mine, but I had 
the idea planted into my head previously.  Is anyone else?  
								-M

 

Social Issues seemd to keep popping up in Ranma fic's lately for some
weird reason, perhaps because the well of Takahashi style Ranma fanfic's
is starting to dry up or people really, really feel comfortable using
characters they know about in a fic environment. Of course the fic that
started this was "Bitter End", a fic that while incredibly well written, a
great fic, and hit a bit close to home (memories of circa Dec 1990, when
stuff could of happened if things were different). 

Still I find it hard to bring myself to say that I like this fic as a
Ranma fanfic. This goes completly against the Ranma style that I like, and
even though I like some of the serious (or dark fic's as you call them) I
find it hard to like this as a Ranma fic. My advise to Zen, which may not
sit well with some others here, is for him to rewrite this entire fic
using Orginal characters (Japanese names of course, for some of the plot
setup). It may require some hammering of certaing plot elements into a
diffrent direction, but it's not a major task. The story is so wonderfully
crafted that it can stand out on it's own as a quality literary work, with
a well put togther message. And while the Ranma tie in does make the
message easier to understand for the Ranma fans, making this a more
universal story with orginal characters will bring the message out to a
larger audience then just Ranma or anime fans (and I find that some Ranma
fans may not like this because this is way to serious a fic for the Ranma
world..)

Using orginal names might mean more effort, but IMSO it might pay of
better in the end for the literary intent of the story...



Ja ne!!

Richard Beaubien
----------------
Mizuno Ami-chan forever!!!

Fanfic homepage http://www.anime.usacomputers.net/~beaubird