<gavin_steyn_at_eft__ad2@mail.icomverse.com> 05/05/97 07:54am

I've been reading more UY lately, and feel that, especially
towards the end of the series, Ataru's intelligence is dangerously
underestimated.)

       I don't see this.  I've never been of the "Ataru is dummy" school of 
thought-- after all, he is several times shown to be as smart as
Mendou-- but  he's no genius.  

I wasn't under the impression that he meant that Ataru was a genius, just
that the other characters (and most fans) seriously underestimate Ataru. 
To which point I agree.  In fact, I've come to the conclusion (based on the
manga, haven't seen enough of the anime to form any conclusions, and
besides which I am an avowed manga-nazi) that Ataru is not merely the
"main character", but he is also (except when Ryoko is around) the
dominant character.  I realize that, on the face of it, this is a pretty wild
claim, but look at it:  during the last half of the series or so, Ataru is
constantly focusing attention onto himself, and he generally controls the
action by constantly forcing the other characters to react to him.  Now,
the patterns of his doing so are usually fairly predictable, but then, it
seems to me that he's pretty much scoped everyone else out, and he
does the things he does because he likes to get a rise out of them. 
For example, you can see how much his "girl hunts" are just a matter of
going through the motions when, in one story (the electric forest story),
he asks a girl out for tea and is completely at a loss when she accepts. 
This is one of the few times (in the latter stages) when he loses control
of the situation because someone reacted in a manner contrary to his
expectations.  

There is, I should note, one other character who has this kind of effect on
the other characters, and is in fact better at it than Ataru:  Mendo's sister,
Ryoko.  

 Remember, Shampoo was Rumiko's attempt at doing Lum
correctly.  IMO, it worked:  Shampoo is far more annoying than Lum.

Where did you read this?  I've never thought of any connection between
the two  until this thread started.  (I'm also that relative rarity--a UY fan
who doesn't find Ranma very interesting, so I might be missing
something)

If so, I'm missing it, too.  Now that he mentions it, I can see a vague
resemblence, but I had not heard this claim before now...

tom