Mina-san, Ohayou!
Some time ago I sat down with my Ranma Mangas and started looking
through them to see if I could stick together a comprehensive
floorplan of the Tendou home from all the evidence contained
therein. I almost succeeded.
First of all, I was amazed to find that all the little glimpses we
get of the Tendou household actually *do* fit together.
Unfortunately, though, these glimpses are limited to some of the
more common locations in the house, while other rooms are rarely,
if ever seen. Even more infuriating are locations like the
staircase that appear regularly, but are never fully seen.
Thus, my tentative floorplan is pretty much set in stone in some
areas, while other parts are pure guesswork, that might as well be
left white and labelled "Here be Dragons". This plan is
deliberately oversimplified, in accordance to the rule that the
most simple solution is most likely the correct one.
Ground Floor:
-----------------+======================+------------------------------
| | | |
| + + bath |
| + + |
|-----| --+==+----+==+----+====+-----+==+--- | + |
|-----| | | | | | | | |
|-----| | Souun | Ranma | Dining |Kitchen | |-------------|
|-----| | | + | room | | |
|-----| | | Genma | | | +
| | | | | | | +
| ??? | | | | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The ground floor seems to be mostly made up out of one long
passage that all the rooms are lined up along. At one end is the
bathroom (*Not* the toilet) with its small anteroom, and at the
other end the stairs to the upper floor. One side of this hall is
made up mostly of a series of sliding glass doors into the garden.
Problem areas here are the staircase that is never fully seen in
the manga (and what *is* seen is highly contradictive) as well as
the space between the entrance to the bath anteroom and the bend
in the entrance hall. I decided to stick the last two together
like seen here on the map for simplicity's sake - this may not be
half as simple as it looks here. As it is, I strongly suspect
that there is something more in-between.
Upper floor:
----+==+-------+==+--------+==+----- ----+==+------+==+--
| | | | | |
| | | | ?????? | |
| | | | ?????? | guest |
+ Kasumi | Nabiki | Akane | ?????? | room | |
+ | | | ?????? | | |
| | | | ?????? | | |
| | | | ?????? | | |
| | | | |---+==+---| |
|---+==+-------+==+--------+==+-------------| |
| | |
| | |
| | ------------
-----------------------------------| |
|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
????
Akane's room is the first, coming up from the stairway, followed
by Nabiki's and finally Kasumi's, which may or may not be the last
one. The staircase does not make any sense at all. It is shown
once to come from the direction as indicated in the plan, but that
would leave an undefined space empty next to Akane's room, where -
judging by outside shots of the building - there should be
something. Also, if it is fit to the stair going up from the
lower floor, it would make the girl's rooms overhang the ground
floor in a pretty ugly way.
Finally, there is the guest room that I could not place at all.
This is the room, that sometimes houses Happousai, once Rouge and
once the masked boy who fought Ukyou (forgot his name). This is
also where an almost-meeting between Ranma and his mother took
place. Several clues place this room on the upper level, where it
doesn't seem to fit at all, while at least two instances seem to
indicate it being located on the ground floor. The shots of the
hall leading up to the room are strongly contradictive. As it is,
I suspect that this room may not have been part of the dojo plan
at the beginning and was just added later on, without really
fitting it into the layout.
Another missing room is the one containing the family shrine, that
is seen only twice during the parts where Hinako-sensei tries to
propose to Souun for marriage. Clues indicate a placement on the
ground floor, somewhere in the space that is occupied by Souun's
and the Saotomes' rooms in this plan.
All right. Before all of you now begin shouting things like "But
the Saotomes live upstairs" or "The kitchen has a back door" -
please remember that I am talking about the *Manga* here. :) I
have seen the plan of the Tendou home that is available at the
_Ranma 1/2 Universe_ pages, and it does *not* fit the Manga *at
all*. Not a bit, I'm afraid.
This plan, as oversimplified and possibly wrong it may be, has the
advantage that it fits 80% of all instances of the manga, where
10% did not make any sense to me at all, and 10% directly
contradict other instances in the Manga (mostly to make a gag
possible, such as the bath anteroom door opening outwards in all
instances but one, where Akane gets slammed into the wall by it).
If the OVA-based plan at the Ranma 1/2 Universe pages is
indicative of what real japanese architecture looks like, I am
afraid the this plan is hopelessly inadequate, but at least it's a
beginning. I'd like suggestions for improving the plan as it
stands now. One obvious candidate, for example would be the
staircase, where I am inclined to disregard the evidence of the
manga, turn the upper end around and give it a small landing on
half height.
Hoping for some input.
Sebastian (Say, where do the Tendous go to the toilet...?)