This is very rough...for some reason, it was more difficult for me
to write than I imagined. Maybe, if I have more time some other day....
Well, here's my take on the recent opinions on anime fanfiction, with some
specifics to Ranma.

Note: this applies to fanfiction written in the "Western World", so to
speak....

 1. The popularity of Ranma (especially) and Sailor Moon
	The perennial favorites of writers. Look in the raac archives,
and these two are the absolute biggest. Why are they so popular to write
about? Two major factors: fan base and storyline complexity.
	Sailor Moon and Ranma are perhaps the most popular anime outside
of Japan. They're the most easily accessible--Sailor Moon appeared on
broadcast TV through the DIC dub, and Ranma has been very successfully
marketed by Viz. There is a strong fan base for these, partly due to
sheer volume of exposure that they receive. The law of probabilities
goes into effect--the more fans there are, the more fans with thoughts
of "what could happen" and "what should happen" there are. And the
support for Ranma--there are at least two widely utilized Ranma fanfic
voting forums, and, of course, Taleswapper's Reviews.
	The second factor is that both of these have long running,
involved plotlines. Both have many, many anime episodes and their
mangas, as well, are just as involved. There are many places where a
story could be inserted or drawn out from. And with Ranma's ending, one
which lacked any sort of closure, continuation pieces are particularly
popular. Then, there are the characters. Again, more true of Ranma, but
just as applicable to Sailor Moon if you think about it, there are so
many characters to work with. One-shots as well as major recurring cast
players. Not only that, it's so much easier to insert a new character of
one's own.... This sort of combination is one just begging for fan
works.

 2. Older eries
	BGC, AMS, and Tenchi Muyou have been favorites in the past, but
are not doing nearly as well as the above. AMS and Tenchi are
sufficiently popular, but they lack the involved plotlines. AMSs has
only 5 OAV episodes, and the manga is not very easy to find. Tenchi has
13 OAV episodes, which does lend it a little more basis, but nowhere
near SM and R1/2. True, they have the manga and the TV shows, but the
manga is also difficult to get to, and branches off from the second OAV
series. The TV show is not nearly as popular as the OAV. BGC suffers
from both limited storyline and smaller fan base.

 3. Newer series
	With the firm entrenchment of the perviously mentioned series,
fanworks of newer shows have great difficulty breaking in. The show has
to be very popular to get much notice. And then, you would have to find
the writer subgroup within that smaller fanbase. Also, as some of them
are series still in development or having very short, sharply defined
continuities, people are reluctant to try their hands at writing their
own stories. It is just very, very difficult. But....

 4. The backlash
	This imbalance is bringing on a growing discontent among readers
of anime fanfiction. What could have qualified as good Ranma fiction two
years ago is just average now. And what might have been mediocre back
then is now stuff that is deleted after less than a quarter of it being
read. (Taleswapper's Reviews are both inflating in number of Ranma fics,
regarding generally well-written pieces, and shrinking in the number of
innovative fics.) New characters are everywhere--and they get tiresome
or annoying. The only way to make an impact anymore with Ranma fiction
is to be an absolute genius writer, or do something new/controversial.
The first is still possible, and that won't be a guarantee still, while
the second is just increasingly more and more difficult. Soon, it will
be said that "there is nothing new under the sun" in respects with Ranma
fanfiction.
	Sailor Moon, though not regarded with as much newfound dislike
or even contempt that Ranma fiction now faces, has begun to grate on a
few fans. The most recent complaints (dating to October of 1997) have
been about the overuse of new characters, when there are plenty of
original characters that are seemingly never used....

 5. Rise of the new
	So, with alarming regularity, Ranma is being shoved aside, both
silently and publicly. Unless it's part of an established, well-liked 
series (Lesson in Love, DnR/DnU, TMTC/TPOH, etc.) or written by a proven
author (Biles, Lawson, Palmer, etc.)--often it is simply deleted out of
hand. It is unfair--but that is life.
	Along with that, suddenly, fanworks based on other series--back
to Tenchi, or now El Hazard, and especially Evangelion--are receiving a
lot of attention. People are scrabbling for a breath of freshness, once
applicable to innovative Ranma fanfiction, now a near impossibility.
There has been talk of forming voting forums for non-Ranma fanfiction.

 6. And yet....
	So, why is Ranma fanfiction _still_ being written? First, there
are those long-running fiction series, but also, there are new fans.
Newcomers to Ranma (and there are plenty of them) who like it and feel
like putting in their bit. And, as they are new, they don't know much
about what's gone on in the past concerning fanfiction, so what may seem
to be a new idea to them is in reality one that has been done a few
times over already. Not exactly the same, of course, but close. The only
thing that will put an end to the glut of Ranma fanfiction is a) a
general loss in interest with Ranma (which _may_ happen...in a few
decades), or b) the end of the world.

 7. Personal notes
	Okay, now I'm going to break out of the relative objectivity and
put in my own opinion. Ranma got me started into anime. Ranma fanfiction
also got me started into anime fanfiction. And I am one of those who has
become tired of Ranma--both the anime and the fanfics. (Of course, what
I wrote about above does apply to me--established series and writers of
Ranma will still pull me, as well as a few other items of more personal 
note....) I do wish for more non-Ranma fiction, and that is why I've
given up on my Ranma fics for now. However well-received "These Are the
Days to Remember" was, just before I left school for the summer, I'm not
going to touch that for a long time--if ever again.


>From Andrew Huang, brought to you by his computer, Oddzilla
Oddzilla says, "Mmmmm...Evanjellydonut...."
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~alhuang/
Harvard Anime Society, Secretary