Douglas A. Reeves wrote:

ki'var@firstsaga.com wrote:

Right on. I ignore them also. Nearly all of the most uninteresting
fics posted on the list are the pure (non x-over) Ranma fanfics. Let's
be honest here, why should anyone care all that much who Ramna & Co
beats the crap out of or sleeps with? If you read one of these Ranma
fanfics that isn't a x-over, you can pretty much say you've read them
all with the execption of Ranma 2096.

        Excuse me?  I find this statement offensive.  I spent a great deal of
time mulling over a story idea in Ranma that WASN'T just the same thing
over and over again... and quite a few other writers have done the
same.  I don't appreciate having the considerable effort I put into this
so casually dismissed.
        Of course, you wouldn't know about my story, or any of several other
good, original ideas I've seen posted as Ranma stories lately... you
ignored it, with the rest of the Ranma fanfiction.  Odd that you can
justify how interesting something is while ignoring it, ne?  Maybe...
just maybe you missed something worth seeing.

        Generalizations such as this are usually unjustified, and often
insulting.  Please bear this in mind in the future.

In truth, one can make justified generalisations concerning one's 
personal tastes.  I'm sure that he was telling the truth when he
says that Ranma fics bore him, but he wasn't right when he said 
that they were all the same and that was why he dislikes them.
They aren't all the same.  Apart from having characters from the
same series, I don't think that two fics could be more different
than that horrible thing with Shampoo turning into a cat while -you 
know-... and...say one of those new character fics where the new 
character by virtue of having an IQ above room temperature solves the 
problems of the central cast. 

That doesn't mean that ki'var and whoever he was agreeing don't have
valid personal reasons for disliking Ranma, but I strongly suspect
that the reason for their dislike is not "all Ranma fics are the same",
but "I have seen way too many Ranma fics to care whether they are 
different."  Which isn't the same thing. 

One reason why there are so many Ranma fics out there is that it is
easy to do something different with Ranma.  Here are some reasons

1.  Ranma has huge market penetration, second only to the ones
which are broadcast on network TV.  Very important.  Although I 
am most tempted to write a Gatchaman fanfic, perhaps it would be 
better if I had seen more than five minutes of it before I attempted
to do so.  

2.  Ranma isn't about good versus evil.  That's an important 
consideration.  It allows far more variation in events than in 
a series like Sailor Moon, where either you stick to what you can
figure out of the continuity, or you let the bad guys win and
the heros die, generally speaking.  True, there are some other
alternatives you can explore, but there aren't nearly as many 
plausible ones to be exploited because what is going on is far 
simpler.  

3.  Ranma characters have significant psychological problems.  
This makes them eminently explorable in terms of background and
character development.  Nobody (much) wants to write a story in which
Usagi, Ami or Bulma turns out to have been raped two years ago, and 
nobody would would really believe that addition their back story, where 
I could believe it of Ranma, or Kasumi, or any other of the repressed 
and obsessed cast of Ranma 1/2.  

4.  Ranma is unfinished.  Important, integral plot issues were left
for any fool who wants to resolve them.  And a lot of people do.
Maison Ikkoku ends with a happy ending.  Only a few want to mess with
that.  Ranma ends unresolved.  

5.  Ranma has wide variations in mood within the official material.  
Storylines vary from slapstick, to action, to near-tragedy.  Close
enough that it's easy to write real Ranma tragedy and still be in
character.  Bubble Gum Crisis or Sailor Moon has one tone fairly
consistently, once again narrowing options for the aspiring fic 
writer.  

But even so, it's possible that there are too many Ranma fics out
there, <Blasphemy!> at least for some people.  Of course, for some
"any" is "too many".  For example, I skip all Dragonball fics, just
because I hate the series.  But personally, I'd rather write a good
Ranma fic, than a mediocre Robotech fic, or a fic about a series
that I don't really know well enough, even if it does add to a glut.