At 06:42 PM 11/10/97 -0600, David Johnston wrote:

Mark Doherty wrote:

New clothes? Why? Ranma wears his red silk shirt and black pants when he

goes

to school as a guy, so why not a girl? :P

I have to admit, I've disliked this aspect of such stories too, the insane
need to dress Ranma as a girl when he's stuck as one. Hell, most of the
girls I know almost never wear dresses anyway. Sure, it might be different
in Japan, but it's still unpalatable to read.

Your girls don't have uniform school dresses.

Well, it's not as if Ranma ever stuck to school dress codes. The only
time he'd really, really have to worry is after gym. Other characters
must have found ways around this(Ukyou being the prime example. She
went to a boys-only school for a while, she would have had to do gym, she
managed somehow...)

The real issue here
is, does Ranma want to go to gym class?  If he does, then he can
either use the girls locker room, which they will only tolerate
if he officially defines himself as a girl, or he can wait until
he gets homes to shower and change, and be a little smelly (and
noticeable) in the meantime.  

Let's just leave it as said that I have a problem with polarised gender
roles(cooking, sewing, and even dresses) that often occur in these
"let's make Ranma act like a girl since he's stuck that way" stories(the
split-curse Ranmas fall into this category as well). Perhaps Kasumi is
right in doing what she's doing, that doesn't mean I think much of her
for doing it, nor Nabiki for that scene were she bitches because of the
way Ranma (quite rightly, IMHO) treated Kasumi. She's just not likeable at 
all, in my own opinion. And that's dangerous characterisation when she's
fulfilling a parent role (in most fics, but especially this one).

[snip. Re Where's Ukyou in the anime vs manga?]

It's the same.  She doesn't show up until the third season, while
the story's still in the first.  It'll be interesting when Ukyo shows 
up.  It'll probably take her a while to even be sure that Ranma is the 
same person, and she may not even forgive him without the prospect
of marriage.  She might instead take Ryoga's role as perennial
adversary.

Or alternatively, she could be the one who really understands Ranma's
gender confusion, having gone through something sort of parallel to it.
Either way, really. I don't think Ukyou's got the right mental defenses
to keep angry if she found out that Ranma is now a girl, probably forever 
beyond her marrying reach. She'd probably feel crushed, and all that, but
I can sense a debate coming from other people about that opinion, and I'm
not really in the mood, so I'll be quiet now.

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
The Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzhdoher

My fanfics will be back on the web sooner or later.

"Time grows short, but I remain tall."