On Fri, 21 Nov 1997 18:41:42 -0000, "Sean Gaffney" <gaffney@iconn.net>
wrote:

I was reading a fic that featured Kasumi, and while reading
it, I thought to myself, "Now, will this be the kind, wise,
all-knowing Biles/Lawson Kasumi, or the airheaded moron
Rutsch/Doenime Kasumi?"

After reading the story it occured to me that it was, more 
or less, the Takahashi Kasumi.  Now of course, many people
try every day to write the characters in the style of
Takahashi, but...

... but we fail miserably! Go ahead, rub it in! :-)

Seriously, Kasumi might be a special case because she's a fairly minor
character in the original, and Takahashi-sama writes her as being kind
of inscruitable, IMO. Is she as simple as she seems, or not? We don't
really know, and for canon Ranma stories it doesn't matter. But for
stories where Kasumi plays a more central role, a fanfic writer has to
make up his/her mind.

I found myself wondering why I assumed Kasumi's 
characterization would vary from the manga/anime.  There
have been many, *many* stories lately that use 'fanfic'
characterization as canon - the wise Kasumi, the smarter
than he lets on Kunou, the not completely bonkers Kodachi - 
abusing the originals, of course. :-)

Since I view Takahashi's characterization as, with a few
exceptions through the series, rather 2-dimensional, I
think this is not especially a bad thing.  Any other opinions?

I'm gonna step on a few toes here, so consider a "rant" warning to be in
effect. ^_^

Some fanfics have done a great job of expanding the characters, but OTOH
other times the fanfic-standard characterizations have less depth than
the original IMO. For example, the Akane you often see in fics is often
either the WAFF Akane who doesn't seem to ever be violent, or the
Psychotic Maniac Akane who seems constantly violent with no need for
provocation. Takahashi-sama's is balanced between these extremes.

Say what you want about her characterizations, but in Takahashi-sama's
canonical Ranma 1/2 there are IMO no characters portrayed as totally
"good" and none as totally "bad". This is not the case in fanfics where
it's tempting for authors to write their favorite characters as angelic
and their least favorite as total scumbags.

Does anyone despair of the fact that fanfics are getting 
farther away from Takahashi's original creation?

Nah. Different authors have different goals in mind for their stories. I
personally try to stick close to the original when I can, but as long as
it makes a good story, it's OK by me.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics