At 04:59 PM 12/30/97 EST, you wrote:

- why was it necessary for Cologne to play possum before bringing to bear her
secret weapon?  Why not douse Ranma as soon as he tranformed into his

youthful

form?  Or when Ukyou joined the fight?

You're assuming Cologne was sure it would work.  If it was untested or she
was unsure of it's effectiveness, she'd be more likely to save it as a last
ditch solution and try and take Ranma out through normal techniques.

- the reference to Ryouga seems illogical and unnecessary.  With her mind-
control powers, couldn't Cologne easily keep Ryouga out of her cave in the
unlikely event that he would wander by?  Moreover, Ryouga was never a match
for her in a fair fight, so why would she need a secret weapon that acted
against his Jusenkyo curse?

Well, it had been quite a while since Cologne had last seen Ryouga, so she
might have been assuming he'd have gotten a lot better with time.  Also,
he's the only one likely to "accidentally" stumble across her in her hidden
cave due to his directionally-challenged nature.  Finally, just one good
depression blast and he might collapse the whole cave on both of them, so
she'd need to stop him before he could get to that point.

It wouldn't strain my credibility if Cologne
simply explained that she'd spent the past few decades experimenting with
Jusenkyo waters.  She might even have brewed Nannichuan and Chisuiton
substitutes that could come in handy for the happy ending...

Yup, that would work as well, and be less complicated.  The minor
complication would be FINDING those substitutes and actually knowing what
they did (Cologne is not likely to tell them, and I'm betting whatever
method she'd use to mark them would be pretty kryptic - would you want to
dose yourself with something Cologne had been "experimenting" with?  I
didn't think so! :).

Charles Hurst, charlesh@teleport.com, http://www.teleport.com/~charlesh/