At 10:20 PM 5/25/98 -0500, Pi wrote:

There are other examples of such things with the other characters.
(Konatsu especially seemed to be weak in this story.)  Honestly, this
seems like a Men in Black story with some martial artists added who have
little in common with the original characters besides their names.

I've noticed several stories recently that are anime fanfics only in the
vaguest sense.  Stuffing in a few characters that have the names but no
similarity otherwise does not an anime fanfic make.  Please understand that
the characters do not have to be IC copies of the manga or anime
characters.  However, there has to be some degree of similarity.  For
instance, Razorclaw X's "For Duty, Honor, and Loyalty", was a decent story,
albeit the action was so compressed that it read more like an extensive
outline.  However, it was not a Ranma fic despite having a Ranma, an Akane,
a Kodachi, etc... in it because there was little similarity to the
manga/anime characters.  Someone with no knowledge of Ranma could read it
and enjoy to the same degree as anyone else and also gain no knowledge of
the actual Ranma characters.  By contrast, a story like "Ill Met By
Starlight" by Susan Doenime and Mike Loader is a Ranma fic although the
Ranma in it is very different from the Takahashi Ranma because it is still
obviously related to the canonical Ranma and has many of the same
characteristics.  

By way of contrast with "Men In Black1/2: Guardian", look at "Ranma Goes to
War" by J. Austin Wilde (now married to the lovely and gracious BEngman)
which does provide us with a Ranma who uses a gun, but also provides
background, plot, and character development that preserves the "Ranma-ness"
of the story.  The story also uses Ranma's and Ryouga's curses and
abilities as integral parts of it. 

                                                                dml