On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Alan Harnum wrote:

In the end, Ranma being simply cruel, manipulative, and evil actually
winnowed the depth of his character and left him two-dimensional. What
made the Ranma of IMBS so fascinating was the ambiguity of his
character. You really didn't know if he was pure evil or just sick and
trying to cope. The wonderful ambiguity of his character as portrayed 

by

Mike and Susan was lost in that final confrontation with Akane, and 

left

me feeling cheated. "Oh, I guess he really was pure evil. Yawn." His
desperate plea for help -found in his allowing Akane the opening to
subdue him- had no drama, and really felt like a cheap cop-out. 

I beg to differ in opinion here myself.  I think there really _was_ no 
way to reasonably end the series without answering the question of 
Ranma's ambiguity.  Mike and Susan handled it as well as they could 
under the circumstances; up to the end, I received the impression that 
Ranma, though an incredibly disturbed and dangerous person, was still 
struggling, even if just a little, with himself and his own darkness... 
this two lines here from right before the end of the Akane/Ranma fight 
sums up his conflict nicely:

After telling Akane he killed Nabiki, and her asking him about why he 
jumped after Nabiki, even he does not seem sure:

:        His smile slipped slightly, and then reappeared. "Alibi.
:Had to look above suspicion, you know?"

	You know, it's a funny thing about human nature.  When someone
accuses someone else of doing something, our first impulse is to ask
questions.

	When someone accuses themselves of doing something -- in other
words, confesses -- our first impulse is to accept it as factual.


	What makes you all so sure that Ranma wasn't lying about killing
Nabiki?


Chris Davies.
(Wouldn't be film noir without one last twist ... and the epilogues aren't
done yet.)