On Mon, 28 Dec 1998, John Rasmussen wrote:

At 06:46 PM 12/27/98 -0500, you wrote:

--->YAY Panda Stakes made by Kasummi; You know they have to be

Good.Just once I would like to see Genma get some pain to
balance his Karma. Death is literally too good for him.

It would be... but he would eather go to hell or come back as a sea slug.
That would ballance out his karma.

What have you got against sea slugs?

I don't know what people have against Genma - I think he's hilarious.  I
don't think Takahashi meant for us to take his "wrongdoings" so
seriously...if anything they're probably meant as comic relief.  Even her
portrayal of the Neko-ken training, while sounding horrific, manages to
look not very serious.  I just don't think he's the monster that most
people make him out to be.  And i don't agree that he would sell his son
for money.  Genma is the master of the technicality.  Technically, he
thought, since Ranma was engaged to Akane, he could engage him to other
brides; the other engagements would have no meaning.  And yeah, they stole
Ukyo's yattai, but they were literally starving.  From the manga we see
that they are literally ravenous in several places along their journey.
And he _did_ leave the decision up to Ranma!  What the hell kind of kid
says he likes okonomiyaki better than his supposed "best" friend?  I
didn't say those kinda things when I was that young. :)  

So give Genma a break! Sure he's not the best father, but it could
be worse....Ranma could have someone like Principal Kuno for a dad. :)

IMHO, Takahashi portrays him as much much much much less of a monster than
most fanfic writers would like him to believe.  His actions in
Featherbrite (the Bet) seem to me to be OOC.  Deep down inside he cares
for Ranma, and I don't think he'd sell him - 'cos otherwise, Takahashi
would have written that in....

(puts on flame suit, battens down the hatches, sends notes to next of kin)

-jdb

*********************************************************
Justin D Baugh, CompSci@Rensselaer
www.rpi.edu/~baughj
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, is still there." - Phillip K. Dick