"Damien Hailey" <samas_1@hotmail.com> wrote:

I think that's the whole point of the story.  Ranma's had enough of 
taking the path of least resistance, and having nothing but a set of 
footprints on his back to show for it.  Ranma reached his emotional 
breaking point, hence the title.

I realize that it was the point of the story; it just wasn't believable
to me that he would get to that point without some drastic change
forcing him out of his normal behavior first.

A major rule of thumb for characterization (in my mind, anyway) is that
as long as the characters keep encountering the same situations, they'll
keep reacting in the same ways. Not that I don't think Ranma can change
the way he acts -- but IMO there has to be some reason *why* he decided
to do so at this point when he never had during 38 volumes of the
series. We don't need a major exposition on this, but I do think we need
some idea of what made him change.