Starrngr@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 5/29/99 7:36:49 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
tagan1@ccaccess.net writes:

A New Crossover?  I hope you enkoy the ride!

 All Ranma characters are property of Rumiko Takahashi, first published
 by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North America by Viz
 Communications.


            A Different Viewpoint: American Vacation: pt 6

blink blink<<

Well, this certainly showed up a lot sooner than I expected.  I must admit
that you caught me totaly off guard as well.  Ranma 1/2 meets Kung Fu...  I
must admit that it shouldnt have thrown me though.  Of all the other series
that Ranma gets mixed up in, Kung Fu (TLC) is probobly one of the better
fits.  It will be interesting to see how you work with this, as the two
series we have seen to this point have had a much lighter tone to them, while
Kung Fu is a darker, more realistic piece (Comparatively speaking)

About the only comment I can make is that things are moving almost too slowly
at this point.  We're now at chapter 6, basicly, and up until now we havent
seen anyone who would be a suitable antagonist for Ranma.  Though now that
one has, its a big one allright.  Interesting choices of matchups, too.  I
will have to admit that if this idea had occured to me, the 'final' rankings
would have been slightly different.  Namely 'Ranko', Caine, Johnaton, and
then Phat boy's ringer.  I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of who
would win a Ranma / Caine match, but your explainations, ect., make both the
various matchups and their results feasable.

You'll note that effectively Caine threw the match.  He did not use his Shamballa
powers, and he gave Ranma plenty of time to learn from his mistakes.  Ranma won
because of the two of them, he was the one who cared about winning.  Caine had
other motivations.  

Nice job on coming up with a rather believable way to bring the charecters
into contact with one another, too.  Somehow I have a feeling that the rest
of Ranma's stay in the Greater San Francisco area is going to be much less
boring now.

There is one thing that does come to mind that seems to have escaped you,
however.  In a tournament like this, the winner of the final match would be
#1, and the looser #2.  The pair who lost the "semi final" match would be
fighting for the #3 position honors, not the #2 position, as both of these
fighters had been "eliminated" so to speak.  This system is used in all the
single elimination touranments I have seen to date.

And that's exactly how the tournament worked.  Ranma and Johnathon fought
the final match.  Ranma won.  Johnathon came in second.  It's just that
Johnathon and his semi-final opponent both knew that no matter who won their
match, they would lose the final one, and in that tournament you only
got a prize for being the winner.  I'm a little foggy on how Lon Phat's
scam was supposed to work.  

On a plotline note, though, this particular chapter leaves me feeling
slightly more concerned about the content of chapter 5, though.  Granted it
covered exposition of material that still needed to be set out for future
events, however, unless the events we saw in chapter 5 are going to directly
affect what is happening to Ranma at this time, I would not have placed them
where you did.  Right now, the events of chapter 5 seem to be building to
something that will break after Ranma returns to Japan, and as such could be
moved from in the middle of the American Vacation storyline to a later point
in time.  Since its still to early to tell if it does, I cant recomend for
certain one way or the other.  I would recomend that if I'm right, and the
events forshadowed in the present chapter 5 dont affect the ongoing plots
until after Ranma returns from America, it would be better served to move
what is now chapter 5 to an interlude chapter between the honeymooner's
departure from america and thier arrival once more in Japan.  It could be
done with what I would consider only minor re-writing of the chapter as it
now stands.  There is, of course, also the strong probability that I could be
wrong, as I have been wrong in my extrapolation of plotlines in the past.  In
the end, I'll have to wait and see what happens from here before commenting
further on if the present chapter 5 should be moved or not...

As things stand, I'm not sure of the pacing.  I think it would be a good idea
if this turn was foreshadowed earlier on, for example, Ranma finding out about
the tournament in previous chapters and asking Johnathan then.  

Also, there's another issue. Looks like the entire KF:TLC cast showed up.  
Wouldn't they be a _little_ conspicuous infiltrating a Chinatown streetfight
considering that not a one of them, not even Caine is Chinese?  
Ordinarily, Peter and one other officer would go in "undercover", and his 
backup would hang out in a van down the street or something.  Caine, of course,
would just wander in when he felt like it.