----- Original Message -----
From: George P. Masologites <guilds@mail.serve.com>
To: <ffml@fanfic.com>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 6:59 PM
Subject: [FFML] [Ranma] Fanfiction cliche?

Few questions:

In a great number of Ranma fics that I've read, Akane is a very good
student at Furinkan while Ranma is utterly horrible.  Is there anything in
the manga that would support this, or is this just a fanfic cliche?

Also, is there ever any indication as to how good a student Ukyou is?  And
does she go to school for the normal hours, or does she have a shorter
school day to manage her restaurant?  How about Kodachi, is she a good
student; she's painted in many fics as a genius who learns nothing from
school because she knows it all already...is this true?

Thanks.

--
George P. Masologites | guilds@mail.serve.com
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"Feh.  Knowing Ryouga he probably turns into a wombat or an
inter-dimensional sheep or something."
-Ukyou, from Zen's _The Long and Winding Road_

In one of the later mangas, there are hints that Akane is at least the
equivalent of a "B" student (an 86 on a test). Ranma's test score is never
revealed and as far as I know there is no actual evidence as to his grades.

The problem with the cliche, as with all cliches, is that the cliche does
not take into account the irregularities in Ranma's training. Several people
like to portray Ranma as unintelligent (witness Lord Archive's page where he
claims Ranma's IQ is about 95). Unfortunately, there is a lot in the manga
to contradict this. Here are some of them:

Learning the Umi-sen-ken after being shown it, once.
Realizing what Rouge's power source was and helping her achieve full power
without it.
Rapidly coming up with countermoves to techniques he has just had used on
him.

There are others. My contention is that of several other writers. He is not
unintelligent; he is uneducated.

 As far as Ukyou is, there is very little evidence on any of these matters.
The only way I could see her having a short day is if gym is the last class
of the day and she is allowed to cut that class short.

Kodachi is extremely talented at Botany, and it is implied that her school
is an exclusive one. Other than that, her scholastic abilities are unknown.