----- Original Message -----
From: John Boydston <jboydst1@midsouth.rr.com>
To: George P. Masologites <guilds@mail.serve.com>
Cc: Fan Fiction ML <ffml@fanfic.com>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Ranma] Fanfiction cliche?

----- 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
Space      | http://www.serve.com/guilds/astro/
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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.

One point that some people seem to overlook (as pointed out before) is that
Ranma, at the least, is "editic" (sp?) with regars to martial arts. (It's
unlikey that this has NOT carried over.) Also, Ranma's a observer (see his
style) which does imply that he does watch.  The thing where LA gets his IQ
is from that Ranma tends to repeat the same mistakes over and over again (I
like Bob Barnes reason for it, mind you.)  THis could be a sign that LA is
right, or that Ranma figures that it's easier to let things slide, and not
do anything until the others give up, I figure he's smart eng. to see that
trying to solve things would casue a great big blowup.  Plus also, he's been
attention starved for years, and this is the first time he's gotten any, and
that he wants it to contuine (Kinda like the whipped stray... sad.) Or that
he's using the situation to adoivd commiting to Akane until HE's Ready for
it.

Also, I tend to get annoyed by the people who think that Ranma would use
GENMA's methods of training new students. (Ranma's shown that he HAS no
respect for Genma, so why would he use Genma's methods... he would ask Tofu,
or use Colonge's.)
A

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.