Reid Carson wrote:

Phil writes:

The bright yellow beam of Ranma's confidence blast slammed
into the massed horde below them; its violent fury matched

them, its

Nods. Now, I had a question about this and I'm not too clear about it
myself. Ryoga's'Shishi Hokodan' is blue right? and Ranma's 'Moko Takabisha'
is yellow right?

     Well, first off, it's not a beam. If you look at volume 20 of the
manga (available online), you'll see that the two ki attacks referred
to are really balls of solidified air held together and given substance
by the martial artist's ki. The impact is like being hit by a giant fist.
The balls are apparently visible, but no reference is ever made to
color. Judging from the "Kasumi gets mad" story, though, the projection
of ki in a battle aura is NOT accompanied by any color or glowing light.
It's rather more like Dragonball Z - you might see something like a breeze
stirring the person's hair and clothing, with perhaps some distortion in
the air rather like the waves of heat off hot asphalt in the summertime.
(In that story, Kasumi is using a blow-dryer, and from the back, her family
thinks she's manifesting a battle aura.) This makes sense if you read
some of the descriptions of ki/chi that compare it to air, rather like
the Greek "pneuma".

Nods, very understandable, but it doesn't make for good descriptive writing (or
readingfor that matter :). I was looking more towards the anime for this sort of
thing: I recall
seeing a netpic from the anime with Ryoga unleashing his Shishi Hokodan - in that
instance, it was a beam and blue in colour. Can't remember where I picked up the
fact that Ranma's attack is yellow - must be a fanfic cliche. :)

Thanks for the help.

Phil.

Reid Carson
rcarson@mnsinc.com
rcarson@rcarson.com