Another chapter.  Still interesting, but somewhat less so than the
previous ones.  You may want to accelerate your pace a little;
this section had no new consequences to Gos's bath.

     So it was no surprise that she was clutching a postcard that had
just arrived in the mail, smiling proudly as she read it. "Takuji!
Takuji! Our son is returning home!"

You missed an opportunity for a good joke here:  the postcard has a
panda on the front, and the rest of the scene echos the very first
panels of the manga.

     Lilac smiled as the jet arrived in Tokyo International airport.

"Tokyo/Narita"

While they often decried the outsiders who 
chose to beat nature into submission (rather than living in harmony
with it), as a healer, she had a much less romantic view of 
'Mother Nature'.

People who've lived their whole lives close to nature seldom
have a romantic view of it at all.

     She laughed to herself as the young Japanese stewardesses
helped the passengers off the plane. It was strange to see the 
respectful way they treated her as just another elderly (albeit
a gaijin) passenger. She still remembered the bloody days of the 
1930's.. the Rape of Nanking hideously clear in her mind.

I read David Johnston's comment on this, and your response.  I am
of two minds on the subject.  By rights, anyone living in the
Bayankala range in Qinghai shouldn't think of themselves as being
Chinese, and shouldn't particularly hate the Japanese.  However,
canon Cologne appears to view herself as Chinese rather than Tibetan
(no Tibetan would speak of "3000 years of ... history"), and she,
Shampoo, and Mousse appear to speak Mandarin as their
native tongue.  One might suppose that the Nujiezu emigrated to
their present home from further east fairly recently.  Anyway,
you are, in my view, more consistent with Takahashi (whose artistic
liberties with Qinghai are considerable, as Qinghai is not home
to the limestone crags she likes to draw).

     Not that the People's Republic of China was much better. The 
Nationalists had stolen everything that wasn't nailed to the ground
or protected by armed guards. But the Communists had tried to steal
the _souls_ of the people. To an Amazon, no crime could be worse.
Things could be replaced. A member of the tribe, lost to the lies of
Communism, could not.

I'm not sure this really rings true to me.  Given that she thinks
of herself as Chinese (on which you seem to backtrack a bit in this
paragraph, BTW), she should bemoan the physical catastrophes of
Communist rule (the famines of the Great Leap Forward; the senseless
destruction of the Cultural Revolution) as much as the others.
OTOH, for a real Chinese, raised on a pragmatic mixture
of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, to think of Communism as
"stealing souls" is a bit much.  A Tibetan, fine.

     A grin crossed her wrinkled face as she remembered an old joke,
told to her by the American who'd taught her English so long ago. It
didn't work in Chinese, but in English, she felt it was a perfect
slap at the so-called "People's Government".

     "The People's Republic of China.. the PRC. Nothing but a bunch
of PRiCks," she chuckled. "Hehehehe."

     She'd learned her first English from a downed American flyer, a 
member of the famed mercenary group, the Flying Tigers.

Unless this flyer stayed well past the end of the war, he would
never have heard the term "PRC".  So he couldn't have known the joke
himself, and I find it difficult to believe Lilac learned enough
English to make up this joke herself.
 

All Cologne could see was a chance to USE an American. To her, he was
just another asset to be used to protect the village. 

This, about the Cologne who has now lived outside the village
herself for the last year...

The stuffy old battleaxe just couldn't accept losing.

Granted this is Lilac's opinion, but it certainly differs from mine.
We are talking about the person who freely gave the Phoenix Pill
to Ranma for giving her a good fight.

     <"We've got a mission to complete, Sash! Your addiction can 
WAIT!"> Dowel reprimanded her.

     <"But they've got copies of the latest 'Pokemon' music video,
Dowel! I gotta have it! I JUST GOTTA! Go on without me! PLEASE!">

Heh.  This bit was funny.

Yankee
Carpetbagger School of Martial Arts," snorted the old sensei. "And
a more disreputable school there never was. You could have ended up 
as bad as that young reprobate, Genma Saotome."

     Norton South straightened up and stood proudly. "I'm WORSE than
Genma!"

     Seamus looked at him biliously. "And you take pride in that."

     "Well, I haven't sold my son yet," admitted the rebellious
student.

This wasn't funny to me, though it was obviously supposed to be.
Setting it in the U.S. was a bit of an implausibility, I thought,
for people who've supposedly heard of Genma.  There is potential
in the idea of someone trying to be worse than Genma, but I don't
think your version quite works.  Why does Norton want to be worse
than Genma?

     A few moments later, the customers finishing their lunch heard
a rising voice from the direction of the kitchen snarl "LILAC?!"

(blink) Was this supposed to be Cologne?  Raising her voice?  Well,
we _are_ departing from canon, aren't we.

     I won't tell them, he thought. It's not like I have Ranma's
problem.. how hard can it be to avoid cold water when you _AREN'T_
a martial artist? They don't need to know, and they won't find out.
No problem.

     * * * 

     Needless to say, THIS is a textbook example of the sort of 
irrational, almost insane, overconfidence that's endemic among most
Neriman martial artists, American super-heroes, and Harlequin
Romance Novel studs.

     Thank the gods it's not infectious. Let's hope it stays that 
way.

Trying to write like Kenko here, I see.  You're close.  IMO, you've
overwritten.  (You might try writing him direct, and asking him how
he'd write this section.)  I would recommend cutting this to
something like:

	They don't need to know, and they won't find out.  No problem.

	Right.  Let's not disillusion him, shall we?
or:
	Irrationalis Nerimanmartialartistus.  Thank god it's not
	infectious.

<clip Norton and Seamus section>

I hope these guys are important to the story, because, at this
point, they're boring.  Why should I care about them?

     Maiku walked back to Kiki's Copy Service (the name was 
disgustingly cute, but they DID do a good job. And they did all their
own deliveries.)

Heh.  A little overwritten, perhaps, for a throwaway joke.  Think
about taking out "the name was... a good job."

her. In the kitchen, however, Cologne jerked her head around as she
sensed a presence that she hadn't felt since she'd left the village
to help Shampoo.

Another joke opportunity you missed.  Cologne should have said, aloud,
"I sense something.  A presence I haven't felt since..."  and abruptly
darted away.

     <"Hey, _you're_ the one who's so gung ho on tradition, 
Cologne,"> smiled Lilac. <"Gung ho.. heh. I love the way the 
Americans manage to steal from every language on the globe. Even 
ours. But I digress. 

It _is_ a digression, and one which lacks plausibility.  How can
this even be said, in Mandarin?

     Cologne's eyebrows went up in surprise. <"Mace? Interested
in a man? That says it all, Lilac. This behavior isn't natural.">

     <"What was your first clue?"> snorted the Healer.

     <"You don't need to be snotty about it, Lilac. What I'm getting
at is that if it's not natural, it's probably magic. That much goes
without saying, I know. But have you considered the fact that it's
magic that we don't know anything about, and don't control?">

     That brought Lilac up short. <"Oh, shit. I let that slip right
by me. I _must_ be getting old and senile.">

This discussion didn't make a lot of sense to me.  Lilac knew it
was magic, but assumed that she _did_ know about it and control it?

     Gos wanted to scream. This was impossible! How could something
as _simple_ as hot water be so hard to _find_?

Heh.  Of course.

     Meanwhile, in a mountain retreat somwhere in Tibet, a young man
felt a cold shudder run down his spine...
     The Master sat there for long minutes, looking deeply with his
mystic abilities. Then he stood, placed a calming hand on the younger
man's shoulders and said...

     "Oh, lord, it's those idiots in Nerima again."

     Then he told his student to pack. They were going to take a 
vacation. The Falkland Islands were nice this time of year.

This read like an irrelevant digression.  Do these Tibetans sense
everything that happens in Nerima?  And they're already thousands
of miles away; why go to the Falklands?

     Gos let out a small cheer when the Nekohanten came into view.
FINALLY, some hot water! He could go home and rest. Without a second
thought, he dashed up to the door and rushed inside.
<clip>
    <"Come now, Lilac, do you REALLY expect the boy to show up here
in Nerima? 

Heh.  This was good.  Very Takahashi, but you built it up slowly
enough to seem inevitable when it happened.

     It wasn't as if it were life threatening. If this particular
seal blew out, a fire hydrant would spray water over a small side 
street and perhaps the front yard of one home. It wouldn't do any 
serious damage. At worst, a few people might get wet.

     Don't you just love it when Fate takes a hand?

Another Kenkoism.  This time, IMO, you got it just right.

-- 
           .---------Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----------.
           |    To send a post to the list -- ffml@fanfic.com     |
           | To contact the admin staff -- ffml-admins@fanfic.com |
           |  To change your account -- ffml-request@fanfic.com   |
        .--'      Listar Help -- put "help" in the subject (*)    `--.
        |      Subscribing -- put "subscribe" in the subject (*)     |
        |    Unsubscribing -- put "unsubscribe" in the subject (*)   |
        | Setting a flag -- put "set ffml <flag>" in the subject (*) |
        |          (*) Remove quotation marks for commands.          |
        `-------------http://www.fanfic.com/FFML-FAQ.txt-------------'