CCMax writes:
Second, the whole thing with Ranma not fighting girls is way,
way, overblown, as it all too often is in fanfics. Ranma said
Ah yes, but you are forgetting that this isn't the Ranma we all know and love.
This is a 6-7 year old Ranma, who has been travelling Japan with his father as
his only companion. His father has probably instilled this type of behavior
into him at that age, but I wouldn't be surprised that after a while in his
travels, Ranma may encounter and may in fact fight female martial artists of
equal or superiour skill.
This can easily be deduced since it is practically a given fact that Genma and
Ranma stole food and other necessities most of the time during the training
trip. An angry restaurant owner or someone who was insulted would easily go
after them, and I can easily see Genma having Ranma fight the person, saying
that it is nothing more then training. Even if it is a girl. And, after the
first couple of times of losing against girls, Genma can easily be saying that
Ranma is less of a man, because a man is supposed to stronger then a women, and
obviously Ranma is losing to women, making him less then a man. Even though
Genma probably said all of the time that men do not hit women.
(Dubiously) Well, I think you're assuming a lot from little
evidence. Genma may have told Ranma that, but I don't think there's
any proof of that in the manga. As for the thieving, Genma and Soun
certainly stole when they were forced to by Happosai, but I don't quite
buy the picture of Genma stealing and scamming his way across Japan on
the training trip. For one thing, if Genma was truly that much of a
thief, he would never have sealed the Umisenken, since with that, he
would have been the greatest sneak thief in Japan, with no record
because no one would ever have caught him.
For a variety of reasons, I think it unlikely that Genma built
up much of a police record. I won't get into most of it, for fear of
turning this into a straight-out character debate, but let me just
say this in the context of this story. If this hotshot ninja clan
was asked by the Daikoku, Kuonji, and Mizumo families to find Genma,
(and where did they get the money anyway? The Daikokus were flat broke,
and the Kuonjis just lost their yatai) how come they couldn't find him,
when he apparently left an obvious trail across Japan?
Finally, in my defense of Genma (urgh), let me just protest how
easily he was handled by the ninjas who came across him. Genma acts
like a buffoon much of the time, but he was still roughly Ranma's equal
up to the "Cradle of Hell" story in the manga (vol 21), and that was
without using the Umisenken or the Yamasenken, or any other ki
projection technique (and we know he can do it, from the vacuum blades
of the Yamasenken, and the giant panda form he created to oppose Happosai
once). If I recall correctly, Takahashi even referred to him as
being Ranma's equal in the Memorial book, written after the end of
the manga. I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but it suggests that
Genma knows a good deal more than he lets on. Certainly it seems to
be his policy to let people underestimate him.
Reid Carson
rcarson@rcarson.com
rcarson@mnsinc.com