Huge amount of C&C with this fic.. Still, it deserves the attention ^^
Well... I find that I write too subtle a lot more often than I write too
blatant, so I try to bias towards blatancy. Things that make one reader
go "huh?" make another say "too obvious". It's tricky.
I, myself prefer subtle. Makes for more durable reading.
Then again, not many fanfics are read more than couple of times.
Ranma had been on the receiving end of Akane's pet shinai
before, but this time she was attacking with precision and
discipline. He dodged and wove around the blows, but there was
nothing wild about them; Akane's skill and spirit blended to form
style that he couldn't help but admire. Still.... Ranma
suddenly caught the shinai between two fingers and held it,
smirking. "Now what? Woop!" He dodged Akane's side-kick.
He can do that?
It's a common representation in Ranma fics that weapons (or at
least Kuno's bokken) are all but useless. "One disarm and it's
all over."
Of course, weapons also give a greater reach, and leverage adds
speed and power. Approaching to disarm someone who's weilding
a weapon at you is not a fun experience.
Unless, of course, you have a weapon, too. :)
mmm... not sure I want to get into this, as I've seen this subject explode
before. Suffice it to say that in the manga, the people who don't use
weapons -- or aren't using weapons -- don't seem to be at a disadvantage,
and often win. What relationship this has to reality, I don't know, and
I'm not sure it matters. I'm writing Ranma fanfic.
Anyway, as it applies here, could Ranma really catch the shinai
between his fingers? Based off of what I know of how it's built,
a shinai is intended to be swung, not stabbed.
Mostly. It does have a padded tip, and it is legal to thrust with it, but
there's only one legal target: the throat.
I could see him catch a stab, but not a swing. There's not
enough strength in the fingers, especially closing like that.
Of course, Ranma *is* wild martial arts, and that kinda spoils
your scene. Still, since you're being technical on the martial
arts side of things, perhaps you should say what type of strike
he caught.
If it *was* a swing, maybe he hurt his finger in the attempt.
He could shake his hand in pain after the encounter is over.
Ranma's fingers are pretty damn strong. And a shinai strike is not
full-circle; it stops and recovers. In the instant of stopping, I'm
certain Ranma could catch it and, once caught, leverage is on his side.
...This guy smashes falling 1000kg rocks with his fists and
people question whether he can catch a shinai with his fingers
without injury... Sheesh!
(... then again, it's Akane swinging it.)
Anyways, how hard can a shinai blow be compared to having your
hand embedded to concrete?
"Oh, rats," came Akane's voice. "This isn't going to be
much fun for the spectators. I can't see a thing."
Masanori: Infrared goggles, ma'am?
Akane: Why, thank you!
Hey. I like that. It's just loopy enough to work. Hmm.
Go fer it!
It was the whisper of cloth that alerted him just in time to
spring away; he heard the swish of the wooden blade, but the
intent that should have warned him... hadn't. *He's masking his
aura! Doing a damn good job, too.*
suggest: "battle aura"
or: "fighting spirit"
(Aura sounds vague, like "the force." I would stick to
terminology from Ranma, or the actual Japanese term, if you
know what it is. You've already used a lot of other technical
Japanese terms in the story.)
OK.
Hm. I think I heard a term. "Ki-ho" or something like that,
meaning "Battle aura" not a long ago. It was in Variable Geo,
I believe.
Ranma expanded his aura as far as it would go, sweeping for
Kotaro with it, and immediately found that Kotaro was doing the
same thing. "Yipe!" He dodged the bokken and took the opening.
Ugh. This *is* beginning to sound like the force.
It's not an application of "aura", but couldn't he just "expand
his senses"? This is pretty standard fare in martial arts movies,
and isn't vaguely defined as "aura".
Sure, it amounts to the same thing, but it's weird seeing all
your technical descriptions of the weapons, styles, and forms,
and then you talk about "aura." It's a really uneven coverage
of martial arts.
I'll address this later.
Well, this IS "Mythical Japan". I recall a well-known story of a
swordsmaster,
whose gardener once contemplated killing him. The swordsmaster( or wuzzit a
Samurai? ) immediately took his sword and started searching the house.
Later he explained that he felt like someone was going to attack him..
(apologizes for possible errors in the story, It's been a while...)
In Lone Wolf and Cub, they explained the premise of something like
the intent to kill. Or do harm, one might suppose. There was the
concept of this hostility, or focus, being a presense that a
trained martial artist can detect as an oppresive force.
Presumably a clever-enough person who is focussed enough to suppress
their intent, could throw off a false intent. Pretend to attack
one way, while really attacking another. A basic feint, but at
another level.
Yes, that's essentially it.
Mm.
*I could beat this with Umi-sen-ken,* Ranma thought, *but do
I want to? Nah. Let's see who fakes who.* He sent his aura out
again and sought for Kotaro. When the false attack came he
evaded it, listening and feeling for body and blade, learning to
recognize the patterns of deception....
Whap! "Gotcha!" Ranma crowed.
How? You don't describe the "aha!" moment where he somehow figures
out how to detect the real Kotaro.
I thought it was implicit... guess not.
Still, I for one enjoy these scenes and wish you would elaborate..
Then again, I'm bit of a martial arts Otaku myself..
Ranma taking her seriously, but stronger than ever before... and
the visceral knowledge that if Ranma really did take her
seriously, she would have all the chance of a rabbit cornered by
a tiger.
I dunno. Put a frail little thing in front angry felines
enough times and you might be surprised! >;)=
Neko-ken reference?
Usually you have to replace the frail little thing a lot.
Then again, my albino midget rabbit DID beat our 5 years old
Collie quite a bit..
...Then again, the same rabbit ate my parents waterbed, too.
(The actual explanation to insurance company was:
"Our rabbit ate our waterbed". We got full compensation)
"HAAAA!" Tak-tak-tak-WHACK! "KOTE!" Akane followed
through and stopped, grinning inside her mask.
"Point!" Soun shouted. "Did you see that, Saotome-kun?"
"A cunning strike," Genma agreed.
And why didn't WE get to see the strike? As Gary might say, you
can't just say "That was amazing" and expect us to take your word
for it. We want to be able to decide for ourselves that her strike
was cunning.
Interesting point, two problems. First, I don't know what the darn
cunning strike was, because I'm not a kendoka as good as Akane. Second,
if I WAS, and I described it precisely, you wouldn't know it was a cunning
strike, because YOU aren't a kendoka as good as Akane!
NOT describing the strike, and having Soun and Genma comment on it
instead, solves both problems; you're not taking MY word for it, you're
taking Soun's and Genma's, trust me. :)
I like this scene, all in all.
so many soap-bubbles. A decade of Musabetsu Kakuto and kendo and
six months of Ranma's idiosyncratic tutoring came together in one
instant flash of void.
Point of curiosity: why is Musabetsu Kakuto capitalized,
but none of the other martial art names capitalized?
uh... (boggles) You got me fair and square, Sherriff. I'll go quietly.
Hm.. spelling.. izzit like using "Shotokan karate" or "Kyuryu kempo"
...
My PHFD can't handle this.
(Plot-Hole Filling Device). Then again, it failed in "Lost in Space" too...
"TSUKI!"
Mamoru: "No! Usagi!!!"
Huh?! (I've seen hardly any SM...)
Mamoru Chiba=Tuxedo Kamen,
Usagi Tsukino= Sailor Moon
Tsuki=moon
"BECAUSE I CAN'T!" Ranma roared. "You KNOW what I gave up
to get this good! If someone who didn't sacrifice the way I did
can be BETTER, then it was all for NOTHING!" Dead silence
answered him. His tortured glance raked over the shocked faces
of his small audience. He dropped the shinai and darted out the
open doors of the dojo into the spring sunshine.
This is a good insight into Ranma's character.
Thanks. They talked about this a little back in Taming 10.
...Ranma's beaten lotsa times. He just wins the challenges that count.
After all, he takes beatings from Cologne for a week while working
as a waitress.
I'm going to try to be nicer to him, really. An upcoming chapter features
Genma and Nodoka.
Can Ranma beat Genma's Hell's cradle in this point?
(A terrifying move! Makes the opponent definitely NOT WANT TO fight you!)
"I dunno, it's like you're some kinda sex maniac or
somethin'...."
All the Akane fanboys already know that. ;)
(Vince waves an Akane flag)
Yay! Yay! Aka-ne! A-KA- ...
"Huh?" Ranma looked puzzled and not a little apprehensive.
"How'm I supposed to know if you're in the mood, if you won't
answer when I ask?"
You live in a much simpler world, don't you, Ranma? :)
No question about it.
He does? Seems pretty normal to me...
Akane forced herself not to retort, not to reach for him,
not to give any sign of her feelings. She closed her eyes and
lay still with her head turned away a little, waiting for him to
touch her, knowing that wherever he touched her it would be like
air on fire... but what touched her first was his aura, sparking
and fizzing with excitement. With a gasp she let her aura escape
to mingle with his, and everything was just as wonderful as she'd
hoped it would be.
I was interested until the "aura" came back.
Sorry.
Yup, "aura" doesn't fit.
Maybe "Letting her spirit soar" or something..
You could figure out alternatives to the use of
"aura" all in all.
This is just one of the laws of physics in the Ranma universe.
It's all nice and well that you're giving Ranma an opportunity
to be warm and fuzzy, but would the same argument apply to
Happosai? Or Taro?
*grr* TARO IS NOT THAT STRONG! Avoid the Anime!
Resist the Abomination!
The only one equal to Ranma in ability of the younger cast,
is in my opinion Konatsu, the genious who appears only once
in a century.
(Yay! Konatsu!)
They're stronger then the other cast and still as as vulnerable
as anyone else to indignant beatings. Best to leave it lie
without explanation.
Sorry, I disagree. I think the reason Ranma lets Akane hit him (not all
the time, mind you; sometimes she hits him fair and square, sometimes she
swings and misses) is important.
I think, maybe it's because if Akane hits him, her anger dissipates sooner
when it's gotten a release.
Maybe
Probably.
"Woop! Eek! Yipe! Ack!" Ranma evaded the glinting sweeps
of the sword by bare finger-widths, inciting Kuno to greater and
greater effort.
Uh... Can't Kuno apply a great deal of air pressure (enough to
shatter rock) with his strikes? Dodging by finger-widths is not
the smartest idea. ^_^
That's with a bokken; a katana is too sharp to generate pressure waves.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)
..Then again, with such skill you could cut before the actual blade touches
the target.
The whole "aura" thing is a pet peeve of mine. I mean, some sorta
vague... whatever... that indicates attacks, can be used as a
mental searchlight, enhances sex... I haven't seen it in Ranma or
any other martial art movie or comic, so I don't like to see it
in martial art fics.
Okay. Long answer coming up; to begin, I'm not taking this personally,
but your complaint does touch on the foundation of quite a lot of my
effort, so I'm going to defend it. In doing so, I'm going to ignore
"real" (i.e., non-Ranmaverse) concepts of ki and chi, since I really don't
want to open that can of worms.
First off, the notion of the aura ("touki", or "battle aura") is
ubiquitous in the Ranma manga. All over the place. Happosai and Genma
display quite detailed visible projections using battle auras, and Soun's
demon-head is probably also aura. Akane displays something a bit like
Soun's demon-head, and even Kasumi and Nabiki might do it. Auras reflect
emotions, frequently springing out around characters when they're angry,
and it's this "hot ki" that Ranma uses for the Hiryuu Shouten Ha,
displaying a prodigious (in several senses of the word) ability to control
and project "cold ki". It can be argued that the Shi Shi Houkoudan
and Mouko Takabisha are, in a sense, aura projections; they're certainly
ki, and it's hard to see how they could be formed without aura control.
Hinako's little talents... if ki can do THAT, what CAN'T it do?!
Beyond that, it's clear that the Ranmaverse works by "toon" laws of
physics. I'm not even going to try to explain mass-conversion in
the context of Jusenkyo curses; it's magic, okay? Still, something
separates martial artists from "mundanes", and gives the former the
ability to leap tall buildings in only a few bounds, be run over by
speeding locomotives and stagger away with a headache, punch craters into
solid rock, and so forth. It seems to be ki control: auras. Auras are
everywhere. They're the Swiss army knife of Nerima martial arts.
Takahashi put them there.
There's also the proximity or danger sense; this seems to be a property of
martial artists, improving as the skill of the character in question
improves... could it be aura-related? That's the only assertion I made
that is not directly supported by evidence in the manga, and I believe
that it IS a reasonable interpretation of evidence in the manga. Not the
only reasonable interpretation, mind you.
Okay. If auras can have sensory properties... what then? Ranma, master
of oddball aura use, is going to develop them. Auras played a large part
in Taming, both practically and symbolically; the discovery that auras
could apply to making love paralleled Ranma's determination to use his
martial arts abilities to solve, or at least ride, the difficulties of his
life. It was a significant part of his "pairs style" with Akane.
I think that this is all firmly based on manga-canon. If you don't like
it, that's fine; all I can say is that it's a matter of taste, and tastes
differ. If you want to undermine my foundations, well, you're going to
have to do it with manga-canon arguments, because I'm pretty well attached
to this notion by now. :)
Hmn. Agree, mostly.
Personally I just dislike the word "aura". Reminds me of cheese.
Then again, sorta connects to "Aurora borealis", which is nice,
because that's what they look like, IMO.
The most impressive battle-aura of the week:
Konatsu's in the introductory story after eating the "Toushintan".
Looks kinda like the one in "DNA^2" opening..