On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Kaoru L. Shimitsu wrote:
Firstly and foremostly, I shall name the things of which I
shall commend the author upon, Since there are certain things which
I would like to praise about the overall story.
Looking carefully through this first part, I notice that the
author has a good grasp of the english language, and has a talent at
using words in the correct manner, as well as an impeccable sense of
grammar. These things I admire in a work, and these things are to
be highly commended for their rarity.
Great!
The potential of storyline is great, and sadly it shall have
to remain only POTENTIAL.
Now, now. Anything with potential can be improved.
Now I get into the dirty part of this sort of business. The
things which irked me.
Apretty fair critique of Ranma, Akane and Nodoka snipped. Deborah may want
to respond to that.
Genma: I should shoot the author for developing an
unhealthy bias against Genma. The only person who seems to harbor
any emotional liking of Genma is his son, which is debateable,
considering she doesn't know whether to kill him or hug him and not
let go (As quoted from the story). Bad form, *BAD FORM!* I say. A
writer should be neutral and caring of each character on a somewhat
level measurement, creating bias's and dislikes tend to cause bad
portrayal not JUST of the character being disliked, but in the
others as well (One relationship effects all).
I think this is a criticism that several people have commented on. I think
anyone who reads Genma's return in Part 3 will agree that while several
characters develop a rather strong dislike of him, he is actually treated
with a lot of sympathy by the story. Its one of the things I like best
about Deborah's work.
Good Nabiki critique snipped.
Kasumi: Just one peeve i have to mention. Why is it
everything is so damn convenient in this story??? Forgive my
language, but I get to twitching when everything just seems to work
in the authors best interest. Why I bring this up in the Kasumi
section is the doll... that was basically the driving point for this
minor annoyance of convenient happenstances.
The doll may be a little convenient, but it not _that_ bad. It just helps
show how closely the four girls were when they were children.
Okay, now that I'm done Rambling about individual
characters, for other things.
Speech Patterns: There are several "CLONE" Sort of scenes,
where people talk the same as other people. Nabiki and Akane for
one example... Nodoka and Kasumi.. lalala. Oh, and I personally
was wanting to tear my hair out, considering the author tried way
too hard to make Ranma's speech bad. It became so bad it became
annoying to read.
Which areas of the story was Ranma's speech bad in. I wrote the first 30k
or so of part 1 (basically just fleshed out the rough on my web site). I
intentially made his speech pretty course, because that's the way I hear
Ranma in my mind. And of course, Ranma's rough speech early on contrasts
with Ranko's speech later in the story.
Conveniences: I find it convenient that Genma happened to
disappear, that the Amazons were not upset (Instead directing their
anger at Genma), That Nabiki hates Genma for what he did (Ooooh..
she's done worse), That Happosai is the excuse for Ranma being Male
(Who didn't see that coming?), that... ah, hell. I could go on and
on. I became utterly annoyed after starting to read this story.
How is Happi as the source of Ranma's switch from girl to boy a
convienence? While you could pull in all sorts of things to cause it,
They're all just plot devices. The premise of the story requires that
Ranko be changed iinto a boy. I'd rather reuse an existing element from
the world on Ranma 1/2 than make up something completely out of the blue.
Gender Dysphoria: Now then. Speaking as someone who scores
a pretty damn high score on the tests for determining
transsexualism, I will say this much. This isn't as easy as the
author makes it out to be. This is a hard, tough decision that,
despite Ranma's curse (Which makes things easier) is NOT anywhere
easy to make. There is also no amount of *EASY* coping involved
with ANYONE who is involved in the situation.
I find it demeaning and trivializing that Akane, Kasumi,
Nabiki, and everyone else just ACCEPTS Ranma as female and rally
against genma (Which I am beginning to *GAG* over by now), and
despite how everyone says "Oh, it's Ranko's choice, don't force it,"
in the story, they *ARE* Forcing it. ESPECIALLY AKANE.
Everyone has this sort of bias. Very few people are truly neutral. So when
they say it's Ranko's choice, of course they all think the right choice is
for her to stay a girl. It's what they want.
Ranma being who Ranma is, I cannot believe in any sense of
the word BELIEVE that he would just drop everything he is in favor
of being a girl. Doesn't work.
SUMMARY: Overall, I have to say that the story, in and of itself was
well *WRITTEN*. That means it had good grammar, spelling, and
general organization of paragraphs. The storyline, in general, is
straightforward. I suggest renaming this to "Nodoka's Daughter" or
"10 Things I Hate About Genma". Maybe "Death of a Genma" or some
other such thing, since the author obviously has a hate for...
GENMA. Although the story was very well written, it left a bad
taste in my mouth and my stomach wanted to abandon through my throat
it's resting place.
"Genma's Daughter" is appropriate. Like I said earlier in this message
check out Genma in part 3.
>
A NOTE FOR ALL THOSE HOSERS WHO LIKE THIS FIC:
I just cannot believe that you sent this sentence to the list. You
obviously don't like the work, which is fine. You are not the
only person on the list that has serious issues with the characters in the
story, and your comments above are useful feedback to any author.
But frankly, it is insulting to imply that because someone liked the
story, they are a 'hoser'.
I am sure that Deborah will give your comments the consideration they
deserve.
Steve
=-=--=-=-=-==-=-=-=
spardue@telocity.com
(spardue@zebra.net for not much longer)
http://www.zebra.net/~spardue/anime