I've seen three main complaints, and I'd like to address them one
by one.
First is the complaint that Akane couldn't have gotten to Ranma's
level training at home under her father. We know from the Battle Dogi
episode that Akane has the potential to be better than canonical Ranma
at the beginning of the manga, so I can buy that this is possible with
the right training, and as others have observed, we don't know (yet)
how she has been trained, so I have no problem with that.
Thomas Hood writes:
And the [ALT] tag doesn't mean a thing if you don't give a reasonable
explanation for the change.
I'll agree with that, but I don't feel the author is constrained
to tell us everything in the first chapter or two.
Second is the argument that Ranma would have a very hard time
accepting that this girl has gotten to be his equal without having
made the sacrifices he has. My response is: that may well be true, but
he hasn't had time to think of that. He's met this girl, and lost to
her, then managed to beat her. He's gotten engaged, and gone to a new
school. He's had a very busy couple of days. Give him - and the author -
some time. Perhaps by the time this occurs to him, he and we will have
learned something about Akane's life, and he won't have so much reason
to feel upset, since after all effective martial arts training in the
Ranmaverse seems little different from child abuse at times.
Third is the argument that Ranma could never accept an Akane as
good as he is, that his ego demands he be the best. I think this is
a misreading of his character, myself. Ranma has trouble accepting a
powered up Akane in two cases, and a Ryoga who can beat him every time,
in the Shi Shi Hokodan story. I will simply note that Ranma seems to
have no trouble being friendly with Ryoga after he levels the
playing field with the Moko Takabisha, and after that point Ranma
and Ryoga are effectively equals, in my view. His problems with Akane,
I feel, are more due to the convoluted nature of their relationship,
which is in its infancy in this story, and will obviously turn out
differently than the canon. I don't see Ranma as obsessing over
Taro, for instance, even though he has arguably never had a clean win
over Taro. (He can't stand Taro, but that's a personality conflict
more than anything else, I feel.) At any event, I think we're into
an area where different people will have divergent opinions based
on their interpretation of Ranma's character, so I'll end my
discussion there, trying to avoid getting into a character debate.
I will simply say that this is an area where views may differ, and
considering some of the utterly unbelievable Ranmas I've read, I
personally can accept this one for the sake of the story.
Reid Carson
rcarson@rcarson.com