Just a few quick questions.
Is Ranma male or female when he meets this 'Jay'? The red hair indicates
that he's a girl at the time.
If he is a girl, when does he change back? It seems like he's male at the
sparing match.
If so, why doesn't Jay say anything?
It seemed to me that he promised a match against a girl, and when he was
met by a boy the next day he didn't notice the difference. That's a bit
odd.
A scene in which Ranma get's his curse exposed, or a change in the
dialouge to make Ranma a girl in the latter half of the chapter would
seem in order here.
Personally, I'd recomend changing him into a girl for the fight. He's
always been a bit protective of his curse with people he doesn't know. He
tried to keep it a secret at Furinkan, but it blew up in his face, and
I've never seen him outright tell anyone about the curse unless he was
forced in the Manga or Anime.
Fanfic writers like to have him blurt it out to anyone he meets for some
strange reason. This could also work for you later on in the story and
add some interesting twists. It seems like a fairly common Self Insertion
too me at this point, but it does have a bit of potential.
Reading on, I discovered a few more plot holes, nothing really major
thought. It's pretty typical fanfic stuff, so I won't go into it. Your
idea is pretty good, and may give you enough of a twist to keep intrest.
You've even got the characterization down pretty good so far, especially
the
post manga cast.
Another big thing I noticed is the way you noted a difference in Soun and
Genma's styles. This is untrue. They are shown in the manga fighting
identically on several occasions. Soun never fights on his own, when he
does it's always with Genma and they are almost always performing the
same attack. [There are a few exceptions to this, like the time Soun was
wearing armor to take on Happosai.] The difference between Ranma and
Akane's skills is why Akane spends more time on the ground. Soun and
Genma are probably evenly matched.
I noticed that you made Ranma male in the initial encounter. You should
go back and make the dialouge more clear. I didn't realise you were
reffering to his red shirt until chapter three. [I think.] Initially I
thought you were making the beginner's mistake of calling Ranma-chan
'he'.
Jay's curse was predictable, although I admit I wasn't sure what he
turned into. I'm assuming that the grandmother character will show up
sooner or later and make his life hell, and possibly Ranma's as well.
Perhaps she should push him to give her an heir? I'm sure that we'll hear
more about the twin later on. I'm wondering what you meant by the pair
had never met before? Were they kept seperate after they were first
cursed? And if so, how did they manage to keep them seperated? It's
almost impossible to stay away from hot water for very long. Especially
with young children. Cold water baths just wouldn't cut it for a ten year
old. You'd never get him clean. Even if you did do that, food would
eventually get on the boy. Soup or tea or something.
A word of warning, don't stick Jay with one of the Ranma girls. [The way
things are going now, probably Ukyo, or Nabiki. Just a hunch on my part.]
It's been done to death and will kill a lot of interest in your story.
BTW: Ranma calls Ryoga his 'pal' all the time. He's pretty much always
thought of him as a friend, a friend who didn't like him very much, but
still a friend.
You also tend to use the names of the characters a bit much. Ranma did
this, and Ranma did that. That's fairly minor, especially since I'm
guilty of that myself from time to time.
That's all I really have to say at the moment. Keep it up, and don't take
too long to get to the good parts, if you draw out the boring moments of
your fic for details sake, you'll lose readers because they grow tired of
waiting.
Ja
Carrotglace.