"KaraOhki" <karaohki@snet.net> wrote:

Akane sat at her desk, doing her best to concentrate
on her lessons.  She normally had no difficulties
keeping her mind on her schoolwork, but this day was
different.  A long-awaited lesson was planned for

Some mention of Hinako lecturing, or whatever else is going on in class
would help set the scene. I'd thought she was at her bedroom desk until
Hinako got mentioned below.

Akane's attention snapped back to Miss Hinako.
"Nothing, Miss Hinako.  I'm sorry."

Suggest having her address Hinako as "ma'am," or something else to get
rid of the awkward repetition of the name.

Akane shrieked and ran around the kitchen toward the
judges' seats.  Her mind briefly registered that
some familiar faces were sitting there:  The
politician Shinichiro smiled at her and raised his
chopsticks, Keiko Saito merely giggled, and
Yoshizumi Ishihara looked quite hungry.  What made
her stop dead in her tracks was the fourth chair.
Instead of Asako Kishi, the food critic, a very
familiar person sat there.  Her fiance, Ranma
Saotome.

"Ranma?" she whispered.

Suggest simply "Her fiance." above, since you mention him by name here
anyway.

Ranma grinned and waved cheerfully.  "Hey Tomboy!  I

"Hey, tomboy!

Fortunately, no one was paying any attention at all
to Akane, as they watched Kasumi make notes of the
recipe.  This allowed her to use her bound hands to
grab a knife and free herself.  Her next step was to
deliver a vicious snap kick to Chin's chin, knocking
him cold.  Once again, the roaring noise overwhelmed
Akane, and she began to black out.

If this is a dream, I don't see how she can lose consciousness; she
doesn't really have any in the first place. :)  She could probably slip
into a dreamless sleep, but I hardly believe her dream would just pick
back up where it left off the next time she started dreaming. You might
want to lose the references to her blacking out and regaining
consciousness.

"I can't believe it.  I finally make something right
and it's Kuno!"

Heh.

Akane got her clothing together and crept downstairs
in the light of the early dawn.  She bathed,
dressed, and tiptoed into the kitchen, where she
collected every single cookbook she had ever
purchased.  Then she went behind the dojo and burned
them.

"She burned them" rather lacks a certain detail. Kinda like "They had a
fight. She won." Some visual/audio/olfactory cues would really help
here.

"Nah.  I can take anything you can dish out.  You're
never gonna be an Iron Chef, but--Akane?"  Akane's
eyes had widened as Ranma spoke, and he reached out
and caught her as she turned deathly pale and fell
over.

I liked this bit quite a lot. It's a nice moment between the two,
without going overboard, and Ranma's discomprehension is not only funny
but also keeps it from being overly saccharine, much in the same vein as
the kind of bits that Rumiko Takahashi often writes.

"What'd I say?"  Then a shadow fell across Ranma and
he turned around, Akane in his arms.  A familiar-
looking young man stood there, wearing silk chef's
clothing in the traditional colors of Italy, and a
tall hat.  He held a ravioli press in one hand, and
was reaching for Ranma's fiancee with the other.

"I didn't get my turn."

This, on the other hand, didn't work all that well for me. I thought the
IC stuff was just Akane dreaming? Granted, I've never seen Iron Chef, so
maybe there's some joke with this guy I'm not getting. But IMO, it
would've worked better to just end with "What'd I say?" as you did in
the original challenge version.

If you do want to keep this last bit, I'd suggest rewriting the earlier
bits to make the reality more ambiguous. Maybe have Ranma run into
Akane's room when he hears her cry out, so that we don't actually see
her wake up from a dream, and have her insist that she really was
attacked by the Iron Chef people. Ranma can laugh the idea off, telling
her that of course it was a dream, until....

All in all, an enjoyable short, even without having seen the show. The
dream was probably a bit too coherent, but writing it less so would
probably make it too obvious that it was a dream.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html
	     .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'