Hmm... guess I should throw out the necessary opinion on the whole Shampoo
debate, first:

Why not simply use somebody else for crashing the wedding?  Shampoo already
got blamed for something earlier, with the whole Saffron fight, and Akane
refused to give up because of what Shampoo had done (I actually don't remember
what this is, from the manga, but apparently Shampoo was being held
accountable for something in the story at that point).  Using Shampoo both
there and to crash the wedding does come across as an author bias against her,
so having it be Ukyou or Kodachi, instead, would work better.  Having it be
one of Ranma's fiancees isn't even necessary; it could be Kuno or Ryouga,
instead.  But really, there's not any need to put Shampoo in the spotlight for
both of these scenes, as she currently is.

Now, onto the rest:

Ranma dies of cancer?  Why the hell didn't Akane go to get some of the Water
of Life from Shinnosuke?  Jeez.... ^_^;

The story was good, very well written.  The only real problem I had with it
was that there weren't any alternative solutions looked at for solving Ranma's
cancer.  Going to the hospital for radiation treatment or whatever is too
real-world an approach, and loses some of the overall effect because of it.
The story itself is rather real-world in focus, with the way it pays attention
to the aging of Ranma and Akane, but it still does show the curse to a great
enough degree that other such things should be present as well, instead of
just the fight with Saffron.  That Ranma and Akane went back to Jusenkyou
reinforces this idea; there is still magic present in the story, why don't
Ranma and Akane even attempt to find a magical cure?

Of course, I tend to have this same objection to most Ranma fics that are more
drama than anything else, that try to ignore the more fantastic parts of the
story.  It doesn't feel like Ranma if there isn't whacky, improbable stuff
happening all the time--many such stories don't even have to be about Ranma at
all, really, because they're just as much a set of new characters as are all
of those fics that everybody loves to hate where Ranma is a god and everybody
else is bashed into oblivion.  That's not Ranma, and neither, IMO, is a fic
that attempts to ignore the more magical parts of the series.  Yet people love
to read both, so feel free to ignore me on this.  ^_^

Anyway, this fic doesn't really go to that extreme--there is still magic
present, the curse is given a certain degree of attention, the fight with
Saffron, as well... but after reading it, the first thing that comes to mind
is, as I already said, the lack of a search for an alternative cure.  It feels
like, well, like if, after Ranma got splashed by Herb with the chisuiton or
whatever, he simply decided, 'well, I'm a girl now,' and the story was over.
There's not any search for a cure, there isn't enough of a fight put up to
really get a satisfying ending out of it.  In short, it feels like Ranma
really DID allow himself to die, because I know that in the Ranmaverse there
is bound to be something (and there is, in fact, something in the Water of
Life) that could cure him... yet it was never looked for.

And so, the story feels incomplete.


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