Comments@@
<sigh> I comfort myself with the 
thought that at least people
are still reading it. 



<SNIP>

  Kimiko was  convinced that the world was _swarming_
with supernatural creatures, and  that only her constant vigilance kept 
them all from being swept to hell. Or worse. (Thought Nabiki wasn't sure

Well, in the Ranmaverse, she's at least right on the first count. :)

@@Tried to keep the "Magic Realism" to a minimum
@@@@

<SNIP>

     Ranma looked closely at the cluster of male
students. Instead of the normal Fuurinkan military style
tunic and pants of dark blue, they were  all uniformly clad in
black Armani suits with thin white pinstripes, broad
shoulder pads and extremely narrow lapels.  Each wore an
armband with the kanji Seiki-Juka, "Common-Sense".

"common sense."

RANMA: Oh no! It's the Thomas Paine gang!

NABIKI: Paine?

RANMA: Yeah, they sure are. And you know where.

@@American History Pun's?
I'm not sure I can keep up with all these erudite 
people.
@@@@

<SNIP>
     "Worse," Nabiki's mouth thinned, "Fuurinkan's very

"Worse." Nabiki's mouth thinned.

I may have been wrong about Furinkan not getting the doubled u. I've
seen it both ways in translated scripts on the web, and some people have
told me it's in the original series with a long vowel sound.

@@NOW you tell me. I went and changed it back to "u". *_*
I try to avoid things like that, since they sometimes generate
more posts than commentary on the actual story
@@@@

<SNIP>

[Feel free to clip and save the above. I probably will. :)]

@@I'm not sure how much good it's going to do me (but I'm printing a copy)
but my wife's probably going to use it to teach
her freshman English class.
@@@@

<SNIP>

     The gang-members themselves didn't worry him.
  But gangs like this _always_ had connections with the local cops.
 Sometimes even higher up. And you couldn't win against cops. They
were the _biggest_ street gang in the world. They all had

GENMA: Not true. The military is even bigger.

RANMA: Okay, second biggest. Like that makes any difference.

Lots of information in this scene that ultimately didn't seem to matter,
seeing that Akane just ended up overpowering the troublemakers. Is all
of their background going to matter later in the series? The information
is not uninteresting, but IMO really belongs in a story where it has a
greater relevance to the plot.

@@Very much needed. We see these guys again. MANY, many
times.
@@@@

I do think you did a very good job of providing in-context definitions
for all the Japanese terms, BTW.

@@ Thanks. I've missed a few I think. But I'm glad some of them worked.
@@@@

<SNIP>

CANON AKANE: I'm president of the drowning club. But we keep losing
members.

@@All of these are good, but this one is classic. ROTFLOL!
@@@@

<SNIP>

This stuff with the newspaper staff really dragged, IMO.

What's more, if it's there to provide an explanation for why Ranma shows
up for class as a female, I don't think it really worked. He's supposed
to be a con man, no? Doesn't seem plausible that he couldn't come up
with some sort of excuse to get away long enough to change. Maybe you
can establish another reason, like him wanting to hide from Ukyo.

@@Hmmmm . . . well, some additional scenes with
this particular group didn't make it into the story.
However I left the scene for general background 
and to provide more of a sense of the 'voice'
of the story.  I _thought_ I'd provided
a reason, but obviously didn't.  Ranma (as Ranko)
is trying to keep a low profile, so it's not worth
the risk of trying to get away. The risk of
calling attention to himself isn't worth
the risk. Though you may recall that
up until Ukyou showed up "he" was considering
making a break for it, so to speak. I thought
it was obvious that after Ukyou showed up
"he" decided to remain "she" in case Ukyou
would recognize "him'. It's an easy fix, though.
@@@@

<SNIP>

     "Genma, my friend?" Souun bent over Genma's
unconscious form. "Are you alright?"

IMO, the fainting thing is too cliche to be all that funny, and makes me
wonder how Genma survived all these years if he falls to pieces in the
face of opposition. Maybe you could do something else with this bit
instead.

SOUN: Is everything all right, Genma? You look a little pale.

GENMA: Pardon? My name is Smith, sir. You obviously have me confused
with some other unknown person.

SOUN: Oh, brother.

@@LOL.  OK, I tried to clean up the cliche's.
I guess I missed this one.
@@@@

     Onna-Ranma waited outside _her_ home room,
trying not to fidget as he waited for Yumi-sensei to call for
him. This wasn't any harder than the time they'd pulled a
variation of the "Russian Duke Con" on an Afghani warlord,

RANMA: Invented by the well-known actor John Waynesky.

@@ <GROAN>
I'm not sure who invented it. 
@@@@

<SNIP>

     "I . . .I'll never give . . .up," Ukyou panted, pain
shooting up his arms, like bolts of fire. "Sao . . .tome . . .
blood feud . . ." Black dots danced in front of his eyes and

The semi-omniscient POV makes it a bit problematic to refer to Ukyo as
"he". It may be better to write this scene from only Ranma and/or
Akane's POV (which would exclude, e.g., the description of the pain
above).

@@Hmmmm . . . OK, I'll see what I can do.
@@@@

     "Never . . .give up . . .stole . . .from us. Ge . . .
Genma. Ranma. I'll . . ."

UKYO: Must... do... cheesy... Shatner... impersonation!

@@<sigh> I've been going through and trying to fix all 
of those.
@@@@

<SNIP>

     "That's my good boy." He jumped down from his
hiding place and hugged his transformed son. Onna-Ranma
resisted briefly, then returned the hug, pretending for a
moment that his father would love him, even if he didn't
have a plan.

IMO, too deep and sensitive a comment for Ranma, *especially* this
version. And this Genma desperately needs to show some sort of redeeming
quality. The canon version is certainly a long, long way from perfect,
but at least I can see why Ranma is loyal to him.

@@
Hmmmm . . . well, Genma actually doesn't have any redeeming
qualities. 
I thought I'd pegged Ranma, but from your comments
and those of others it looks like I should have spent more
time on Ranma. I tried to spread the characterizations out 
over the entire story, but it looks like I was too subtle.
I've made some fixes with Akane, but I'm not 
sure what to do with Ranma, since I deliberately
wrote him into the story in a particularly ambiguous
way. Another experiment. ^_*
@@@@

I'll have to hold off on commenting on the Ukyo introduction until I see
how it develops. On to the next section....

@@Hope you like it. 
Ukyou is one of the major characters.
 A LOT of stage time.
@@@@

@@Thanks for taking time to write.
I appreciate it.
@@@@

Gary Kleppe
http://www.garykleppe.org/comics.html

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