Vincent Seifert <seifertv@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:

    Cologne moved first, thrusting the gnarled head of her staff
between the locked gazes of the two martial artists.  "Enough.
While I'm sure this would be educational for both of you, it's
getting late and I need my beauty sleep.  Shan Pu, leave us."

    "Great-grandma!" Shampoo protested, turning away from Ranma
and planting her hands on her hips.  "Why you on his side?"

At this point I'm waving the "Get on with it!" sign. Can this bit be cut
shorter? It's not really creating much suspense, IMO, because we know
Ranma'll get to talk to Cologne eventually.

    "One of these days she won't do as I say," Cologne observed
to the air.  "May the day come soon."  She glanced up at Ranma,
her eyes shrewd below her wrinkled brow and silver hair.  "What's
on your mind, Bridegroom?"

IMO, "bridegroom" is a description, not a name, and hence shouldn't be
capitalized. If Cologne wasn't addressing Ranma, would she refer to him
as "Bridegroom," or as "the bridegroom" or "Shan Pu's bridegroom"? I
think it would be one of the latter.

    Ranma's jaw dropped.  "Huh?  You getting stupid in your old
age?  It's not Shampoo I'm getting married to!"

    "Oh, I see.  Well, I can live with that, and it's not
forbidden by three thousand years of Joketsuzoku tradition, no
matter what the Chinese government says.  I'll be interested to
see how you talk Shan Pu into bigamy, but if you managed to
persuade Akane, that shouldn't be too hard for you...."

This would have worked better if Ranma had said something like "I'm
marryin' somebody else!" Otherwise the right wrong answer would've been
"I can live with that, what with my first husband having long since
passed away...."

    "I'm not gonna marry Shampoo."

    "Yes, you are," Cologne said confidently.

    "The hell I am!"

    Cologne sighed.  "Bridegroom, please try to keep to a higher
standard of argument here.

RANMA: This isn't an argument!

COLOGNE: Yes it is!

RANMA: No it isn't!

COLOGNE: [hits bell on desk] Thank you!

    "I disagree, but even if that were a valid argument, there's
still the way you led her on.  Several times Shan Pu's affection
for you wavered, and each time you went to ridiculous lengths to
keep her interest.

It was only one time, wasn't it? The reversal jewel story. Even if you
counted vol. 37-38 as also fitting the description, which is dubious,
they didn't happen in this continuity. :)

    Ranma could feel the beating of her heart, and was suddenly
aware of his own.  Reflex said that situations like this always
resulted in a great deal of pain, and he had to remind himself
that all that was over.  The pain would be because Akane wasn't
clobbering him, not because she was.  Shampoo was beautiful,
sexy, and affectionate.  Lots of guys would give their left nuts
to be standing here with a handful like this.

Heh. Very appropriate turn of phrase for Ranma to use. :)  Seems like it
should just be "nut", though.

HIROSHI: Hey, for her I'd give *all* the nuts I have that are left.

DAISUKE: How many is that?

HIROSHI: Let's see... six peanuts, a couple almonds, and I think that
last one's a filbert.

    "Not really," Ranma sighed.  He chewed on his lip for a
moment; he wasn't feeling mad anymore, and even if he had been,
the kunoichi didn't deserve to have it taken out on him the way
Mousse did.  "Look, Konatsu, I--"

the way Mousse had.

    "Hey, what's up?" Ukyo called, coming down the stairs.  Her
face lit up.  "Ran-chan!"  She blushed suddenly and put her hands
to her cheeks.  "There's only one reason you'd come here so late
at night...."

KONATSU: Hunger?

UKYO: Of a sort, yes.

RANMA: Uh....

[snip to end]

Still very good as far as writing and characterization, but I didn't
find it as enjoyable as the first section. It's not so much that the
ending was predictable -- we knew going into this part what the end
result would be -- but that it seems to be moving directly toward that
ending without any significant obstacles in the way, at least not ones
that stay in the way for very long. Once Cologne came up with her plan,
it was pretty obvious that everyone was going to go along with it.
Shamps talked about attacking Kasumi, but there was no real indication
that she would actually go through with it, especially with Cologne
ordering her not to. Likewise, Ukyo looks like she's going to cause
trouble at first, but falls in line behind the mistress idea as soon as
Ranma suggests it (something I'm not sure I can see him doing on his
own, BTW).

Akane's reaction was, I thought, very believable -- but it kind of begs
the question of why there *aren't* any unexpected complications, or at
least not any that manage to amount to anything. It seems like every
potential of opposition either gets talked out of it (Shamps, Ukyo, and
Nabsy) or is just shoved aside (Mousse, Kodachi). Again, I know that
this is an unusual case because you've started with an ending and kind
of worked back to the beginning. The problem, IMO, is that you've gotten
to that beginning via the most direct route. :)

Anyway, I certainly did enjoy reading it, and let's see if I still have
the same overall impressions after the last part.


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

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