On Sun, 22 Dec 2002, Gary Kleppe wrote:
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.
Which bit, the 20 or so paragraphs between the start of the scene and
Ranma and Cologne getting down to business? I'm not sure it can... it
wouldn't be IC for either Shampoo or Mousse to meekly excuse themselves
when Ranma tells them to take a hike, would it?
"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.
It seems to me that Cologne uses it as a title, and so it should
capitalized under the same rules as, say, "Captain" or "Father". (In the
J text, she uses "mukodono" as a reference to Ranma when he isn't
present as well as an address to him when he is, if that's relevant...)
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...."
Cute, but Cologne already used that gag once with "experience over
youth", so using it again would be tedious, if not beating a dead horse.
:)
I do see your point: "not Shampoo", though it's the emphasis Ranma
intends, makes Cologne's response uncharacteristically dense. Thanks for
the fix.
"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. :)
No, she's referring to events occurring between the end of the manga (at
v36, as you say) and the present. The Reversal Jewel story is certainly
the salient example in the manga, but there are others (in the first
bake-neko story, and the onsen race story, for example) that don't qualify
as "ridiculous lengths" but do, I think, show a pattern of behavior... so
I figured that pattern might well crop up again.
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.
The plurality of "left nuts" needs to match the plurality of "guys",
doesn't it? (Unless n-1 of them are actually gals, which could happen in
Ranma 1/2. :)
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.
AZUSA: Filbert is sooooo cute! Gimme! Gimme!
"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.
Well, the idea there is that Ranma thinks Mousse generally deserves to
have it taken out on him, rather than just that one recent time, but OK.
"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....
UKYO: Kuonji School Finishing Move -- Wearable Okonomiyaki! You do
remember what the "okonomi" part means, don't you, Ran-chan?
RANMA: Er, "as you like it"?
UKYO: You betcha. And the "yaki" part means "sizzling hot", honey.
[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.
That's fair. All I can say is that significant obstacles would a) derail
a plot that already has to have everything go just "right" for it to come
out the way it needs to, and b) make a long story even longer. ^_^;
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.
That would be a different Shampoo, and a different story; my answer to the
"can Shampoo kill?" question should be clear. What's necessary is for
Ranma to believe that she poses a significant threat, and that's a
different question with a different answer.
That Shampoo goes along with it is one of the weak points of the whole
AMAW scenario, because it wouldn't be OOC for Shampoo to resist much more
than she does here. The usual reason for compromise is fearing the loss
of all if one doesn't accept the loss of a portion, and it's questionable
whether three years of failure would develop that fear in Shampoo.
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
Well, I can make that scene longer and more violent if necessary. :)
Those are two more weak points: Ranma is not big on compromise, and
neither is Ukyo. I know.
(something I'm not sure I can see him doing on his own, BTW).
If he thought tactically about such things, the situation would have been
resolved a lot sooner, yes. :) Well, Ranma's a little older now, and
it's not really his idea, just a modification of Cologne's plan with some
influence from Nodoka...
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. :)
One reason is that this time it's Nodoka pushing. Nobody else could bring
this sort of thing off without incident, because nobody else wields the
kind of influence she does. I'm not saying she's so adept at domestic
intrigue that her victory is inevitable, but by springing this as a
surprise and then hurrying it to completion before the principals recover,
I dare hope it's conceivable.
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
I'll keep my fingers crossed. :) Thanks!
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.
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