My comments are my own opinion. If they don't help, then please feel free to 
ignore them.

My first impression is, too much mystery is a bit of a misery. Also, the 
word-wrapping was left a bit too long. About five to ten letters too long 
for my own browser, at least.

- Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
- This story is made by fun and to be enjoyed by the fans.
- The idea is of Brendan O'Donnell and I am using it with his permission.
- I accept all type of comments and flames. If anybody wants be a pre
reader and help me you only have to email me. I will be very glad. Thanks
- I have to thank Ray Villanueva for revised this chapter and Carrotsan
for his help. Thank you very much.
- Thanks to all the people that volunteered as pre reader.

----------------------------------------------Chapter 1
----------------------------------------------Here's Ranma

A crestfallen Ranma walked slowly under the rain through the streets of
Nerima; though he was soaked completely, it didn't seem to bother him. He
simply continued walking indifferent to his surroundings.

If you're using ; in prose, then you should probably take a moment to 
rewrite the sentence. In this case - 'A crestfallen Ranma walked slowly 
under the rain through the streets of Nerima. Though' - works.

For him the journey had already lost all meaning and he only wished that
it finished once for all.

it was finished once and for all.

His fellow traveler advanced ahead of him drawing curious looks from the
people. It was a panda bear whit a backpack, that headed towards the Dojo
Tendo.

with a backpack
Although in this case I'm inclined to mention 'with a backpack' be dropped 
from the phrase as the rest of the sentence suggests it is the 'backpack' 
that is headed towards the dojo, and not the panda.

-------------------

Meanwhile, in the living room of the aforementioned dojo, celebrated a
heated family meeting.

"You have no right to settle our marriage. I refuse." protested the
youngest of the daughters after hearing the announcement.
"This time I agree with Akane. We don't even know how old he is." Kasumi,
the oldest of the three sisters, acknowledged.

A space between the paragraphs is needed.

That was the moment that the third sister chose to join to the
conversation.

"That's right father. How old is Ranma?"

Their father smiled at the question.

I like descriptive smiles. E.g. Their father shrewdly smiled at the 
question.

"I don't know ,Nabiki."
"What?" Cut in Akane angrily, "You've engaged us to somebody, when you
don't even know how old he is?"
"It has been along time since I last saw my old friend," pointed out their
father, "The last I heard of him, he was traveling through China with his
son in search of a legendary training ground."
"Wow, China," exclaimed Nabiki with excitement.
"What's so great about China?" asked Akane, showing her indifference to
the subject.

A space between every paragraph is needed, since you've done it for most of 
the story so far already. Or, spaces between all paragraphs should be 
eliminated. It's distracting having it both ways.

In that instant, the doorbell rang out.

the doorbell rang.

"It looks that we have a visitor," commented Kasumi while she stood up to
meet the guests.
"Sure hope that's Ranma," announced Nabiki while she ran towards the
door
followed closely by her father.

"It seems like we have a visitor,"

Sometimes, synomyns can be as distracting as repetitive words. This is such 
a case. 'Said' is nearly invisible, so it's rarely noticed by most readers 
(read Terry Pratchett, and you'll know I'm right). Thus, it could be better 
just to subsitute 'said' for either (or even both) 'commented' or 
'announced'. And on the other hand, it could be best not to use such a 
phrase here at all:
"It seems like we have a visitor." Kasumi stood, preparing to go meet the 
guests.
"Sure hope it's Ranma!" Nabiki chased after Kasumi to the entrance.

Kasumi touched up her ponytail, while Akane stayed seated grumbling to
herself.
Immediately they could hear shouts of surprise, followed by a reassuring
unfamiliar voice. Upon hearing the shouts both sisters rushed to see what
was happening at the door.
When they reached the door they saw their father hugging a young man,
behind him was a giant panda that filled the entire door. Nabiki was
looking at the entire scene from the hall.

You switched your POV midway through the paragraph - 'When they... they 
saw.... Nabiki was...'. That's an absolute no-no.

Start a new paragraph when you switch to a new point of view.

"Who is he?" asked Akane.
"It seems that's Ranma," answered Nabiki with tranquillity.
"And the panda?"

It just occured to me, Soun never mentioned Ranma's name.

Nabiki shrugged her shoulders.

"He was just apologizing for the scare that his panda gave us. When daddy
asked him if he was Saotome Ranma. He then started to hug him while he
muttered something about an old promise fulfilled."
"The panda looks very well trained," added Kasumi.

When Daddy

Soun turned to face them. A wide smile brightened his face.

"Daughters. This is Ranma, the son of my old friend Genma."

Nabiki crossed her arms and looked skeptical.

"Where is your old friend,dad? I only see a panda."
"That is right. Where is Genma? I wish see him!"

Soun's voice sounded full of hopefulness by the possibility to be with his
old friend again. Ranma looked at the panda and then turned back to the
Tendo family.

"Could you bring me a glass of hot water, please??"

The ever diligent Kasumi went to the kitchen to fulfill the strange
request. A few later she returned with a glass filled with hot water.

A few moments later

"Is this enough?"
"Yes, thanks"

Ranma took the glass and, he threw the water at the panda at his side. It
transformed immediately into a middle age bald man.

middle aged

"Hello Soun! My old friend!"

It had been a very long and emotional day for Soun Tendo. His brain had
finally taken too much, and he passed out.

-------------------

A half-hour later the family and the guests were seated around of the
living room table, while Genma finished telling them how he had acquired
his curse.

"... and when I got out of the water I realized that I had been
transformed into a panda."
"That's terrible," exclaimed Kasumi.

Soun was crying about the tragedy that had happened to his friend. Akane,
who was more worried about the possibility of becoming betrothed, kept
silent.
However a curious Nabiki was interested in the story.

"And you Ranma? Did you fall in a spring too?"

Ranma lowered his head.

"Ranma wasn't with me that day," answered Genma.

Nabiki didn't pay attention to his father, more interested by the strange
reaction of Ranma. Soun, who had stopped to cry, put his hand on Ranma's
shoulder.

"Well, then there is no problem."

He then turned towards his daughters pointing to each one while saying.

"Kasumi, 19 years, Nabiki 17 years, and Akane 16 years. Pick the one that
you prefer, she will be your fiancee"

On having heard the words of their father, each sister started thinking
how to avoid the doubtful honor of being the chosen one. Before they could
put into practice their ideas Ranma's voice resounded.

"Father, what is the meaning of this?"
"It is a matter of honor, Ranma." Genma answered, a bit nervously for the
tone of voice of his son. "The promise was done before you were born and
it will serve to join both schools of Musabetsu Kakut�."

The accent over the o - � - should be lost, at least when sending your story 
to the FFML. This is something I've had my butt chewed out over a million 
times already, as most subscribers don't have email browsers capable of 
showing the accent. It looks like a blob to them.

Ranma directed his glance towards the table.

"In this case I am afraid that I will not be able to fulfill the promise."

The three sisters were dumbfounded by the surprise, but not their father
who began to get angry.

"Is there a problem with my daughters?"
"No Mr. Tendo. The problem is that I no longer follow the path of a
Martial Artist, I am no longer the heir of the Saotome School ."
"Genma!" Soun turned towards his friend in search of an explanation.
"Calm down . The boy had a bad experience in China and he has not
overcome
it yet, but with time ..."
"Bad experience?"

Ranma got up angered and caught his father by his gi.

"How can you say that it was only a bad experience?"
"Calm down Ranma. It was an accident."

During the discussion Ranma had raised his father from the ground without
any effort.

"An accident? For God's sake! If, if ..."

Ranma, at the edge of the tears, couldn't continue. He threw his father to
the floor and went out of the room.
Moments later, Genma's voice broke the troublesome silence.

"Don't worry he will overcome it with the time."

-------------------

Kasumi was preparing supper in the kitchen when Nabiki entered to get
some
soda.

"I would never have thought that they would drink so much"
"Father is very glad to see his old friend"

Nabiki rested her back in the table, while observing her sister.

"What do you think of Ranma?"
"He seems a pleasant young man"

Kasumi began to serve the food.

"Could you go tell Ranma that dinner is ready?"
"Where is he?"
"I believe that he went to the dojo to calm down."
"Ok, sis"

Nabiki finished drinking her soda and after throwing it to the garbage,
left the kitchen.

-------------------

The lights of the dojo were switched off. When Nabiki opened the door she
found Ranma sitting in the penumbra.

"Ranma, dinner is ready."
"Thanks. I'll be there in a moment."

Nabiki closed the door of the dojo and went to the house.

"That was strange," thought Nabiki, "for a moment it looked like Ranma had
red hair and was smaller."

Turning to look back at the dojo she whispered.

"What are you hiding Ranma?"

-----

My final impression of the work is, there are a billion better moments to 
start your story than at the beginning of the manga, because having started 
your story there, you've unintentionally thrown yourself into an 
organizational nightmare.

Your POV is a casualty of this nightmare. Your transition between both Ranma 
and Nabiki's point of view throughout the whole work is often sudden, and 
mostly unexpected. I suggest just sticking it out with Ranma's POV, as it is 
the most affected by the change you're offering to the original storyline. 
It is also the most interesting, imho. Furthermore, all you've shown us, the 
readers, from Nabiki's POV is everything that's already happened in the 
manga. Very little has changed in your version, just that she's a more 
curious person, which doesn't yet warrent enough attention to have the 
opening scene of the manga given to us again.

This brings me to how you've mostly repeated almost the whole opening 
chapter of the manga. E.g., Soun speaks with his family about Genma bringing 
his son, Tendo family meets Ranma and Genma, get surprised, learn of curses, 
ect. ect. This is repition, and, honestly, it's clumsy. It would be far 
better for you to just to stick with Ranma through the whole chapter, 
showing us his troubles and feelings, because everything that he is in your 
story is a huge change from the original manga. And it's interesting. The 
repition of the manga opening scene, otoh, is not at all interesting. It's 
like watching the second coat of paint dry. (We, the readers, have already 
read the opening scene, countless times. So, it's always refreshing to see 
something new in the beginning. So, always try for something new, and then 
stick with it without resorting to repainting the entire opening scene.)

Finally, I mentioned as my first impression that 'too much mystery is a bit 
of a misery'. I only mean, the withholding of whatever Ranma did to himself 
in China is fine. But it's usually better, and more interesting, if the 
characters knows what the mystery is, then so should the reader. Then that 
way, we can suffer alongside the character. We can't really emphasize with a 
Ranma who sits alone in the dark, away from us. There's a huge detatched 
feeling. But if Ranma allows us to know his troubles, then we can sit there, 
right beside him. We can't, of course, be him, but we can at least emphasize 
with him.

Anyway, I am really interested in seeing the changes Ranma's experienced in 
his life. Please write more of this story, as I'm looking forward to future 
chapters and submissions.

Troy Thomas

http://ca.geocities.com/therealsilentnova/

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