Sorry about preaching to the choir, but I wanted to make sure I understand a
few things about canon Ranma:

1.  He is, perhaps, at least in canon, one of the most powerful martial
artists the world has ever seen.... and at the age of 16, he's *still*
learning and improving.  There are other artists who might be as good, but
they either don't have his learning curve or they're considerably older than
he is: Happosai, Cologne, Genma, Ryoga and Herb come to mind.  Ryoga and
Herb possibly could match him, but Herb doesn't have Ranma's challenges and
Ryoga just bulls his way through.  Happosai is a hedonist, Cologne is a
schemer and won't challenge Ranma directly, and Genma would rather drink
sake and cheat at shogi with his old friend.  Genma is also rather dumb -- 
who else would think the Neko-Ken is a good idea?

2.  Akane is lazy.  She would rather take shortcuts (the Super Soba and the
Densetsu no Dogi come to mind) than dedicate her life to the art.  By the
end of the manga run, she's probably faster than ever before because of
Ranma's dodging during their "sparring," but she constantly complains that
he never takes her seriously.
And why should he?  Compared to him she's a dilettante who only plays at the
art.  She is at least as good as Ukyo and Kodachi (IMO, she would have taken
Kodachi out if Kodachi hadn't run for it) and maybe one step shy of
Shampoo.....  but Ranma is, to her constant irritation, in a class by
himself.  It hasn't yet occurred to her that she doesn't *have* to be as
good as him.

3.  We all knows what happens in canon, and I'm quite well aware that some
of you *hate* it.  As Eric Hallstrom once wrote, Ranma Nibunnoichi is the
story of how Ranma and Akane *don't* get married.  To me, fanfiction is the
ideal place to examine alternatives; I especially like Ranma/Setsuna or
Ranma/Makoto Kino, though there are excellent fics out there with other
possibilites.

Sorry about the bandwidth, I just had to get that off my mind.

--Steffan


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