If people are this interested in critiquing the reasoning on that little
ficlet I guess I might as well respond to this one on the actual ML.

----- Original Message -----
From: "ClassicDrogn" <kaiju_jutsu@worldconquer.org>
To: "FOG3" <mdemouy@mindspring.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:03 PM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Ranma][SI] Hybrid Theory

 > worries me though--I'm not keen on the "Akane is useless in any

 situation involving realistic danger" cliche.

Sorry about this, but after reading that this just wouldn't let me go

until

I wrote it:

A real threat?  Well if you went and turned off author prerogative

character

shielding, Ranma cast versus a real threat would probably go something

like

this:

Mmmm. The problem here is that even someone with a moderate level of
skill who gets in a head-blow, even with a shinai, and means it is
likely to drop and possibly kill a normal human - solved by it's
being a terminator - and Ryoga is tough enough to take no damage from
setting off explosions that blow six foot craters in stone at his
fingertip (far more damamging than any small arms fire) while Ranma
can catch the shrapnel from said explosions out of ther air before
they do HIM any harm, and should be able to do the same with bullets
- subsonic ones like what come out of pistols, at least, and even
when he was just learning the Amaguriken speed drill the figures
provided combined with the visible travel of his arms put his hands
moving at about mach 1.6, and he later threw two and three times that
many punches in similar quoted time - and is, himself, tough enough
to be hit (by Ryoga) hard enough to be embedded six inches into a
rocky cliff and jump right back out of the Ranma-shaped hole to keep
fighting. For that matter, when she's in the grips of an anger
adrenaline rush, Akane should be able to take even a Terminator's
head off like a golfball on a tee with a shinai... Now, maybe if you
sent the Battousai, Tao Pie Pie from Dragonball, or a T-1000...

Explosions?  I don't assume a funky Qi effect has to be explosive like
dynamite just like unlike some people I've seen I recognize the repulsor
nature of Shi Shi Hakodan and Mako Takabisha instead of pretending it's a
fireball of some sort.  Herb afterall used a chi blast to cause that
mountain to slowly collapse, not exactly a direct energy transfer feat.

>From what I remember for the breaking point arc of manga yes it causes a
nice crater to rupture by screwing with the Qi, but the rock chucks are
about the size of a person hand but only travel a few meters.  By Newton's
First Law of Motion a object in motion tends to stay in motion which means
as nothing but gravities and drag force is acting on them due to the small
debris field they have about the force of a lightly thrown underhand rock.
Their mass with any real velocity wouldn't leave a pile of rubble like I
remember seeing.  Oh my, a sharp rock might actual come by and scratch the
poor guy.  Just what one would expect from a non-com CONSTRUCTION WORKER'S
TECHNIQUE.  You are going to compare these slow moving rock chunks to actual
shrapnel?  My observations don't agree I'm afraid to say, and this is one of
the most basic principles even American cartoons (including Warner Brothers)
recognize to a good degree.  Heck Ranma was really only fearful of it
because he thought it could kill him if Ryoga used the Breaking Point on
him.

Mach 1.6 mhm which is why he gets beat up by monkeys (arc with Herb) and a
bee hive being thrown at him (Breaking Point arc), which he got stinged
multiple times by, is still considered good training.  Unless it was the
height of summer which it wasn't implied to be that's more along 30-400 bees
per hive.  Something if he had the mad skills you are carrying on about
wouldn't be a big threat.  Afterall bees aren't even approaching the speed
of sound are they?  Catch bullets my foot.

Oh wait stop a moment, BEES can sting him, but high velocity metal shrapnel
isn't going to, say what?!  Sure Ranma and Ryouga have superhuman physical
strength and their frames can take a good bit of damage, as your mountain
example shows, but that doesn't mean much against cutting weapons,
perforating weapons, or internal organ damage.  Also the numbers I remember
used for those calcs didn't exactly have hard sources, "hundreds of punches"
can be hyperbole unless you want to say Akane can actually count that fast.
Principle of Suspension of Disbelief > then assuming Author's Intention
unless you have a article where Rumiko Takahashi actually says so.  She drew
it and there was no middle man special effects group to screw it afterall.

A shinai only has so much material strength if she hit him that hard I dare
say it would shatter without delivering the necessary power.  It is after
all only bamboo versus a armored metal chassis.  Assuming your
interpretation is even correct given a nameless nobody female character in
the chapter where Happosai is playing Santa can do an identical version of
Akane's infamous launch.  Plus there's that little thing of a Termie of
similar series (T-850 vs implied but not specified T-800) weighs
significantly more then a human does to the point two guys working together
could barely budge one.

Author-fiat character shielding is not the same thing as superhuman
ability - if you take that much fantasy out of Ranma 1/2 that it's
real world martial arts, it's really not Ranma any more.

Plot induced stupidity and palpable character shielding is what it is.  Some
people do really crank up the power levels to the point their low powered
guys would have canon Ranma for breakfast.  Even then I threw you a bone by
mentioning Kyusaku Natsume in reason for termination, maker of endo-skeletal
frame NK-1124, and implying this Skynet had acess to his developments.

Model NK-1124 aka Nuku-Nuku's small skirmishes equal or trump Ranmas bigger
skirmishes in collatoral damage and Nuku-Nuku had survived significantly
more damage when fighting Emi without a palpable deus ex machina contrivance
of talismans and a oh so convenient enviroment when Ranma fought Saffron.

I wrote it because it wouldn't let me do otherwise, but I'm not seeing where
you're pulling the he'd laugh it off nonsense and I'm to well versed in
Ranma 1/2 to just let you say such and not question your conclusions.

-FOG3


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