For starters, the references to Kentaro's particular
opinion of Ranma's "psychological issues" seem tighter
now.   There are fewer direct mentions of it in the
prose, and those that remain have been expanded upon,
so quite a bit of redundancy is gone in exchange for
the greater impact where they do become relevant.

In re-reading the original, I found that I was repeating myself.  A lot. 
Kentaro would think one thing, then a few pages later, think the exact same 
thing again.  Frankly, I'm surprised no one called me on it the first time.

Now, Ranma has known Kentaro for three and a half years;
it's been six years since she was locked, almost two of
which were spent trying to find a cure. Assuming that
Ranma 1/2 takes place within a year or so (despite the
various New Year's Eve celebrations and whatnot :P) then
technically, for the purposes of TOP, Ranma was in the
Tendo household for less than three years. Ranma has known
and been in the company of Kentaro longer than the Tendos,
particularly during a period when she most needed emotional
and psychological support, so Akane and Nabiki's "claim"
to him (for lack of a better word) strikes me as too
aggressive, even now.

A valid point.  Mostly I was doing this from the reader's perspective: to 
the typical Ranma 1/2 fan, the Tendo home *is* Ranma's home.  Heck, in my 
mind Ranma has a far stronger attachment to the Tendos than he does to Ukyo 
or his mother or anyone else he's known for years and years.

I could come up with a bunch of rationalizations about how the engagement to 
Akane and the fact that Ranma set down roots for the first would lead to a 
deep and strong connection to the Tendo home that could not be easily 
overcome.  But the truth of it is that I never really thought about it 
before.  =)  A good observation; I'll see if there's anything I can do about 
it.  Not certain I really can without altering a great deal.

All things considered, Akane herself is exceptionally
aggressive towards Kentaro, and I'm still struggling
to find some justification for her provoking him to
the fight in the dojo.

All I can say is that at the time I was suffering from "The Zen Syndrome". 
=)  Zen really opened my eyes to exactly how angry and violent Akane was in 
her initial reactions to Ranma.  So I incorporated that into her personality 
a lot in TIL and TOP.  Then Blade helped me realize exactly how many times 
Akane acted very nicely in the magna, at times acting saintly.

First impressions greatly influence how you view people - fictional or 
otherwise.  Akane acts quite violently in the first couple of issues, so 
it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of her as a borderline 
psychopath.  You have to balance that with how she's portrayed throughout 
the magna.

I tried to down that down a bit - at one point I even removed the angry 
whispers she gives Kentaro in Ranma's apartment - but Akane's anger is too 
much of a plot point, both early on and later when she overcomes it to try 
and deal with Kentaro honestly.  I reluctantly left it in, over-the-top 
though it may be.  If I had to do it all over again, I'd find a different 
way to characterize Akane.

At a point near the beginning, the latter comments on
her missing pigtail by saying that "[Akane] told [her]
once that it wasn't very attractive on a woman." This
may have been a throwaway quip for one of them at the
time, but still... Even if Ranma were paraphrasing the
original comment, what could have Akane meant by that?
To say "not attractive on a woman" is a phrase loaded
with meaning --not only because it points out that, in
Akane's mind, Ranma _was_ a woman (a topic that already
covered to great extent in TOP,) but also because it
implies that, from Akane's perspective, Ranma should
aspire to be an _attractive_ woman.

Heh, a good point.  In my mind, Akane was trying to get Ranma to adjust to 
being a woman, and among the tactics she tried was to suggest that Ranma 
conform more to society's standard of what a woman's hair should look like. 
"Isn't very attractive" was Akane's polite way of saying "ugly", and that if 
Ranma was ever going to try and fit in with people around her, she shouldn't 
wear her hair in a way that makes her stick out.

I greatly expand on this in "Time Never Did Assuage", where Ranma fixates on 
the fact that the world is trying to force her to become all girly - style 
her hair, force her into dresses, etc - and has a very strong negative 
reaction to that.  I see it as a continuation of what happened between Akane 
and Ranma after Herb.  Akane meant her suggestions to only be helpful; Ranma 
saw them as subversive.

On the far side, though, as Ranma began to adapt, she finally began 
listening, not just to what her dormmates were saying but what Akane had 
been saying earlier.  And, of course, Akane's suggestions would have a lot 
more emotional weight.

On the other hand, since Akane knew all about Jusenkyo,
and the group had even gone back to the springs while
looking for a cure, it means that she had the exact
same opportunity to make the same choice as Kentaro, but
she chose to move on and accept defeat instead. I'm not
asking for Ranma or Kentaro to confront her with this
choice, though, it's just an interesting contrast I
found worthy of notice.

In my mind, Akane and Ranma never did have a fully realized, mature love.  I 
see both Akane and Ranma as teenagers still struggling with their emotions 
and not fully understanding love and commitment - attitudes, I might say, in 
ample display all throughout the magna.  Given an unsteady relationship with 
Ranma and the prospect of having to change genders to hold on to it, I think 
it could be easily imagined that Akane would balk at that.

Of course, other scenarios are imaginable.  Sebastian Weinberg once began an 
"alternate alternate universe" that begins very much the same way as TOP, 
but ends up with Akane deciding to stick it out with Ranma.  It was a fun 
read and his outline was quite entertaining - he has a real gift for 
dialogue - but it never did get fully fleshed out.  Still, it wasn't 
difficult to imagine Akane responding that way either - she may have decided 
that she truly and honestly did love Ranma and would do anything to maintain 
it.

For TOP I had to choose a characterization of Akane that would have her 
drift away from Ranma and, amongst other things, reject the possibility of a 
Jusenkyo dip herself.  In my view, I think that's entirely believable and 
possible.

Anyway, even though most of TOP and TNL are seen from
Kentaro's point of view, I'd like to know what _Ranma_
thought about his reaction at the mountain.

Why, it's funny you should ask that.  =)

I'm just finishing up polishing another TOP story I wrote about a year ago. 
This takes place in the month where Ranma and Akane try to figure things out 
between themselves before Ranma eventually goes back to Kentaro.  As you 
might imagine, lots of Ranma/Akane introspection, with some Nodoka musings 
as well.

I'll post that today or tomorrow.

Oh, I was a bit sad to see the "ending theme" go,
having suggested it all those years ago.

Oh yeah, heh.  Forgot it was you.  =)

It was just too much, I thought.  Both opening and closing songs didn't 
really add anything other than an unattractive block of text.  I did keep 
the rainbow bit in the story, though, just 'cuz I liked it.  =)

There was one bit that stuck with me, though: at
the beginning, Ranma thinks about how Kentaro had
never slept on the futon with her; later on, she
lets him do considerably more than that.

Did you read it that way?  I kinda thought it wasn't a huge step forward. 
She'd already allowed him to be physical with her, as shown in the lime 
scenes.  She was just allowing that to now happen before they fell asleep 
together.  There's no sex happening - that's what she means by "don't try 
for too much".  The only step she's allowing is for him to fall asleep next 
to her, which shows that she's allowed another intimate barrier to be 
dropped.  Ranma is building her way towards the beginning of "The Nature of 
Love", where she's dropping the final barrier just as Akane shows up 
(convenient timing, neh?).

Don't forget, Ranma can't have sex until Sebastain Weinberg's "Technical 
Virginity".  =)

For one thing, I don't know if Ranma's reactions
confirm or deny the place of "Technical Virginity"
in the TOP canon

"Technical Viriginity" does exist in the TOPverse.  In fact, it arose when I 
tried to write my own lemon of Ranma's first sex as a woman.  It was 
horribly bad, and I showed to Bast as a kind of "See how terrible I am at 
this?"  He took some of the basic concepts and wrote a story that was about 
a thousand times better than mine.

I liked "Building Bridges" as a story, and it was certainly a lot better at 
the lemony bits than any of my stories ever were.  But it contained some 
ideas about Kentaro and Ranma that I was never entirely comfortable with. 
So I never truly considered it as part of my continuity.  I still fully 
endorse the story and think it shows some great Ranma-as-woman lemon stuff 
while still maintaining a good story at the same time.

There's a similar scene in "Virginity" that's probably
coloring my own interpretations of the characters'
behavior, as seen above.

Aye; I actually obliquely refer to "Technical Virginity" in this story, when 
I mention "this was only the second time Ranma had allowed this"; the first 
time was in TV.

I'm positive Ukyou would have had something to say
during "The Nature of Love" itself.

I touched on that briefly during my incredibly long cross-over between "Thy 
Inward Love" and "Thy Outward Part".  It kinda depends on how you 
characterize Ukyo.  My view of Ukyo in the manga is someone who's infatuated 
with Ranma but nothing more; I just don't see the "Saint Ukyo" so many 
others do.  By the end of the manga she barely shows an interest and seems 
much more concerned with keeping her business running.

However, I like Ukyo a lot, so I can also imagine trying to help Ranma as 
much as possible.  But that wasn't convenient for the story I was trying to 
write, so I mostly just shuffled her off to the side with barely a protest 
being heard.

There was mention on the FFML that this Ranma wasn't
as experienced in martial arts as the manga version,
and I'd like to expand a little on that.

Well, I made a very conscious decision in TOP to make things a bit less 
overpowered.  So while Ranma can still jump from the ground to the roof and 
still cause rocks to explode, I didn't want to go into much of the other 
extremes.  In my mind, Ranma is an extraordinary martial artist but not 
quite the god portrayed in the manga.  Good enough to excel in gymnastics 
but not enough to make the Olympic team, for example.  The best martial 
artist for miles around but not so overpowering that a young upstart can't 
give Ranma a real fighting challenge.

That fit better with the tone of the stories I liked to write.

That doesn't mean, however, that speculation isn't fun.  =)

From what I can tell, there are six major events, after
Herb, that might have had influence in Ranma's abilities:
the Ryuugenzawa expedition, Ryuu Kumon, Rouge and Pantyhouse
Tarou's squabble, the Battle Dougi, Konatsu, and the
Mt. Phoenix story.

As an aside, I was glad that Ryuugenzawa happened after Herb.  Akane and 
Ranma show unfettered affection for each other for the first time in that 
story, something that would have made Akane's behavior more difficult to 
accept in TOP.

The appearance of Tange, however, makes me reconsider:
did he prove that she was in fact losing her edge, or
that she was still in top form and he really was up to
her standards?

I saw it as kinda half-way; Ranma had lost some of her edge, but Tange 
really was that good, too.  Also, Ranma never uses any chi attacks while 
battling Tange; that might have made the battle quite trivial for her.

Ranma _is_ very much a warrior, and there was always
that nagging feeling that being locked had clipped
her wings somewhat.

That actually played a large part in my desire to write this story.  The one 
thing I didn't like about my TOP stories is that they seemed to 'tame' 
Ranma, and I truly hated the thought of tame Ranma.  =)  So I wrote this as 
an excuse to show that there was still the old warrior Ranma lurking inside.

If you have any further ideas for this universe, especially
for installments set after TNL, I'd like to see Tange come
back to assist in both his own character development as well
as Ranma's.

Heh, don't set any ideas in my head, I've already written far, far too much 
in this universe already.  =)

All in all, the changes to TNL were appropriate and welcome,
even those as minor as getting rid of the "-chan" endearment
between Ranma and Kentaro.

Ah, you noticed that.  =)  I decided they were too cutesy for Ranma and 
Kentaro.  I also don't really fully understand the cultural implications and 
decided I didn't need to make my ignorance any more blatant.  =)

"Brave Bearing" is also an excellent addition to the series,

Thanks.  =)

And thank you very much for the commentary.

-Richard 


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