Brian Randall wrote:
Disclaimer: Paints in this story are from Rumiko Takahashi, Viz
(Ranma 1/2), TV Tokyo and Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina), and Tatsuya Egawa
(Goldenboy). The easel is mine. That's all.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Move along.
Who are you and what have you done with the real Aaron Nowack!?
CURSES! IT IS INDEED, I, THE ANTI-AARON.
Okay, so I'm starting to run out of ways to mock the metaphor... :)
We can assume that Kasumi did discuss it with Tofu. In fact, in the
prologue, it's suggested that Tofu and Kasumi talk about Ranma rather
a lot. But it's something of a taboo around Genma/Soun. And Tofu
isn't on excellent terms with Soun, so wouldn't really have any reason
to bring it up.
Even something critical like, "Hey, Ryouga was around when all this
stuff happened!"?
Well, since it didn't work for you, but this is still the way I want
it to go ... any suggestions?
Okay.
My main problem is that the "triggers" you have set up to have all this
information come out are far too likely to come up within days or weeks
of the incident.
You've got:
1) Akane wishes she knows what had happened, which leads to Kasumi
revealing that she heard Ryouga before the incident.
This _really_ should have turned up very quickly. "Did you see or hear
anything unusual before it happened?" is a very basic question that
_somebody_, either the police or her family, should have asked Kasumi
almost as soon as she was awake ad coherent
Also, unless Kasumi is deliberately deciding to hide the information for
some reason, one would think that she would take the initiative and
mention it, particularly since the prevailing theory seems to be that
Ranma just randomly destroyed the dojo.
2) Akane mentions that she saw Ranma attacking P-chan, leading to the
outing of Ryouga as P-chan and the fathers realizing something closer to
what happened must have occurred.
I find it very hard to believe that Akane _never_ mentioned this before.
I mean, even setting aside that sorting out what everyone saw would
have been a good idea before settling for the "Ranma randomly destroyed
the dojo" theory, I find it hard to believe that Akane wouldn't have
included hurting P-chan in an angry litany of Ranma's sins before she
calmed down, or ever worried in the fathers' (or at least Nabiki's)
presence that she hadn't seen P-chan since Ranma hurt him the night the
dojo blew up, or whatever.
Okay, let's see solutions. I see two main solutions, here:
1) Re-arrange who has the vital information. What you need is for
someone who doesn't know that P-chan is Ryouga (Tofu, perhaps?) sees
P-chan that night in a way that doesn't directly connect to the
incident. Then, P-chan somehow comes up in the conversation while
everyone is thinking about that night, and the witness mentions seeing
him, letting the pieces fall together.
For this scenario, you can't have Kasumi hear Ryouga, either; you could
possibly have her overhear Ranma muttering about Ryouga or mentioning
the forthcoming fight earlier that night or something along those lines
instead.
2) Change things so that everything came out shortly after the incident.
The Nerima crew still can't get in touch with Ranma to apologize/invite
him back, so that part of the story can continue unchanged, I think.
Nabiki strikes me as the type who might continue to blame Ranma (because
his irresponsibility fighting in the dojo still caused it); the main
change to her would be that she's _also_ looking for Ryouga to get back
at him too.
Anyways, as always these are just my thoughts. Use them or ignore them
as you wish.