Goodbye Ranma
The author does a very good thing but right off noting the differences between his story and the canon stories of Ranma.
1. Akane is not engaged to Ranma.
2. Genma is dead.
3. Ranma never visited Jusenkyo, and so does not have the Jusenkyo curse.
4. Ranma is a movie star and participates in underground fights. His ego is worse than before, and his attitude towards women seems to be worse.
5. Ryoga is a friend of Ranma's. He's gotten over his directional problem.
6. Nabiki is Ranma's manager.
7. Happosai is a middle-aged man who is also involved in movies, but did train Genma.
Review
This is a very, very different type of Ranma ½ story. First, there are the differences noted above. There's also no Kasumi and no Nodoka, and the characters are in their twenties. Ranma's attitude towards women is worse than in the canon form, and even when he changes into a female her attitude is just as bad, mainly geared towards using people.
There's a lot of major questions left unanswered, like how Ranma changed from a male to a female, and what kind of consequences, if any, the Ranko form is going to have due to her quite mercenary attitude towards others. What happened to Kasumi, Soun, Akane and Nodoka? What does Happosai plan to do to Ranma?
I actually don't have a definite opinion about this story one way or the other. It starts off with a lot of different premises from the canon form, and it raises a lot of questions (and has a lot of potential) that will hopefully be explored in future chapters.
There is one minor point I need to make, though, and that is that some of the terms used in the story are really slang used in England, and not in Japan. They don't say 'crikey' in Japan, for example, and this sort of threw me off a few times. I do like the kindler, gentler Ryoga, though.
Some people might not like it because the starting point for the characters is so different from the canon story line, but I want to give the story a chance.
Synopsis
Chapter 1: Introductions of the various characters involved in the story are made. They are all, minus Genma, since he's dead, on a boat at sea. A wild party is going on. Ranma is a major womanizer, and hits on Happosai's wife and ends up planning to have sex with her. (Note; this is the exact opposite of the canon Ranma, as the canon Ranma never takes advantage of nude women when he can, and has a tendency to flee from women when they come on to him).
Happosai walks in on them, using his various weapons, and Ranma ends up going overboard, supposedly dieing at sea. Very few people attend his funeral.
There's a knock at Ryoga's door late at night and a mostly nude female in boxer shorts shows up. Ryoga is staying in Ranma's house.
Chapter 2: The woman has amnesia that night, but when she wakes up in the morning she realizes she's Ranma and tries to convince Ryoga of that. Ranma finally convinces Ryoga that she is really the Ranma he knows. Then it becomes apparent his opinion of women is even lower than ever.
Ryoga volunteers to go get Ranko some clothes.
Chapter 3: After Ranko takes a shower she looks at herself in the mirror and talks about how good she looks, so it's apparent her mental form is still of the male Ranma variety. Ranko goes to a beauty salon, and it looks like she's planning some kind of blackmail against two of the women that Ranma knew and had sex with.
She's passing herself off as the wife of Ranma Saotome.
Meanwhile, Happosai has gotten out on bond and creditors are calling Ryoga about if they will get any money from Ranma.
Back to start of Ranma-chan and Ranko Shrine
Back to Main Index Page
Back to start of Ranma 1/2 section
|