Phoenix

There are many, many fanfics about Ranma 1/2. Most of them revolve around the various fights he gets into. There are two fanfics, though, that stand out to me, being incredible works with a lot of originality in them.

One is Genma's Daughter. The other is the new one I read which is called Phoenix.

The first thing the author does which almost nobody else bothers with doing is to describe the purpose of the story. I'm going to quote it below.

'It treats the series' gender-switch premise with realism, with themes of identity, gender, family, trauma and love. There's still absurd humor and plenty of plot, but it also goes deep. Ultimately it's hopeful-a love story and a celebration of womanhood in all its messy glory.'

So, does it manage to do that successfully? Absolutely. It does it and in spades.

There are parts of the story that will hit you and hit you hard. There will be parts of the story that may, as it did to me, lead you to hatred of a few of the characters. "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16), emphasizing that a person's true character, faith, or intentions are revealed not by what they say, but by their conduct, behavior, and the results (or "fruits") of their life and ministry.

The story is that moving.

Yet another thing the author does very well is to set out the themes of the story and these include love, identity, belonging and truly knowing yourself.

A thought came to me while I was reading it and that was some of the characters, if they were actually real and did what they did in the fanfic (and the anime series) would end up with some very serious charges against them, charges which would lead to well-deserved jail time. A lot of it.

Anyhow, enough of that. In general what happens is starting off with the 'normal' type of things for Ranma. Cologne does something to Ranma which influences the entire book. The rest of the book is Ranma trying to deal with that.

The result: Ranma is trapped in her female body. There's no changing back. Think about this for a minute. In the past Ranma shifted bodies and managed rather well. She knew that, with some hot water, she would return to her 'manly' self.

In this case, though, there appears to be no changing back. She has to deal with a very sudden shift in her physical form with differences in how she thinks. Every single aspect of her life, including school, is now controlled by what Cologne did to her. Imaging that happening to you. Change of gender with absolutely no warning. Everything you learned growing up in a particular gender suddenly has to be re-evaluated. Many aspects of your life have to be changed, even things like the clothing you wear.

Further, how does someone born male deal with becoming female (fully operational female) and adjust to things like having a period? Being shorter? Being treated differently because you are a female? Knowing that the only way to change back is to face off against a major foe.

In addition, she meets a bunch of the characters from the series and has to deal with them, too.

How do the people you have lived with deal with the change? Will they be supportive or even worse just ignore you.

How do you deal with your father who has basically abused you all your life, taking you away from your own mother and putting you through physical challenge after physical challenge to harden you into being a man among men when now you are a woman?

Further, can all this bring you to the point where you are willing to die?

This is a tremendously thought-provoking story. There are parts where you will be angry and parts where tears might come to your eyes.