There is a flaw with this argumentation.  The blood spell was cast
to instill an emotion into Ranma: either hate for Shampoo (in the
"official" story) or love for her (the real reason).  But in both
variations the effect could not be achieved directly.  Why then
could the blood spell not make Ranma hate (or love) a real person
but apparently had no trouble to instill deep love for a fictional
personality?

        I don't see a flaw in this line of thought, the inner workings of
the blood spell are left somewhat vague so anything can be explained in
some way.  To me it would seem easier to create a mental image in Ranma's
mind of someone he would be in love with then to create love for someone he
already knows.  Assuming the spell cannot create a direct love interest it
could have taken either path.

Also, how come that they readily believe that the blood spell
could have created all this physical evidence (Ranma certainly
couldn't have in that short time), but refuse to accept that
*they* could have been affected in any way.  Um, on the other hand
they are partially right:  It's not the spell making them forget -
it's the Kami plane, right?

        I suspect Cologne myself.

The question is:  What kind of hold has Nabiki on them, now that
Akane is only a fiction.  Also, if she still knows that Shampoo
and Cologne cast the spell, what was their motivation in *this*
reality?  Apparently they still claimed that the spell was
designed to make Ranma hate Shampoo, judging from the comments of
the Tendou family, so I guess that their motivation is still to
snare Ranma somehow - but how would what appears to happen to him
now help them achieve that?  In reality this was halfway
understandable in both versions:  Hate could grow because Ranma
would assume that Shampoo was the perpetrator - and love because
the best candidate was removed from the race.

        This bothered me a little as well, I don't like to think when I'm
reading.  I'm blaming any inconsistancies on whatever has caused everyone
to forget Akane... despite mounds of evidence everybody is still in the
dark, so something powerful is at work.

http://www.pixi.com/~mousse/                                   mousse@pixi.com
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