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Ethan Tsai
1 N. College Street
Northfield, MN 55057

TSAIE@Gridley.ACNS.Carleton.edu
http://public.carleton.edu/~tsaie/ethan.html


On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Michael Gilson wrote:

If another Mike can put in his two cents, my problem is that everyone in 
Nerima is reacting to that "very real, dangerous, and deadly level of 
violence" the same way they do to the standard "exaggerated for comedic 
effect, massive property destruction but no one is permanently injured" 
violence: ignoring it.  There was a firefight with fully automatic weapons in 
broad daylight leaving most of the participants dead and no one is talking 
about it?  And it's not like they're quiet from fear but rather nobody
noticed.  
Otherwise the place should be swarming with news media, police 
investigators, etc.

Well, I never went into detail about what happened after the firefight.
I'm sure there would have been mass hysteria and multiple people calling
the police.  I don't think the Japanese police would take to these people
very kindly after violating an extremely important law, that handguns and
firearms are banned (more or less).  I sure something would have happened,
but I never did anything that concerned the aftermath of the firefight,
other than the tragedy at Genjuro's apartment.

There are also a couple of points that may be problems or author 
foreshadowing.  Your protagonists group is buying these guns from a group 
based in Nerima, but the Nerima group is surprised by the Happosai chase 

I never said the other yakuza group was based in Nerima.  They only came
to Nerima to make the deal.  Call it neutral ground.
I'm not sure if yakuza really do that, but I couldn't find any information
that said otherwise.

running gag?  Even if they were outsiders why would they assume that an 
angry mob of ordinary women using blunt instruments to chase an old man 
and a teenage boy was part of a double cross and react violently?  Or did the 
gun suppliers plan their own double cross all along and just used the chase 
as an excuse?

The giant disturbance was bad enough.  The money disappeared and that's
even worse.  Having a huge disturbance happen in the middle of a high
stakes deal is enough to make any trigger-happy thug jump to conclusions.
I don't want to give too much away, but needless to say, if the money
disappears, then people are going to snap.

Also, does your protagonist realize he is acting the same way as his Oyabun 
ie deciding a persons guilt on very flimsy evidence, and then striking at 
people only because they have a connection with the person believed to be 
guilty.  In fact, he seems worse than the Oyabun-the Oyabun at least didn't 
have any other obvious suspects, where your protagonist saw the punks who 
raped and killed his sister and niece, and heard the mid level guy give the 
orders and say they came from the boss.  Ranma ought to be way down this 
guys get even list

Ranma isn't way down on the get even list, but he isn't really at the top
either.  If you read the third chapter, you'll see what Genjuro does
first.  Ranma is the person Genjuro feels is responsible for starting the
whole mess, but Genjuro wants to get even with the people that killed his
family first.

After all this carping let me finish by complimenting you on your ability to 
write a scene that makes the reader feel as if they are actually present.  In 
fact I had to skim the rape and murder scene in chapter 2 because the sense 
of being there and unable to stop an act of great cruelty and evil was just 

too 

painful to read thoroughly.

Thanks for the compliment.  I worked hard at writing that scene, even
though it was fairly disturbing to write.  I had a lot of problems getting
myself to actually put the words down without feeling absolutely
disgusted.  Needless to say, I couldn't help but think about it for a
little while afterwards, and I didn't feel ready to go back and edit it
until much later...

Hope you read more of this fic.