On Fri, 24 Jul 1998, David Homerick wrote:

David Lerman wrote:

If you assume that Ranma has to "adjust to acting feminine" because a
real-life transsexual would, you're ignoring the difference.

Well said.  In many ways, Ranma's situation would be more comparable to if
he had been castrated in a fight or accident, i.e. an unwanted change.  He
wouldn't be able to have a standard heterosexual sexual relationship with
Akane under that circumstance either.  Would Akane still have broken off
the relationship if Ranma had been castrated?

Actually, the situation most comparable to Ranma's would be the one in
_THE CRYING GAME._  Akane still loves Ranma, but she no longer *desires*
Ranma.  Insisting that she try to "be gay" for Ranma is asking an awful
lot.  Akane broke off the *engagement,* but she clearly wanted to
continue the *relationship*, albeit on different terms.  

YES.

Hence, the transition from fiancee to friend.  

I did think, though, that the relationship with Ryoga sprang up awfully
fast.  Akane would have been almost as devastated by Ranma's new
situation as Ranma was, and Akane's never been romantically interested
in Ryoga.

This... here I may have messed up a bit.  I tried to make what happened
deliberately vague and distorted, due to the nature of the human mind, and
may have gone too far.  However, my thinking can be justified by one
question:

If Akane and Ryouga's relationship was the trigger for Ranma's suicide
(and there is some evidence of that, most notably Ranma's reaction to
Ryouga's name in the beginning), how long would that relationship have
gone on before Ranma did it?  

Believe it or not, my thinking was a matter of *hours*, a few days at
most.  

-- David

-- Nick