I can't say I am happy with the tone of Kaoru's message, but there are
serious criticisms which I'll try to respond to.
on 3/17/2000 3:16 AM, Kaoru L. Shimitsu <kaoru@mosquitonet.com> wrote:
Characterization: There are so many things wrong I cannot
begin to name them. Despite the premise of Ranma being heavily
emotionally scarred due to this revelation, I sincerely cannot
believe he would break down in this short amount of time. Ranma
would not start off with heady crying and instant feminine feelings
due to residual femininity from Childhood. The only thing that I
must find commendable in the portrayal of Ranma is that throughout
this first part, he stays fairly loyal to Genma despite finding out
(As should be, since GENMA is the person he grew up with, and
despite a person's flaws, our parents are people we tend to love
despite them).
I guess the biggest place I differ from some critics is here. This character
is *not* Ranma as we know him. This Ranma is a girl, Ranko, who has been
raised as a boy, and acts macho and blustery in an attempt to live up to the
way he/she was raised. She is not comfortable being a boy; she feels like a
girl inside. The Ranma in the manga is very comfortable being a boy. This is
an enormous difference. They could not possibly react to things the same
way.
Sure, a girl trapped in a boy's body could act like a boy, could even act
like Ranma if they were raised that way, but their feelings and motivations
would be different from Ranma in the manga. To me, the interesting part
about this story idea was that I could see someone acting like Ranma due to
being in this situation; it's an alternate explanation for Ranma's behavior.
I guess my summary is that Ranko's motivations are completely different from
those of the manga Ranma, even though their *behavior* (prior to the
revelations about Ranko's past) is very similar. If you have trouble
accepting this change in the character, then the story is not going to work
for you.
Akane. Akane is far too sappy, her mode of speech more
reminiscent of Kasumi with a slight dose of personality.
Downplaying her anger is commendable, but it hampers the overall
portrayal of Akane, and I find it difficult to believe (Simply by
telling me) that she must have treated Ranma so badly because her
(Subconcious) friend was taken away from her.
Akane is prone to emotional and compassionate behavior.
Granted. However, the strangeness that just rubs me the wrong way
has to do with how lovey dovey she acts with Ranma halfway through
the story. I am not so sure people, in real life, work this way,
considering there are a thousand and one things Akane can hold
against Ranma.
There's also the speculation that Akane has not, nor has
ever, had lesbian tenencies. Granted, this is your interpretation
of Akane, and everyone perceives this particular situation
differently, so I shall leave it alone.
I have had other people tell me they think Akane is in character. I can see
your points, though. My premise in the way I wrote this is that Akane *is* a
compassionate person. It always seemed to me in the manga that with her
friends she was very different: friendly and loving. I never saw her brain
Sayuri or Yuka with a mallet, or be angry to them. She is still angry here;
look at how she treats Hirota; when the boy comes to hit on Ranko at the
beach, Akane is irritated. She is furious at Genma and wants to kill him. To
me, she's the same. Ranko is now in a different category: "best friend,"
rather than "annoying unwanted fiance," so she treats her differently.
I also have to say I am a sappy person. It tends to contaminate everything I
do. I have a little too much Kasumi in me. It's hard to write dark things
when you have even a little bit of Kasumi in you. Oh, excuse me, I feel this
urge to go clean up the kitchen.
There's also the speculation that Akane has not, nor has
ever, had lesbian tenencies. Granted, this is your interpretation
of Akane, and everyone perceives this particular situation
differently, so I shall leave it alone.
Is this "guilty until proven innocent"? What is there that leads you to
believe Akane is a lesbian? She certainly seems to me to have romantic
tendencies towards boys in the manga, at the same time as she finds most of
them irritating.
Why is thinking Akane doesn't have lesbian tendencies "speculation"?
Wouldn't it be the other way around, that thinking she *does* is
speculation?
Nodoka: I cannot say an awful lot about Nodoka. She seems
accurately portrayed, when correlating to the Manga and Anime.
Flighty, emotional, but generally a very sweet and caring person.
At least in this, I can say Nodoka was portrayed well. *HOWEVER*, I
do not see Nodoka as being so instantly accepting that Ranma is a
guy. Yes, the author did mention that she wasn't REALLY prepared
for it, but even pretending to tolerate it takes a great deal of
time and emotional soul searching on a parents behalf.
I think she tolerates it, but is not happy about it. If she's a loving
parent, what else should she do? Tell Ranma "If you don't become a girl
again I want nothing to do with you?"
Genma: I should shoot the author for developing an
unhealthy bias against Genma. The only person who seems to harbor
any emotional liking of Genma is his son, which is debateable,
considering she doesn't know whether to kill him or hug him and not
let go (As quoted from the story). Bad form, *BAD FORM!* I say. A
writer should be neutral and caring of each character on a somewhat
level measurement, creating bias's and dislikes tend to cause bad
portrayal not JUST of the character being disliked, but in the
others as well (One relationship effects all).
You didn't read the whole thing. As I've mentioned before, the narrative
says nothing about Genma. Zero. All the observations about Genma are from
the characters. Think about it from their point of view: he's apparently
done something horrid, though they're not clear on the details. He's skipped
town. Of course they're going to assume the worst. It's human nature to
assume the worst of someone who runs away from a bad situation and isn't
around to defend themselves.
If you think I hate Genma, read part 3. The antagonism of the characters
towards Genma while he is gone is dramatic tension, and personally I think
it works very well.
Nabiki: I had an identical problem with Akane. Since when
does AKANE or NABIKI say "ICKY" or other such cutesy and rather
girlish phrases?? I don't see their speech patterns being anywhere
near some of the things that happened in the story. Also, Nabiki
seems rather non important to the overall story, and she seems
downplayed. Oh, and there is more Genma hating from Nabiki (I am
not at all surprised at this point, though I've only read Numero
Uno.)
This is the same Nabiki who, in the very first chapter of the manga, had
both hands to her mouth and was saying "Ooooh! He's cute!" about Ranma?
I think Nabiki is a girl. Every girl can say "icky" once in a while. I do
myself, and I'm no spring chicken, believe me. And Nabiki is only 17. My
nieces are older and say a lot more cutesy things.
Speech Patterns: There are several "CLONE" Sort of scenes,
where people talk the same as other people. Nabiki and Akane for
one example... Nodoka and Kasumi.. lalala. Oh, and I personally
was wanting to tear my hair out, considering the author tried way
too hard to make Ranma's speech bad. It became so bad it became
annoying to read.
More specifics here would be helpful.
I'm sorry you want to tear your hair out. I'd recommend against it.
Conveniences: I find it convenient that Genma happened to
disappear, that the Amazons were not upset (Instead directing their
anger at Genma), That Nabiki hates Genma for what he did (Ooooh..
she's done worse), That Happosai is the excuse for Ranma being Male
(Who didn't see that coming?), that... ah, hell. I could go on and
on. I became utterly annoyed after starting to read this story.
I think Cologne is very pragmatic. She is not going to waste time crying
over spilt milk. She is over a hundred, you know. Shampoo and Mousse usually
follow her lead. You'll note that Shampoo is much more upset than Cologne.
Comparing Nabiki's pranks (which is I'm sure the way she views them) to
abducting a child and forcibly changing its sex doesn't seem realistic to
me.
Gender Dysphoria: Now then. Speaking as someone who scores
a pretty damn high score on the tests for determining
transsexualism, I will say this much. This isn't as easy as the
author makes it out to be. This is a hard, tough decision that,
despite Ranma's curse (Which makes things easier) is NOT anywhere
easy to make. There is also no amount of *EASY* coping involved
with ANYONE who is involved in the situation.
I find it demeaning and trivializing that Akane, Kasumi,
Nabiki, and everyone else just ACCEPTS Ranma as female and rally
against genma (Which I am beginning to *GAG* over by now), and
despite how everyone says "Oh, it's Ranko's choice, don't force it,"
in the story, they *ARE* Forcing it. ESPECIALLY AKANE.
Ranma being who Ranma is, I cannot believe in any sense of
the word BELIEVE that he would just drop everything he is in favor
of being a girl. Doesn't work.
I am very sorry to hear that you are gender dysphoric. I wish you the best
of luck in finding your own personal path.
I think you are missing something. Ranko was born a girl. She lived the
first four years of her life as a girl. She has a birth certificate to prove
she is a girl. She has darling pictures and home movies to prove she is a
girl. This is a somewhat different situation than someone who has been
biologically male from birth saying they feel like they are female. Maybe it
shouldn't be, but people tend to give more weight to facts than to feelings,
even though that's not always the right thing to do. Note that I am not
criticizing gender dysphoric people here -- far from it -- but that Ranko
has rather more ammunition on her side to prove she really *is* a girl. It's
kind of hard to say "you're not female" to someone when they are waving a
birth certificate and baby photos in your face.
Also, some people *do* give the proper weight to feelings, and respect to
the people who express them.
Yes, the characters try to not give their opinion to Ranma, and fail.
They're human.
Part of the reason I latched onto this idea by Steve is that this situation
is ideal for exploring Ranko's own situation without getting too wrapped up
in other character's reactions. I wanted to write about what this was like
for *her*. Having this irrefutable proof that she actually *is* a girl
removes any right other characters have to tell her she's not. Then it just
becomes a matter of "what is best for her? what should she do?"
I wanted to explore what this was like for *Ranko*. I could have written
reams about the other character's difficulties in coming to terms with this
situation. The story is already approaching 200 pages and is not even done
yet. There is really only room in this story to explore Ranko, unless I want
to make it truly enormous, which I don't. It's like Nodoka's kitchen: there
isn't room in there for everyone.
One thing I am dissatisfied with myself is that Ranko/Ranma does not spend
enough time agonizing over this. As she says later on, "Letting go of being
Ranma is the hardest thing I've ever done." I didn't show that very well.
However, "agonizing" means fretting over the same thing over and over and
over and over again, and while that is sound psychology, it makes for boring
reading. I felt that if I wrote 30 pages where Ranma was saying "Should I?
Shouldn't I? Should I? Shouldn't I?" that people would fall asleep (me
included). So having it happen over a week is utterly unrealistic, but this
is fiction, and I think it works better. My experience has been that people
get tired of hearing other people whine for prolonged periods of time.
I'm sorry you didn't like it. I like Fragile Clay. Are you going to write
some more of it soon?
Sincerely....
Shimitsu Kaori.
Deborah