Hi,
Well, being meaning to provide feedback on this for awhile, and I guess I'm
finally getting around to it. I doubt I can offer any new opinion or any
truly useful criticsm, which is probably why I delayed so long; it also took
me awhile to figure out exactly what I wanted to say, and what was bothering
me about this fic.
Because, as much as I wanted to like this fic, I just can't say that I do.
Oh, I mean, obviously I don't
_hate_ it -- I wouldn't have read as much of
it as I did if it was bad -- but... so much of the story just strikes me as
-wrong-.
The original concept, as put forward way back when, was an interesting and
surprisingly fresh one, and a brilliant way to begin yet another alternate
history story; too bad, then, that out of the uncountable ways that the
story could have developped, it took the all too often scripted, and so far
utterly predictable and unsurprising route, that it did. That sounds rather
harsher than it should, and that's simply a reflection of my own
disappointment at what I see as lost potential. The quality of writing led
me to hope for something other, I guess.
Ranma 1/2 is obviously a great vehicle for questioning male/female roles and
such abstract concepts as gendering - but as so often happens in fanfiction,
a lot of this is thrown out the window. It's amazing how quickly Ranma
'goes girl' in most stories. And this one, from the very beginning, made it
pretty clear how it was all going to turn out. I had a
_little_ doubt, but
that was quite gone by the end of the second or third chapter. For while
the story does question 'femininity' to a certain degree - and still comes
up short, in my opinion - I really didn't see any serious thought as to what
it means to be a man, or as to why Ranma would want to remain one. He
slipped into Ranko with remarkable speed.
I read one reply that is, admitedly, hard to argue with: the personal
experience of one individual who started life as both sexes, was raised as a
girl, then a guy, then found happiness again as a woman, quickly forgetting
those miserable years forced to live in a role she couldn't accept. Great
-- for that person.
But with Ranma 1/2, we have established characters, with a visible 'canon'
to refer to, and since 'Genma's Daughter' draws from that manga source, it
just can't be shrugged aside; yet it certainly seems to have done so. It's
just unbelievably hard to accept that the Ranma we see in the manga could
convincingly become the Ranko we see in the story - especially as quickly as
it happened.
What really drove this home, and what finally pushed me to reply, was this
segment from chapter twelve:
Ryouga just stood there, watching Kunou, making no effort to move. The
bokken swung towards Ryouga's undefended side, and Ranko's heart leapt
>into her throat. She wanted to leap and intercept the bokken herself,
>but she had waited too long, expecting Ryouga to *do* something. She
>felt a scream coming...
[snip]
"Did you have to show off like that?! I... I thought he was going to
>*hurt* you!" Akane drew a sharp breath. Several of the girls watching
>from the windows sighed.
This probably encapsulates a lot of what I feel is wrong with 'Genma's
Daughter,' and with the way it has developped Ranma's character.
I'm sure the whole 'nature vs nurture' thing has come up many a time in
discussing this fic, and obviously the story leans more towards the
biological side. Fair enough, your call. But instinct can't just be thrown
aside, especially after a decade of absurdly intense martial training. I
just can't imagine Ranma, even after six months or so of slacking off on his
training, just standing aside, dumbfounding, and squealing - especially when
the person he loves is, as far as he for some reason thinks, is in danger.
To make Ranma into the Ranko we see there is to... well, make him/her into a
rather uninteresting, stereotyped girl.
Which is maybe the biggest problem I have with the story. To strip away the
characteristics that make Ranma an interesting character is a mistake (as
far as I'm concerned) in the face of dramatic plotting - I'm not exactly
sure why I should really care what happens to Ranko anymore, since all she
does now is whinge and cry a lot - which even Nabiki, rolling her eyes,
seems to have clued in to. A far greater mistake, though, and one that, to
me, seems to attack the very foundation of the fic, is the -kind- of girl
Ranko has become.
She cries constantly and bursts into tears at the slightest provocation.
She's always nervous, edgy, and looking to others for backup, support,
fulfillment. She's entirely wrapped up in the idea now of having found her
man, and nearly glows at the idea of becoming a wife and mother someday. A
certain amount of that is to be expected, considering what he, now she, has
to go through; but the end result -- the girl who stands to one side
screaming while the men actually do stuff, the kind of girl who populates
all too many movies -- has totally disappeared into that insecurity, despite
the narrative prose trying to insist that this is a Ranma with the
'unpleasant' edges stripped away.
One of the great opportunities with these types of Ranma stories is the
possibility of challenging these concepts of gender roles -- in my opinion,
Thy Outward Part has done the best job of it -- and I see very little of
that here. There's a few token scenes that touch on it (Ranko and her
posters, for instance; hard enough to believe Ranma would even bother with
posters - I mean, what's he got to learn from Bruce?) but where it actually
matters - Ranko herself - I'm coming up with nothing. Heck, I can't even
imagine why Ryoga would
_want_ to date this girl, since, pushing her past to
the side, she's a remarkably dull girl. Ryoga prefers girls with fire, like
Akane, and arguably Akari; and Ranma's fire was quenched somewhere along the
route to becoming Ranko.
But I'm digressing here into a character debate, and not really adding
anything new or helpful to the criticsm. This must all read as rather harsh
(sorry, it's not meant to be), and ultimately useless, since you're
obviously not going to derail a fourteen-chapter fic just shy of the ending.
Nor should you, since it's your vision of how the plot has to turn out,
and an author should stick to that. Sadly, for me, it's just not what I was
hoping for -- and short of a masterful final chapter that somehow summarizes
and undercuts everything that's been thus far written, and brings the fic to
a convincing and unexpected ending, I'm afraid I'll be left waiting for the
next fic to challenge these same ideas in an original way.
-Mike Noakes
noakes_m@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m
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