melannen | Let's Keep It Friends

Let's Keep It Friends

I am, for some inexplicable reason, re-watching the Ranma 1/2 anime for the first time since, oh, 1996. A friend of my sister's bringing some Ranma tapes, and a tape of AMVs from a local con, over to our house was really my first exposure to modern-day fandom in a community sense, (and also the first manga/anime I ever encountered) so it's been interesting going back to my roots, in a way.

Things I have learned so far (Note that I only just finished season 1, and have forgotten most of what happens later, if I even finished watching them all):

a) I am totally on Team Nabiki right now. And team Nabiki/Kuno (pairing order relevant). I don't even remember her from way back when.

b) Ranma is actually full of really interesting things about identity/embodiment/gender/sexuality, especially as various people get more comfortable with changing forms, even filtered through the adolescence metaphor. And also I could stare into Ranma's personal working gender theory for hours. I did, back when I first watched this fifteen years ago and had never seen anything like it - I mean, literally stared into space pondering Ranma's personal gender theory - but I was half-expecting it to be disappointing in retrospect now that I've spent all this time in fandom and learning about RL gender theory and growing up and not being adolescent any more and things. Not... so much. It's still fascinating.

c) None of the fic I can find explores any of this, not even anything that seems to really look at Ranma in a genderqueer or gender theory way, beyond just "he turns into a girl" (and Ranma is so very genderqueer in canon, the way he's so awkward with boy-ness and revels so in the girl form, and the way she's so... comfortable with Akane when she's being herself.)

d) The animation, on the other hand, is a lot crappier than I remember it being. Alas. I taught myself to draw half from Rumiko manga (which probably still shows.)

e) The anime is also saying a lot more about class than I remember. I think the subtitles in the version I'm watching are making that a lot more clear than in the manga or the one I watched ages ago. Partly, the way the martial-arts kids are sort of a class of their own, but also: Ranma. Who travels the world with his father, who seems to have no concept of a home of his own, who never, ever turns down a chance at food, who has spent more time out of school than in it (I'm starting to watch carefully to see how much evidence there is in canon that he can even read, or read well.) I'm also kind of wanting to go find out if there's an ethnic Travellers tradition in East Asia like the European/American ones that I keep trying to mentally slot him in to.

f) Still damn racist though. Sigh.

g) Where is the queer/genderqueer/poly Ranma/Ryouga/Akane OT3 epic of love and fluff and asskicking? Just... they love and respect each other down all three corners of the triangle, and they're all screwed up in such complimentary ways, and they work together amazingly in a way that speaks of instinctive trust (on the odd occasion when all three of them are actually working together). (I pair them up within the OT3 mostly as boy!Ranma/Ryouga, Girl!Ranma/Akane, Akane/Ryouga - a whole sedoretu in three people! - but I could entertain other possibilities.)

h) OT3 aside, I totally see why the manga keeps wanting to go on my retrospective list of "works that helped me as a wee!asexual"

i) Fine, I am rewatching it because someone requested a DF crossover on the prompt meme. Now I want tiny!redheaded!girl!Harry sparring with Murph while Kincaid watches and goes crosseyed with lust. IDEK.

j) ...probably a bad idea to be switching between Ranma rewatch and Te's latest genderqueer!Tim Drake epic. Oops!

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I think Ranma 1/2 was the first anime I ever saw, back in high school. I had a friend who was really into it, so we watched some, and I read some of the manga. My brain just doesn't function with manga/graphic novels/comics so I never really managed to get excited about it, but I remember being fascinated by the art style, having not really come across it before.

I think it was the first anime for a lot of Americans of A Certain Age - either that or Sailor Moon, usually. (Actually I consider myself qualified to play bitter old fan to any animanga fan who is too young to have watched Ranma.)

I have trouble following a lot of manga styles, but for some reason Ranma (and works done in a similar way) just worked for me. Of course I cut my teeth on Western comics, which helps (when it isn't confusing me more.)

I think it was the first anime for a lot of Americans of A Certain Age - either that or Sailor Moon, usually. (Actually I consider myself qualified to play bitter old fan to any animanga fan who is too young to have watched Ranma.)

My first was Sailor Moon, my second was Ranma and HOMG THIS IS HOW I FEEL TOO. Why is everyone reading my brain in this entry?

Oh, Ranma. It was one of the first series for which I read fic, back in the days of the FFML -- I still check in on one WIP that I wish would get finished. *G*

Does that mean you know where the awesome Akane/Ranma/Ryoga epics are? :D

...I've gone poking, but such a majority of the fic is just so... old. And so very, um, unadventurous and unpolished compared to what I'm used to. I wasn't really online until several years later, so I didn't have any access to the fic back then... (probably just as well I had no internet, I was writing a Palpatine/Mara Jade mystical pregnancy fic at the time.)

*ponder* I can't remember any R/R/A epics that would properly fit your desire (as opposed to being love-triangle type things), but the story I meant was Shadow Lurker Productions' "Ranma and Akane: A Love Story", which, alas, appears to have gone missing since the last time I looked :(

I remember vaguely good things about Alan Harnum's fic (although more for his Utena stuff), but it's been years and I don't remember much detail. (And it certainly wasn't the slash/queer/genderqueer aesthetic you're looking for!)

(I've long since pondered writing a story with a trans Ranma in addition to the curse -- but oh man I'd have to rewatch/reread everything. It's been years.)

Yeah, I suspect the period aspect means what I'm looking for just isn't out there. And I've tried reading some of the other stuff, but apparently if it's a) canon pairings, and b) not genderqueer, I am just not interested. (Even when I first watched it, barely adolescent and innocent of the internet, when I barely knew the word "transsexual" much less "genderqueer", what interested me was Ranma's totally ambiguous relationship with gender. I mean, in the episode where Ranma fights Kodachi? And she's standing in her leotard in front of everybody and she uses her real name, and she just sort of shines while everybody decides that Ranma Saotome can be a girl, too? Yeah. It was a thing with me, okay? Plus, like, I always thought it was obvious that Ranma/Akane had so much more chemistry as lesbians.) So... yeah, I suspect that as long as the fic I find continues to be less queer than my reading of the canon, I will not like it. At least there's a tiny bit of kinky Nabiki/Kuno on AO3.

(I never thought I would bother to rewatch, but I have to say, the rewatch is filling me with joy.)

I always wished I could go fall into the Spring of Drowned Young Man myself. I mean, how awesome could it be to swap both performative gender and bodily sex back and forth essentially at will?

(Okay, mostly I just think it would be useful on long car trips. It would be nice to not have to go find an actual bathroom.)

I suspect that my (stronger at times that others) desire to have that ability is a large part of why Ranma affected me so. :)

...you've read Narbonic, y/n?

Dude, me too.

Plus, like, I always thought it was obvious that Ranma/Akane had so much more chemistry as lesbians.

Homg I thought that was JUST ME. Yes. Yes indeed.

No that was not just you! They are good friends as m/f and adorable lesbians as f/f, that is my reading for always. (And g!Ranma seems to be more attracted to Akane than b!Ranma is, too, which is all kinds of interesting.)

I pretty much agree with you (though I ship Ranma/Akane as m/f too since I read Akane as bi but repressing it. But even then I think she secretly likes g!Ranma best even though she doesn't want to admit it because of her Issues.)

I suspect they all get a bit more heterosexual as as the series goes on? Because in the first few episodes, like, nobody reads as believably het to me at all. But especially not Akane. As I get further in the series, though, I'm buying bi!Akane (and attracted-to-people-not-his-current-gender!Ranma) a little bit more.

OMG RAAALS. I loved that fic so bad. I even still have the soundtrack he posted on my computer, only the accoustic version of "Save The Best For Last" got downloaded all funky and wrong, so it's cut off about one minute in :(

HOWEVER! I did find a link for RAALS so Melannen can read it and you can reread it: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/179718/1/Ranma_and_Akane_A_Love_Story

(And I highly recommend reading it, because it's fucking epic--albeit unfinished and massively AU in the very best way--but also has a genderqueer Ranma and lesbian!Ranma/Akane.)

It occurs to me that Melannen might also like "Clothes Make The..." as well. It has a genderqueer Ranma who conspires with Kasumi to fake another head injury so she can actually LIVE as a girl and figure out if that's what she really wants and an Akane who is trying to struggle with the posibility that she might be a lesbian. It's actually on ff.net too now, though it wasn't when I first read it back in the nineties. And it's actually complete! Link is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5397947/1/Clothes_Make_The

Hmmmm. I'm trying to think if I can remember any other genderqueer!Ranma fics. Maybe "Girl Days," though I'm not entirely sure if it counts or not. Basically, sometime after the end of the manga Ranma's mother has finally fully accepted his female side--but now she's convinced that when she's a girl she needs to be as much "a woman amongst woman" as he is a "man amongst men." So she basically convinces Ranma to live two full months as her daughter and the whole thing ends up being very silly and farcical and madcap, but rather fun. Also sadly unfinished, which is too bad because it was one of my favorite fics. It still seems to be up at ff.net though: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/345691/1/

OOOH THANK YOU SO MUCH! I am so happy to see that want I want exists at least a little.

Hee. One of the ways you can tell I'm Not Raising My Kids Right (Wing) is that Herself is big-time into Ranma.

More evidence that your kids are amazing. Have they gotten into any more recent anime/manga?

Because I am realizing as I rewatch that Naruto hit a lot of the same things for me that Ranma did. Only with a slightly different angst/comedy ratio. :D (And a lot more OT3 fic.)

This is MY kid we're talking about, here; she'll pretty much read anything that combines words and pictures. Sadly, I don't know enough about post-90s manga to point her at anything awesome and age-appropriate (my definition of age-appropriate: sex is okay, sex is a normal human activity which I hope she'll wait to engage in for at least a couple more years. Violence, on the other hand, should be deployed only very occasionally.)

Ah, yeah, the violence in Naruto is a bit more...serious than in Ranma. (Rumiko Takahashi's new manga series is very much in the vein of Ranma, though. ... and sadly that's about it for current-manga-aimed-at-young-people that I know anything about, because I keep getting excited about the boring grown-up ones instead.)

Um... I don't know if anything I've got links to is what you're looking for, and a lot of these stories first got onto my recs list ages and ages ago, and I haven't reread any of them since 2004, but...

http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/634951.html
http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/635389.html
http://crack-van.livejournal.com/tag/ranma%201%2F2

If the links no longer work to the stories themselves, web-searching for the titles and authors might turn up alternate links, or the Wayback Machine might have copies of 'em.

(Count me among those who would happily hop into Spring of Drowned Man if given the chance, because as

synecdochic commented above, "how awesome could it be to swap both performative gender and bodily sex back and forth essentially at will?")

(Also, I was mostly ignorant of and/or ignoring the racism inherent in the source canon as I first tumbled into USENET Ranma 1/2 fandom years ago, and almost don't want to watch or read the canon again because I'm not sure I want to know how bad it really was... although I do have all of the DVDs and manga and music.)

OMG thank you thank you for the links!

(The racism isn't really that bad, but it's playing on Chinese/Japanese stereotypes that I recognize a lot more now that I've learned more history and consumed more Japanese media. And it makes me feel odd about just pulling out Jusenkyo to use in crossover crackfic, because... Jusenkyo is, like, the center of the problem. Which is sad, because there it would be fun if there were lots of crossover crackfic with Spring Of Drowned Maiden/Lad.)

http://terajk.dreamwidth.org/23055.html
^- A picspam that may be relevant to your interests. :D

Yay! I remember her Ryoga post from awhile back, too. That was awesome.

Oh man, I love Ranma. Some of my friends don't, but I think I helped one get it better when I told her to view it more as Loonie Tunes with martial arts than something really deep.

Tell me about the racism. I have a feeling it has something to do with the Amazons.

Bearing in mind that I only just barely got to the part with Shampoo, it's more China in general & the way Chinese people get portrayed. There's the way they all speak this very stereotypical broken Japanese, the way the non-Amazon ones get portrayed as sort of -- subservient? The general portrayal of China as this dark, mysterious place full of lost towns and ancient dark superstition and backwards traditions. I think I was picking up some of the "Darkest Africa" vibes even the first time through, but now that I know more about China/Japan relations, it is a lot harder not to notice.

(I think I may remember there being some slightly iffy stuff with non-Chinese, non-Japanese characters later, too, but I could be mixing that up with another anime I was watching at the time.)

Oh god, I forgot about the Guide. He gets his later on, but yeah, that's... that's painful.

Chinese characters tend to get that a lot in anime, along as being drawn like the caricatures the west uses for asian people. That's part of why I'm convinced (especially since he was taken out for a season for fears of being accused of being racist) that Brock in pokemon is chinese.

Oh, I'm glad to know he gets to do more later! (Really I tend to think he got his already, what with cleverly managing to get all the stupid Japanese cursed, but that doesn't really... help with the stereotyping.)

His later appearances are all "why are these japanese people so stupid?"

Also, I will always love Mousse. I'm not sure if it's because he's a boy amazon or because he's so pretty, but I'm fairly sure it's not all his personality. I always did wonder, if amazon girls have to marry whoever beats them, what goes on with the amazon boys?

Okay, I have finally gotten to the part with Mousse! He is, indeed, very, very pretty. :D

I'm actually in the process of watching the anime for the first time, and I was really looking forward to getting through it and finding all of the wonderful fan fiction and plays with gender. So your report makes me go :P

There's some linked in the comments above! Which I haven't read yet, but I think I trust the reccers. And it gives me hope that there's more - I haven't gone digging in a fandom this old for awhile, I may have lost the strategies. (I think I just sort of hoped people were still writing it but in current fandom modes.)

g) Where is the queer/genderqueer/poly Ranma/Ryouga/Akane OT3 epic of love and fluff and asskicking? Just... they love and respect each other down all three corners of the triangle, and they're all screwed up in such complimentary ways, and they work together amazingly in a way that speaks of instinctive trust (on the odd occasion when all three of them are actually working together).

Oh, good lord, WHERE IS THIS FIC? I want it right now.

And YES to Ranma's personal gender theory. I haven't seen much of the anime and was too lazy to do this for my picspam, but even boy!Ranma is lighter on his feet and less about punching people really hard than the other fighters, Akane included. (I'll have to watch Shampoo more closely).

And then I think: "Oh, Tera, you are silly. He's just a good defensive fighter." (The Saotome Ultimate Technique, after all, is running away until you think of your next move). But then I think this is why I LOVE Ranma doing martial arts gymnastics--it's a style of fighting that shows off/rewards femmey movement, and Ranma is just so wonderfully playful about it and seems really comfortable with it, even as he says he is not putting on a leotard, ever.

Um. I liked this post really a lot. :D

I may have figured out how I would start writing that fic, if I were going to start writing it! Which I'm not.

I am realizing as I watch through the anime that I had mixed up bits of canon from both in my memory, and they aren't quite a similar as I'd thought (for example: apparently the reason I didn't ship the two dads before is that they aren't nearly as slashy together in the manga as in the anime.)

Ranma goes on and on about how he hates being a girl and he never wants to be one again! But give him the thinnest excuse to be in girl!form and he is just so comfortable with that body and with being treated as a girl - I mean, the things about being a girl that he reacts badly to are pretty much the same ones I do. (I really love the pin-ups you posted of his BOY: one-piece, and am trying to decide if I'm anywhere near genderqueer enough to get away with that.)

The thing I love love love about Ranma, now that I'm older & wiser and have noticed it, is that he likes being a girl and doing girl things, he just doesn't want to deal with all the bullshit that goes with that.

(And now I really, really want to go re-read bits of the manga. It's just sitting there on my shelf, looking at me. I can feel it!)

Anyway, all I really wanted to do was link you to Ranma's . . . Husband? which is long and lovely and has all sorts of interesting gender stuff. It's probably my favorite Ranma 1/2 fic, although I should probably warn you that Ryouga, Shampoo, and Nodoka really don't come off all that well. (Mousse and Akane absolutely do, though, and even without the gender stuff it would be worth reading just for that.)

(

terajk just linked to this post, if you're wondering how I got here)

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Let's Keep It Friends

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/digs around in ancient dusty history, lol

Re: /digs around in ancient dusty history, lol

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