...still watching Ranma

[melannen]

Have actually finish S2 of Ranma 1/2 anime now! It is astonishing how much I am only in it for Ryoga. Literally, anytime Ryoga is involved in the story, I am grinning at the screen with a *bwee* face. Anytime he isn't, I am just waiting for the episode to end. (Interspersed with occasionally wondering when Akane is going to actually get to fight somebody already.)

I haven't fallen for a One True Character this hard in any fandom since... um. Top Gear. Crap. Apparently I have a type. And he has no sense of direction whatsoever.

I usually don't fixate this hard in a new fandom. Swear. Most of the fandoms I get really in to, to the extent of, oh, actually watching the canon, (see: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dresden Files) it's about the whole world of the story for me: you could swap in a whole new set of main characters, and as long as it was still exploring the world in the same way, I would shrug and carry on. And that doesn't necessarily mean sf/fantasy, either: I continue to watch House now and then not because I still care about House and Cuddy and Wilson particularly, but because the way narrative causality works in their universe continues to be complicated and intriguing.

And sometimes, okay, I'm in it for relationships: This seems to be rare for me compared to other people, but I am apparently largely uninterested in Doctor Who, for example, unless the Doctor and the Master are being Doctor-y and Master-y about each other, and that's just how it is. (Sarah Jane aside, but, I mean, it's Sarah Jane.) I will get into fandoms through a pairing, but most of the time if I'm actually absorbing canon I'm not doing it for the pairing. (Unless it's Alan and Denny, obviously.)

(There's another mode I am thinking of as "crossover mode", where my interest in a new fandom is largely based on how it fits in with other stories, mythologies, genres - this was what carried me through actually watching SGA as long as I lasted - but that's slightly different.)

Which isn't to say it's entirely one or the other; interesting characters and relationships and world all together helps, of course, but I can usually recognize which is my main mode of connecting with a canon.

...and then there's shows like Ranma 1/2, where I am seriously considering if I'm actually going to just cheat and watch only the Ryoga episodes from here on in. It's not that the rest of it is unwatchable, just. Needs more Ryoga.

I have been still poking at the fanfic, btw. I found a very old recs page that seems to be for fic that addresses Ranma's gender identity issues, but... very few of the fics on it seem to involve Ryoga much at all, so, um, I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to actually read most of them. (Also some of the links seem to be broken.)

(I was like this with Dr. McCoy, too. There are whole swathes of classic ST novels I never read because they didn't have enough McCoy in them.)

Anyway. All the Ranma fic on the AO3 is very good, and much of it has Ryoga in it. This seems to be par for the course with AO3, with small/old/non-mainstream fandoms: is the invitation process still self-selecting for better writers, or is it just that AO3 people are more likely to be writing in the same (modern, media slash) aesthetic that I'm used to, and know to avoid the same things that I've learned to back-click from? Which random Ranma fic on the web or ffn ... doesn't seem to know.

I keep running into references to a legendary repository of wonderful Ranma/Ryoga fic out there in the sky. I have found some of the trailing ends of an old RRyaoiML, which seems to have been the center of it, but, um, by my current standards most of the fic isn't very good. Alas. At this rate I'll have to just keep writing bits of the Ranma/Ryoga/Akane/Ranma epic in my head.

Also, DAMMIT: Ryoga is possibly one of the most crossover-friendly characters ever created! You can literally have him drop out of the sky to anywhere and it's completely IC! So why do all the crossovers in this fandom go to huge amounts of trouble to make it work for Ranma to be the crossed-over character, and leave Ryoga out entirely? Bah.

Also, again: Canon continues to make more sense if I work from the premises that Akane is about 75% female-attracted, Ranma is genderqueer, and Nabiki is always right.

Comments

[willwrite_fortea]

.. holy mackeral, my fascination for this series makes so much more sense now. (in that, it was probably a stepping-stone of sorts on my quest to gender studies). so now I'm compelled to reread or watch it.

(sorry for spamming your box with edited comments, keyboard has been wonky lately)

[melannen]

Yeah, I mark Ranma 1/2 as, well, not necessarily the beginning, but the first milestone in my interest in variant gender. Which is part of the reason I've been meaning to get back to it for all these years!

I have now reached the point where Ukyo shows up. I continue to be fascinated. Apparently Ranma uses "kawaii" as a synonym for "boyish". All of Akane's attempts to act more feminine in order to be less uncute have been tragically in vain, for the cutest girl in the neighborhood is the one who passes as male!

...Also OMG Ranma really likes pretending to be Ryoga's girlfriend.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Ryoga is possibly one of the most crossover-friendly characters ever created!<<

Point.

... I can just see him pouring water on Morgan, and wondering why nothing happens.

Re: Yes...

[melannen]

Any fandom you want, Ryoga can show up, and the only explanation you need is that he's lost...

[starlady]

This seems to be par for the course with AO3, with small/old/non-mainstream fandoms: is the invitation process still self-selecting for better writers, or is it just that AO3 people are more likely to be writing in the same (modern, media slash) aesthetic that I'm used to, and know to avoid the same things that I've learned to back-click from?

I wish I knew; I've pondered the same question myself, but come to no firm conclusions. I think partly the membership and the readership is somewhat self-selecting within a certain sphere of fandom, but I don't think that's all of it, certainly.

[melannen]

Yeah, I want it to be that AO3 is just that good, but that may be bias. ^_^ It does say interesting things about all of the archives that've actively, and with limited success, tried to screen for quality, though.

[amaresu]

I used to read Ranma crossovers all the time. They were my crack. And much like Harry Potter these days I never actually watched much of the canon.

That being said I don't think I ever found much good Ranma/Ryoga fic when I went looking for it. That fandom did have specialised archives for everything though. There used to be an entire archive for Ranma/Pluto (Sailor Moon) fic. It was awesome.

So, from my experience I think you'd probably be good skipping to the Ryoga episodes. I mean not watching the show never damaged my ability to read the fic.

[melannen]

Well, I've been thinking of myself as a Ranma fan for almost 20 years now and apparently never saw past S1 of the anime. So it totally worked for me, but it's kind of nice to actually learn the show at long last. Every time I'm about ready to give up and skip to the next Ryoga episode, I see in the previews that I only have one more episode to wait, so I keep going... it's tempting, though. Maybe once all the popular characters from the fic are introduced.

Are there any really good Ranma crossovers you remember? (That have a lot of Ryoga in them, of course.)

[amaresu]

So basically you just keep telling yourself 'one more episode'? There are worse plans for getting through the less interesting episodes.

I don't have any links. Last time I was on a Ranma kick was before I started using Delicious and I've lost my brower bookmarks several times since then. I do know that if you're willing to put in the effort there is a lot of good stuff at FF.N.

[brownbetty]

Re: old-fic on the Archive being better, which I think is because you don't archive something you wrote ten years ago if it currently makes you embarrassed.

Anywho, if you find the good R/R, I hope you will let us know.

[melannen]

I have found maybe six Ryoga-heavy fics worth reading through so far. Three of them on AO3 (and written since the archive opened). If I get enough to be worth it, there will probably be a recs post eventually!

...stumbled across this totes by accident

[kirinin]

Hey. So, are you still looking for Ranma/Ryoga or Ranmafic? Because I was wandering around the interwebs looking for some and stumbled across your site.

You might want to try 'Happily Married' which is on my ff-dot-net account (I know, but it's where I started and where people can find my fic, so...)

I also have a few on my delicious page, if you go there and type 'Ranma/Ryoga' into the tag box. I agree, BTW, that Ryoga's one of the most interesting characters, and that Ranma's twisted relationship with gender is one of the more interesting aspects of the show. Rumiko Takashashi was very fond of stories that could be appreciated on multiple levels. Ranma is a screwball comedy, or else a romantic comedy or else a farcical commentary on gender roles in postmodern Japan: you pick. ;)

-Kirinin