Subject: Reply to Hunter Kid
From: Don Wang <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 12:49:18 -0700

HK:

> Your below statements make me sure you're just an Akane fanboy who can't
> face the fact that she sucks at fighting.
 
	Fire away, Ukyou fanboy.  She does not suck at fighting.  A person like
her, being taught by one of the best school's in the series, having a
good mentor, countless targets to practice, and someone better to spar
with, may not beat, but certainly is not worse than someone who relies
only on tools and unguided through martial arts for 10 years practicing
in a dubious school to begin with (I mean, okonomiyaki as a fighting
technique?)

> Yeah, right.  He was *real* impressed, especially when he was telling Ryoga
> how much that she stunk.  After a week or so, when he was saying, something
> to the effect that she had improved, he was making fun of her, jumping
> around and crawling on the ceiling.  And it shows how good she is when she
> tripped over that ball, didn't it?

	Volume 3, page 39 - "Your improvement is impressive."

	Only people like Ranma can master a new fighting style in one day.  It
took Ukyou ten years of practice on her style and to master it.  When
you're intensely focused into fighting, you can get yourself hurt over
things you missed.  Let's say Ranma was doing the spiral for the Hiryu
Shoten Ha and there's a rock in the way.  There's a good chance he might
trip over it because he has to focus his concentration to succeed in the
Hiryu Shoten Ha.  Granted, practicing does not take that much effort,
but Akane isn't as good as Ranma, either.

	Or do you mean to tell me Ranma is a clutz and can't do martial arts
because he accidentally gets hit by keetles of cold/hot water all the
time?  He's more than capable to dodge them, but he gets hit by them
nevertheless.  Say, when he goes to meet Nodoka and wants her to see him
as a guy, but didn't notice the cold water splashed on him because some
waiter spilled ice water from behind?  The speed of that is
significantly slower than most of the attacks he needed to evade.  Yes,
those situations are comedic, but it also goes to show that even the
best martial artist can be subject to unexpected surprises if they're
not prepared for them.  For a better concrete example, Mousse and Ryouga
KOed Ranma-chan in one hit in Herb's story.  Now, Ryouga and Mousse
might be better than Ranma-chan in fighting abilities, but it certainly
would take more than one hit to take her out if they're fighting
seriously.  How did it work?  It's because Ranma wasn't suspecting it. 
It's nearly analogous to either be completely unawared, or so
concentrated into one thing that obvious obstacles are missed.  Both
goes to show that mistakes can be made.

> She put up about as much of a fight as Mousse did against Ranma - probably
> better, actually, because even after Ranma started fighting back, she was
> dodging some of his attacks, and hit at least one more time.  Mousse, even
> when Ranma was supposedly 'trying to lose,' still couldn't land a single
> shot on him.

	If you mean to suggest that Ukyou is near Mousse's level, you're
definintely wrong.

	Ranma was trying to lose, yes, but his instincts made him dodge and
beat up Mousse.  That's why he took him out in the beginning.  That's
why Akane smacked him, becuase he accidently won.  He was, at least
unconsciously, fighting him seriously.  Mousse's forte is in his speed
and weapons, and he does them definitely better than Ukyou.

	For Ukyou, Ranma was trying to make up the faults he made before.  Had
he even wanted to fight serious to begin with, she wouldn't have landed
any hits.
 
> Of course he was fighting back.  That's why he was hitting her, twisting up
> her spatula, etc.  If you mean at the very start, no, he wasn't, but as
> soon as she knocked him onto the grill, he got serious.  Then she trapped
> him with the glue batter stuff, tied him up with the noodles, and burned
> him, then smacked him with the huge 'oiling thing,' and hit him with the
> gunpowder blast.

	No.  His comment is:  "Do you have enough?"  It implies he was not
fighting back.  Only after he was hit by the gunpowder you see the
iritation.  He did not got serious until the gunpowder blasts. 
Otherwise, as shown that he could, at any given time, used the noodles
against Ukyou, he would have done so already.

> She was doing this *with Ranma trying to dodge.*  Granted, the environment
> was working to her advantage, but you make it seem like he was getting beat
> because 'oh, here Ucchan, you can smack me around a bit.'  That's just not
> the case.
 
	If he tried to fight back, he'll just either break the noodles (that
thing breaks a lot easier than cement, and Ranma can break cement), or
just do what he did later, use the glue to his advantage.  The reason
why he didn't do it is because he didn't want to, because he's sorry and
wanted to make it up to Ukyou.

> Anyway, just about every time I've seen Ukyou in the series, she's had a
> spatula or five with her.  Every time she fights anyone, she uses the
> spatula (therefore making her unarmed capability impossible to judge).  And
> besides that, how do you sabotage a spatula?
 
	Unless she sleeps with the spatula, it's not impossible to sabtoage it.

	Besides, Mousse's weapons are considered part of his body, and if those
can be sabotaged, even if Ukyou does sleep with the spatula, it is still
possible within Ranma 1/2.

	For one thing, she doesn't seem to carry the big spatula while
cooking.  She only has the small ones, the normal cooking utensil, which
is has a minimal threat.  I believe she didn't take the spatula with her
in the Onsen race, either.  She supposedly didn't carry the spatula
going into the basketball game with Hinako, but later pulled it out from
nowhere.

> The times she has engaged in combat action, she has proven herself to be
> better than Akane.  Ukyou, at least, can bang Ranma up a little bit - Akane
> can't even touch him.
 
	That's because Ranma wasn't paying a lot of attention to the battle to
begin with.  If so, he either would never have got hit, break the
noodles, or use them to tie Ukyou up.

> >       She is not a fighter character.
> She's portrayed as one.
 
	Someone who fights two times out her entire appearance is not a
fighter.

> >       We're talking of 'honor' here.  Nodoka, even amongst Ranma 1/2's
> >citizens, have a unique way to see things.  She wants everything more or
> >less honorable.  Just because everyone else doesn't really care what
> >Genma's up to doesn't mean she doesn't.  Otherwise, she wouldn't hold
> >his committment to seppku that seriously, no?  So how is she supposed to
> >look at an engagement that was accepted because Genma was bribed?  It's
> >definintely not honorable.
> Why not?  Regardless of the reasoning, the engagement *was* accepted.
 
	Nice way to refute it.  It is accepted, yes, if you mean Genma said so,
but it is not necessarily an honorable engagement.

> Just about everything Genma does is dishonorable - this isn't anything
> really special.  (The really scummy part was the robbery...)  It doesn't
> matter *why* the engagement was accepted; the point is, it was.  Therefore,
> Ukyou is Ranma's fiance.

	End justifies the means.  You're the real Machiveilian Prince.  I guess
if Ukyou gave her shop to Genma and made him say that she can marry
Ranma now, you'll appluad the action, too.

	But no, Ranma 1/2 isn't that kind of society.  Honor still holds it
together to a certain extent, and definitely for Nodoka.  She is not
going accept this engagement, which would've threw the series from
chaotic to orderly.  If she was going to accept it, what harm does it do
the series?  Absolutely none.  It is not going to make people more
sympthetic to Ukyou, and even so, the existing Akane and Ranma
relationship clearly means that even if it's accepted, it won't have any
effect to the outcome.  Therefore, the conclusion is that she won't be
accepted, because there is no reason to accept it, both from the honor
viewpoint Nodoka holds, and from its overall effect on Ranma 1/2, which
is zero.  Only a rejection could've make a significance, so that's why
it wasn't written.  Had RT made Nodoka rejected the engagement, it would
look too much like a wrap-up, and further injustifies the wedding
fiasco.  

> That's a list of your opinions, especially the last one.  Why is Ukyou's
> threat value the least of the fiances?  I already wrote a list of why she
> was a more logical choice than Akane, and she's a hell of a lot better of a
> choice than Kodachi is.

	It is the way she is perceived in the series.  Her only threat value
comes in the Ten Year Sauce story, and even that, despite what people
claim, her actual threat to the relationship is very minimal.

> I wrote out a list of the reasons that it would make sense to choose her as
> a wife, which was basically, 'she can do everything better than Akane,'
> with a couple exceptions, like singing.

	Doesn't matter.  The cast treats her like she's no real threat, so
she's no real threat to them.  It does not matter how the reader
conceives them.  The threat value is exclusively defined as the
hostility a certain person faced.  If you notice, that's why there's the
constant 'get rid of Akane' attempts by Ukyou/Shampoo/Kodachi, because
she is the biggest threat to them.  Shampoo, to whom engagement doesn't
matter, still focuses her energy and effort to get rid of Akane whenever
possible, not Ukyou.  Why?  She knows the spatula girl is no threat to
begin with.  She might 'kill' her if she got in the way of her plans,
but otherwise Ukyou's not a concern to her.  Same with Kodachi, too.

> No, it's because Ukyou's ploys to get Ranma are done quietly, unlike
> Shampoo, who glomps herself onto Ranma and makes it pretty obvious what
> she's doing.  If Akane doesn't suspect Ukyou's doing anything, there's no
> real reason not to be nice to her.

	Hey Caroline.  That goes with your backstabber theory perfectly, no?

	If that is true, Ukyou is really a dispicable person, you know that? 
Pretending to be a friend to Akane while plotting to take away the
person that is most valuable to her.  I'd much rather have Kodachi and
Shampoo's killing attempts anyday than to have a hypocritical
backstabber.

> Akane doesn't get along with the other fiances - Shampoo and Kodachi -
> because the former has tried to wipe out her memory, and has never shown
> any sort of kindness towards Akane (not anything important, anyway), and
> the latter because she's something of a psycho.  (Eccentric, whatever.)
 
	Memories don't get carried from one story to another.  By probably the
10th volume, Akane pretty much forgave Shampoo.  She was worried that
she might chose to marry the Bakendo just because Ranma rejected her. 
She trusts her enough that her immediate reaction wasn't "What the heck
is Shampoo doing here?" when Shampoo came to 'rescue' her, but rather
worried that she may get hit by the trap.

> He gets along with Ryoga better than Mousse or Kunou.
 
	I don't know if all this saying of P-chan in front of Akane shows that
he gets along with him.  No one really gets along with Kunou that well. 
As for Mousse, he was worried enough to help him when he was dating the
other Shampoo.  If he didn't care, he would've followed what Shampoo
did:  leave him alone. 

> In your obviously o-so-humble opinion.

	No it is not.  Ukyou is never perceived as a serious threat in the
series.  That much I am certain. 

Don
Akane's Dojo - http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/dwang/ad.htm