Right after posting my last message, in which I
said that "Big Hips Blues" was a ripe candidate
for skipping in the first Ranma TV series, it
dawned on me that the last, "recap" episode
would have been even more suitably dispensed
with. There is no story; it's just a collection
of excerpts from the previous 17 episodes. 
Definitely a candidate for the cutting room
floor, if something had to go. However, it
looks like it was the product of special
circumstances (that is, something rushed out
as the final episode of the TV series back
in Japan). "Big Hips Blues" looks like a more
"typical" standalone episode without any
impact on continuity that could be skipped
or run somewhere else in the series without
any loss to the world.

Not that I _want_ Viz to skip episodes, mind
you, but they can't afford to let the series
bog down if they hit a boring stretch.

Just as an observation: Urusei Yatsura has had
its share of episodes that I felt were yawners.
But with four episodes to a tape, AnimEigo
could take the risk of one or two losers because
the buyer could usually find a couple of winners
on the tape that would make up for it. With only
two Ranma episodes per tape, Viz has a lot less
margin. And you'll note that UY has gone into
temporary (they say) hiatus at TV tape #15, 
which is a warning sign that even a popular series
can wind down. Part of the problem might be that
UY is pretty much a finished series: with all six
movies and all six volumes of OAVs in release in the
US, buyers might be thinking that 15 volumes of
TV episodes are plenty, and that there isn't going
to be much new or different in the rest of the TV
episodes. Ranma has the advantage that the manga
series is still going and OAVs are continuing to
come out.

Well, I don't claim to have all the answers. I'm
not even sure of the questions.

By the way, USA Today had a piece today mentioning
that some CBS TV show broke the teenage nudity
taboo by showing a 17-year-old girl's bare breasts.
And that was a live action drama! I hasten to add
that this isn't something that makes _my_ heart go
pitter-patter -- I'm at an age where 30 is starting
to look awfully young -- but it seems to mean that
if a broadcast TV network can do it in live action,
Viz may yet find a slot for a certain Japanese
animated TV series on cable.

--Dwight Decker