>Your above statement makes *me* sure that you just go around attacking
>Akane just because you cannot face the facts that Ukyo has flaws.

Ukyou has flaws.  I never debated the fact that Ukyou *does* in fact have
character flaws.  Without them, she would be a basically uninteresting
character.

However, Akane is *not* a good fighter, and could definitely not beat Ukyou
in fighting (or just about anything else for that matter).

>He can face up to his feelings, but *every time* Ranma tries to show them,
>*somebody* interrupts! More often than not, it'll be Ranma & Akane's
>parents!

Sure he can face up to his feelings.  That's why he's still engaged to
three people, right?  And that's also why he hasn't told Kodachi to bug
off, right?

The man has a responsibility which he refuses to face up to, making him a
coward.  End of story.

>Ranma doesn't bully Kuno or Ryoga, in case you haven't noticed, they attack
>him, they find Ranma mostly for the sole purpose of extracting vengeance to
>some perceived slight. When they have problems, Ranma is usually the one
>who helps them out!

Yeah, right.  Ryoga has helped Ranma on several occasions (during one of
which Ranma repaid Ryoga by almost killed him and not giving a damn about
it), but it almost never happens vice-versa.

Ranma *does* bully Kunou.  Every time he seems him, it's a one-hit
knockout.  Definitely bullying.

>That would not be abuse, sure it causes them unending trouble, but if he

How about the Secret Sauce?  Was that not abuse?  Or the time he screwed
with Ukyou's feelings in the Reversal Jewel story?

>does choose *anyone*, *all* of the other girls would immediately converge
>and attack the one chosen or him or both! Ranma had never *EVER* hit
>*either* of them willingly, and that is when he knows it's them!

Ranma hasn't actually hit Akane, but he planned to.  Ranma *has* hit Ukyou
before, and was planning on beating her up once, too (after promising to
take care of her and not keeping his word, I might add).

>That is not cheating, Ranma never splashes Ryoga to win a fight! Those two 

He has, on occasion.

>other 'cheating' incidents weren't the last tactic he uses to win the
>fights he was in! Ranma made Herb fire off a Hyru Shoten Ha and then uses
>the resulting whirlwind to form his own thought-up-on-the-spot attack!
>Ranma got Ryoga to fire off a *huge* full Shishi Hokodan and then uses the
>blast to help him knock out Ryoga in one hit! Ranma has never *EVER*
>cheated to win a fight!

He's done it lots of times.  How did he get him to fire off that shishi
houkoudan?  I consider that messing with Ryoga's mind.  Therefore, it's not
a fair contest of skill.  Or how about the time Ryoga was about to beat the
snot out of him, and he suddenly said, "Hey, there's Akane!"  Ryoga looked,
and Ranma jumped on his head?

>For not telling Akane that he is P-chan! For participating in schemes to

All Ryoga's trying to do is protect her.  He knows that if he tells her who
P-Chan really is, he won't be able to stay with her at night, and therefore
wouldn't be able to guard her.

>separate Ranma & Akane! For betraying Ranma when trying to get the Japanese
>Nannichuan, he automatically clams up about the Nannichuan and then attacks
>Ranma saying that he is defending the girls locker room from Ranma! Want
>any more examples!?

Ryoga was defending Akane.  That, actually, was the 'honorable' thing to do
in that case - defend the one he loves.  While Ranma and Ryoga both had the
wrong idea in that whole part, Ryoga made the best of a bad situation.
It's my opinion that after Ranma was out of the way, he would search the
locker room, meanwhile acting as protector for Akane.

This isn't lying; it's called strategy.

>Then exactly what was Ranma doing helping him find his way home?? What
>makes you think that Ranma's any different??

Because Ranma's never displayed that he's 'love starved' in the same way
that Ryoga is.  And Ranma doesn't have the pig curse or a horrible sense of
direction to deal with.

As for Ranma helping Ryoga find his way home, he did that more for the
humor than anything else, taking Ryoga purposely on a roundabout route to
get a laugh, etc.

>Since when is making up new attacks cheating?? Ranma doesn't cheat! Sure he
>uses distractions, so do every one else, whether to escape to win or to get
>setup for a move/countermove!

Getting outside help (and getting two of your allies to win your fights for
you) is not winning fairly.  Of course, that doesn't stop Ranma from
claiming victory and than gloating about it.

>So, it wasn't immediately before the final attack!

It's still there.

>Ki attacks don't work too well on either of them anymore unless it's one of
>those wipe-out-the-city types! That's why they always attack hand to hand
>or with weapons! The reason why I say Ki attacks don't affect them much is
>because of the sheer amount of Ki they were throwing at each other in the
>first story of their learning it! All the boulders that hit Ryoga during
>his training of the Bakusai Tenketsu made him immune to lighter hits, and
>all the Ki blasts both of them took made them immune to standard Ki blasts!

All Ryoga would have had to do in the shishi houkoudan storyline to beat
Ranma is take off his belt sword and slash Ranma's head off while he was on
the ground, stunned. 

>We're talking about people who can bring down concrete walls without
>feeling much, a smashing of someone against them won't feel much in
>comparison!

They'll feel something.  Besides that, Ranma kicked him because he was in
the way.

>Those occasionally occurring occasions happen more often than Ryoga's
>appearances!

Yeah, right.  Like what?  Most of the time we see him, we get to see him
being scum.

>Because, just like Ryouga, he's shy. Most Japanese boys his age, even in
>RL, are shy.

Thing is, most of the time (this holds true for Ryoga, too), it doesn't
*matter* if boys his age are shy.  No one gets hurt because they're shy.

Ranma is a different case, because keeping all four girls hanging off him
is hurting them.  His indicision is causing a great deal of fighting, and
plenty of grief.  He has a responsibility to choose, and he's not living up
to it, therefore marking him as a coward.

>Dur, because he's jealous. Same thing for when Akane hits him - because
>she's jealous.

He doesn't have any right to be jealous, because at that time, he never
shows Akane that he likes her.  Ryoga is about to, and Ranma jealously
interferes, pretending to be his fiance/sister.

Ryoga deserves a fair chance, same as Ranma, and every time he's about to
take it, Ranma gets in the way.

Besides, being 'jealous' doesn't justify doing what Ranma is doing to Ryoga.

>Very simply justified. Or would you let your SO go out with some other
>guy, and be happy with it? Or would you try to stop it?

First of all, what's an SO?

Assuming it means the equivalent of 'fiance,' if I was in *Ranma's*
position, then I would have no right to interfere with Ryoga.  If the
circumstances were different, so might my answer be, as well.

>Having a girl like Ukyou "care" about him is a lot more pain than
>he deserves, yep.
>
>I'd lie to get rid of her, too. Or a guy like her. ;p

Yeah, whatever.  He could just tell her, "I don't love you, go away," and
the whole problem would be solved, but instead, he gives her lies, pretends
to be drunk so he can beat her up, and doesn't face up to a responsibility
that he has that is hurting everyone around him.

>He doesn't cheat on Akane, which is the main thing.

Yeah, that's one of his (few) good qualities.

>So does everyone else. And, no, he has no responsibility to Ukyou. She
>went and attached herself to him when she'd already been dumped. And
>he has zero responsiblity to Shampoo and Kodachi, too. They are also
>hangers-on. He only has a responsibility to Akane.

He has a responsibility to Ukyou and Shampoo in that they like him (love
him, actually) and he's letting - encouraging them, even - them do so.
Shampoo is not a 'hanger-on,' she's bound by her screwed up laws to marry
him.  Ukyou has been formally engaged to him once, not to mention the
promise he made to take care of her for the rest of her life, following up
on that promise by attempting to beat her up.

>Yes, he treats her bad, but that is because he is shy.

He treats her bad, and he treats the rest of his fiances bad.  Abusive at
times.

>He's not more abusive than any of the other _fighting_ characters.

How about Ryoga?  Who does Ryoga 'abuse?'  Ranma?  Ranma singlehandedly
destroyed Ryoga's life, and has screwed with his personal life *far* too
often.  He doesn't 'abuse' Ranma, Ranma abuses him.  He merely is trying to
get back at Ranma for ruining his life.

>You really are Blade, aren't you? You only hate Ranma because he mistreats
>Ukyou, however much you deny it... Same with Blade... ;p

No, I'm Hunter Kid, not Blade.  (Thinking of changing the handle,
though...the 'kid' part gives people the wrong impression sometimes...)

I hate Ranma for a variety of reasons, though, only one of which is that he
mistreats Ukyou.  And the fact that he's a source of misery for everyone
around him, amongst other things.

>Could it be that you're just an Ukyou fanboy who's intention it is to
>blame everyone but Ukyou (including Takahashi-sensei) for her actions?

It could be, but it's not too likely.  Ukyou's circumstances often lead her
to rash behavior (OOC sometimes, IMO); same with Ryoga's.  So no, I guess I
don't really blame them for what they do.

Anyway, for the most part, anything Ukyou does is mostly harmless.  She
basically wants to marry Ranma, and that's it.  Even the infamous
okonomiyaki bombs - they hit Ranma, only doing minimal damage.  The one who
destroyed that place was Happousai, with his disgustingly powerful Happou
Daikarins.

Ryoga, who I mentioned above, is *not* mostly harmless, probably much to
the chagrin of whoever owned the land that he put those huge craters in
with the complete shishi houkoudan.

>They were perfectly acceptable for the crap Ukyou was pulling, yes.

Which was that?  Trying to marry him?  She's done that before.

>Ryouga butted in his nose by trying to mess with Ranma when all Ranma
>was doing was keeping Akane warm. They're both used to it, so yes. It was
>perfectly acceptable.

Ryoga also saved Ranma's life (and his hair... :P) earlier in the
storyline, to which Ranma never showed any gratefulness.  So what does
Ranma do?  He uses his HSH on the lost boy.  Some real gratitude, that.

>At least Ranma didn't bash up Ryouga when he was unconsious, unlike a
>certain Ukyou in the same story...

I don't remember what Ukyou's part was in that story, actually.  What was
her quarrel with Ryoga?

>Akane wanted him to date Kodachi, or did you forget that?

Actually, I did forget it, but still... :P

First, answer a question for me:  Did Akane want him to date Kodachi, or
did she give a sarcastic "I don't care WHO that pervert goes out with"
statement?  If it's the former, okay, I back down (just this once mind you!
;), but if it's the latter, my opinion remains unchanged.

>That was pretty crappy of him. I'd have bashed him up, too. :p

N-no way...it can't be.  Impossible.  Does that mean that...we AGREE on
something?

>And, lets put this back to you: You always have excuses for Ukyou, even
>if they are so stupid as to insult Takahshi-sensei because you didn't
>like the way in which Ukyou acted, or didn't act, or who she met, or

I didn't insult Takahashi-sensei (respect her too much to do that), but
Ukyou's actions were OOC in the last scenes, and Takahashi-sensei decided
to make the ending melodramatic, which is fine, but she did it by making
some of the characters act OOC, which, IMO, is not a very good idea.

>who she didn't meet, etc... At least here people give RANMA's reasons,
>rather than saying "Takahashi-sensei wrote it like that, so blame her
>not Ranma! He was OOC when doing that!" *rolls her eyes*

If you want me to accept that Ukyou was IC during the last scenes, I won't.
 However, for the sake of argument, let's say she was.  (Destroying her
mother-in-law's house was a little *too* far OOC, though, so I'm going to
ignore that for the time being.)

Various reasoning I can come up with:

1.  The circumstances were against her.  She sees Ranma and Akane about to
get married, and her mind snaps - kinda like when Ryoga goes berserk.  So
she does something rash - flinging bombs at the both of them, intending to
slow down the wedding or entirely stop it, if possible.

2.  Right now, I don't feel like coming up with a number two.  If you want
me to, I shall. ;)

>So stop it with the stupid insults here, because you do a hell of a lot
>worse when "defending" other characters.

I don't think so.

>HK, are you really Blade?
>
>Or did you just cut and paste Blade's post from somewhere?

What's with this 'I'm Blade' stuff?  I don't think I have anything in
common with him except for a love for Ukyou and a dislike for Ranma, and
the fact that we're both writers.

Hunter Kid
http://www.serve.com/guilds/ranma/
guilds@mail.serve.com