Mark:
> I always assumed that when you fell into the spring,  you took the body of
> whoever or whatever had drowned in the spring. But after reading the
> Nodoka storyline arc last night, I gues it's not true. If you notice,
> Nabiki points out that female Ranma looks just like his mother, so it's
> probably more of a genetic switch - like still genetically Ranma only
> female. It must be the same with all the characters. I mean, if you think
> about it, why wouldn't Ranma come out of the Spring as a Chinese girl
> instead of Japanese, since they wer in China?

Actually, there's enough manga evidence to state that you become a
modified YOU.  When Lime (or was it Mint?) fell into the exact same spring
Ranma did, Lime became a female Lime, not a duplicate of female ranma.
Also, we don't see any change in Ranma's face when he transforms (and NO,
they are not all drawn the same - Ryoga has smaller eyes than Ranma, Kuno
has smallest eyes of all and a drawn out chin, Nabiki's face is shorter
than Akane's, etc...), just a change in size overall and highlights in
his/her hair.  When anyone sees the change from a distance, they note that
Ranma gets SHORTER, not that his hair color changes or that his face
changes.

If you look at how much Shampoo STILL looks like Shampoo when a cat, and
how much MuuMuuchan STILL looks like Mousse as a duck, it pretty much
fits.  Taro and Ryoga are probably the only ones who DON'T look like
themselves in cursed form.  Remember, the Jusenkyo guide never said "take
body of THAT CHINESE GIRL," he said "take body of A young girl.  See?  Now
you young girl!"

The cursed spring of drowned twins also supports this theory - when the
bump on Happosai's head touched the water, a second bump appeared, rather
than the original bump turning into a set of whatever twins who drowned in
the pool.

Now of course, this is different for Akaneniichuan, because the curse
placed on this particular spring was specific to Akane, so anyone falling
there would indeed turn into a replica of Akane.  Nyanniichuan had no such
specifics.

J. Shouryu Nohe
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe
Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
"I don't know, and I don't have an opinion." - Jet Black