On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 06:41:31PM -0500, pink@laura-chan.com wrote:
> May as well introduce myself, though it seems that this ML is rather quiet these

> days.  I used to post here as an annoying high school-aged brat in 1997/98
> under the nickname, "Pimpin' Imperial Majestrix of SD-ism Laura" (PIMoSDL for
> short).

Sashiburi,nee...

I'm another long-time reader, still lurking.

> 
> Wow, it's been -many- years since I've typed that.  Anyway, nice to meet you
> guys.  On to something relevant. [...]
>
> What I gathered from seeing an ending that implies that life for them will
> continue as it always has is that there's not much to the story past a group
> of *cough* colorful people who live a very interesting life. I'm not 
> saying that people should feel the same as I do about it, but for me 
> it's a good way to end the story.  To me it's like saying the story 
> and characters that I was so enamoured of will always be this way.

For me, Ranma is somewhere on a line between UY and Maison Ikokku
on the comedy-to-plot axis. It's also almost as vague as UY
about having a sense of time. But you do see some incremetal
growth in the characters: onna-Ranma has to go shopping for 
a bra ;)

It seems like the main area of development was in what I called
the "arms-race" of opponents. As Ramna got more powered-up
he had to be given opponents that were still significant threats.
Which led to him getting more powered up.

What Takahaski managed to do fairly well was alternate comic,
romantic, and matial-arts story arcs. The best stories had
elements of all three, but there was always this ebb and flow
in the seriousness of the plot.

Right now Inuyasha fandom is about where Ranma fandom was in 1995
when I got involved: except of course that the US anime industry
has powered-up ;)

I just finished watching Pita-ten a week or two ago, and also
the first season of Maria-sama ga Miteru. On the US release front
I'm getting Maison Ikkoku, Marmalade Boy, and Wedding Peach as they
come out (though I've got parts of the Japanese release of all
three).