The works of Rumiko Takahashi follow a rather unfortunate pattern. She sets up an interesting couple with a will they, won't they setup. They bicker, they argue, they clearly want to bang each other stupid... Or stupider than they already are. How did they turn out then? Ataru and Lum were the first. There's hints of something there, but remember the last line Ataru gave? "I wouldn't admit it (that I love you) even on my deathbed". Not exactly the best end to a romantic relationship in fiction, is it?
Others have fared better. Inuyasha and Kagome probably fucked about half an hour after the last frame of their series ended. Go on, you can imagine it clearly, her yelling 'Sit' as some kind of domplay. Then there's the less well known Yusaku and Kyoko from Maison Ikkoku, who actually did get married and had a baby girl right at the end of the series. Kyoko's plea to Yusaku that he not die before her as she couldn't go through that again still brings a tear to my eye. Heck, Rinne and Sakura actually went on a date at the end of their series.
Then there's Ranma and Akane. Oh yes, Ranma 1/2. Such promise, such potential. Squandered by the irresistible urge to become a gag series, with the occasional action/drama arc that didn't actually progress the overall narrative one single solitary inch. Okay, that's unfair. There are little hints of character progression here and there, but they're so buried under all the weird shit going on that you'd need a magnifying glass and a mountain of patience to find them.
Think of the start of the series. How is that set up? We meet Ranma Saotome. A boy who happens to be a cocky talented martial artist. Raised by his father in the style of a wandering martial artist, he presents himself as the kind of guy who would rather focus on refining his martial arts skills than do stuff with girls. Such a shame that he winds up cursed to become one.
A little before that we meet Akane Tendo. A tough girl who is also a martial artist, and we quickly gleam that she does not much care for boys. It's not hard to see why. Every morning she has to beat off - bad choice of words. She has to beat up a whole bunch of horny idiots trying to earn the right to date her. On top of that, she's almost guaranteed to not inherit her father's dojo simply because she's a girl and society at large is pretty patriarchal. Especially in Japan.
The two of them are then pushed into an engagement by their dumbass fathers. Thing is, they're perfect for each other. They're also <i>terrible</I> for each other. The last thing either of them needs, and the first thing either of them wants. The attraction develops quickly, but so does the mutual antagonism. Neither wants the engagement. Neither has the patience for it. Neither knows how to act out on these feelings they have for each other, and neither believes the other is remotely interested. Not hard to see why. The insults - born from frustration with the nuances of their relationship - kind of make it hard to imagine the connection they actually have.
In spite of this they grow closer. Closer. They try to pretend they don't care. That they don't like each other. Yet they continually watch out for each other. They spend time together. Hints of romance start to bleed through, and any moment now they may actually admit to their feelings.
Or - and I think you'll appreciate the brilliance of this idea - we can complicate things by constantly introducing new wacky characters and situations, keep the two in a holding pattern and don't let them progress with only a passing hint at the end of the series that they're going to get married soon.
Cool! That's a satisfying ending. A hilarious ending like this is exactly what this setup needs! A relationship bordering on the line of comedy and drama ends with a focus on comedy. Is it any wonder Ranma 1/2 fanfiction has thrived for <I>twenty years</i> after the last chapter of the manga was written, and just about ten years after the last OVA was released? It's like trying to scratch an itch directly in the middle of your back. No matter what you try, you can't quite reach it. That's what it feels like for fans of this series. We need a resolution - but the original writer has not given us one. Literally one long running plot point in the manga is actually properly resolved, and that's the whole deal surrounding Nodoka finding out about Ranma's curse. I suppose you could argue for Ryoga saying he's giving up on Akane to pursue his blossoming relationship with Akari, but... that's it! Mousse still wants Shampoo, Shampoo wants nothing to do with him, Ukyo Shampoo and Kodachi all want Ranma's dick, everyone's still cursed, Ranma and Akane aren't married.
Status quo is God. The moment the status quo became untenable the series ended. And that's a shame.
So... Let's step back a little. To a point which I feel is a natural area within the series for the status quo to go piss off and die somewhere in a ditch. To a point where things would have made sense to develop further for these two tsundere idiots, and see how things could have been different if Rumiko had the time and inclination to follow up on what she'd started. Because we can do that. We don't have editors breathing down our necks for weekly content and all the other stresses that a mangaka has to deal with, so we can play around a little.
“Hey you’ve been ranting for a thousand words now!”
“Ranma! This isn’t a fourth wall breaking thread!”
Oops. Got ahead of myself, this has been on my chest for a while now. So let's go to a point towards the middle of the manga. One of those action/drama arcs has just concluded. Ranma and Akane are returning home from visiting a certain mysterious forest, leaving behind a forgetful boy an eight headed dragon, and mystical healing water. Ranma reaches back and offers Akane his hand. She takes it, and then the two of them fall into stoney silence as they try to work through the complicated calculus of their relationship to figure out what this means...
"Sorry for making you worry," Akane had said. She smiled brightly at him, and his heart skipped a beat. "I'm glad we're going home together, Ranma."
Several thoughts skip through his head.<i> "I'm happiest when I'm with you like this. You can't do anything dangerous anymore. From now on, I'll be a nicer guy. I'm glad too."</i> All of these would have been perfectly good things for him to say aloud. Yet he couldn't bring himself to admit it. Saying something like that would be like sealing his fate. It would be a dent on his pride, admitting that he liked this girl. She'd lord it over him forever and a day.
And in the manga that's where it ended. Akane would say "Gosh, why are you so gloomy?" and that would be it. They'd head back home, the status quo remains. But what if, instead...
"What did you just say?" Akane asked.
Ranma stopped in his tracks. "I didn't say anything."
"Ranma, you were mumbling to yourself just now," Akane said. She leaned in closer. Too close. Dangerously close. "It sounded like you were saying you were glad we were heading home too."
"No I didn't!" Ranma protested, tsundere instincts. "I'd never say something like that! Why would I be happy to go home with such an uncute... Uncute..."
In the time he'd been speaking she'd grabbed hold of his other hand, and was squeezing them tenderly. She was looking up at him with this... understanding smile. Then she closed her eyes, puckered her lips, and a word slipped out like a grain of sand slipping down an hourglass.
"Cute..."
And then they shared what Ranma would come to think of as their first kiss, while Akane thought of it as their second. It was chaste. They pressed their lips together, trembled, turned beet red and then jumped away from each other as though their lips were of the same magnetic pole.
“I, uh…: Akane began. “That, I mean, you… me… that….”
"Sure, I mean, you and me, we both. That we, you know, and I..."
They carried on like that for several minutes. Once they'd got their heart rates under control (it helped not looking directly at one another), they took a deep breath and tried again.
"So... Are we a thing now?" Akane asked.
"I... I guess?" Ranma replied. He tugged on his pigtail. They risked a look at one another, and then their eyes met, and suddenly something off in the distance felt much more comfortable to look at. "So, do you... want to be a thing?"
“Do you?”
A few more minutes of fumbling passed before they both confirmed that they both wanted to be “A Thing.” They hadn't quite agreed on what that meant, but they were both extremely pleased with this outcome.
“So, uh, do we tell our dads about this?” Ranma said, a truck driving past them on the dirt road.
Akane held her arms up in an X formation. "I'm barely able to handle being A Thing. You want to get married the second we get back home?"
The word 'yes' flashed across Ranma's soul, but he slowly shook his head anyway. His heart couldn't take that. If he saw Akane in a wedding dress right about now he might actually die.
"S-So... we're dating?" Ranma asked. "I can cope with dating. That's just hanging out. Right?"
"Right?" Akane nodded. "We've been hanging out for a while."
"So... Our relationship is staying the same?" Ranma asked, starting to wonder what he was getting so excited about.
"Well, we weren't k-kissing before," Akane stammered. “And when we’re, err, alone, you can t-touch me, if I’m comfortable with it.”
Ranma looked down. His hands were still holding onto Akane's. They were alone right now. He leaned in a little bit hesitantly. Akane nervously swallowed and made a really cute sound, but then she tilted her head upwards. Their eyes closed and - This was <i>not</I> a chaste kiss, this time around. Because now you had two teenagers who had been sexually frustrated with each other for nearly a year now and things were coming out. They nearly slammed their bodies into each other while making out, Their breaths became significantly heavier, and their hands started slipping under each other’s shirts.
But then, when Akane felt fingers brush against the bottom of her bra she pulled away, “W-wait. We’re outside. E-even if it’s the middle of nowhere I th-think we should calm down a bit!” She said, a little too loud and sounding a bit disappointed in herself. Then she realised her hands were pushing into a pair of breasts, and that she was feeling wet (not like that... Well yes actually a little like that, but not what she meant) and that at some point in their first proper kiss Ranma had flipped genders.
“When did it start raining?”
“I have no idea. I was too busy kissing the girl I like.”
The funny thing was, it didn't matter which of them said that. To Akane, she'd never known Ranma without his curse. It might be a little bit sappy but girl Ranma was still Ranma where it mattered. It wasn't that she was, you know, gay or anything. It was just that she was in a relationship with a guy who was sometimes a girl.
Okay, maybe it was a little gay. Girl Ranma was <i>really</i> cute. The memory of that adorable awkward girl on their first day occupied a special place in Akane’s mind.
"You know, even our idiot, dumbass fathers are gonna work out something happened if we keep this up," Ranma said.
Akane bopped him playfully on the nose. "My father is not a dumbass. Anyway, those girls are probably going to be all over us the second they catch wind of something too."
"And Nabiki would sell us out for half a yen just to see what'd happen," Ranma nodded. "Kasumi might accidentally blab too... I don't think we can tell anyone about this."
The smartest thing either one of them had said to each other in a year. This trend would not last.
"Then we'd better look like we're still fighting when we get home," Akane suggested. "Make it look like everything's normal."
"Huh... What're we gonna argue about?" Ranma pondered. "I guess the normal stuff we argue about?"
"That makes sense," Akane said. "Like those other girls you can't get rid of, or your rude mouth, or just can’t help but needle people.” Akane let out a little laugh, “Also you like to pick fights for no reason sometimes. We could fight about that.”
And the good times had ended, at least for the moment.
"Yeah, yeah, we could argue about that," Ranma said. She tapped her foot. "Or I guess we could argue about your lousy cooking, or how you're a complete hammergirl in the swimming pool. Oh, how about your violent explosive temper and your tendency to easily misunderstand things?"
Akane slowly tilted her head and smiled. It was on, now.
"Well, I'm not the only one that easily misunderstands things, am I?" Akane tersely said. Barely keeping it in, now. "Perhaps we should argue about your treatment of my pet pig?"
"Nah, nah. That won't work at all," Ranma said. "He deserves it. We ought to argue about something that actually matters, like you running off to try and tackle things you're not strong enough to deal with.”
"Well, maybe if someone sparred with me properly I'd break through this glass ceiling, and then I'd be able to handle myself!"
<hr>
Things were boring around here, and Nabiki hated it. You can only bilk Kuno so many times before you need something new, and besides which she didn't even have any new material to scam him with. She needed new material. She needed her little sister and her idiot fiance back.
This is the closest Nabiki gets to regular human emotion everyone, enjoy it while you can. Luckily for her that boredom was soon coming to an end as she heard a familiar sound coming along the street from outside.
"Hey, what's wrong with getting some free food now and then?"
"You're making girls look bad!"
"Nothing about my girl form makes girls look bad, I'm cute as a button!"
"That's part of the problem, you braying jackass!"
"Uncute!"
"Jerk!"
"Enjoy your trip?" Nabiki asked. Both Ranma and Akane then turned to look at her, then at each other, then they turned away from each other with great deliberation and went their separate ways without another word. "Ah... Sometimes it's more interesting when things go back to normal."
And sometimes it's better when things change.
<hr>
Akane had barely gotten into her bedroom when she heard someone tapping on the window. Sure enough, Ranma was hanging from the roof and asking to be let in. Akane opened her window.
“Did we really just argue over <b>what we were going to pretend to argue about?”</b> He said, having gotten hot water in the time between getting home and coming to Akane’s room.
"Sh-Shut up and put those lips to better use." She grabbed Ranma by the shirt collar and pulled him onto her bed.
Ah, young love. Nothing in the world like it. Thank goodness...
- Ranma and Akane’s attempts to get some alone time at home is made more difficult by their new homeroom teacher Miss Hinako deciding to stay at the Tendo Dojo in an attempt to marry Soun.
- The arguments actually get more intense, because the post-fight make outs are <b>amazing.</b>
- The two of them go out on their first proper date. Time to dodge suitors and pretend they're not into each other.
- Happosai finds out, and decides this is wonderful and wants to help! Ranma and Akane do not want his help.
- Something else
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