Ranma and Arrested Development and sympathetic characters

[Nekomata-sensei]

I've recently most of the episodes of the television series Arrested Development, and I couldn't help notice the series has many similarities to Ranma.

Characters are often ridiculously stupid and get into ludicrous situations for petty reasons, and pretty much all the characters besides the main character are incredibly shallow and petty, especially the reoccuring ones and their family, but all for the purpose of humor.

I was mostly offended by the content of Arressted Development at first, only watching it because one of my room-mates was watching it on his own TV and loud enough I couldn't concentrate on anything else. But eventually I grew to like the show, not because I appreciate the type of humor, but because I started to feel more sympathy for the main character Michael Blooth.

I then remembered that I had never liked most of the humor in Ranma when I first read it, and still don't like a lot of the humor, the reason I liked Ranma was Ranma himself, feeling sorry for him and wanting to see him succeed, and relishing his successes. I hate most of the characters in Ranma besides Ranma himself for reasons that are obvious for each individual character, even without them being demonized like they often are in fanfiction, they are still characters who I dislike and can't really find any sympathy, or at least much sympathy for, due to their behavior.

While I won't claim to be an Arressted Development fan, as I still dislike the show, even if I do occasionally find that I like some types of humor used in it, I am a Ranma fan. But unlike most who enjoy the looney toons type slapstick humor and ridiculous situations Ranma is subjected to, I don't like it, and it nearly turns me off to the series.

Those aspects of Ranma were actually why I really started enjoying fanfiction, because I found Ranma stories where Ranma's problems get solved or things are treated more seriously where it focused more on Ranma himself and showed more of his sympathetic side, or possibly made the other characters more sympathetic.

I have noticed quite a few discussions on these boards about the humor in Ranma and criticizing people for not including it, or overdoing it in fanfiction, but how about the sympathetic characters out there, are there any other people who don't like the humor or drama in various series, but still like it because of the hero?

[FriendlyEL]

While I could still laugh at alot of the humor, I have at times rooted for Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle, as I know what it can be like being a relatively decent and intellegent person in a family or working in a job filled with total dysfunctionals.

But you're right. There is some sort of underlying darkness in Ranma 1/2 and I happen to find many charachters to be either barely if at all sympathetic (the men tend to be better about it though, imo). Three headed dog actually made a good forum site mentioning that.

Still, in all honesty I tend to enjoy animes that are meant to be taken seriously. Ranma is one of those shows that could be fairly depressing if you take it like that.