Nekoken: Useful or Useless?

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

This is something that's been nagging at me on and off for a while, and which I finally decided to put to the test. The Nekoken is one of Ranma's most traumatic "special techniques", but I've always wondered if it even deserves such a title. Has the Nekoken ever truly been of value to Ranma? Has there ever been a fight where Ranma can honestly be said to have won only because of the Nekoken? Let's look at the facts...

*Ranma has faced precisely four people while under the Nekoken's effects. Tatewaki Kuno, Genma Saotome, Cologne, and Maomolin. Genma has never actually tried to fight Ranma while he was under the Nekoken- he attempted to calm Ranma down, only to be savaged by Ranma, who doesn't like him in this state. In the original manga, Tatewaki Kuno actually figured out one of the "technique's" weaknesses within seconds of seeing it- in the anime, he did get beaten up, but Kuno is a weakling and Sasuke promptly figured out the same weakness. In the manga, Ranma never laid a hand on Cologne, beating her shark instead, and Cologne promptly chose to give up- in the anime, Ranma did manage to give her a few smacks, but it's still possible that she surrendered due to being amused at Ranma's stubbornness. Finally, Maomolin is a weak, timid, cowardly, ineffectual villain- the only threat he posed to Ranma was because, as a giant, talking, ghostly cat, he scared the hell out of Ranma due to the attendant ailurophobia.

*The Nekoken cannot be activated voluntarily. Even when Ranma wants to go into the state (see the end of the Phoenix Pill saga), he cannot go into it without a 'trigger' and is still impelled to flee the cat despite wanting to enter the Nekoken- he needs the help of Akane, Soun and Genma to hold the cat in his face (not to mention Shampoo's own willingness to cling to him) in order to prevent him fleeing from the sight of her.

*It takes considerable time and effort to activate the Nekoken- Ranma has only entered it under the aforementioned voluntary attempt, after being locked in a small, dark room with lots of cats and a free tiger, and being molested by a giant ghost cat.

*Due to the panic it induces, while the Nekoken is “charging up”, Ranma’s defenses are wide open, and so anyone with sufficient insight could take advantage of that state and hurt him badly, even beat him, before the move actually ‘turned on’.

*The Nekoken induces a permanent aversion to a very common animal, which basically not only cuts an irreparable chink in the user’s armor but paints it in luminescent neon for good measure.

*While in the Nekoken, the user has the mindset of a cat, and so can be outthought quite easily by anyone who remains calm- witness Kuno realizing that neko-Ranma would much rather chase after fish sausage then fight him.

With these in mind, my opinion is that the Nekoken is only dangerous when Ranma uses it because he’s so skillful already- because he already has a high level of strength, agility and speed, and decent levels of ki, that is why he’s a legitimate threat when in the Nekoken.

So, what’s your opinions?

[Crescent Pulsar]

Well... First, it'd help if the subject of the topic and the poll question matched. I think asking us about its usefulness, but polling us about its power, is conflicting. If it were a question of power, I'd say that it's powerful enough, compared to other notable techniques, when it's successful at what it does. It's usefulness, however, is random at best: because it'd not only depend on how convenient it is to go into the Neko-ken, considering whatever the circumstances might be, but it'd also depend on the skill and intelligence of the foe.

I'll withhold my vote until the poll is adjusted or there's a reason given for the discrepancy.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Sorry, I hadn't realised that I was asking if it was useful, but polling on whether it was powerful. It's been changed to match the actual question.

[Crescent Pulsar]

No problem. I apologize, but I had to make sure what your intent was before I voted.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

No offense taken. It was an frickin' stupid mistake and I need those to be called out. May I ask why you chose a straight "No" vote?

[Crescent Pulsar]

Well, because there was no "it depends" option. ;p I mean, there's no evidence that it is as useful as it because it's Ranma that's using it, since we have no other user to compare it to. But, if I had to guess, based on Cologne's reaction to recognizing the cat-fist, the technique itself probably lends to its fame, not the ability of its users. So I couldn't count the last option as a "it depends" option.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Good point, I've changed the last option to "depends on the skill of the trainee". Is that better?

[Crescent Pulsar]

Why are you asking me? It's your poll! I didn't ask you to change anything. Although the new wording pretty much means the same thing. But, if you're willing to change the poll for our sake, I'd suggest adding a fourth option where "it depends" applies to the opponent, not the user. That way, I imagine, all of the bases would be covered.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

It depends on a great many things; in Different Colors I had Ranma learn to get along with his inner cat. And behold! the technique became both powerful and useful, though still hazardous to use. In canon, however, the neko-ken is just a way of going berserk; and it suffers from all the problems berserkergang is known to have, plus a few special problems of its own.

So if the story is written with the useful neko-ken in mind, it can be a fine technique indeed. Otherwise, it's a useless pain.

[Munchkin]

I voted 'No', because as it stands the Nekoken suffers from far too many drawbacks to be useful in any real way. If you want to modify or revise the Nekoken, then that's a whole different ball-game, but as it stands in either manga or anime form, it's just a deliberate weakness, introduced for both comedy value, and to offset Ranma's otherwise extraordinary skill.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Neko-ken is supposed to be a farce technique. That's even pointed out in the story.

The guide Genma was following to train Ranma in this supposedly FEARSOME technique even had a comment that amounts to: 'If you follow this, you're a dumbass.'

Of course, it seems there are enough dumbasses in Ranma-verse to end up making Neko-ken formidable and imfamous in the terms of 'bringing out the inner animal' of a fighter.

The technique itself, as noted by the instruction manual, is a joke. It lets you know the technique is 'formidable', but the only thing it tells you is how to 'teach' the technique by tossing someone into a room full of starving kitties to fight them off. It was probably some martial artists' prank to another originally.

Problem is... His trauma with the cats caused him to mentally align with them in a PTSD-like symptom. With all his martial arts training and skills... having the mindset of a predator makes him lethal.

So technically speaking, the Neko-ken does nothing. It's all ranma's subconcious skills brought to the surface. In H2H combat, the brain is the bottleneck of combat speed. Without his brain getting in the way, the instinct and pure, skill have nothing to slow them down or restrain them... just a base personality of a predator to direct them. If you taught this technique to a person with no martial arts skills, or anything equating to martial arts skills... you wouldn't get an unstoppable killer kitty... you'd have someone with meowing and swiping at you ineffectually.

Genma could have done this with Dog-fist, rat-fist, BEARS-FIST... Shark-Fist, ant-fist... whatever.
Just toss ranma into a room full of hungry animals a few dozen times to traumatize him nicely, then trigger a mental collapse with whatever phobia you end up with, and watch his inner Animal and raw skill come 'clawing' to the surface.


For Ranma, it's supposed to be a character flaw rather than one of his tried and true techniques.

[Zwzn]

By the end of the series(manga) I seem to recall Ranma not being bothered by a tiger, and when Ryoga tried to date two girls at once Ranma did use some sort of ki claw/blade to cut a hole in the wall. It would well be in character to try to remove a weakness.

I could easily see someone under the neko-ken being an equal threat to friend and foe alike. I don't see it as that useful. At best it is a stupid attempt at a shortcut to power and skill, and at worst the student has something sealed inside him trying to eat his or her soul.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

That's another thing that quirks me; all those people who say that the Nekoken somehow involves spiritual pollution, or demonic possession. Don't Soun and Genma, at varying points, outright say that the Nekoken state works because the user has been mentally scarred to adopt a feline persona when they can't handle their ailurophobia anymore? It's a psychological thing, not magical. In other words, a worst case scenario would have given themselves ailurophobia, a split personality and the other attendent weaknesses of the Nekoken, all for nothing. They've only weakened themselves.

Really, I'm of the opinion that the Nekoken being useful or not depends on the skill of both parties; if the Nekoken 'user' has no fighting skills, then going into a cat means that they're just leaping around on all fours, slower than they were before it kicked in, and trying to scratch with ordinary human fingers. Of course, if their opponent doesn't have the skill (or, more accurately, the brains) to take advantage of the many flaws of the Nekoken, then even a minimally skilled user can be dangerous.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Magical, Spiritual?

O_o;

I believe that would be Fanon, rather than Canon facts.
Thus, those details would be an issue of people believing false sources, mistaking information they pick up in fics, and getting their facts mixed up.

There's no suggestion anywhere in the series or the manga that I have ever seen that suggest that Nekoken is anything other than a joke psychological effect.

I can see where people would come up with the false facts though.
Under the unfluence of his psychological state... Ranma's "Nekoken" feats are rather odd. He has no claws... but he SHREDS a tree like a scratching post. People were likely citing these events and coming up with a justification for them, and it spread through Fanon as 'fact'.

[Reika]

voted "no"
it's mainly a plot device, annoying most of the time from the fear, and really rarely useful as the technic itself
and most of the time it's more a "all or nothing" ability to try where everything else failed
I severely doubt a cat-like berserker would have won against monster-taro, herb-kun or adult-saffron like the real ranma barely did