General Questions mk 2

[Jupiah]

Here's a question about the Amazon Village: Just how 'backwater' and 'primative' is the Amazon Village? In the story arc that introduced Pink and Link, Shampoo shows Ranma a newspaper from her village. The newspaper is very professional looking and has photographs, evidence that the village at least has access to cameras and a printing press. And if the Jusenkyo guide has a telephone, than I'm sure the Amazons have them too. In the story arc where Mousse dates a statue, Shampoo is shown playing a video game system on her television. I'm not sure if this is canon or fanon, but I've pretty sure Cologne likes her soap operas. The video games and television don't prove anything (because they could have bought them after coming to Japan) but they show that Shampoo and Cologne are comfortable with using modern technology. And finally, Shampoo is trained in the art of Martial Arts Takeout, evidence that their village is advanced enough to have fast food joints. It seems to me that while the Amazon Village is indeed behind most modern countries technology-wise, it's nowhere near as primative as most fanfiction makes it out to be.

Another question about the Amazons: Is there only one Amazon village, or is there a small nation made up of several villages? Pink and Link come from a nearby village called Yaocaicun, and Mousse is often speculated to be from outside the Amazon village. I can't really remember, but I think Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung are from another village too. No evidence as to how these villages interact politically is given, so I'm really asking for your opinions on the matter. Are all of those villages 'Amazon territory'? The only real evidence I can find that they are linked somehow is the fact The Amazon newspaper is apparantly distributed to outside villages, since Pink and Link read the issue about Shampoo and Ranma.

[Spokavriel]

In the manga there are definitely at least 2 if not more Amazon Villages. While Xian-Pu was a child she use to go to a neighboring village and beat up those two herbalist kids. I think they were Pink and Link Over. But it clearly states that they were in another village.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I was just watching Les Miserables of the Kuno Estate and I started wondering... while Gosunkugi is, to all practical purposes, completely harmless and a non-entity, do you think that Sasuke could actually be dangerous after some training/in the right environment?

Sasuke's primary fault is he's sorta klutzy- he tends to misjudge the position of things so he ends up crashing into them. He actually is a fairly competent ninja beyond this, it's just that he's barely above "mook" level- the same degree of capability as the student kendoists, wrestlers, karate and sumos that Akane used to KO every morning.

He also seems to be orientated less towards a "traditional" ninja role and more towards a "trapmaster" role- it's his job to invent, devise, build, maintain and use the various traps and booby-triggers hidden around the Kuno estate. In "Genma Takes a Walk", Ranma suggests to Sasuke that he'd be better off training than building dumb gadgets, so perhaps this focus on altering his environment beforehand to aid him has hindered his capabilities?

Come to think of it, what are his capabilities? He's pretty good at stealth, he can move fairly fast and knows some basic fighting moves (see Les Miserables for a demonstration- he has a fight with Ranma after being brought to the Tendo House), and he's definately determined (once remaining unmoving in an exposed mailbox, not leaving or sleeping, for four days straight in the middle of summer)...

[Spokavriel]

Sasuke appears to be trained to be an intelligence gathering Ninja but he's been forced into the role of gentlemens gentlemen and at the mercy of his charges whims. He frequently makes comments about Grand parents possibly his or of the Kuno line that are responsible for the creation of the traps around the estate. He may be able to maintain them barely but he was not the one to ever make an effective trap more complex than him popping out of the bushes. Any success he has had with things that are not based on covert behavior seems to be on accident.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

When does he refer to his ancestors? I recall only two times: he mentions that a trap in the garden hasn't been used since his gradfather was alive, and he says something about being the 17th generation of his family to serve the Kunos in "Sasuke's Mission Improbable".

Come to think of it, out of Gosunkugi and Sasuke, which one has the worse life? Which one has more grounds to be miserable and depressed?

[Spokavriel]

Those are the references to his lineage and that episode with the garden scene shows most of the traps. All of them are The House of Kuno devices but he doesn't take credit for making them. Although I do have to say hopping in and torturing the unexpected guests using a paddle ball keeping his balance says something for his agility.

Between Goz and Sasuke I think Sasuke has more fun but Goz has a better life. Sure his whole family has bags under their eyes but he does have his family and the only tortures he goes through are self imposed.

[Necavit]

Isnt there a scene where a bunch of guys try to mug Gos?

That dosnt seem self imposed

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I think so, I know the Hinako OAV starts with that sort of scene, but bullies are a minor part of his life- especially in the comics. For the most part, Gosunkugi gets into trouble because he's trying to chase Akane or to get back at Ranma.

A new question: something I've heard here and there is that Shampoo is in love with Ranma only for his martial arts prowess. While somewhat likely for the manga version, given what I've heard about her, is there any eidence for this in the anime? Actually, what is the evidence, period?

[claymade]

Actually, what is the evidence, period?

You mean, aside from the fact that she goes from complete indifference toward Ranma to passionate love for him after he beats her in a fight? In fact, her whole first arc the language barrier prevents them from having so much as anything resembling a meaningful heart-to-heart conversation with him--and yet that doesn't deter her from falling head over heels for him.

Even more, as mentioned in other threads, the person he is seems quite disposable to her. She's entirely willing to reduce him to a brainwashed love-slave so long as his body, at least, is hers.

The dots aren't hard to connect, and they form a quite consistent picture.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Exactly what mind-warping items has she used? The only items I recall having anything near that sort of effect are the Imprinting Eggs from the manga and, to a lesser extent, the Hypnotic Mushroom. The Love Pills and Red Thread leave the personality intact, they just instill love. Ranma's behavior while under the Red Trread of Fate and the Amorous Bandaid was, apart from his openness about his feelings and the choice of his target, completely normal.

[claymade]

The Love Pills and Red Thread leave the personality intact, they just instill love. Ranma's behavior while under the Red Trread of Fate and the Amorous Bandaid was, apart from his openness about his feelings and the choice of his target, completely normal.

...huh? Ranma under the love pills was utterly unrecognizable as anything remotely resembling himself. So utterly consumed by love for Cologne that he was passionately embracing her, proclaiming his love for her loudly, publicly, and flowerily, wanting to marry her immediately...

Talk about "his openness about his feelings" is a nice and sanitized euphemism. The fact of the matter, though, is that we're not just talking about rewriting his personality to the point of loving someone he wouldn't naturally (though that in itself shows an extreme lack of concern for his actual character). We're talking about making Mr. Romantic Hesitance so hopelessly overcome with love for someone that he'd marry them straight off.

In the end, Ranma's character clearly wasn't why she fell for him in the first place. Furthermore, it's also clear that she wouldn't at all mind changing it to a character that's appropriately adoring of her through means magical. Taken together, it's rather obvious what the cause of her infatuation with him is.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I agree, whatever canon, the love pill affair was one of Shampoo's nastiest moments. That, however, was the most extreme personality alterations she's inflicted- and it's still nowhere near as bad as the damage Akane did to him in "Am I Pretty?", where Ranma not only believes he's a girl, but hates violence, faints at the sight of blood, wants to give up martial arts for flower arrangement, tells Akane he wants to be a bride someday and goes shopping for bras, refusing to accept that he's still in his boy body.

The Love Pills are still only one case... and if that's all that needs to be for Shampoo to be declared interested in him solely for his martial arts, then what does that make Akane?

I'm not denying that she did use the Love Pills on him, nor that it was an incredibly vile thing to do. However, if Shampoo was interested in him solely for his skills, why did she interfere in the fight between him and Mousse to the extent she did? Even if she was simply sabotaging Mousse because she hates him, if it was purely loathing of Mousse that drove her actions, why would she go to the extent of giving him explosive weapons rather than simply dull/broken stuff? If it was purely hate that drove her to give him explosives, why did she take him back to the Cat Cafe and give him a job there afterwards?

Likewise, why would she defend Ranma from Ling-Ling & Lung-Lung? Merely warning him about his presence would have sufficed as a 'nice thing', but Shampoo actively stands between them when they attack Ranma-chan and gives them the Kiss of Death for their refusal to stop attacking him. Why, if his skills were all she values him for, would she do something like that instead of letting them go after him -with or without warning him beforehand- and, if he fell, deeming him unworthy of her love by being less skilled than she had thought?

The same goes for Monlon- if skills were all she valued, why save him from an opponent who had clearly overpowered him?

[Spokavriel]

She went to the extent she did with Moose because unlike the blind bird boy she sees and learns. She knew that he wouldn't notice nor care about the sabotage at that level and anything less wouldn't have much of an effect on him anyway.

[claymade]

I'm not denying that she did use the Love Pills on him, nor that it was an incredibly vile thing to do.

*shrugs* As I've said before, tallying up moral scorecards is, most of the time, uninteresting to me. Ranma clearly forgives her, and such things never ultimately have a lasting effect in the Ranmaverse anyway. I find the insight it gives into her motives to be far more meaningful than trying to mathematically determine how much we "should" condemn her for something like that in a comedy manga.

The Love Pills are still only one case...

The Red String of Fate also makes Ranma so completely enthralled with her that he's ready to marry her in short order.

...and if that's all that needs to be for Shampoo to be declared interested in him solely for his martial arts, then what does that make Akane?

For the life of me, I can't even follow what your reasoning here is. Is the idea supposed to be that Akane wanted Ranma to become a girl in that episode? How on earth does any of this relate to the question of what it is that attracts either of them to Ranma?

However, if Shampoo was interested in him solely for his skills...

Your reasoning here seems to be "if his strong fighting abilities are the attribute that Shampoo finds attractive about him, then she'd never help him out in any of his fights." That simply doesn't follow. Especially when he's outnumbered--or she suspects he might be trying to throw the fight.

"Strong, good-looking male warrior who defeated her" is obviously what made her fall head-over heels in love with him in the first place--and he's the one she's bound to marry anyway. (As far as looks go, we can't tell what proportion they played, if any. Ultimately, though, the germane point is not so much what it is that attracts her, as what it isn't--that is, not anything that would be lost through making him devoted to her through mind control.)

In the end, just because she's sane enough to realize that nobody can win every single possible fight alone, that is meager proof that his still-amazing skills aren't the primary basis of her crush. Certainly they were the clear basis for it to begin with, and we're never shown any indication of a change in her perspective that I can recall.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I think it's best if we agree to disagree here, otherwise we'll be sniping at each other forever. I will say this in parting" I don't consider that Shampoo truly wants Ranma for skill alone, because while she does try mind control twice, it's always an opportunistic thing. *All* of the characters seize any advantage that falls into the hands, irregardless of possible consequences. During the Super Soba story, Akane doesn't hestitate to use her illegitimately gained muscles first in a tournament, then to fight Shampoo. Ryoga doesn't hesitate to use the Koi Rod of Love when he finds it, Ukyo the Love Umbrella... there are other examples as well that I can't remember.

If Shampoo actively sought out ways to mutilate Ranma's mind, if she deliberately tried stuff like going after him in his sleep with personality/memory altering shiatsu or went out of her way to look for mind-warping magics, then I would undoubtedly agree with you. However, she doesn't. Twice she gets love magics all but handed to her on a silver platter, so she uses them. She doesn't go out of her way to find out about them in the first place.

As a note, manga-Ranma himself uses mind-controlling magic on a few occasions, and he uses them deliberately. Trying to stick the Flower of Womanhood on Akane, using those mind-altering incenses on Happosai and Ryoga during the Pantyhose Taro and Two-Timing Akane & Akari stories...

As for that point about Akane, I got mixed up. The point I was trying to make was that Akane has deliberately tried to kill Ranma at least as many times as Shampoo has used mind control on him. So, by the same logic you seem to be applying, Akane wants Ranma gone or dead, preferably the latter.