Cliches & Tropes of Ranma fanon

[mondu_the_fat]

The chase scene
This stems entirely from the opening of the first movie and has snowballed from there so that just about every fanfic opens or includes a "parade of weirdoes". It was a one-off gag, nothing more, nothing less.

"parade of weirdos", as you put it, also happened in the beach episode.

Animayhem (from the 90's) also featured a Major Disaster over that scene, which means not only fanfic writers used the scene as trope.

The food duel
A far more common cliche is the idea of "the food duel"; in this cliche, at every meal, Ranma and Genma attempt to use their chopsticks to pinch food from the other's plate and/or each other's grasp whilst remaining seated, the objective being to eat the most food. This never happens in the anime; the only time something close happens is during the episode "Genma Takes A Walk", and it isn't even Genma and Ranma who do it. It's Genma and Soun, duelling over a hot potato. Genma does steal food from Ranma, but this is more along the lines of grabbing the pickle bowl in his hand and running off, with Ranma chasing him in pursuit.

In the Picolet arc, both Akane and Suon envisioned "Dinner at the Saoteme's" featuring Ranma and Genma grappling over food. Whether or not it happens all the time, it happens a lot/enough for them to think like that.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

The beach episode's chase scene is far more sedate. If we're talking the final one at the end, we have Tsubasa fleeing the amorous Maomolin (or possible the angry mob), Maomolin both pursuing Tsubasa and fleeing the angry mob, an angry Ranma + Shampoo + Ukyo + Genma + Soun chasing the first two to either beat them up, make them fix the stalls they wrecked or force them to buy lunch (or any combination of the three), Kodachi and Tatewaki chasing Ranma, and bringing up the rear a clueless but irate Akane trying to give her riceballs to the others.

Like I say, the manga may contradict me, but what I speak of is generally true to the anime. In the anime version, that little "image" you just mentioned never shows up; the only "food fights" are running battles caused by Genma pinching Ranma's stuff.

[Penguin-sa]

One cliche/trope that seems at least moderately popular in fanon is that Ranma is devestated by the necessity of destroying Saffron. I've read the last volume a couple of times, and the fight does not seem to overly bother him, save for the danger Akane was in. I believe he takes the entirely rational view that Saffron was threatening people he cared about and Ranma was going to do what he needed to do.

[Vilkath]

How about how insane water acts to get to Ranma and the other cursed people? In fanfiction water seems to do almost any thing to splash Ranma, even going as far as to have a single rain cloud rain on his head, water traveling up hill or hot tea flying across an entire diner just to hit Ranma.

To go with that the other cursed characters really don't seem to suffer as much from this water magnet curse as Ranma does. Ryoga has it pretty bad, mostly because him being a pig is rather funny in the series but I have to say in comparision Shampoo and Moose get splashed a lot less often.

I am no expert on the manga or anime, I will admit I have read far more fanfiction then the source material but while the orginal exagerates how Ranma and friends might get wet fanfiction usualy goes a step further to unbelievable.

[mondu_the_fat]

How about how insane water acts to get to Ranma and the other cursed people? In fanfiction water seems to do almost any thing to splash Ranma, even going as far as to have a single rain cloud rain on his head, water traveling up hill or hot tea flying across an entire diner just to hit Ranma.

...

I am no expert on the manga or anime, I will admit I have read far more fanfiction then the source material but while the orginal exagerates how Ranma and friends might get wet fanfiction usualy goes a step further to unbelievable.

Watch the last 2 episodes of the anime, which probably shows the most convoluted methods Ranma can change into a girl. The stuff you listed aren't exaggerations.

[Drawde]

How about how insane water acts to get to Ranma and the other cursed people? In fanfiction water seems to do almost any thing to splash Ranma, even going as far as to have a single rain cloud rain on his head, water traveling up hill or hot tea flying across an entire diner just to hit Ranma.

To go with that the other cursed characters really don't seem to suffer as much from this water magnet curse as Ranma does. Ryoga has it pretty bad, mostly because him being a pig is rather funny in the series but I have to say in comparision Shampoo and Moose get splashed a lot less often.

I am no expert on the manga or anime, I will admit I have read far more fanfiction then the source material but while the orginal exagerates how Ranma and friends might get wet fanfiction usualy goes a step further to unbelievable.

I addressed this on page three of this topic, and I agree with you. Ranma and the others got splashed at the worst possible moment because it's funny, not because it's part of the curse.

[Jupiah]

How about how insane water acts to get to Ranma and the other cursed people? In fanfiction water seems to do almost any thing to splash Ranma, even going as far as to have a single rain cloud rain on his head, water traveling up hill or hot tea flying across an entire diner just to hit Ranma.

I would like to refer you to the story arc that introduces Nodoka in volume 22. At one point, a ridiculous string of improbable events occurs, consisting of the ladle lady splashing Ranma, followed by a broken watermain, and ending with a door-to-door goldfish salesman tripping on a rock and spilling his merchandise all over him. Later, a waitress trips and splashes a cup of water on him, and near the end of the chapter a freak rainshower that lasts for one panel gets him.

This kind of crap also happens to him in just about every other arc involving Nodoka. Hell, the "hot tea hitting Ranma from across the room" thing happens to him twice in the manga if my memory serves correctly. And one of those times was when he (she at the time) was in a changing room stall in a lingerie store. How freakin' likely is that? Genma outright says that cold water seeks out Ranma at one point. It doesn't happen even remotely as often or quite as severely as in fanfiction, but it does happen. Ranma being a water-magnet is canon.

[Vilkath]

Ranma being a water magnet is pretty cannon I guess, but most fan fics try portray the curse itself as the cause which doesn't really seem that likely if you compare the great strides water goes through to get to Ranma compared to the others. I mean come on Shampoo works as a waitress almost every day around countless sources of hot and cold water and yet she isn't constantly a wet cat or human.

I am more inclined to believe the water magnet aspect of Ranma's curse is more specfic to just him and some Kami he or Genma offended, or just the regular curse combined with Ranma's may you live in interesting times curse that he seems to be living under.

[Uldihaa]

Ranma being a water magnet is pretty cannon I guess, but most fan fics try portray the curse itself as the cause which doesn't really seem that likely if you compare the great strides water goes through to get to Ranma compared to the others. I mean come on Shampoo works as a waitress almost every day around countless sources of hot and cold water and yet she isn't constantly a wet cat or human.

Actually, it's probably just a way for a fanfic author to give an in-universe explaination as to why Ranma seems to get splashed so often. Almost all the instances in canon where done for the reader to laugh at and were pretty much ignored beyond that; the situations it created/worsened were funny and that's about all Takahashi was concerned about.

[claymade]

So to put it another way (and yes, I realize that I'm merely restating the insights that everyone else has had, tweaked to my own wording) what is canon is the fact that water has been seen to hit Ranma in extremely improbable circumstances at times. Whatever backstory an author might decide to assign for the explanation of the cause of that fact is, technically, fanon. It could, technically speaking, just be really, really, really ridiculously bad luck.

Personally, inasmuch as it needs to come up in my own fics, I prefer to take Takahashi's approach and have the characters comment on the eeriness of it, without making any particular statements as to its source.

[Uldihaa]

So to put it another way (and yes, I realize that I'm merely restating the insights that everyone else has had, tweaked to my own wording) what is canon is the fact that water has been seen to hit Ranma in extremely improbable circumstances at times. Whatever backstory an author might decide to assign for the explanation of the cause of that fact is, technically, fanon. It could, technically speaking, just be really, really, really ridiculously bad luck.

I'm not really sure it is purely fanon. While it's never out-and-out stated that the curse plays some sort of semi-active role in getting those that are cursed splashed with water, it does seem to be implied. After all, none of the non-cursed are seemingly randomly splashed with water (unless they are standing to close to a cursed character, and even then not all that often). This just seems to hover somewhere in between canon and fanon; though I do agree it leans more toward fanon.

[Jupiah]

Since the water-magnet effect only becomes utterly ridiculous when Ranma is trying to hide his curse from his mother, I'm inclined to say it might have a psychological trigger. That is, the more you want to avoid activating your curse, the more likely you are to be splashed.

This would explain why Ranma is affected worse than everyone else - he simply gets into far more situations where he desperately doesn't want to get splashed than any of the other curse victims. If, say, Genma were to find himself fleeing from a gang of zookeepers intent on capturing him for a panda breeding program, I'd imagine he'd suddenly be attracting cold water through the most absurd methods imaginable as well.

[TerraEpon]

Maybe the emotional chi magnatizes it, in a similar way that depression creates the shi shi hokodan, etc.


Why not?

-Joshua

[Vilkath]

Hehe I still think over all the best explination, if you have to have one is they are a play thing of the gods aka an author and get splashed when ever it's funny to them.

[Dumbledork]

A cliché in Ranma/SM crossovers I've noticed is that Ranma has never heard of the senshi. Hello? If they fight monsters all the time they should at least be mentioned in the news or magazines. And they should be a hot topic in Furinkan. I'd be especially surprised if the resident Furinkan pervs Hiroshi and Daisuke weren't talking about them all the time.