Sunday, September 30, 2007

Who has the most Pulchritude?

I recently had a poll up on this site asking the question who has the most Pulchritude. The result after 2 weeks were:

Total 46 votes.
Ranma female form 20 (43%)
Shampoo 8 (17%)
Ukyo 1 (2%)
Akane 4 (8%)
Kodachi 0 (0%)
Nabiki 2 (4%)
Kasumi 0 (0%)
What the hell does pulchritude mean I'm to lazy to look it up just to answer a question 11 (23%)

I myself voted for Ranma-onna.

For those of you who didn't know or were just to lazy to look up pulchritude:

pulchritude \PUL-kruh-tood; -tyood\, noun:
That quality of appearance which pleases the eye; beauty; comeliness; grace; loveliness.

Pulchritude comes from Latin pulchritudo, from pulcher, "beautiful." The adjective form is pulchritudinous.
-source dictionary.com

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Ranma uncultured?

A cultured person, in the European tradition, is one who is well rounded and Ranma is definitely well rounded, heck he is probably the most well rounded in skills in the manga displaying knowledge in a large variety of fields (cooking, cleaning, repair work, sewing, horse riding, first aid, CPR, some knowledge on magic, designing (he makes his own disguises in the manga; can be seen sewing a costume before the battle with Mousse - pictured above), tea ceremony, proper manners (though he doesn't always use them), animals, constructed spirit wards (didn't screw them up in the manga only in the anime), dancing (went dancing on a date in the manga), wrote a play and went to see plays), etc.

If you use word net's definition of uncultured that is lacking art or knowledge. Ranma is not uncultured by that definition either. Since he has displayed knowledge in many fields. Is passing in school and doesn't appear to have any trouble with his classes (in the manga, even the anime implies he is passing). As for art he has displayed creativity and imagination and has a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation which are two definitions for art. Heck he even created and directed a play.

Ranma is not uncultured he is uncivilized. They aren't the same thing. One who may be poor and wearing cheap apparel may be considered 'uncivilized', but still he or she may be the most cultured person. Ranma does fit the definition for uncivilized in that he is often rude, doesn't use manners very much (though he does know them), and acts like a savage on occasion (swings - more like bounces - from tree to tree, howling at the moon, eating while crouching on the table, sleeping in trees). He doesn't fit the definition for uncultured.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Ranma Javascript Puzzles on Mexican Site


This Mexican site has some Ranma puzzle games. http://dominioranma.dreamers.com/juegos.htm. Click the pictures and a new window will open up. The games are fairly easy to play just move the blocks around until the picture is put back together. The site also has some Ranma winamp skins http://dominioranma.dreamers.com/musica/musica1.htm

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Anime Cameo's - Crossovers

Conan from Detective Conan makes a cameo in Yakitto Japan Anime

In one chapter of the Bobobobo Bobobo manga, Yugi Mutoh from Yu-Gi-Oh pops out of Bo-bobo's afro and summons Sky Dragon Osiris (AKA Sleifer the Sky Dragon) to help battle Halekulani.

Naruto on Ben 10


Naruto in South Park. (in one instance a guy is talking about about how to solve your childs A.D.D problem. And behind him sitting at a desk, you see a kid with blonde spiky hair, a blue head band and a light orange jacket with the blue parts around the shoulders.)

Super Saiyan in Codename Kids Next Door.

Super Saiyans in Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy.

Goku and Gohen from DBZ show up in Robot Chicken episode called Chickenball Z

Ranma episode 28 - Ataru Moroboshi of Urusei Yatsura makes a cameo in this episode. When Shampoo turns a dog into a man, the man that dog turns into is Ataru.

In Project A Ko, it's hinted a few times that Eiko's parents are Superman and Wonder Woman, though they've never appeared onscreen in costume. (Although they have appeared with costume -- Mrs. Magami is shown sewing or repairing a Superman outfit at one point.)

An episode of Full Metal Panic:Fumoffu had a gangster referring to 'Ambassador Mama', a reference to Ambassador Magma from Astro Boy, with an accompanying pixellated image of his spaceship.

In episode 21 of Keroro Gunsou, thinly-disguised versions of Lupin III and Jigen get run off the road by the Hinata family car in an obvious parody of a scene from The Castle Of Cagliostro. In episode 48, there is an inexplicable appearance by a human-sized version of the giant floating Rei Ayanami from End of Evangelion.

Cromartie High School - Dejiko, Puchiko and Piyoko from the anime Di Gi Charat make several cameos in the anime.

Comic Party has cameos from the characters in To Heart.

Anime called Air - In episode 2, After Yukito tells Potato to wait in the bushes, he asks 3 girls where Kano is, the 3 girls are Ayu, Nayuki, and Makoto from Kanon.

Star Trek has a lot of Anime references. Ships are named after Kei and Yuri from Dirty Pair. In one episode there's a calligraphy of background scrolls that spell out the names of Urusei Yatsura's main characters.

Soul to Seoul Manga volume 1: Spike Spiegel and Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop in a crowd scene.

Robot Carnival anime: a very quick cameo by Tetsuo and Akira from Ohtomo's manga as they quickly walk out of the theme park at the beginning of the story.

Detective Conan cameo in Inuyasha is in episode 128.

Miss Hinako, Ranma, and Akane watch an episode of Doraemon in Volume 30 of the manga.

The following were found by someone else. I just happen to find a text document with them in my documents but I don't know where it was from I had saved it on April 5, 2003 though.

Original Dragonball movie 3 featured Son Goku and Tao Pai Pai fighting in Penguin Village and running into Arale of Akira Toriyama`s other popular series Dr. Slump.

Geobreeders featured a cameo by Kyoko and the Akie`s family restaurant from Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku. (Both Geobreeders and Bannou Bunka Neko Musume were directed by Yuji Moriyama.)

Sawa of Kite has a walk-by cameo appearance in Yasuomi Umetsu`s latest OAV Mezzo Forte.

Fred Ro of Outlaw Star had a walk-by cameo in the first episode of Angel Links. Valria and Douzu appear briefly in Outlaw Star as well, and become main characters in Angel Links.

Tokyo Babylon`s Seishirou and Subaru both appear in the beginning of the X movie.

The short CLAMP anime music video CLAMP in Wonderland features numerous CLAMP titles all interacting, including Rayearth, X, Tokyo Babylon, RG Veda and Clamp Campus Detectives.

Dirty Pair TV episode 26 features very quick little parody cameos by Ataru Moroboshi and Lum from Urusei Yatsura.

In El Hazard: The Wanderers you see magical girl Pretty Sammy show up on posters once or twice, and Jinnai is reading a Tenchi manga in a flashback as well as having a spy bug named Tenchi. In Tenchi in Tokyo Mr. Fujisawa is one of Tenchi`s teachers. During a field trip when Tenchi and his friends fall into a pit at a historical dig site, Fujisawa wonders if they might have fallen into "the magnificent world (El Hazard)." For the most part those are the most noticeable ones. There are others, but they tend to be just a case of name dropping.

The Dirty Pair make their first ever animated appearance as the stars of a drive-in movie in the Crusher Joe movie.

The biggest example of crossovers goes to Leiji Matsumoto who has weaved the entire "Eternal Traveler" concept through Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999 and now Yamato.

Yawara and Jigoro from Yawara! make a quick cameo in Project A-Ko 3.

One of the best examples of a crossover is Scramble Wars, the second part of AnimEigo`s Super Deformed Double Feature. It features several different Artmic characters from Bubblegum Crisis, Genesis Survivor Gaiarth, and Gall Force.

Rio and Yuji from Burn-Up W have a walk-by cameo appearance near the end of Tenchi in Tokyo.

The Daicon 3 & 4 opening animation sequences aren`t really valid entries because they were non-professional, unlicensed, fan-produced shorts, but they do deserve mention because they were produced by the people that would later form Gainax Studio, and feature literally hundreds of cameos ranging from anime to Ultraman to Star Wars.

In the first Tenchi TV series, the Washu robot with Mihoshi`s brain watches Moldiver on TV.

The Dirty Pair return the favor in Project Eden: Crusher Joe appears on a video screen in the Lovely Angel ship while Mughi`s flipping channels.

Misa Hayase/Lisa Hayes appears in a "RATS" style erotic flashback in Orguss.

Rumiko Takahashi has numerous cameos in her series. Lum and Ran appear (in chibi form) at a festival in Maison Ikkoku. Yotsuya-san makes a reference to watching UY videos in one MI episode. Also in UY episode 46, "Lunch is a Battlefield!" Kyoko-san`s father-in-law and Ikuko-chan are sitting at a sidewalk cafe when the gang goes running by.

In Shin Cutey Honey OAV 5, Akira from Devilman assists Cutey Honey.

Tezuka Osamu had frequent cameos of his numerous characters show up in series other than their own, especially in his manga. As someone fascinated with the world of cinema and the musical stage, he seems to have thought of his characters as a sort of "stable" of actors and would occasionally bring them into various stories, sometimes in uncharacteristic roles. As one example, Higeoyaji (whom Americans generally know as Mr. Pompus) turns up in a lot of other anime and manga titles besides Tetsuwan Atomu; Hamuegu (Hamegg) and Asechurin-rampu (Acetyline Lamp) are sort of stock villains that Tezuka used widely as well. And in the anime movie "Marine Express," a number of the characters from Atomu appear in alternative roles.

In the Silent Mobius TV episode "Mobius Klein," Assembler from Kia Asamiya`s Compiler series makes a cameo talking to Katsumi`s Mother.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Pillars Of Moral Character

While browsing the Tvtropes website I came upon the article Pillars Of Moral Character which I found to be fairly interesting. Even though it is not labeled as such, at least at this time, it is a fairly subjective trope. It mostly relies on the readers/viewers interpretation for the events and characters actions. Though it has moral in the trope name, I do not really view it as about morals rather the trope is about Japanese social mores and concept of honor. For those of you who did not click the link or if it had changed this blockquoted text is the details of the trope:
The traditional moral character of both Japanese society and Japanese individuals is built upon four key elements, which can best be compared to the Western concept of Virtues: On, Gimu, Giri and Ninjo. All four of these orbit and touch upon the Japanese concept of Honor, which combines elements of reputation, self-respect and personal moral/ethical code.

Understanding these concepts can often help clarify the motivations and drives of anime characters, and can sometimes explain the differences between what we and the Japanese consider funny, tragic and/or dramatic.

On
The best translation for this term would be "Reciprocity". On is a virtue that requires the individual to acknowledge and repay debts he owes, including debts of honor. A source of I Owe You My Life situations.

Gimu
Can be interpreted as "Piety". If one owes a debt (including a debt of honor) but cannot repay it, Gimu encourages the debtor to show allegiance to the debt-holder in lieu of true payment.

Giri
"Duty". Much more complicated than the Western concept of duty, Giri requires the individual to execute and balance his obligations as the highest function of an honorable life.

Ninjo
Usually translated as "Compassion". Ninjo requires empathy with others, and recognizes that all people are one, beneath the surface differences that karma imposes.
I have looked up those concepts in other places both online and in books and really have not seen any explanation that is really any better than what is given there. I personally do not feel that my understanding of these concepts is sufficient to explain them in any detail. I do want to point out that the above mentioned concepts are not always congruent with one another and that there are other similar social mores in Japanese society beyond those four such as Kenson (a cultural form of humility less important than those mentioned) and the concept of face which, in many ways, is more important than any of the above mentioned ones (is considered by some a large part of the reason Japan attacked the USA and why the Japanese would not surrender easily).

While these concepts can add to your understanding, or explain the characters actions in a different way then you currently view them, it is not really needed to know them to enjoy the manga. Generally I would place my interpretation as to how these concepts relate to the Ranma manga, and while I may do so at a later date, I do not feel like doing so at this moment (I do not agree with what is stated in the examples on the wiki at this time and do not feel like getting into an edit war about them). I will comment that the various engagements, Ranma's promises (beyond just the not actually said to Ryoga P-chan one), the seppuku pledge, the reason why Soun accepted the Gambling Kings possession of his dojo, and a few other things are tied into these concepts.

This post was last modified to the point of almost being entirely rewritten on 1/23/2010.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ranma in Detective Conan


In volume 4 of the Meitantei Conan manga. While Conan is looking up information in a bookstore the other kids are looking at Shounen Sunday which has an image of Ranma on the cover.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Secretive Ranma

There are some minor things in fanfiction that bother me more than they probably should. One thing is stories in which Ranma, shortly after meeting some new people, tells them his life story. This is very out of character for Ranma to do. The reason this is OOC is because Ranma is a very secretive person and has never told his life story to anyone in the manga. In fact Ranma rarely tells anyone anything about himself if he can avoid doing so, the vast majority of the things we know of Ranma's time before coming to the Tendo dojo is from what other people have told (Genma, Ukyo, etc..).

In many fan made stories, Ranma tells people about his curse shortly after meeting people. This too is out of character for Ranma, though not as much, he generally doesn't tell people about his curse preferring that they don't know. He doesn't really try to hide it but most people who found out about it learned of it from witnessing it in action or learned about it from others. For the few that Ranma showed the curse to, he did not tell them how he came to get the curse or anything about it preferring to let them come to their own conclusions. Though others characters did explain his curse to others. An example from the manga, Ranma did not tell Ukyo about his curse she found about it later and Akane told her about it. He also did not tell Densuke or Yohyo and even stated that he wasn't going to.

Ranma in fanfiction often tells people about his fiancée problems. In the manga he doesn't even tell his fiancée's about each other. Ukyo didn't know about Shampoo and Shampoo didn't know about Ukyo until 7 Volumes of the manga after Ukyo's introduction (Ukyo introduced Volume 9 meets Shampoo for first time Volume 16). So telling complete strangers seems very unlikely to me.

In several fanfics, Ranma will boast about beating so and so or say "you should be scared I defeated Saffron" or tell people what martial art styles he knows. Those are out of character as well. Ranma has told no one what martial arts styles he knows, even the readers don't know how many or what styles he knows. He doesn't even tell anyone about the battles he fought or any of his past accomplishments.

One thing Ranma has told no one about and would actively do everything in his power to hide is his fear of cats. People have and do use it against him in the manga. He also does not complain about any of his problems to anyone, knowing that people may use them against him.

Ranma is very secretive and not an open person which makes it so that we know very little about Ranma. The vast majority of his past is unknown. This is good for fanfics since a fic can be written about Ranma helping the police with detective work when he was twelve or having been an assassin when he was fourteen and nothing contradicts that, though you should probably explain why Ranma doesn’t kill anymore except as a last resort. It also makes it somewhat more difficult since Ranma is unlikely to tell us things about his past since he doesn't volunteer information and would tell you the bare minimum about whatever you asked him (would even lie about it if he didn't want you to know). Meaning if you did make Ranma an assassin at fourteen you'll have to come up with a good reason for Ranma to tell anyone or have someone else tell it.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Ryoga's direction sense

Ryoga's direction sense is pretty bad. In some fan fiction they joke that he could get lost in a room with one door. While it's not that bad in the manga, it still is very bad and he seems to accidentally teleport since he has managed to cross large bodies of water without noticing. In the Fan scanlation, he considers both France and China to be in walking distance, while in the Viz version and the text translation he says horse race track and Kyushu (which is a separate island of Japan). He has managed to some how miss Tokyo an area of over 1000 miles by many miles as in 100's (500 miles in VIZ version), ended up in Russia while looking for Hong Kong, went the wrong way in a three legged race, and somehow got himself and Ukyo lost in such away that they managed to get to the finish line first, could not find the exit to Shampoo's house, amongst other times. He also uses the breaking point and shishihadoken to tunnel through the earth, which can not help his sense of direction. As for the picture below, it is from the Fan Scan, in the VIZ version it says Nagasaki in the background and not Hong Kong.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Breast Sizes


The above picture has guesstimated breast sizes/heights of some of the characters. The picture came from this site http://www.fya.jp/~kj2/index.html The website is in Japanese and contains characters drawn in the nude. This artist is very good. Below is a translated version done by a person who goes by the name Kendo. An interesting site about breasts in anime is: Being Upfront: A Pictorial Guide to Bodacious Women in Anime though a lot of the links on that site have suffered from link rot and are now dead.