Ranma's use of insults in the manga

I was talking to an Akane fan earlier and they were talking about how Ranma deserves to be hit by Akane because he always insults everyone. This is not true; Ranma does not insult everyone, even if that was true it is not a good reason to hit someone.

When Ranma first meets people he is nice and doesn't insult them until after they have done something to upset him. This is shown many times in the manga. When he first came to the Tendo's he was polite and not insulting until after the Tendo's insulted him repeatedly. He was polite to both Ukyo and Ryoga (contrary to some peoples way of thinking Ranma would rather talk than fight), etc. If your polite to Ranma he'll be polite to you. He is always polite to Kasumi, even uses the -san honorific for her. He is even polite to Happosai when Happosai hasn't done anything to annoy Ranma for awhile.

Ranma accidentally insults people sometimes because of his inadequate social skills (doesn't think about ramifications of what he says and treats girls like they were guys -which isn't that uncommon for people who went to all boy schools) and his upbringing. An example of accidental insult is: During an early volume of the manga Ranma wears Akane's clothes because his clothes are in the wash and Kasumi and Nabiki pressure him into it. He is asked how the clothes fit and replied honestly that top was too tight bottom was too loose, inadvertently insulting Akane. No insult was intended.

Sometimes he insults people because they insult him (ok often). An example of this is most of Ranma's dialog with Pantyhose Taro.

Ranma also uses insults as a means of manipulating people or to serve a purpose. He uses these type of insults to spur someone on, anger them in battle, trick them to do something/not do something, and to avoid things (like eating Akane's cooking).

Some of Ranma's insults may have been meant as compliments but were worded wrongly or not taken in the manner Ranma meant them. Akari is the person who did this the most with her comparing Ryoga to a pig; they were meant to be compliments but were taken as insults. I think Ranma does this as well but can not think of a specific instance where he did so off the top of my head.

Contrary to what some Akane lovers say Ranma was not the one who insulted Akane first. She insulted him multiple times before he insulted her. See the first volume where she insulted his gender and curse when he makes a comment in retaliation to her insults she hit him with a table while his back was turned. Considering the way the Tendo's and Akane were treating him (basically arguing about not wanting him, treating him like an object, and insulting him) his comment was fully warranted. Ranma really doesn't insult Akane much more often than she does him (if he in fact actually does do so more). I'm fairly sure there are volumes in which Akane insults (either purposely or indirectly) Ranma more often than he does her. I've had people argue with me that Ranma's insults are worse than Akane's this is not true. Akane's insults to Ranma are as bad as or even worse on occasion than the insults Ranma uses on her. For example, she has accused him of trying to rape Miss Hinako, in volume 8(VIZ) she said that his body has always been sick and twisted, told him to stay a girl and marry a guy, etc.

Ranma does not always insult her when given a reason to and has attempted to not insult her on a several occasions. For instance some people say that Ranma always insults her cooking, sewing, etc. In the manga, when she first cooked for him he took one bite and tried to just continue training instead of insulting it (she then tried her own food, said it was bad, and threw a rock at him). As for her sewing he did not purposely insult it, ever. Two instances exist in the manga, one he did not know she was around and said "how can something sewn that looks like it was sewn by a third grader be so hard to pull off!?" and the second time he said "that's a rabbit I thought it was a jellyfish" which isn't really an insult particularly since it looked like a jellyfish. Since I'm trying to be fair Akane does not insult Ranma every chance she gets either and she has on occasion not hit/insulted Ranma when, in my opinion, it would have been excusable for her to do so.

In a related thing, since cuss words are most often insults, In the original Japanese and all the English fan translated versions of the manga Ranma, and some of the other cast members, use swear words (or extremely rude language that if properly translated would be equivalent to cuss words) .

4,000th US Military Death of the Iraq War

Yesterday the 4000th US soldier died of the Iraq war. That's the official number. In reality the number is probably higher since I'm pretty sure they aren't counting the soldiers who committed suicide after returning and not telling us about every death. Many times that number have taken serious crippling wounds and will be handicapped for life. I do not know how many soldiers from other countries have died. As for how many Iraq's died, only god knows but the number is probably over a million. The vast majority of them undocumented by anyone. Using documented figures alone for Iraq deaths the body count is over 80,000 according to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. Several studies say over 1/2 million dead. The Lancet survey in June 2006 figured 654,965 excess deaths. The Opinion Research Business survey of August 2007 figured 1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the conflict.

I am against this war and all wars. This is an unjust and illegal war. War is supposed to be your absolute last choice. Preemptive wars are especially wrong for many, many reasons. Imagine if every country decided preemptive war was ok or if a country with nuclear weapons decided to preemptively attack a country that also had nuclear weapons (like India and Pakistan).

Today I went to a commemoration of the 4000th dead US soldier. The planned event was to hold a string 1 mile in length of the names of the US soldiers killed in Iraq and for there to be 4000 white lights. There was no where near enough people to hold up the string (and it was to windy) so they were taped to the side of the bridge. There were 4000 lights in the form of Christmas lights but there was insufficient power to light them all. Considering the small amount of time in which people learned about this event (many just that morning), the bad weather (windy, cold, and started to rain), and the time of the event (5:00 when many people would be leaving work and not able to make it); I was sort of surprised by the number of people who did show up. Many people including myself held up anti-war signs.

Local television channels came to record the event. As far as I know I was not shown on the news but that does not bother me. I am just happy that it made the news. The news is not showing the consequences of the war as well as they should. Well watching the news they spend more time on nonsense entertainment news then on the war. They very rarely even tell of the number of people who have died for/because of this war or show anything about the war. If I want to know about the war I turn to foreign news agencies like the BBC because they are covering the war much better then the US agencies are.

Amongst the people who showed up were people who lost loved ones in the war. I am sad people lost people but I like that they showed people who suffer because of the war. Not because I'm callous or cruel but because it humanizes the tragedy. I am of the opinion that too many people view the war impersonally. They do not know the people dying, they do not even see footage of the war, and it is easy to forget that people are suffering and dying. People need to remember that these are not just statistics these are real people who are dying/suffering and it effects even more people.

Easter

Happy Easter Everyone.

Easter is the most important holiday for Christians. It is the day that Jesus was Resurrected. There is much I could say about Easter but considering that I'm writing in English most of the people reading this will already know something about this day.

Since I write a lot about Japanese culture on this blog I'll mention Easter in Japan. If you were in Japan you likely wouldn't even know this is a celebratory day. The only sign of this holiday (outside of churches) your likely to see is stores selling chocolate bunnies and easter eggs. Which really don't have much to do with Easter at all. Bunnies and eggs are fertility symbols of spring that predate Christianity.

The reason why Easter is not such a big holiday in Japan as most of the world is because very few Japanese people are Christian, less then 2 million out of a population of around 127 million. Christians were persecuted and suffered truly terrible hardships in Japan when Japan closed it's borders with the rest of the world in the 17th century.

My uncle recently wrote about the survival of Christianity in Japan on his blog which can be read here: http://catholicdemocratfromohio.blogspot.com/2008/03/survival-of-catholic-japan.html

A good source on the history of Christianity in Japan can be found here:http://web.archive.org/web/20070213062822/http://www.baobab.or.jp/~stranger/mypage/chrinjap.htm
It is a transcribing from from Kodansha's Encyclopedia of Japan. It's to an archive of it since the site was down when I wrote this.

Shunbun No Hi (Vernal Equinox)

On this day, day and night are equal in length as the sun crosses directly above the equator. This day was established as a national holiday in Japan in 1948. Officially the day is supposed to be for the admiration of nature and the love of living things. On this day the Japanese visit the graves of their ancestors. The reason they visit their ancestors on this day is because it is according to Buddhist belief on this day the dead can cross the river leading to eternal paradise. This is a Buddhist religious week called Higan (literal translation is other shore). There is an idea that there is a river marking the division of this life from the world of salvation. This river is full of illusion, passion, and sorrow, and only by crossing to the other shore can one gain enlightenment and enter nirvana. It is said that the Buddha appears on earth to save stray souls and help them make the crossing on this day (also in September on the other equinox).

There is a saying in Japan that no winter cold lingers past this day.

The river Ranma, Kuno, and Ryoga see when they nearly die from the terrible noodles in volume 31 is the River Sanzu (The mentioned river between this world and the next). It is translated to the Styx from Greek mythology (which is also a river between the living and the dead) because it is better known to Westerners.

White Day

White Day is a Japanese holiday made up in 1978 by the National Confectionery Industry Association. It is the opposite of Valentines day. On Valentines day girls give guys chocolate. On White day guys give girls gifts. If a guy received a gift/chocolate on Valentines day he is expected to give a gift back. The return gift is expected to be more expensive. Though guys can give gifts to girls he did not receive anything from. Some common gifts are jewelry, candy, marshmallows, cookies, and stuffed animals. Occasionally the gift has a meaning besides just being a gift for example if the guy gives the girl a handkerchief it means he doesn't love her . The handkerchief is to be used to wipe away her tears.

Reisei to Jounetsu no Aida

The Japanese Drama Reisei to Jounetsu no Aida (Between Calmness and Passion) shows Ranma 1/2. I have not seen this movie and from what I read about it I don't really want to but Ranma is seen playing on the Television in the movie pictured above and below.

Peaceable Kingdom: A Tribe of Heart Documentary

I had watched the documentary Peaceable Kingdom at a free screening sponsored by Mercy for Animals. I don't really know why I attend Mercy for Animals or other charity events. The attendance to them is generally fairly low and it is not very likely that I will learn something I have not already learned elsewhere. The vegan dinners though at least give free food.

Peaceable Kingdom is a documentary on factory farms. I think it was well done. Some documentaries on factory farms show a lot of gore and have a high shock value. While this film did show the mistreatment of animals it did not do so in away that would make you want to puke like some do. It does make you feel sorry for them though.

The film talks about and shows information about farm sanctuary which is an organization that rescues animals from factory farms and interviews former factory farm owners/workers. It explains the differences of how farms are perceived and the reality of how massive factory farms are. The documentary would be very good for people who do not know about factory farms to learn about them and some of the practices of factory farms.

The picture at the top is one of Edward Hicks paintings on the Peaceable Kingdom (he did 62 variants). His Peaceable Kingdom series is based on this bible passage: Isiah 11:6 "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

The Children Are Watching Us - Criterion Collection

The Children are Watching Us is a black and white Italian film. I watch films from pretty much every time period and in a multitude of languages. I know some people who only watch current movies in there own languages and feel sorry for them. They are missing out on a lot of good movies.

I did not like this movie all that much. The film itself was not bad at all and it is emotionally touching. I just was not in the mood for such a sad film when I watched it. The film is mostly shown around Prico's the main character who just happens to be a child. The film is about the breaking up of a family. In the beginning of the film Prico's mother leaves his father for her lover. She does this in a pretty mean way, she just ups and leaves doesn't leave a note, explain it, or anything. Prico's father doesn't know how or can't for some reason take care of Prico himself (this is not explained), so he sends Prico to live with his mother (Prico's grandmother). Prico's grandmother is not that nice a person. Prico gets sick and loses a lot of weight. Upon finding out that Prico is sick his mother Nina comes back and vows to give up her lover. Things seem to go alright for the family until they take a vacation to the Italian Riviera. I don't want to give away any more spoilers but I will say this. Nina (Prico's mother) is not a very good mother nor is she faithful.

I did really like that the story was shown from a child's point of view. The kid was great in this movie, though the clothing he wore looked pretty stupid to me.

Shikoku

Shikoku is a Japanese Ghost story. I found it fairly interesting and really enjoyed the setting (some beautiful shots of mountains and streams). I watch a lot of Asian horror films. This movie is worth watching but it is slow paced and requires some actual thinking. It is not a shock/gore fest so if that's what your interested in this film is not for you. It's more a suspense film then a horror film.

The plot of the film is that a girl, Sagori, dies and her mother attempts to bring her back. Sagori's mother is a priestess and knows of a way to bring her back. The island they live on is Shikoku island and is a gateway between this world and the world of the dead. On the island there are 88 shrines in which people go on pilgrimages. The shrines act as a barrier between the worlds. To bring her daughter back she does rituals and traverses all 88 shrines in the opposite order that your supposed to. If she does the trek 16 times, one time for every year her daughter's age her daughter will come back to life. Even though that is the main plot the story doesn't really follow that it follows a friend of the girl's returning to her hometown and learning what happened and what is happening.

I could give away more of the story but I'd rather not. I will say this though no one in the film is really evil. Everyone has a reason for what they do and even the ghost is not evil.

My views on hunting

Having just written about a movie on hunting I decided to tell my views on hunting. I'm for the most part against hunting. I'm entirely against trophy hunting and hunting for sport.

I do not mind people, particularly people who have been hunter gathers for millennia hunting for sustenance. In truth I'd rather people ate free range dear, goose, turkey, kangaroo, etc. instead of factory farmed animals. At least the animals had more freedom. I also understand hunting a dangerous animal or animals that are destroying your farms.

I understand killing animals as a means of population control. After all that is what predators do. I'd rather people used other methods like better land management, reintroduction of predator's when not to close to human populated areas, and fencing. Could also use the means of population control used on other animals such as dogs and cats i.e. sterilization but personally I don't see that as a much better solution than hunting.

I do not see the sport in hunting. How is it fair to hunt practically defenseless animals like deer and rabbits using guns. Hunting using a knife I can see as fair, since it is very hard to get right up close enough to use a knife and you put yourself in danger. Even spears and arrows are more of a sport and a challenge to use then guns. I really see no reason at all as to why you would ever need high powered assault riffles to hunt animals though. It's just over kill and very little challenge to it.

I dislike that many hunters go out and hunt while drunk, with little to no skill in using the weapon they are using, and that even though killing with a gun does not take all that much skill they wound animals instead of killing them. Either by poor aim or by taking shots at animals that are out of range so that the bullet no longer has the penetrating power required to take down the animal instead leaving it wounded. I also dislike hunting done too close to residential areas. Also hunting can be fairly dangerous. Hunters accidentally shoot each other or other people who happen to be in the area (for example: The Vice president accidentally shot one of his hunting partners).

The Most Dangerous Game

Last week I watched the Criterion Collection version of The Most Dangerous Game. It was a pretty good movie. Even though it is a very old black and white movie with a fairly small budget, it still is worth watching. The plot for the movie is very simple. A hunter Zaroff has hunted every type of animal and has grown bored with it. Hunting animals was not enough of a challenge even using more primitive weapons (exchanging a gun for a bow & arrow). To bring back the thrill of hunting he decided to hunt the most dangerous animal of all - which of course is humans.

Part of me thought that Joel McCrea, the main character of this movie, deserved to be hunted and killed. He was a hunter who went out and killed animals all around the world as well. Unlike Zaroff he hadn't gotten bored of it. The female leads brother Robert was such a jerk that I didn't feel sorry for him at all.

There was a point in the movie in which Zaroff gave Joel the option to join him in hunting people. Zaroff knew Joel was a hunter as well and large fan of Joel's books. Joel refuses outright and ends up being hunted. I would have made different choices. I too would have been outraged but I would have agreed to go on a hunt with Zaroff. Two reasons. I don't want to be hunted and I'd have a much better chance of shooting Zaroff in the back or tying him up or something.

If I had decided to be morally outraged and let myself be hunted (as opposed to pretended to play along and betraying him), I would not have taken Fay Wray with me. Seeing as to how Zaroff had different plans for her. The hunt sexually exited him and he was going to use her as relief for his sexual urges after the hunt. I would have left her at the Count's place so as to make it easier to survive. Don't get me wrong I would have worried about her and would not want him to forcefully take advantage of her, but she would be too much of a liability while I'm being hunted. I'd have a better chance without her slowing me down and having to protect her as well as myself and she was in no danger until after the hunt anyways. Taking her with him was good for the movie but practically it would have been better to leave her since she wasn't in any real danger unless he was killed and if he was killed he wouldn't have been able to help her anyways.

In the movie, the villain had grown bored with hunting animals and started hunting humans. Having thought about it for a little while more, I started to wonder if he ever thought of hunting people legally. People do hunt people in real life. If you just want to kill people become a soldier. If you want to hunt people down become a bounty hunter. If he was planning on hunting and killing people he could have decided to get paid to do it and became an assassin. Heck if he wanted to hunt them on his island he could have kidnapped his victims and killed them on the island. That would be more challenging and most of the clients wouldn't mind where or how he killed them.

I liked that even though Zaroff was a mass murder and possibly a rapist, he did have rules. He gave his prey a 24 hour head start and he said he'd let them go if they survived until dawn. Overall it was a good movie. Leslie Banks did an excellent job as Zaroff. The film had a very good music score which is not very common for movies of that time period. The movie was pretty fast paced. Even the commentary for the movie was pretty good (I don't generally listen to the commentary tracks on movies).

Street Dogs

I recently read Street Dogs by Traer Scott. Street Dogs is a book of photographs on dogs living alone or in packs on the city streets of Puerto Rico and Mexico. The pictures were very good. Many of the dogs pictured had suffered terrible wounds but the pictures were not ghastly. The photography was excellent to catch the dogs beauty. It would probably been much easier to take pictures that show the pain the dogs suffered, than to show how the dogs are still good looking.

In the introduction and mini biographies the book tells of some of the cruelties done to the dogs. The book mentioned how people had poured boiling oil on dogs, cut them with knives, burnt them with cigarettes, and a group of teenagers purposely running over a mother dog and her puppies with their car. While not something I did not already know about, the casual cruelty of people always surprises me. I really do not understand how or why people do horrible things like the above mentioned stuff.

I understand eating dogs, though I wouldn't. People need to eat, dogs are edible, and it really isn't any worse than other stuff people eat like pigs, dolphins, etc. I have even seen an argument for eating dogs that makes sense to me, though I don't agree with it. The argument was that since many shelters are over crowded and will kill the dogs anyways. Those dogs instead of being buried or thrown away can be fed to people.

I understand abandoning dogs. People get dogs and find out they do not have the ability to take care of them. People have financial problems and can't afford them. People are lazy. People become injured and no longer are able to care for them. People think that the dogs have a better chance running in the wild then they do at shelters. In some cases the dogs may very well have a better chance in the wild than at shelters. Some shelters particularly government run shelters in third world countries (and some even in first world countries) are over crowded, under funded, and do kill a large percentage of the animals. Though it did surprise me to learn that there were/are 200,000 to 300,000 street dogs in Puerto Rico.

I do not understand people's cruelty and probably never will. Don't the people have empathy for the animals they are abusing. I definitely do not want to know any people who can abuse animals. If these people abuse and mistreat animals they likely will abuse and mistreat fellow human beings.

The book was not all about the mistreatment and abandoning of dogs (and did not mention eating dogs at all). The book really was about how loving and social dogs are. It is amazing how dogs can still be trusting, kind, and playful with humans even though they suffered hardships, injury, and abuse by humans. It did mention some touching stories about dogs for example mentioned a pack of dogs that befriended a human and when the human was threatened by another human the pack went to protect the guy.

The book also mentioned the good people and organizations are doing for dogs. People giving hand outs to street dogs, restaurants giving scraps to the dogs, providing medicine for the dogs, etc. Educating the populace that abandoning and mistreating dogs is wrong and giving alternatives to abandonment. People adopting the dogs and spending money to send the dogs to the USA for adoption. Since there is a demand in some places for small dogs and puppies.

If you like dogs; I recommend you purchase this book. A part of the proceeds also goes to help dogs.

Ranma's characterization between manga and anime

Ranma in fan fiction is generally a mix of anime and manga, with a little bit of the author and fanon thrown in. Recently I re-watched part of the anime and decided to make this list comparing the characterization differences in Ranma between the manga and the anime, and why I prefer the manga characterization. It is incomplete.

• Manga Ranma is a neat freak, hates a messy room, and will start cleaning a dirty room without thinking about it as shown by his starting to clean Miss Hinako's room and having to think about it to stop (above two pictures). This makes sense to me. A person who travels a lot and may have to leave at any moment, in my opinion, is more likely to keep his things organized and neat. Why? Because if you have to leave in a hurry, you have to know where your stuff is or you risk leaving it behind. Anime Ranma does not like cleaning, complains when he has to, and skips cleaning duty at school.
  
  

• Anime Ranma is not very good with money and will spend it as soon as he gets it. Then will borrow money from Akane. He also receives an allowance if Akane is to believed since she mentions once that he shouldn't have spent all his allowance. Who is giving him an allowance? Genma giving Ranma money does not seem to be very likely. Stealing money from Ranma seems a lot more likely. Manga Ranma is rather tight fisted with his money even while in a hurry and being blackmailed he'll try to negotiate a lower price (above picture). Both manga and anime Ranma will go to food stalls in girl form to get cheaper and/or free food (above picture right). The difference is manga Ranma doesn't want to spend the money and Anime Ranma doesn't have any money. Manga Ranma is shown to take part time jobs to earn his money such as when he took a job at a hot spring and a comment by Genma at another point implies that taking a short term part time job is not uncommon. In my opinion, being tight fisted with money makes more sense. During his training trip he quite likely did not have enough money to buy essentials some of the time and he has to actually earn the money he gets. Considering that, if I was in his situation I would try and make all the money I had count because I would worry that a time would come in which I needed money but didn't have it.

• Manga Ranma is secretive and more suspicious of people's actions than his anime counterpart. Anime Ranma is more trusting and willing to impart information about himself. I can come up with quite a few reasons as to why Ranma would be secretive and suspicious of people.

1. Genma. Genma lies and attempts to scam people/betrays them. For example Ukyo's dad. Ranma probably eventually caught on that Genma can't really be trusted and if he can't be others probably can't be.
2. We see that people betray him during the manga and it is likely that others betrayed/tried to cheat him prior to the manga, like Genma.
3. What people don't know about you they can't use against you. For example when people found out about his fear of cats they tried to use it against him like Akane sometimes uses it to punish him or Nabiki pulling out a cat so he couldn't intimidate her.
4. He appears to have some ninja training - crawl along ceiling, body switch trick, smoke cloud, etc. Ninja's are known for being secretive.
5. Ranma himself is fairly manipulative and will use any advantage he can get against you - such as trying to blackmail Nabiki, attempting to seduce Akane to get rid of the dogi, or using Herbs anger at seeing breasts against him. He probably figures others are manipulative and likely to use any advantage they can as well.

• Manga Ranma is more likely to look at books for answers and to read for entertainment then the anime version. The anime version is more likely to play super nintendo then read. We see Ranma turn to books for answers such as when Dr Tofu hurt his neck we later see him reading a book on chiropractics, during the reversal jewel he turned to dating magazines for advice on dating, turned to a scroll to counter Miss Hinako's draining, picked up the diary to find out why no one was at the island with the Hawaiian virus, etc. We also see him reading at other times as to what he was reading at those other times is unknown he was reading something while waiting for Ryoga prior to the ShiShiHadoken, read something while going to sleep when Miss Hinako stayed at the Tendo's, etc. Reading makes more sense then playing video games to me. Think about how his training trip likely went. Probably trained with many different martial arts masters at dojo's all of which were likely older then him and unlikely to have video game systems. When training on a mountain or away from civilization wasn't likely to have access to electricity required for video game systems/TV's to work but as long as there is light you can read a book to keep yourself entertained. Though manga Ranma will occasionally play video games ( he plays a fighting game with Miss Hinako on her Super Nintendo) and watch TV (we see him watch the news occasionally) he is much more likely to grab a book than the anime version.

• Anime Ranma complained about having to go to school. Manga Ranma did not complain about having to go to school. In my opinion, Not complaining makes more sense. He was a lonely kid, dragged around from place to place with Genma, probably training under various older martial artists, and had little contact with kids his own age. Whether or not he liked doing the assignments. He probably still would have liked going because it would've been a place to go with people his own age. People who he could just be a kid around. In the wilds it would have been about survival and training. At dojo's it would have been training and possibly working in exchange for the training/lodging (like sweeping or cleaning the dojo or something). School even with the assignments would be the place in which he could be around, meet, and play with people his own age.

• Manga Ranma is less human. As pointed out in an earlier post Ranma is not really like normal people. Anime Ranma acts more like a regular person than his manga counterpart. Manga Ranma is more likely to cling to the ceiling, run up telephone poles, accidentally break things with his strength, etc. I just prefer the manga version in this case because I think it is cooler and believe that people with super human abilities would use them in everyday situations.
  

The above was just some of the differences between manga and anime Ranma. I could go on. For example, Manga Ranma had better handwriting and spelling than his anime counterpart - In the original Japanese manga Ranma did not spell anything wrong, in the anime he misspelled spirit wards and in the English version of the manga he misspelled buffoon. Manga Ranma was able to write fairly neat even in bruises while in a hurry and could write legibly with his foot.

Ranma and Weapons

A particularly common bit of fanon that really annoys me is Ranma refusing to use weapons. How did this become fanon? I understand why some things become fanon. There is generally some basis in the source or a spin off of the source (in Ranma that would be the manga with the anime and games being spin off). Other stuff is never really explained so some fan decided to come up with an explanation that would fit and others copied them. Those types of things becoming fanon makes sense to me, my real question is how do things that are countered in all forms of canon become fanon? I'd understand if Ranma only used weapons once or twice and it was missed by the fan fic writers but Ranma uses a variety of weapons quite often. There is only one time in the entire manga in which he makes any type of disparaging remark on them and in that instance it wasn't about weapons so much as it was the limits of combat. In the rhythmic gymnastics arc he wanted to be able to use his body as well as weapons (he didn't like the imposed limitation).

In the manga, Ranma has used a large assortment of weapons; some examples from the manga:
-Polearms. He had used a bo versus things in a haunted house, used saodake (literally bamboo pole but is term used for laundry poles which are now more commonly made from plastic), used brooms as weapons, cheer leading baton, tsuki nari yari (moon shaped spear), etc.
-Swords. He used a bokken (wooden sword) against Cologne and others during the Suikawari (watermelon splitting) race, the katana his mother carries around, sword during Pink and Link battle, etc.
-Whips. He used gymnastic ribbon, soba noodles, rope, his own hair, etc.
-Magical. Sentient fire breathing staff, shield that prevented poisons, magical joy buzzer type ring, ice staff he used in the battle versus Saffron, suggestion incense (multiple times), etc.
-Throwing weapons. Rocks, boulders, spoon, pencil, snack food (stopped Mariko's baton with a snack food), etc.
-Improvised weapons. Paper fan (to stop and redirect a punch from Happosai and another time to blow back incense at Happosai), spoons, pin wheels (used to pin duck form Mousse to the wall), tennis rackets (to hit thrown objects back at thrower), etc.
-Chemical. Sleeping power (on Kuno), Paralysis powder (On Shampoo), Chloroform (on Happosai), Alcohol (Happosai, Orachi), girl repellent (Happosai), smoke bombs (crowd of people to save Miss Hinako), etc.
-Defensive weapons. Shield versus Pink and Link, large boulders as shield, iron skillets (versus the Ashura), wears arm bracers, etc.
-Psychological. Bra's (versus Happosai), disguises (often versus half the cast), fake scary things (lizards, snakes, etc. on girls to scare them away from the girls dressing room), ax to scare cherry tree spirit, etc.
-miscellaneous that don't quite fit above types. Used mallets (On Taro, Ryoga, bean gun plant, etc.), blow dart to take out the principals balloon, bow and arrow (to send messages), Nunchucks, etc.

Even in the anime we see him training with Genma using a staff and he used weapons in corresponding arcs to the manga, like the rhythmic gymnastics battle. That is not a complete list of the times he used weapons and he has never showed reluctance to use them. So why did it become fanon that he doesn't use weapons?

Hida Sanmyaku

Happosai escapes confinement from Hida Sanmyaku which is a mountain range that borders the Nagano, Toyama and Gifu Prefectures. It is also part of the Chubu Sangaku National Park.

Hina Matsuri - doll festival

In Japan today is the Girls' day festival. It is not a national holiday, it is a day in which families with daughters display Hina Ningya dolls. Hina Ningya dolls are a pair of dolls that portray the emperor and empress. A display consists of either five or seven shelves covered in red cloth. A set usually has 15 dolls. The dolls represent the emperor and empress, three court ladies, five musicians, two ministers, and three guards. The dolls are dressed in ancient court costumes of the Heian Period. Often these dolls are very expensive/family heirlooms and passed down from generation to generation. There are at least two styles of displaying the dolls. Kyoto style has the empress on the left of the emperor and Edo (Tokyo) style which has the emperor on the left. The doll on the right is considered superior. Supposedly the Edo style began when a daughter of Edo became empress. Other items such as miniature furniture and dinnerware maybe displayed as well. The girls displaying the dolls generally wear kimono's and hand out a sweet white drink called Shirozake and Hishimochi diamond shaped rice cakes that are colored red, white, and green to friends and relatives. The red is for chasing evil spirits away, the white is for purity, and the green is for health. There is a superstition that if a girl leaves her dolls on display after this holiday will get married late.

The origin of the festival is said to be an ancient Chinese festival where people would take a straw doll and float it down the river. The doll is said to take all your sins and misfortune into it and away from you. The custom of floating paper dolls down river in the late afternoon still is in practice in some areas.

The day is also known as Momo no Sekku (Peach-Blossom Festival), because peach blossoms are at their best at this season and represent women's virtues.