Ranma Restart: Sexy Satire

Unending BE - episode 767610

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There are certain events that occur and reoccur time after time after time. Some are simple. A ball is thrown, and shortly thereafter is caught or falls to the ground. A person turns around to respond to their name being called by a familiar voice. An unfortunate person yells expletives centered around the point of why it was always the goddamn little toe every single motherfucking time, and so on. Everyday simple occurences.

Then there are the more complicated common events that string these simpler ones together. A ball is thrown through the air and a person attempts to catch it, but is distracted when their name is called. The ball then lands on their foot, in particular the little toe and he yells expletives in response. These kinds of events are referred to as "narrative", though the example given is a very simple form. Given common features between different narratives, we can determine the types and genre that it may fall into. Comedy tends to make us laugh, or more specifically by the modern brand of comedy films, make us laugh at the people that find this kind of tripe funny. Then there is horror which tends to frighten us, or again by modern standards attempt to shock us with gore and unconvincing CGI. There are many different forms of genre, and even more specific subgenre, and perhaps even subsubgenre all the way down as far as one may care to analyse! You can even see it here, on the BEA. Certain kinds of threads appear and appear again and again, falling prey to similar patterns each time.

All of this is a convoluted way of getting to a very specific point: I'm sick of Ranma harem threads and want to make fun of them. Are you with me?

Oh, I'm sure there will be those of you that cry out "But you've written this exact kind of story before!" And yes, it's true. I think it's true of most that start writing Ranma threads here. Go for the harem ending. It's so much easier to write that way, isn't it? All the conflict regarding who he will end up with is gone and dealt with. He gets all of them! And there are so many ways to make it happen. So many ingenius little ideas that let him bed every girl he regularly comes into contact with. So very many over such a long period of time.

But the question is, what happens when he has the harem at his disposal? What can happen after that? Invariably the writer loses interest. And why not? The main conflict of the story is pretty much resolved by then. If interest is not lost, then the writer goes ahead, takes a look around, realises that they have all the girls in this series begging and pleading nightly for Ranma's cock and cast their gaze out at other series with a wistful (and, obviously perverted) eye. The harem building is not finished yet, and won't ever finish even as other characters fall to the wayside and become less and less important... Until the writer loses interest and it ends there and then.

This is not a demand that such threads cease for it would be ignored. It is inevitable. It is as unstoppable as the rising sun. Instead I wish to simply mock such threads as those I used to write. Instead I wish to produce a satirical work, and I cordially invite you all to participate alongside me.

Gym was always his favourite subject at school, and it wasn't because he always did so badly at other subjects. On the contrary, his grades were typically average at worst. While nobody could say that Ranma Saotome was a model student, he was hardly a slacker by any means. No, the reason he liked gym as his favourite class was a fair bit simpler than that. It provided him with ample opportunity to show off, and he never wasted a moment to do just that. He was always first pick because his athletic prowess made Akane's look normal, and hers made all but two of the other students look like slugs in comparison.

Today was a perfect day for outside weather, not least because there wasn't a hint of cloud in the sky. No random water to spash him in the middle of the field, no sudden downpours to ruin his day, just a bright clear sky. Perfect weather for a baseball game. He had long since been restricted from pitching because nobody could hit anything he threw. Instead, he'd been stuck in left field, with everybody on the opposing team doing their absolute best to hit the ball anywhere but near him. That best was quite often not good enough. Besides which, that sort of intention made for a hugely exploitable strategic gap in their battle plan. The pitcher threw the ball-

"Ranma! Give us a hand here!"

That had been Akane, his unwanted and unwilling fiancee. She was a lot like him in at least one major respect, in that she was too damn proud for her own good. She did often ask for his assistance, but only in instances where it was so blatant that she was out of her league that a blind man on the moon could see it. Ranma turned around to see the girls of the class furiously, frustratedly and futily attempting to grab or hit or otherwise contain a tiny ancient pervert that was carrying a rather large bag of what were almost certainly unmentionables. This wasn't Ranma being polite, which was a rare honour reserved solely for the very few that were polite to him first; He simply didn't want anyone to hear him talk about the things likely in that bag and make some rather wrong assumptions. But never mind that. It was no wonder the girls weren't able to catch him with the perverted living fossil bouncing around like the ball that just struck Ranma's little toe (to whit: Ow, that stung!). With a roll of the eyes and a fierce determination, Ranma leaped into action.

"Sorry ladies!" Happosai cackled, "I'm afraid you're going to have to play one at a time!"

Ranma's arm flew towards the little bundle of perversion (the man, not the bag!) like a cobra's strike. The main difference was that if a cobra attempted a strike anywhere near this fast, its guts would likely have wound up about a mile in front of its head. Sadly, Happosai was faster still. He had an uncanny knack for not being remotely near a blow, ensuring that his opponent hit nothing but air. This was not the case for this strike for two reasons. The first was that Ranma wasn't trying to hit so much as grab, so it would have been slightly more accurate to say that he had grabbed nothing but air. This was still an insufficient alteration because -

"Ah! Sorry Ucchan!" Ranma hastily apologised as his hand retreated from some rather soft flesh.

"Not a problem," Ukyo replied, quickly dismissing the passing thought that she wouldn't wash that breast again because that was not a healthy thing to do, for body or mind. "Where the hell did he get to?"

That was a good question, and the frustrating part of it was that he was fast enough that while you were turning your head to look he'd shifted off into your new blind spot. That was what made him so damned dangerous. No, scratch that. It wasn't the speed, it was more than that. It was psychology, strength, knowledge, every damn thing anyone ever needed to win any fight. All of it wrapped up into a ball of lustful, petty selfish and evil blight on the world known as Happosai. The only reason they weren't all unconscious right this second was the simple fact that it was so much more fun this way. Like he was playing a game and only he knew or understood the rules, but the rules simply stated "I win!" Whatever those rules were, Ranma knew there was a loophole in them. If only he could find some water. He might be a proud person, but taking down a martial artist like Happosai was a bigger inflation to the ego than the deflation that came from flashing some tits to do so. The math worked out favourably in the end, not that it mattered if the freak just took his bag of "goodies" and quite literally went home. Where the hell was he hiding?

"Looking for me?" the old man laughed, popping out of thin air like a ghost. With a face like that if he ever did play a ghost, that movie would win awards for best horror for years to come! He wouldn't even need to do any acting, just film him going about doing what he does and even the hardiest of souls would quake in terror! The shock of his sudden appearance certainly stalled Ranma for about half a second which was all Happosai needed. He cupped his hand into a fist right in front of his mouth and blew hard into it causing a massive cloud of dust to engulf Ranma's head, leaving him coughing and spluttering as he reached forward and plucked the strangely unresisting figure out of the air and held him in a grip that would put any vice to shame. Not that it remotely phased Happosai, but then again you'd have to drop Jupiter on him to manage even that.

"I'll take this!" Akane triumphantly plucked the bag from Happosai's back and carefully peeked inside. Presumably she was just being careful that it wasn't a dummy or a diversionary tactic. "And just what are you smiling at?"

Ranma had been wondering the same thing, but couldn't quite get a word out for a fair bit. Whatever that stuff was, it burned his throat about half as bad as that curry Akane made two weeks back. Just so long as it didn't make him a fraction as sick.

"How are you feeling, Ranma? A little hot under the collar?" Happosai enquired, sounding more than just a little bit playful as he asked.

"What did you do to me?" Ranma asked, feeling it would be best not to imagine all of the horrible things that dust could have done to him. Old man has a bag of tricks that would make Felix the Cat jealous.

"Ranma, you're sweating buckets!" Akane pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. "Yow! You're burning up!" she continued, and hopefully this trend of being told things he'd already noticed would cease and desist there and then.

"We've got to get you to the nurses office," Ukyo insisted.

"Why don't you listen to the girls?" Happosai giggled. "In fact, take a good look at them. What do you see?"

At what point exactly did the old perv take a philosophical bent? What did he see when he looked at the girls? "I see a bunch of girls in gym uniforms," he began and Happosai lit up for a moment at that response before Ranma continued "That look very much like they want to tear you, the gnome that's been stealing their - stealing from them limb from limb. Or at least pound you into the dirt, and looking around there's sure a hell of a lot of dirt to pound you into!"

And then he was holding nothing but air as Happosai just sort of slid out of his grip more expertly than any worm. He was staring up at Ranma with a confused, baffled and slightly irritated expression. Folded arms and oh look now he's pacing and everything. "That shouldn't be, I was sure I'd gotten that mix right!"

"Ukyo, could I borrow that for a moment?"

"What, this? Sure Akane, just for a moment."

"Maybe the incubus eyelashes had gone stale... I should try again with a fresh batch!" Happosai stopped, took a puff of his pipe and stroked his chin in deep thought. "Or maybe I'd used the wrong amount of crushed rose petals. It was supposed to be three grams, wasn't it?"

"Fore!"

"Four grams? Are you sure Akaneeeeeeeee!"

"Nice shot," Ranma conceded. "But he'll be down in a minute."

"I know," Akane replied as she handed the battle spatula back to its rightful owner. "But that was just too satisfying to pass up. But what about you? Are you feeling okay?"

"I guess even an uncute tomboy can't help but worry about a cute guy like me!"

Next thing he knew he was kissing the grass. Above him, Akane thought for a moment and said to the others. "He's fine."

From here there are many possibilities for a bit of satirical fun. Just which exactly would be taken, I'll leave to you. Which will it be?

Go back - Go to the parent episode.

Lumitiel

Wed Feb 01 15:24:45 2012

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