antimatterenergy wrote:I don't really feel like commenting on this post, but did it ever occur to you that Ryoga may have lost his original umbrella and is using a normal bamboo one by that point in the manga.
You do love your excuses don't you? Yeah, he used it in the same arc, but hey you came up with something to cast possible doubt on one point even if there's no reason to believe so. You do realize you're scrapping the bottom of the barrel pretty hard here, right?
week to come up with a counter to a usually ridiculously simple and highly limited system?
antimatterenergy wrote:When did that ever happen? Even to learn the styles and duplicate them while limiting himself to their styles it never took him a week.
Really?
antimatterenergy wrote:Tea ceremony - less than 24 hours
Here we see he has an Instructor that makes a big difference, Anti. Plus he’s fighting a
monkey here.
So let’s see
Lesson 1: the sitting scoot. This involves a simple
trick, which is actually of no relevance in the match.
The match goes on from
here to
here, a total of seven pages. In this the Monkey doesn’t really act that much unlike a monkey other then retaining the seated position throughout this. Ranma throws teaspoons, the monkey evades them and blinds Ranma with tea powder before smacking him with a pot. Then Ranma counters by shoving the pot back, which the monkey uses to neutralize Ranma’s follow up. When we see it again is looks like a normal cat fight, then we break again, and they’re out of the house but still brawling. Victory comes in the form of a Cleric of Takahashi casting Hold Monster long enough for Ranma to wind up, throw, and have her ladel hit the branch the monkey is hanging on, with yet more teaspoons used to nail the monkey down before the spell ends. You’ll note the monkey has no difficulty getting out of this a few seconds later, and was perfectly capable of dodging otherwise.
Note toward the end, the only guy who actually has any right to claiming mastership takes out Ranma in a matter of seconds, despite the fact he’s already used this trick on Ranma before.
In short Ranma has a hard time with a single unitary monkey and is pwned by the actual human in just about every way possible. Not exactly a stellar showing here, and given that repeated pwning and what was actually used was stuff he's shown able to do otherwise I think you're stretching to say he learned the style or much of anything else besides being able to maneuver while in a sitting position.
On this point I'll call it a draw. An ineffectual crash course in 24 hours that can hardly be called learning a style doesn't count. This would be the equivalent to me teaching a person to kick and punch somewhat well over an afternoon, and then you declaring he's learned an entire style. Only this is actually worse then that.
0:0
antimatterenergy wrote:Rhythmic gymnastics - less than 24 hours
Yeah, only that last little bit counts, the fact he was observing and effectively practicing with Akane for a week never, never happened.
Excuse me, but if you're going drag this in here you're clearly hurting for anything to support your position.
The fight, if you can call it that, boiled down to basically throwing things at each other. Not exactly a radical concept. Even monkeys get the concept pretty quickly. No actual gymnastic performance or judging of that was involved so it's nonsensical to say Ranma learned Rhythmic gymnastics in the incident anyways. At most you can credit learning use of the ribbon, with which he already seemed reasonably familiar at the start of the week.
1 Me: 0 You
antimatterenergy wrote:Umisenken - seeing it once.
Now you're lying. He saw Genma do the ghosting trick once, but he had also already had aura suppression training back in the Hiryu Shoten Ha arc so it wasn't exactly a radical concept although he clearly tinkered with it a while. He saw the Yamasenken at least twice in action, and all the techniques other then the ghosting trick are direct, and highly limited I might add, counters to the Yamasenken moves. There were what 5 total moves each? And not a single one being particularly complex either, so most people could learn the basics in an afternoon. Heck the dojo owner guy whose Ryu's father literally did them as he was reading the bloody scroll, as per canon, not exactly the picture of complexity here. Plus all the counters he didn't get a big hint on were rather basic physical things. Plus he spent a week training on them.
Fight mainly involved avoiding being seen before dumping TON O' STUFF on Ryu that only worked as a finisher because Ryu was stupid enough to open it up instead of move. No real reason Ryu couldn't turn around and kick the crap out of him, having wised up to that, other then Ranma is allowed to and challengers are not by author fiat.
2 Me: 0 You
antimatterenergy wrote:Ki Blast - mimicked first try just lacked power since didn't know of the mental component (purity of emotion).
Any you're lying again. Ranma putters around for a few days, tries to steal Ryoga's scroll and and in a fit of melancholy after abject failure accidentally fires one off, proving the Miner who introduced the techniques statement that anyone could do it. His only feat of competence here was figuring out it was emotionally based as he tinkered with it for at least a day.
I'll call this one a draw.
Now for some of mine.
Picolet Chardin:
-Ranma infiltrates and basically spends a week to come up with the _brilliant_ idea of just cheating by throwing the food in the other guy's mouth. As if this wasn't bad enough, there is no moral or legitimacy dilemma related to cheating involved, and he isn't smart enough to take small portions quickly and discretely to prevent starvation and malnutrition issues that almost cost him the match.
Most people would have figured that out a few minutes after they realized what was going on if they were willing to cheat.
Breaking Point:
-Ranma basically observes the Breaking Point training and so knows exactly what he's up against other then the fact Genma fools him into thinking it works on people. Ranma spends a entire week focusing on speed training with Genma, and basically get kicked around the entire fight despite the fact a simple grab and lock would have neutralized things in about a minute.
Ranma only really won in that he figured out it didn't work on organics. Ryouga was still able to fight and use his trick, and Ranma still did not show himself able to effectively counter, but by author's fiat fight over. This is made all the more humiliating by the fact the underdog trip was used and Ryoga ran around like he was a knight with a lance instead of being stabby or anything about it.
Mariko:
-Trains for about a week and for all intents and purposes is an abject failure. Akane pulls off a victory, but it is hers, not his. Furthermore as Mariko establishes in her own maneuvers beating the crap out of the opponent yourself is completely and utterly legit.
Mousse, fight 1:
To my recollection there is a week break between the declaration of challenge and the actual fight here. He's now had months to come to terms with his female body, and has to face the reality he is effectively stuck in it for the moment. From the Amazons he has basically perfect intelligence.
Ranma's _brilliant_ plan involves dressing up in a similar manner and mocking his opponent in order to encourage a straight hand-to-hand fight. Mousse amazingly enough mostly complies with this. However Ranma gets exposed butt naked in the process, and while you might argue a lack of modesty this beyond any reasonable doubt exposes Ranma's secret. That is Epic Failure material. If that's not bad enough Ranma couldn't win anyway, because his legs are too short and he has nothing else up his sleeve. So the author in the form of Dr. Tofu steps in and hits a temporary pressure point that allows Ranma to once again go male and thus have longer legs then Mousse allowing Ranma to achieve "victory" by achieving
1 hit verse the several he took. But author fiat comes in and so the fight is over.
The thing is that as the Grandfather point only works once and Mousse is not meaningfully injured, there is absolutely nothing at this point stopping Mousse from beating Ranma to a pulp. So Ranma manages the no small feat of having not one, but two Epic Failures for this fight.
Kuno, early fight:
While Ranma "wins" both he shows absolutely no counter for Kunos attacks, which are clearly shown as being able to hit him and give him issues. Instead by author's fiat Kuno just stands there and basically allows himself to get hit. Not exactly a stellar performance here.
Hiryu Shoten Ha:
Despite the fact the actual training took three days, the actual time between fight 1 and 2 can be called a week. In this arc it is made rather clear that Ranma, even though he retains all his other abilities, cannot fight anyone else without use of his strength. For a "martial artist" that's pretty pathetic.
Anyway Cologne takes pity on him and teaches him the Hiryu Shoten Ha with the help of various members of the cast. Suppressing his aura, moving in a spiral, and delivering an uppercut are the mechanics of the move. Cologne apparently thinks so little of Ranma's intelligence she is worried he will just stop after completing the spiral having no clue despite having already been shown the technique and thus knowing it is a tornado and possibly even seeing her uppercut her little fist. Her fears prove unfounded, but talk about a vote of no confidence.
Ranma now having exactly one move, that requires use of one plan is stymied by the fact Happosai just isn't playing along, and here comes in the problem. Happosai has already seen this move, so he knows exactly what it is, and he shows more or less right off the bat he is perfectly capable of countering it by just getting out of the center. So author fiat basically has to come in with a sledge hammer to force Happosai to play along with staying in the spiral.
As if that's not bad enough the entire exercise is basically both pointless and a failure. Happosai had unearthed the chart so a simple coordinated distraction and snatch and grab would have gotten them the chart. A trick any slightly devious person should have figured out in about a minute when faced with the scenario that led to the fight. As is the chart by all rights should have been and was thought lost thanks to Ranma's abject stupidity, but author's fiat insures that the magic reset button is hitable so it isn't and Ranma's back to normal by the end of this arc.
(tangential) Herb Arc:
As if all this isn't bad enough the author herself is basically in on it and even emphasizes Ranma as not being all that great. As shown by Ryouga and Mousse's comments about learning from Ranma before pulling the "Look a Three-Headed Monkey" trick and sucker punching Herb's underlings.
(tangential) Dojo Destroyer:
Previously claymade and I believe you decided to harp on the Dojo Destroyer incident. You chose to go with Akane's interpretation of events, so this is your well roasted crow.
The Dojo Destroyer arc happens at the end of Volume 6, while the Amigurken Arc completed itself in Volume 5. So just one volume ago Ranma finished up basically a months worth of training centering around a technique involving grabbing things at high speed.
Ranma's goal at this point of the Dojo Destroyer arc is to get his hands on a packet of Instant Drowned Spring of Man, of which Shampoo has slapped 8 packets on the Dojo Destroyer on top of the guys uniform and on his forehead. Note that Ranma has no problem closing with this guy.
What the Akane interpretation says is that Ranma is so inflexible and preprogrammed that he proceeded to nail all the vital points with his foot, despite knowing the packets were there and would probably not take such too well even without the explosives and having absolutely no reason to do so. Especially as he just spent a month training to snatch things quickly. Plus these are a very different pattern from the 7 strikes used on Kuno.
To add insult to injury they didn't even keep the Dojo Destroyer down for more then a couple of minutes. How good can Ranma's use of points of vulnerability (if we circular logic perfect hits like you guys wanted) be if he has to hit 7-8 of them and your opponent is either sent to the hospital in the case of Kuno or just gets up unharmed a minute later as with the Dojo Destroyer especially if you have no real follow up?
The fact they're basically only used twice by Takahashi to try to write herself out of a corner and otherwise not really seen again.
Watermelon Race:
-While not a subject I would bother with you chose to make a big deal out of a guy already trained in such things and dodging being at some sort of disadvantage while being able to freestyle with doing so. Uh-huh. The fact you think hitting a large object held in a person's hand is a big deviation from his normal style goes further then I do. So fine, I obviously don't hold his style's adaptability in as utter contempt as you do given you think hitting a bloody watermelon in a person's hand with a bloody stick is a radical deviation from the norm of his style enough to give him serious issues.
Plus defining his style as only worth beating on people? In short you're calling him a brawler. You don't comprehend that there's not only entire families of techniques but more then one family of techniques for neutralizing a person without really harming them in any way, do you?
Meanwhile unlike the above I can credit hordes, hordes mind you, of mecha operators figuring out complex operation of mecha and various technology that would tend to be hard to use within a few minutes. Some reason you didn't try to make said case in the topic that was basically created for that purpose instead of going off topic here?