Natsume & Kurumi on Ranma's training trip - need suggestions

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

A story idea has come to my head recently. How it got there is a tale I'll spare you, but the basics are simple. Shortly after leaving with Ranma on his training trip, Genma comes across Natsume and Kurumi, the "False Tendo Sisters" from OAVs 5 and 6, who have completed their training under Happosai. Recognizing their style as Anything Goes, and hearing their explanation that they are Soun's daughters, Genma believes them to be who they are and figures that Soun must have intended for Genma to take them and train them with Ranma, as a way to ensure that they will be strong masters of Anything Goes (Soun's reluctance to seriously hurt his daughters hindering his ability to train them as best he could) and to ensure that Ranma will be comfortable with them when it's come time for him to wed. So, he takes them along on the training journey... and hilarity, naturally, ensues when Genma finally brings them to Soun's estate and discovers that they are not actually Soun's daughters, tearing him between his desire to live up to his pact with Soun and the natural fondness he has come to bear for the idea of Natsume as his daughter-in-law.

So, why am I here? To put it bluntly, I need to ask people's suggestions for some fine details of the training trip.

I need help figuring out how the presence of Natsume & Kurumi made canon troubles Ranma got into different, where it be better (Kurumi pointing out the other side of the page shortly after Genma first puts Ranma and Natsume in the pit, causing him to pull them out in horror and ensuring that they merely dislike cats rather than being so very phobic of them), worse (getting into a feud with the Kuonjis) or even prevention (Ranma can't go to an all-boy JHS if he has to go with Nat & Kur, can he, so that means no meeting with Ryoga).

I would also appreciate suggestions for problems that might have been caused by the girls being there - after all, between Natsume's mercilessness and pride, and Kurumi's eating in a manner that puts fanon!Genma to shame, surely they've gotten Ranma or themselves into troubles after a decade or so on the road?

Now, the biggest problem is Jusenkyo. I'll be blunt: I do not want them to not get cursed; I can't really see how they'd avoid it this time, though I could see something like only Ranma and Natsume getting cursed, as they jump onto the poles to start sparring while Kurumi catches her breath and Genma stands on the ground to watch them sparring (he is the sensei to more than one person in this story, so that means that there are times when he'll judge it best to sit back and watch how two or more of his students fare against each other rather than testing them himself). However, I don't want to be cliche about the curses - I don't want to give Genma a panda curse, or Ranma a girl curse, or either (or both) of the girls a guy curse. It's been done to death! I want to give them something more unique, something more original than that old standard. So, I really need suggestions for curses to give them.

[Spokavriel]

Considering the ages in the photograph and the ages of the girls in appearing at the Dojo Ranma went through the Neko-ken before Happosai trained them. I guess that makes it so that looking at his escape from the cave as a flash back instead of a current to episode time event would make more sense. After all it take some training to get back up to his normal levels after even only a few years of finding some way to stay alive while entombed.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Yeah, I know that there's problems with timing in relation, I know I've got to tackle that, and I do appreciate your comments. I kind of would like to have them interfere in the Nekoken though. I mean, Genma says it happened in the "spring of Ranma's sixth year" (Anime English Dub), but that is rather vague in time, so it's not really impossible that Genma might have found them a few days before he decided to actually put Ranma through the "training". Hell, he might even meet them while out finding stray cats to put in the pit.

[Spokavriel]

How would you avoid Genma trying to take the girls "Home" to the Tendo Dojo? After all the whole time after Happosai leaves them they spend their time trying to Find their Father. So that's another sticking point. Considering Genma's use of denouncing girls to motivate Ranma. Even if he isn't as Misogynistic as Fannon paints him I can't see him seeing them being along as anything but a detriment in the very least that they would always be there to take offense at the easiest tool he has for motivating Ranma.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

If Genma forms the opinion that they are Soun Tendo's daughters, and they've actually been sent to him for training, he would tell them that is what their father wanted (remember, their canonical recollection of "Soun's" final words is basically "become strong martial artists and then come to the Tendo Dojo; if you are strong enough, you shall be my heirs"). They didn't spend the decade or so looking for Soun (or at least just looking for him), they spent it training so that they would be strong enough to come back and be recognized as his daughters. If Genma tells them that he knew their father and that he must want them to train with him now to be strong, like his son is training to be strong, they would be happy to stay with Genma. Two birds, one stone: Genma will make them strong, will be able to accurately judge when they're as strong as "Soun" wanted them to be, and will be able to take them to the Tendo Dojo when they're ready.

As for keeping them with the training, while Genma never does train Akane himself, he makes it clear he expects Ranma to train her - he is routinely proud and enthusiastic when Akane steps up to take on challenges herself, and it seems his never training her on screen is a combination of the fact it would be rude to take away Soun's "title" as her sensei, he considers it a chance to push Ranma and Akane together (he's done stupider things for that goal), Akane never asks him, and he is, after moving into the Tendo dojo, somewhat lazy. He honestly doesn't seem to have any problems with girls being martial artists or think that they're too weak to be fighters - when I recall him calling Ranma a girl to insult him, it's for complaining/getting emotional over his problems.

[Spokavriel]

There are a few times where it is to goad Ranma into action in sparring. They are few but they are there too. And I haven't found any other tool aside from Hunger and maybe Pride that Genma has used to motivate Ranma. But then again the Girl taunts are attacks at the pride just the Masculine aspect of it instead of Martial.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Yeah, it's just basic macho bull****, not real misogony. Genma might be a musclehead with a bottomless pit for a stomach, but he's not all bad.

So, do you have any thoughts on the Jusenkyo situation? Like I said, I don't want to give Ranma a girl curse or Natsume a girl curse, that basic plotline has been flogged to death, reanimated as a zombie, and flogged again until there's nothing left but crawling fragments of unliving flesh. On the other hand, I don't want to give either of them some kind of "super powered" curse like Rouge's Spring of Drowned Ashura or Taro's Spring of Drowned Yeti/Ox/Crane/Eel - a united, function duo of canon-Ranma's level is more powerful than just about anything else in the series. Hmm... I wonder if there could be amusing situations from, say, Ranma in Spring of Drowned Child and Natsume in Spring of Drowned Big Scary Dog...?

Do you think that Ranma would have met Ryoga in this situation? Would Genma have sprung to send Ranma, Natsume and Kurumi to a mixed sex junior high, or would he have been crazy enough to make Natsume & Kurumi crossdress as boys so he can send them all to the canon JHS, maybe passing it off as "disguise training"? Hmm... if that's the case, then I wonder if I could make something from the idea of Kurumi having a crush on Ryoga, which Ryoga prefers to ignore and which makes her rather mad as a result...

[Spokavriel]

I like the idea of having them all go to the boys Jr High together. Think of this from a training perspective. Genma deliberately enrolled Ranma in a school with a known practice of having their students fight for the last of a given daily special bread. That way Ranma would be unable to miss seeing or winning the presented challenge. I think that was the deciding factor in where Genma ended up making camp when the Truancy officers finally forced this attendance.

If you can come up with a mixed school or a girls school with similar training advantages. After all there are 2 girls in this equation. I could see Genma going that way too so long as its the best over all training opportunity.

On the Curses how about something mutable? Say Ranma and the girls end up falling into the same spring together and its Spring of Drowned Fox Woman. The woman would have been a Kitsune. A Natural shape shifter exploring the continent to get away from her homeland a while. Sure the initial splash form would be that of a female fox. But the gender isn't immediately apparent any more than it is on Genma's Panda form. And it isn't until learning to change shapes that anyone would know better.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Good point with the Jr. High School = opportunity to train logic. After all, Genma repeatedly says and acts like anything can be made training with the right perspective, so deliberately sending Ranma (and, in this canon, the girls) to a school known to have lots of delinquents is perfectly sensible if you think about it the way Genma would. I'll need to think on this matter...

That spring idea, though, doesn't appeal to me. I'm not a big fan of "magical critter/lifeform" springs, because I'm wary that it could make them too powerful. I mean, Rouge and Taro have the most deadly curses in canon, and that's why they are almost never shown - they can clean the clocks of just about the entire NWC singlehanded. Beyond that, giving Ranma a curse that is essentially "drowned girl, with extras" feels as cliche as straight up girl. I've lost count of how many damn "robot girl, magical girl, vampiress, nymphomaniac, sorceress, succubus" and other "girl-variant" springs have been used in Ranma fanfiction.

[Spokavriel]

I went with it for the natural shape shifter aspect. The biggest problem in coming to a curse decision is that so much of the training trip is going to be different so Ranma will consequently be different as well. Look how well some of the curses tend to balance or at least compliment the victim in some fashion.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Balance? Compliment? Genma and Ranma are the only main characters whose curses do not impair them, and it's canon that Ranma doesn't train as much as he needs to in order to truly compensate for the reduced strength and reach being female gives him. Genma trades a bit of speed for toughness and strength, so he's quite happy with it. Ryoga becomes a defenseless little animal that couldn't be more enticing to predators, human and animal, without coming with its own personal condiments kit - and he happens to spend most of his life out in the wilderness to boot, so there's no shelter from rain and no people to protect him when he does change. Shampoo is only slightly better off in that her equally harmless form isn't quite so appetizing and can climb heights to evade danger. Mousse can only fight as a duck because he manages to retain access to the projectiles he keeps in his personal hammerspace, otherwise he'd probably have ended up being eaten the first time he got caught out in the wilderness as a duck. And both he and Shampoo still spend most of their time in a relatively safe urban environment.

The canon curses were chosen for comedic potential, not because they balance or compliment the character in any way. Except maybe in the sense that they provide an achilles heel so they can't just batter problems into submission.

Besides which, if you want to give Ranma a shapeshifting Japanese obake's curse, why not a tanuki? All of the same shapeshifting abilities, but absolutely none of the classical grace or mystique, which would make it even more of a thorn in Ranma's ego than being a girl was. Genma, on the other hand, is probably already as close to being a tanuki as you can get while still being human, so it's doubtful if he'd even notice the difference.

[Spokavriel]

Ryouga is Pig headed. That is why he has trouble with Ranma in the first place that and the fact that he lacked humility. In Charlote's Web a couple meanings for Humble are equated to Wilbur and I wouldn't be surprised if that also comes into play with why Ryouga got his curse. Its an emphasis on his faults.

Shampoo is quite Catty and its not because of her curse. Her pride is why she gave Ranma the Kiss of Death. I hate that I am typing this for a second time because of accidents with trying to post otherwise I would expand on this more.

Genma is complimented the Panda Bear is Strong easy going and loves to spend its time eating or relaxing. So does Genma.

Mousse was using Bird themed attacks including his Fist of the White Swan before he even got cursed. Instead of a swan he got turned into an Ugly Duck. Again a play on the character aspects.

None of this is literal but all of it is glaringly obvious. The thing is the situations and natures of the characters from having a different training trip might make it so that those connections can't really be found to fit for Ranma or the Girls when they get to Jusenkyo. Just like Akane got away uncursed. It depends on what would be a fun parallel or contrast to the character. And with all the Man among Men stuff that is central to Ranma 1/2 that is why the girl curse along with Saotome being something related to a rice planting girl all were put together.

Its not Ranma 1/2 without Ranma being cursed but what curse really has to be dependent on what Ranma is like from all these changes.

Edit: Missed it in the rewrite. Ranma without grace doesn't seem like Ranma. Look at the fence walking, Heck just about everything from balancing on Kuno's sword to perching against the side of a tree for a moment. The control and grace needed. You have to majorly change Ranma's training and possibly make it a Ground Based art to take that away.

Edit again: Wait I just thought of something. Why are we arguing on the Kitsune angle? Is it because I said Fox Woman? It doesn't have to be a gender curse. Heck look at Drowned Cat. Just because a Fox Woman drowned doesn't mean its a gender based spring it could still be just Kitsune. But end up a spring that hadn't been witnessed having a customer. So what fell in is the name so far.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Points, good points all of them. The reason I brought up the Tanuki curse was because, as you said, Ranma is normally a very graceful sort and, while there are all sorts of symbolism attached to the various curses, they all have an in-universe factor. They piss their "hosts" off. There is not one teen in the main cast who does not dislike their curse, and given the pride that Ranma takes in his grace, becoming less graceful would surely spur him as much as his wounded masculinity does with the girl curse. There was also the thought that tanukis use their shapeshifting abilities for manipulation and even malice, which is what Ranma pretty much uses his female form for. He's a very manipulative person, as Three-Headed Dog will gladly point out.

Still, this is a tough issue, as you've pointed out. I am certain that he should walk away from Jusenkyo with a curse, as I can't see a way that having Natsume & Kurumi there might cause him to avoid that fate the way that, say, going to Nyucheizu first would have done. But I can't think of a curse to give him.

:Edit:
(Blink) That's a very good point. I do think I was actually a little more worried about the idea that letting Ranma cook up illusions and coat himself with phantasms might make him too powerful than with the gender thing. Hmm... perhaps, to avoid him staying in Kitsune form 24/7 and trying to avoid cures because this is just way too powerful to give up, there's some sort of drawback to being a Kitsune? Like, say, he loses much or even most of his physical conditioning in that body, maybe because his ki gets converted into yoki as a consequence of switching from a human to a yokai?

[Spokavriel]

How about this. Ranma falls(gets kicked per cannon) into the Tanuki pool and the girls end up in their own cursed pools rushing to his aid?

Edit: How about a more cannon to Kitsune fault. The Soul Gem. Whomever holds it instantly has as much control over him as a Master does over a Genie. Only add another point to it. Make it so that if Ranma is ever without it he's also not able to access nor use his Ki. Even when changing back to uncursed form the Ki is locked away until he can get his Gem back.

Can you see Genma avoiding taking advantage of something like that?

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I hope I get this done before you edit your post... Tanuki or Kitsune for Ranma could work well, especially if they're not gender specific and so I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to still inflict the same old story on Ranma, but there needs to be a drawback to it for me to really feel comfortable with doing so - I don't want to make an "uber Ranma". I suggested one in my edit for my last post, but I'm sure you can probably think of a better one(s).

And having the girls get their own curses is definately alright with me, though how they end in theirs could definately use a little more work.