Gah, I know I'm not supposed to doubble post, but I've been waiting for a chance to post another challenge, just because I like coming up with them, and nobody has posted anything in the challenge thread for a while.
Anyway, this is sort of a themed Ranma re-write. The objective is to take Ranma from start to finish, but _not_ do it Takahashi style, and make the background world more consistent and logical, and perhaps the characters a bit more competent and normal, and perhaps reduce the misunderstandings a bit, or at least make them have less exaggerated slapstick moments and reduce it to slaps that leave hand prints on the face or something, rather than bashing people with tables.
The main idea is to take Ranma, and re-do it as if it were written by Ken Akamatsu within a universe that is very similar to the one in Mahou Sensei Negima! and have the whole setting an things make more sense, much like things in Negima! do, even try to fit it into the Negima! world without getting mixed up with their main characters or plot, possibly ignoring that their plot is happening altogether but bringing in some of the major characters from it, such as the leaders of the Kanto and Kyoto Mage Associations.
Ranma done by Akamatsu:
Some of the things to consider is working out more details about how Jyuusenkyo curses and things related to them operate, and how the world treats them. Obviously magic is being kept secret from the general populace, perhaps Jyuusenkyo victims have to hide their curses, and might get banished to the magical world if their curses come out, and everyone who found out about them will have memories modified (keeping Nabiki from exploiting Ranma's curse as much as she might otherwise) which forces Ranma to be more secretive about the curse. Perhaps Nerima has some sort of connection with the magical world, as does Furinkan, maybe Nerima is the district where the Koga ninja clan is based and they arranged for Furinkan High to be filled with secret passages and traps intended for young ninjas in training, but Ranma gets to use for quick changes, similar to Futaba-kun Change! and most of the faculty knows about the magical world and are secretly ninja with maybe a few different sorts of mages and super-martial artists mixed in.
Perhaps the curses don't originate from 'China' at all, although Ranma and Genma traveled through there on their way back and only claimed that area, but in truth they'd used a gateport in China to get to and from the magical world, but Soun doesn't want his daughters learning about the magical world just yet, or at all, and is only letting them learn about magic existing due to the complications of trying to hide Ranma and Genma's curses within the household and with the terms of Ranma and Genma's arrival. Maybe the reason Ranma and Genma aren't cured yet isn't because of not knowing how to get cured, but because it is ridiculously expensive to get the cure, like 1 million Dachama in the magical world or something, and they actually had to pretend not to be cursed in order to get through gateport customs, so they might get in trouble if it is found out the difficult to hide Jyuusenkyo curses are on victims who made it through to the old world. Maybe Ryoga managed to stumble through gateport a couple times in order to get cursed as well, and the Amazons originate from the magical world, but also use the 'China' excuse at Ranma's request later on when there isn't a language barrier. Maybe Dr. Tofu is familiar with the magical world, if not a semi-competent mage/healer himself, although perhaps not particularly powerful, maybe he uses mana based power ups rather than ki based ones in his martial arts.
One of the big changes would be various techniques and fights. I'd suggest eliminating most of the 'pressure point' stuff, and changing it to weird magical drugs or minor curses, perhaps Cologne uses a needle doused with a magical drug on the end of her staff in order to give Ranma the weakness to hot water, and Dr. Tofu feeds Ranma a one time use magic drug in the fight with Mousse to allow him to use hot water once for a temporary time in order to fight in his male form. I'd recommend eliminating the need to use specific emotions for ki blasts, and switch out Amaguriken training for a bit of more regular speed training and shundo, making it so that Ranma needs shundo to keep up with chasing Cologne, and speed training to keep up with her close up movements fast enough to try and get the phoenix pill. Then I'd make training in ki blasts more of a sort of not too difficult but rarely mastered next step once your ki skills are good for proper battle auras and shundo, maybe involve some special focusing training, and have them rarely shown outside of super-martial arts circles because of the secrecy of the magic world.
Maybe the Amazons do live in China, but come from near a gateport there and are one of the tribes that guard and regulate it, and hide themselves from the modern world with magic.
I'd reduce the kisses of death and marrige and make it so that there are more solid and agreeable outs to them, maybe make it so they are some sort of romance thing, rather than laws, but a cultural standard that is up to the choice of the Amazon in question giving them, and there is little dishonor in giving them up, but Shampoo happens to be particularly stubborn, and Cologne later thinks Ranma is a good catch, or maybe make the kiss of death be 'chase to the ends of the earth and defeat, either kill or beat up' and the kiss of marriage be optional to the Amazon, she can give it up in certain circumstances like the target being ugly or inhuman or already married with kids.
I'd also make the curses have more specific terms of temperature, perhaps a certain number of degrees above or below base human body temperature or based on the temperature at the springs, like it has to be a certain amount hotter or colder than Jyuusenkyo, and perhaps this causes weird things with the triggers when funny things happen at Jyuusenkyo, like perhaps some underground hot springs occasionally leak into the springs, heating them up, and making it require uncomfortably hot temperatures to change back with the curses of the pools the hot water leaked into for a while, which is hard to predict for the curse victims, leaving Ranma occasionally having the normal hot water fail to turn him back, and need a hotter temperature by varying amounts for a while after that until the pool cools down again back at Jyuusenkyo. You could even have Ranma order a little magic talisman from Jyuusenkyo products that keeps track of the temperature of the Nyanniichuan pool and lets him know if water is hot enough by sticking it in the water in order to change him back.
I'd cover things like the origins of Jyuusenkyo, how Jyuusenkyo products company does business with magic world people, (possibly online sales on the magi-net) how the curses work, how they are cured, why the place hasn't been destroyed, how Ranma and Genma wound up there and got accidentally cursed, etc. (Maybe the springs are a punishing ground for magical world minor criminals, and Genma and Ranma got in trouble with some sort of minor crime committed by Genma or both of them, not enough that they got enslaved, or turned into Ermines, or imprisoned, but enough to get cursed, or maybe it was a known cursed ground, but they tried to take a short-cut through it without knowing about it while running from some people they'd somehow pissed off, or maybe the curses are known about and generally avoided, but still draw in unwary victims who travel through the area with powers of their own that the spirits of the area control, and the springs are powered like dark magic by the pain and suffering of the victims caused by the curses, but they are careful to keep the victims alive still as well, to continue to suffer, as the pain of death isn't good for their power, or their true objective is to teach lessons, even if they are powered by negative emotions)
I'd drop the whole Hiryuu Shoten Ha thing and change the ultimate weakness arc so that it would be something like Happosai blocks Ranma's ability to use ki somehow, perhaps with some sort of curse trap or magic drug that gives him a magic aura that conflicts, forcing him to learn some sort of magic based power up, and Ranma winds up learning a magic based power up through Cologne or some other character, and perhaps makes a pactio with someone (maybe Dr. Tofu?) and gets a pactio artifact that creates some sort of special wind attack or something that turns an opponent's ki against themselves similar to the HSH, but as a special power just belonging to Ranma and his pactio artifact, and Ranma's skill at using the artifact increases with appropriate new tricks figured out in times for facing Herb and Saffron.
With Hinako, you'd probably have to drop the age shifting, but you could keep the energy drain power, just have her do it with a coin on a string and pretend it is a form of hypnosis to cause students to cool off, when really it is some sort of magic trick to drain ki auras, and she can fire them back in blasts later, perhaps she is even some sort of hanyou, and takes a child form when really tired, and has to hide in that state, but Ranma and some of his associates and those in on magic find out while Ranma is trying to defeat her, because she gets tired from fighting Ranma. Instead of pressure points on her chest, maybe her hanyou side is some sort of succubus, and grabbing her breasts from behind and flaring your ki just a bit makes you temporarily immune to her draining power, as revealed by Happosai, and you can eventually make it so that succubus can't drain you if you do it every day for a month, which succubus have in the way their abilities so that they can avoid draining mates they like or a permanent mate, and Ranma only finds out the full details of this after managing to pull it off once, causing some extra mis-understandings and amusing Happosai. Maybe Hinako's child form reflects the age of her succubus heritage, which makes her grow up slower than humans, and she is actually shape shifting to appear the real human age, so the child form is her true form, with her wings and tail and horns hidden, while the adult form needs energy for her to maintain.
Ryoga's great strength could perhaps involve some sort of hanyou heritage as well, maybe he has an oni ancestor or something else that is where his fangs and super levels of strength come from, and the breaking point training would be some sort of magic barrier super armor from his hanyou heritage Cologne helps him unlock as she senses his heritage, and Ranma would counter it by learning a ki striking technique to enhance his blows with a ball of ki around them like Kadae does in some of Chao's tournament during the festival, rather than super-fast punches like cannon Takkahashi Ranma.
Changes would of course have to take place, and some characters might have to be changed, high level battles couldn't happen at random in public places without weird excuses, like Mousse having them take place as part of a fake circus act and pretending they are slight of hand type magic show tricks. Some extreme stuff would have to be dropped in order to avoid things being taken too seriously by people, such as Mousse wouldn't be able to be throwing around Jyuusenkyo water or trying to curse people with it, and probably couldn't have transported it, or if he did, it was more of a bluff and temporary embarrassment type thing and the water was actually the instant version, or once removed from the original pools all Jyuusenkyo water becomes the instant version. Ranma would never be able to reveal the curse to the school at large, or the public at large through mostly ignored accidents, Happosai couldn't have a giant form battle in the middle of the city, etc. I'd also make Happosai and Cologne a bit less short and more looking like normal humans, or perhaps have Happosai be cursed into Ermine form and an escapee from the magical world Ermine prison who has managed to re-awaken his powers even as an Ermine, and Ranma can't turn him in because he'll turn Ranma and Genma, Jyuusenkyo victims in the old world, in as well.
I'd also drop the whole seppuku contract thing, but perhaps instead make it so that Nodoka is connected to magical world authorities, and very serious about the law, and not know Ranma and Genma are cursed, but be after Genma over some crimes in the magical world to turn him in, despite being her husband, and Genma convinces him she'll send Ranma away too, so they have to hide from her in cursed form, but Ranma eventually just wants to meet his mother for real even if she'll turn him in and he'll go to prison in the magic world, only for Nodoka to find out the circumstances and arrange some leniency for her son, and because of that incidentally Genma as well, and they wind up having to continue hiding their curses and do some sort of community service or something with Nodoka as their parole officer, which takes relatively little time out of their day, and has little story impact, or Ranma slips out due to being a minor, but Genma is sent away for a few weeks or a couple months or so, maybe time goes faster in the magical world so Genma is gone for a long time in the magical world, but comes back much quicker in the regular world, like two months in magical world prison doing labor, but it winds up only being a few weeks in the old world.
I might make Nodoka a shinmei-ryu practitioner just for the hell of it, although not necessarily a very good one.
Genma, I might make his style similar to 'Death Glasses' Takahata in using the iiaken, although just with ki, not any kanka techniques, combined with the dirty tricks and stuff of the Anything Goes style, and a certain level of general competence, and maybe a few ninja techniques.
Soun I'd give some half-assed illusion aura tricks and perhaps some weapons skills, and otherwise just basic anything goes and martial arts ki stuff, not really in Genma's league, but able to use ki with weapons, and skilled in weapons use more than Genma is, as well as better at counter-attacks and being on the defensive and the ground in one place than Genma to counteract Genma's aerial techniques.
I'd probably have Taro's cursed form be a demon, the phoenix people be some sort of demon race of the magical world that lives near Jyuusenkyo and is connected to it's origins, and Saffron be some sort of god-like entity to them and somehow immortal in the sense of his reincarnation and regenerative powers, and generally having much greater powers than the other phoenix people, mostly related to fire.
I'd have a reason the Kaiisfuu wound up in Japan of all places on some hidden island, perhaps one cloaked by magic by the enemies of the Musk, maybe done by the Amazons, but there has since been improved relations and the musk finally found need of the Kaiisfuu, so Cologne is forced to give away the map, or maybe only really gives away the map because only Herb can awaken the Kaiisfuu's powers but she expects Ranma to follow him there and get unlocked as well after Herb locks him.
I might come up with some modifications of various other characters and their techniques, bring in some characters from Negima! if not directly, then mentioned in passing as important or famous people in the magic world or as past people Ranma or Genma might have met, pissed off, or trained under or with. I'd also have Happosai use some means and tricks from the Negima! manga or that fit into similar themes and change some of the stuff Ranma runs into in his adventures to more reflect things in an Akamatsu style. Perhaps the Orochi is a powerful sealed demon from ancient times like that one at the Kyoto arc that had been sealed by Nagi's group originally, and seems to have been defeated by Eva, and the whistle Akane is given is a sealing key, but they need to wake it up to get the moss to heal Ryuunosuke, who got a head injury, and it will fully heal his injury, and re-seal it once they have the moss, but just getting the moss is a tough battle, made a bit easier since the Orochi has a weird thing for girls, and it was originally sealed by the legendary warrior of ancient times Susanoh-O who was perhaps an early practitioner of the precursor to the Shinmei-ryuu, and Rozengenwa is warded to keep normal people away and hide the magic there, but maintained for the magical resources it offers, and Ryuunosuke's family has been charged with guarding it and regulating the use of the resources there, and occasionally gathering moss to sell on magical markets for making various magical cures and healing potions, and gathering even more of the water of life for various lesser potions, but his grandfather is too old to deal with the Orochi on his own anymore, and Ryuunosuke's head injury blocks most of his memories of his skills, so he's only fighting at about 1/4th strength, with none of his advanced techniques, but once he's been healed he is a fully competent user of a modified lesser family branch of the shinmei-ryuu specialized for fighting the giant animals in Rozengenwa without harming them and the Orochi to harvest moss, but they need Akane and Ranma to help because they are competent martial artists, neither Ryuunosuke or his grandfather are at full strength, and Ryuunosuke only accidentally managed to get Akane there, and only a virgin girl channeling her ki or magic power somehow can properly blow the whistle. A comedy point could be that you might have Ranma be the one to blow the whistle in girl form in the end, only to be teased about being a girl by Akane and Ryoga as far as the whistle's powers go, when Ranma had initially refused the whistle when Ryuunosuke's grandfather had tried to get her to use it, and fobbed it off on Akane, who perhaps lost it in the course of the battle and Ranma found it and had to use it right away to save someone, or perhaps turned out not to be able to channel her energies properly to use it, or didn't have enough of the right kind of power.
Some possible comical extras you might use are having Akane form a pactio with someone, perhaps Ranma or Dr. Tofu, and wind up getting a magic mallet artifact to poke fun at fannon, which can only deal non-lethal damage, so she summons it when angry at Ranma to batter him as much as she wants, as it only causes pain, not real damage. Gosunkugi as an incompetent onimyudo mage whose parents are members of the Kyoto Mage Accociation working in Nerima unable to summon strong enough demons to protect him while using incantations or cast spells of any worth or power, who buys various products on the magi-net to try and defeat Ranma with or find ways to increase his magical power, and perhaps later takes Ranma as a pactio partner in order to work with him to defeat someone threatening Akane, and have him jealous of Ranma's magical potential power, and irritated that Ranma doesn't even use it, but focuses on ki stuff, so he tries various means to use Ranma's energy to do big spells or steal Ranma's magical potential for himself. Have the neko-ken be an attempt to give Ranma the ability to use beast spirit techniques (like Kotaro uses) gone wrong, perhaps because Genma made a wrong squiggle somewhere in the magic array he used, or it wasn't meant for humans to use, and was from a scroll stolen from a cat-demon tribe, or Ranma has some distant cat-demon hanyou ancestry, perhaps from Nodoka's side, that Genma knew about, but while Nodoka could use the techniques normally, in Ranma the ancestry is just one generation too distant and it caused weird side effects and exposed Ranma to energies he couldn't handle that traumatized his mind and spirit, either way, Ranma can use it, but only by losing his mind and starting to act like a cat from his fear of cats induced by the trauma of the training or perhaps being caught and tortured for a while by the cat demon tribe as punishment for stealing their technique, or a side effect of the training not being meant for humans, maybe later Ranma could find a way to master it properly before a bigger battle, and possibly gain a cat hanyou type form he usually suppresses, but like Setuna he has to let out to access his full power, but of course can't do in public in the old world without weird excuses like cosplay costumes.
I'd probably have principal Kuno having been associated with the Koga ninja clan, perhaps one of their larger clients and allies, and make him originally an incompetent onimyuudo mage or shinmei-ryuu user, who traveled to Hawaii for a while working with mages there, only to discover he really liked hawaiian culture and he was good at their style of magic, and make him, and his kids, less crazy, although still rich, egotistical, and eccentric, and instead of being after Ranma and some other students just because he's a jerk who likes punishing people and a nut who likes stupid uniforms and haircuts, instead have him after Ranma for being a student that refuses to wear the school uniform, and Ukyo for wearing the boys' uniform, and only threatening those who misbehave with horrible haircuts, which he used as punishment for his own kids when they were younger and some of the more disobedient students while he was principal there before his trip to Hawaii, and have him keep on Ranma's tail, perhaps even after forcing Ranma to wear proper uniforms in both forms with Hinako's help, because he'd discover that Ranma was actually really smart and could raise the grade average and test scores in Furinkan if he studied more and didn't skip class or sleep through it as much, and Akane and Ukyo and his own son he'd bother more because they are some of the worst students 'baka ranger' types, and is trying to make them study harder because Furinkan has gotten really poor grades since he left for Hawaii and is getting a worse reputation, but the kids fight back because they have various reasons for not wanting to spend more time studying, or facing his weird versions of punishments or study sessions, Ukyo has her job, Ranma finds school boring and wants to train, Akane is pissed by any implications against her intelligence, and doesn't like acknowledging her 'baka ranger' status, and Kuno wants to train like Ranma does and hates his father and will do anything to fowl him up, even purposefully refuse tutoring and resist discipline, and also has similar ego issues about his intelligence as Akane. (I'll admit I have this vision of Ranma, Gosunguki, Akane, Ukyo, and Kuno as the Furinkan version of the Baka Rangers getting into all sorts of hyjinx with Hinako or Principal Kuno as the teachers trying to keep them in line and make them study, Gosunkugi and Ranma would be able to finish quickly once they actually study, sort of like Yue, but one wants to focus on magic, and the other on martial arts, and both find studying boring, while the others are pure baka ranger, Akane in particular is similar to Asuna in grades and studying, although more reluctant to admit it, maybe also including Ryoga if he can finally start going to school properly, perhaps once he finds his house again and uses Shirokiro to lead him around, and starts going to Furinkan because Shirokiro follows Ranma's scent trail initially, as Shirokiro knows Ranma and perhaps likes him from when Ranma used to help lead Ryoga to school and fight him a lot and visit his house when Shirokiro was a puppy, maybe Ranma was even the one to train Shirokiro to function as Ryoga's guide)
I'd have, like Mahora, most of the furinkan populace be unaware of the magical world, but I'd also fill out the class population a bit like Negima! does, giving people different personalities and interests and putting in some crossover characters and OCs and developed versions of Sayuri, Yuka, Hiroshi, and Daisuke. I think one of the classmates could be a modified version of NukuNuku, perhaps she is the ghost of a cat demon or cat-hanyou that was bound into a magic doll body, or is a magical robot/doll based on similar technology to Chachamaru, but her mind was accidentally imprinted off a pet-cat, so she has a feline personality and used to think she was a cat, and acts like a cat a lot, and is one of the few fighters who rivals Ranma, but has some of her own enemies, a doll specialist pair who use magi-tech in order to try and kidnap NukuNuku's 'younger brother' back to his mother from his father who has been taking custody and care of him, and are also trying to kidnap NukuNuku so the mother can examine her and figure out the secrets to how she was built in order to create more of her for the magical world military of a certain country in the magical world she works for. Ranma would become NukuNuku's occasional ally and friend, once he gets over the cat thing, and maybe learn something from her at some point, and she'd get occasionally mixed up in some of his hijinx, and maybe at some point, perhaps after Ranma masters the neko-ken, there could be a sort of cat-girl delivery race competition on bicycle between Ranma, NukuNuku, and Shampoo, Shampoo competing for the Nekohaten, NukuNuku competing for a New York Style Pizza place she works at, and Ranma competing for the Ucchan's, and the whole thing might have started due to a rivalry that develops between Shampoo and Nukunuku, with Ranma getting involved because Ukyo and Nabiki want to cash in on the potential publicity and Nukunuku misunderstanding Shampoo's motives and feelings, just considering Shampoo a friend, while Shampoo thinks Nukunuku likes mocking her and imitating her to make fun of her and finds Nukunuku's personality grating anyway.
Other possible comical events could include Ranma making messed up clones like Negi does at the hotel which go around kissing people or something, Ranma's fiancees wanting to form pactios with him, some of them before understanding the exact nature of a pactio (Ukyo thinking it mostly just a kiss magic contract sort of thing and not knowing the purpose behind it or about the artifacts, perhaps just the cute cards, and Akane not knowing a kiss is involved and just wanting a magic artifact, while Shampoo knows the whole thing and just wants to form one with Ranma since Ranma is her 'husband' by Amazon law, and she thinks it romantic and cool, and Mousse wants to form one with Shampoo because he finds out she is interested in pactio, but perhaps winds up stealing kisses from girls mistaking them for Shampoo and making more pactios than Ranma, as Ranma tries to run away, and perhaps have Ranma's girl form get a pactio with Mousse that way due to not realizing Mousse is trying to kiss Shampoo and mistakes onna-Ranma for her, and all sorts of other silly hijinx)
I also might have Mousse's hidden weapons technique be actually some sort of pactio ability to summon weapons, or a magical technique with subspace pockets of some sort in his robes, or simply a common magical technique for carrying stuff in a pocket that he's extended to great levels, but define it a little better and it's limits and use. Maybe it is even a nearly identical power to Rakan's pactio artifact, and Mousse is particularly proud to have such an artifact because it is similar to that of a legendary warrior, and Mousse wants to eventually try to become Rakan's apprentice, but had been turned away from a previous attempt and told to go get more experience on his own and learn a few certain techniques before Rakan would even consider it, or given some outrageous teaching charge to drive him off.
I think many points of the story would diverge due to differing world and events, and things might get more different from cannon Ranma over time, with pairings up to whoever might take the challenge, but they should try to keep the cannon Ranma characters at least similar in personality and fighting style and motives, even if the exact means are different. Various weird martial arts things like Kodachi might have to be changed, as she couldn't really get away with ambushing other teams before matches in a more realistic world, so perhaps she does it in disguise in a ninja outfit and is only suspected, and/or has Sasuke brought in from the anime doing it, or just some hired random ninja doing it, and have the martial arts rhythmic gymnastics matches be a bit less violent and deadly looking than cannon, and have Kodachi cheat in more subtle and tricky ways, and the win be pretty much only by knock out or ring out, but you aren't allowed to seriously injure your opponent, so perhaps her retractable spike clubs have needles instead that have sleep poison on them, or balls that explode with poison gas, or a rope with a rod hidden in it, stuff that the judges wouldn't catch normally, and even though they know she is cheating, it would be difficult to prove to the judges without stopping the match, which would mean Koachi would win their special challenge deal about her leaving male Ranma alone, and the golden pair would also have to be a bit less ridiculous, although still perhaps a pervert and a klepto, Azusa could be more reasonable when caught, and realize she'd stolen something, but refuse to give up 'Charolette' because Akane can't really prove she owns him, and Mikaido could actually have some magic trick or something behind his kisses that makes him have an easier time forcing them on girls and breaking up couples, perhaps a rare hypnotic eye ability that causes their guard to drop, and a seductive kiss spell trick similar to how pactio is activated with a kiss, he can do a minor love potion type effect that makes people he kisses like him and dislike other people they like temporarily, which he applies with a special magic chap stick or something, but can be resisted by those with strong willpower or realize something funny is going on, as it isn't very strong, or if it goes against their sexual orientation or identity it is a bit easier, so Ranma is able to throw it off pretty quickly, and gets particularly freaked out and upset about it, especially due to the feelings that were briefly there due to the magic before Ranma through it off, and Ranma is magically aware enough to realize the effect is magical and already knew how to resist hypnosis, but had been caught off guard, and Mikaido uses magic a bit in his fighting style, and his skates are a pactio artifact that allow him to skate really fast and stuff.
"Health, Learning & Virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem & public honor." Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)