ranma's pet

[Makoto]

I don't recall Ryoga actually believing what he was saying.

It's one of the reasons why Ryouga set out after Ranma in the first place, inadvertently following him to China, for example. And in the manga, (I only have the original Japanese volumes, and took a quick look, so I'm not necessarily giving a thorough translation) after defeating the boar, asking for directions and leaving, he basically mutters to himself, "Just you wait, Saotome Ranma! I'll teach you to run and hide from a man-to-man duel!"

[Tornado Ninja Fan]

There are a number of times Ryoga ends up on the wrong island, and seems to walk from island to island.

16.01-16.07 14.05-14.11 Screaming Hot Springs Festival Obstacle Course Race.
He seems to end up in random seeming places that make no sense even with Ukyo as his partner in a three legged race.

33.03-33.05 31.03-31.05 Mushrooms of time
Ryoga seems to possibly travel to Africa, and the map he drew seems to imply distances for him are not the same as for everyone else.

He seems to walk. He seems to end up in random seeming places. Ryoga seems to possibly travel to Africa, and the map he drew seems to imply. Wow. Those are really inarguable proof.
And why didn't Ukyo comment on his teleporting? She acts like they were simply lost.

I already answered this. Ryoga knew the Panda that tried to eat him was there, and it would add creditability to his story.

So, let me see if I got this straight. Ryoga travels to China and witnesses a random girl chasing a panda through a forest. Then he falls into the spring for some reason and a panda (probably the same one as the one chased by the girl) nearly eats him.

He returns to Japan and after their duel he realizes that Ranma is the girl that had chased the panda.

At this point (or later in the bedroom) he decides to make up the story how Ranma accidentally pushed him down the cliff.

Then he sneaks into Ranma's bedroom and sees the panda. He realizes that it must be the one that tried to eat him and that it was with Ranma. (Or maybe he has seen the panda with Ranma before and realized it then, though I wonder why he didn't attack Ranma at that point.)

Anyway, at this point he adds the part of the panda trying to eat him to add creditability. Or he made up the complete thing on the spot, because he needed that creditability for a good lie.

After he had told the story in the bathroom and sees the panda, he manages to act as if he had only just then realized that the girl was Ranma.

So, he's not just a skilled liar, but also a gifted actor.

Why didn't he make up a story that blamed Ranma more directly and not just by accident? For example, a story how he managed to evade the panda, but Ranma landed right next to him and shoved Ryoga out of his way down the cliff.

You claimed Ryoga needed his umbrella to fight animals.

Why does Ryoga need a weapon to take down a panda?

I wrote he decided to use the umbrella. When I decide to use italics to emphasize what I am writing, I don't need them. I could still decide to bold or underline for emphasis.
Ryoga decided to use the umbrella versus the pig, but he doesn't need it. He still could have decided to kick or punch it.

Ranma has a Ki blast for every emotion he could possibly identify, and then some.

You have seen all those attacks based on different emotions? Were they in the anime? What did the one for anger look like and what did it do? Or the one for fear? Was there one powered by love?

If Ryoga had looked before he leapt he would have seen Ranma coming down, but Ryoga just jumped. Ranma would have likely been in clear view. Ranma had to have jumped, and cleared the bamboo before Ryoga jumped.

He wasn't visible in the panel with Genma. While he could have been above the edge of that panel, that is no proof he was visible for Ryoga the moment he jumped.

Tall objects in front of one block one's view on higher objects behind them. The bamboo could have blocked the view on the higher Ranma and there was still enough standing after Genma had passed that there was bamboo visible under Ranma when he arrived.

Ryoga also had good reason to think there was something behind the panda that was dangerous.

When the thing chasing the panda arrived, he was still in the air. Had Ranma been on the ground like any other predator after pandas, Ryoga would have been safe. And if the predator had stopped, he could have used the fall for a dropkick.

[Wyrd]

Given the way his family get lost, Ryoga has been pretty much living on his own for years, and the calm way he dealt with the boar makes it look like he had been in similar situations before.

Ryoga wasn't carrying his umbrella at that time. He must have bought it after he got cursed and then he decided to deal with wild animals that way.

I wrote he decided to use the umbrella. When I decide to use italics to emphasize what I am writing, I don't need them. I could still decide to bold or underline for emphasis.
Ryoga decided to use the umbrella versus the pig, but he doesn't need it. He still could have decided to kick or punch it.

Your original post, quoted above, claimed, or more accurately implied, that Ryouga jumped out of the way instead of punching the panda because he didn't have the umbrella yet. The original claim was that Ryouga's calm takedown of a giant enraged boar, which would be vastly more dangerous than a panda, incidentally, shows that he is quite experienced at dealing with wild animals, and that his behaviour at other times does not match his behaviour in his story of what happened at Jusenkyo. Discrepancies such as this can be used to point out that his recounting may not be entirely accurate.

As far as Ryouga teleporting: he has apparently walked to other islands of Japan without ever crossing a body of water. He walked back from China with his pack despite the fact that his new curse would prevent him from swimming like Ranma and Genma did. He has also, if his own maps are any indication, walked to France, and considers it to be around the same distance from Japan as China; some translations change these destinations to be things that are still in Japan, but which are on other islands. Given that it is played entirely for comedic intent, Ukyo not thinking twice about how lost they get is no more surprising than Ryouga always being fooled by Onna-Ranma in her latest disguise, no matter how bad the disguise is or how many times she has pulled the exact same trick on him.

[Zwzn]

It's one of the reasons why Ryouga set out after Ranma in the first place, inadvertently following him to China, for example. And in the manga, (I only have the original Japanese volumes, and took a quick look, so I'm not necessarily giving a thorough translation) after defeating the boar, asking for directions and leaving, he basically mutters to himself, "Just you wait, Saotome Ranma! I'll teach you to run and hide from a man-to-man duel!"

Well I don't think Ryoga actually believes that. He folded to easily when called on it.

I consider his hunting Ranma to be what he considers to be a way to redeem his honor.

He seems to walk. He seems to end up in random seeming places. Ryoga seems to possibly travel to Africa, and the map he drew seems to imply. Wow. Those are really inarguable proof.

We never see Ryoga while he is traveling to a location, but he seems to often walk to places you need to cross large bodies of water to get to. With his piglet curse swimming is not an option if he expects to keep his gear, and with his direction curse taking a boat or plane is not an option.

Since you have not provided a better idea I will assume you agree that Ryoga's ability to get lost is something like a teleport ,or phase powers(Rifts).

And why didn't Ukyo comment on his teleporting? She acts like they were simply lost.

I figure she is just kind of in shock. It's not like she would go to those locations like the building's attic.

So, let me see if I got this straight. Ryoga travels to China and witnesses a random girl chasing a panda through a forest. Then he falls into the spring for some reason and a panda (probably the same one as the one chased by the girl) nearly eats him.

He returns to Japan and after their duel he realizes that Ranma is the girl that had chased the panda.

At this point (or later in the bedroom) he decides to make up the story how Ranma accidentally pushed him down the cliff.

Then he sneaks into Ranma's bedroom and sees the panda. He realizes that it must be the one that tried to eat him and that it was with Ranma. (Or maybe he has seen the panda with Ranma before and realized it then, though I wonder why he didn't attack Ranma at that point.)

Anyway, at this point he adds the part of the panda trying to eat him to add creditability. Or he made up the complete thing on the spot, because he needed that creditability for a good lie.

After he had told the story in the bathroom and sees the panda, he manages to act as if he had only just then realized that the girl was Ranma.

So, he's not just a skilled liar, but also a gifted actor.

Even a stopped clock shows the correct time twice a day.

He took a risk when his original plan failed.

Why didn't he make up a story that blamed Ranma more directly and not just by accident? For example, a story how he managed to evade the panda, but Ranma landed right next to him and shoved Ryoga out of his way down the cliff.

Because Ranma would know for certain it wasn't true?

Ryoga got lucky Ranma didn't call him on such an unbelievable story. Cliffs are not very common in valleys after all.

I wrote he decided to use the umbrella. When I decide to use italics to emphasize what I am writing, I don't need them. I could still decide to bold or underline for emphasis.

Then answer the question. The post you are answered has it.

He wasn't visible in the panel with Genma. While he could have been above the edge of that panel, that is no proof he was visible for Ryoga the moment he jumped.

Tall objects in front of one block one's view on higher objects behind them. The bamboo could have blocked the view on the higher Ranma and there was still enough standing after Genma had passed that there was bamboo visible under Ranma when he arrived.

Genma had just knocked down a large path. The plants were snapped in two. There was nothing to impede Ryoga's vision if he had looked. Even if we assume Ryoga could not have seen Ranma until his head was above the panda that still gives him time to avoid Ranma who he had just jumped in front of.

When the thing chasing the panda arrived, he was still in the air. Had Ranma been on the ground like any other predator after pandas, Ryoga would have been safe. And if the predator had stopped, he could have used the fall for a dropkick.

Tigers very good jumpers, and aside from humans are the number one predator in the area.

Ryoga did not bother to look for what was chasing the panda until it would have been to late to do anything no matter what was behind the panda.

[Wyrd]

Cliffs are not very common in valleys after all.

Actually they are quite common. In fact, that is one of the defining characteristics of a valley. In an old mountain range, time has worn the cliffs down so that you have gentler slopes, but this was in a mountain range that is very young, geologically speaking, and thus has a lot more sheer drops. It is also possible that the water from Jusendo carved that part of the valley floor much like how the Grand Canyon formed, giving an area of deep cliffs in the middle of a gentler sloped valley.

In the anime, Ryouga isn't walking along a path, he is standing on a promontory of rock, surrounded by air on three sides. Just jumping up in that situation makes a lot more sense. The panda would have seemed so panicked that it was going to run off a cliff, which Genma did, followed by Ranma, as they jumped to a further series of promontories. This behaviour is sufficiently unusual in a wild animal to make Ryouga uncertain how to act, though if this had been a natural panda in this situation, it likely would have stopped at the cliff edge and turned to face its pursuer, meaning that Ryouga's actions would have put him in much more danger as he landed between a panda and one of the only animals to hunt them, a tiger.

Also, man Ranma is horribly dubbed. I was just looking for the way the scene looks so I didn't bother looking for subbed, just grabbing the first version of it I could find. That was horrible...

[Makoto]

Well I don't think Ryoga actually believes that. He folded to easily when called on it.

I consider his hunting Ranma to be what he considers to be a way to redeem his honor.

I'm not sure what you mean by Ryouga 'folding.' (I know the term, I just don't remember him backing down on that point.)

He certainly doesn't consider it the 'worst' of Ranma's 'offenses,' and it largely falls by the wayside after Ryouga fights Ranma in the Fuurinkan yard... but Ryouga still used it as a means to jump to the 'higher offenses' for a bit. (If Ranma hadn't run out on the fight, A and B and C wouldn't have happened, etc.)

As this seems to tie into your position that Ryouga's making everything up/scheming more than I'd originally thought, I'll bow out here and let the others continue to debate the larger picture. ^_^

[Kyoumen]

Your original post, quoted above, claimed, or more accurately implied, that Ryouga jumped out of the way instead of punching the panda because he didn't have the umbrella yet. The original claim was that Ryouga's calm takedown of a giant enraged boar, which would be vastly more dangerous than a panda, incidentally, shows that he is quite experienced at dealing with wild animals, and that his behaviour at other times does not match his behaviour in his story of what happened at Jusenkyo. Discrepancies such as this can be used to point out that his recounting may not be entirely accurate.

Saying "after he bought it he decided to deal with wild animals that way" implies no such thing. There are many reasons he could have jumped out of the way rather than punching out the panda (including the actual one: "because the story needed him to be knocked over the cliff, not to meet Ranma in awkward circumstances over Genma's unconscious body").

Second, it is absolutely ridiculous to argue Ryouga is lying. He has absolutely no reason to lie and there is no canonical insinuation he is lying. He doesn't know who the panda or girl are when he recounts the story (so has no reason to embellish the story to make them look bad), and in fact there is no history of Ryouga lying about past deeds. If he was intended to have been exaggerating or lying, Takahashi would have put something in the text to indicate this.

There is absolutely no reason to believe he wasn't telling the truth other than a completely inexplicable desire to make him look worse than he canonically does.

As far as Ryouga teleporting: he has apparently walked to other islands of Japan without ever crossing a body of water. He walked back from China with his pack despite the fact that his new curse would prevent him from swimming like Ranma and Genma did. He has also, if his own maps are any indication, walked to France, and considers it to be around the same distance from Japan as China; some translations change these destinations to be things that are still in Japan, but which are on other islands. Given that it is played entirely for comedic intent, Ukyo not thinking twice about how lost they get is no more surprising than Ryouga always being fooled by Onna-Ranma in her latest disguise, no matter how bad the disguise is or how many times she has pulled the exact same trick on him.

None of this indicates he can teleport. Ryouga could end up on boats or cross bridges, and he's also quite capable (and repeatedly canonically does) of mistaking where he is for somewhere else. The only times he actually ended up in other countries unintentionally is when he had a land connection to them (i.e., Russia in the Phoenix storyline).

It is rather implausible to suggest he had a magical teleporting power that never was indicated, implied, or referred to by the text and that was never relevant in any story whatsoever. As well say Kunou had a Jyusenkyou curse we never knew about that turns him into a tanuki, and that's how he keeps appearing out of nowhere for humour. Sure, there's nothing that explicitly says he doesn't have it (he could be using the Magic Soap anytime we see him get splashed and he doesn't transform!), but it's absolutely ludicrous to claim that's supposed to be canonical.

[claymade]

Having Genma as a father probably qualifies as "a severe mental disease or defect" by itself. I'm referring more to the 'temporary insanity' defense, though, which has been used successfully when the source of the temporary insanity was anger that was 'provoked beyond all reason'(I believe that was the wording of the defense, it's been a long time since I read about this one).

I would ask you to back those statements up with direct specifics... except that really, what would be the point? The insanity defense is controversial enough to begin with, and regardless of the state the laws are in right now, the issue is whether we think Ranma was correct in feeling himself responsible for what happened.

Sure--if not the Federal, then you might hypothetically be able to find some state somewhere that would let a defendant get away with that in that jurisdiction. On the other hand, I can very definitely show you states, such as Montana, where they go so far as to say that the insanity defense isn't recognized at all. Period.

Now, hearing that fact, do you feel any differently in how you view Ranma's responsibility for his actions? Honestly, I don't see why you should. I suspect it just makes you think that the law in Montana is wrong... which should illustrate the problem with the sort of argument you're trying to pursue, even if you could find a jurisdiction that fit your views instead of mine.

I do agree that the conditions Ranma was in, as TNF has already mentioned, notably mitigate the depth of his responsibility, making it more understandable. It's far less nastily careless than, say, him stomping Hinako's head into the ground (where she was in plain view, not moving at all, in an area where he absolutely should have been expecting people, and with no claim on "insanity" whatsoever). No, it's not that bad. It's just that I don't think the situation absolves Ranma absolutely from any responsibility at all for the results of his rage either.

Depending on how you interpret the image, Ryouga could have jumped after Ranma jumped. This would mean that Ryouga ran into Ranma, not the other way around, and would put all of the blame on Ryouga. If a car pulls out of a side street and clips the back of another car that is passing because they did not leave enough room, and loses control sending them into a ditch, the blame is on the second car, even if the first car was speeding or drove off without even noticing that they got dinged.

Clipping Ranma in "the back"? Where are you getting that from the images? Based on the posture of his jump there's no sign that he's moving horizontally in Ranma's direction; his legs are directly under him, most intuitively suggesting, as far as I can see, that he jumped straight up. (Compare to Ranma's angled-in-a-lunge posture.) Heck, you yourself were arguing previously that Ryouga was jumping "back and away from the direction he was looking when he saw a wild animal charging at him", which (while I don't see how you got that one either) would make it even more boggling for Ryouga to be somehow the one who actually ran into Ranma.

You'll have to explain the sequence of events that you're suggesting a little clearer to me, 'cause I'm not following them at all.

[Wyrd]

Saying "after he bought it he decided to deal with wild animals that way" implies no such thing. There are many reasons he could have jumped out of the way rather than punching out the panda (including the actual one: "because the story needed him to be knocked over the cliff, not to meet Ranma in awkward circumstances over Genma's unconscious body").

The context of your post, which was a response to a post that the only other times we see Ryouga facing a wild animal he attacks it, including the first time he shows up in canon at all, changes the perceived meaning from 'he can choose to use the umbrella or not and in this case he chose to use it' to 'he didn't fight the panda because he didn't have the umbrella yet'. The actual words you used have to be taken as directly related to the quote you were referring to, so even though they do not contain this meaning directly and you may not have intended that meaning, the context of your words gives them that meaning.

Second, it is absolutely ridiculous to argue Ryouga is lying. He has absolutely no reason to lie and there is no canonical insinuation he is lying. He doesn't know who the panda or girl are when he recounts the story (so has no reason to embellish the story to make them look bad), and in fact there is no history of Ryouga lying about past deeds. If he was intended to have been exaggerating or lying, Takahashi would have put something in the text to indicate this.

There is absolutely no reason to believe he wasn't telling the truth other than a completely inexplicable desire to make him look worse than he canonically does.

Ryouga does exaggerate and misunderstand on a regular basis. It is one of his defining character traits. Rewriting, in his mind, an event that may have been far more innocuous simply because he cannot accept that he might have inflicted the curse on himself through some moment of inattention, stupidity, or just his bad sense of direction, is perfectly in character for him. No, I do not think he is intentionally lying, especially since he is apparently clueless enough to not figure out that the guys he chased to Jusenkyo who turn into a panda and a girl might be the same panda and girl he met at Jusenkyo. That is a different poster's assertion. I am merely saying that with his well established history of misunderstandings, distortions, and tendency to try to shift the blame away from himself, his story has to be considered suspect.

I would ask you to back those statements up with direct specifics... except that really, what would be the point? The insanity defense is controversial enough to begin with, and regardless of the state the laws are in right now, the issue is whether we think Ranma was correct in feeling himself responsible for what happened.

It was a newspaper article I read years ago, so I can't reference it directly. Sorry. My original post in defense of the existence temporary insanity defense was not that I personally think that it is valid, but that I know there are places and judicial systems that do consider it valid, which makes the original sarcastic response about how that was a ridiculous reason to consider him at least potentially not guilty, the post to which I was referring, a spurious argument. Everything and anything can be made to sound like nonsense if you word it the right way, but that does not make it a good tactic for a debate.

Clipping Ranma in "the back"? Where are you getting that from the images? Based on the posture of his jump there's no sign that he's moving horizontally in Ranma's direction; his legs are directly under him, most intuitively suggesting, as far as I can see, that he jumped straight up. (Compare to Ranma's angled-in-a-lunge posture.) Heck, you yourself were arguing previously that Ryouga was jumping "back and away from the direction he was looking when he saw a wild animal charging at him", which (while I don't see how you got that one either) would make it even more boggling for Ryouga to be somehow the one who actually ran into Ranma.

Given that we are dealing with a very small number of drawn still images, there are many ways that the same scene can be interpreted. The collision point appears to either be Ranma's knee or elbow(I've seen arguments for both in this thread). If Ryouga jumped into Ranma and hit him in his knee, that would be the equivalent of clipping the back end of a car. Not the actual back of the car, the side of the car close to the back of it. If a car strikes another, under Georgia law, the car that hit the side of the other is considered at fault unless there are good uninvolved witnesses(such as a cop sitting across the street) who can give provide good extenuating circumstances for why the other car was at fault(such as it was sliding sideways and slid into the front of the first car). I personally interpret his movement as 'back and away', but his legs being under him once in the air says nothing about the direction he was leaping. If he was trying to leap over something, he would pull his legs up as close to his body as possible to give greater clearance once he was in the air. This would be true regardless of whether he was hoping to stay in the air long enough for the panda to pass beneath him, if he was jumping forward, or if was jumping away and was just trying to give himself more time for his momentum to carry him out of the path of the charging panda.

[Kyoumen]

Ryouga does exaggerate and misunderstand on a regular basis. It is one of his defining character traits.

Misunderstand, yes. Exaggerate, no. I can scarcely think of any examples of that, much less enough to justify calling it "one of his defining character traits" like being naive, hopeless with women, or getting lost all the time are. And while he does misunderstand things, I am similarly unable to think of any examples of him misunderstanding what happened in his own memories.

So exactly what justifies calling that "one of his defining character traits"? I certainly hope that, if you're going to use that term and have it as the entire basis of an argument that he "rewrote" his own flashback in a scene where there is absolutely no textual indication that he did, that you have a lot stronger evidence than one or two incidents in the entirety of the manga (although I'm not even sure there's that many).

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Before I go over other things, I just wanted to mention that there have been cases of sleepwalkers that have either critically injured or killed someone and, after tests to confirm that they sleepwalk and possibly have other sleep-related problems, have been found not guilty. Here's one example. Basically, the charge comes down to conscious control of one's thoughts and actions, which indicates both mens rea and actus reus respectively.

In Ranma's case, his mind is also so focused elsewhere that he doesn't even notice Ryoga, much less remember the incident. In fact, it's that last part that qualifies him for being in an altered state of mind, or temporary insanity, because he'd otherwise notice running into someone like that. Which had been argued before, regarding Kodachi, whom he did notice due to not being so far gone in the noggin. And that had been with a kettle at night, not any part of his body, and certainly not against something as noticeable as the weight and size of Ryoga and his backpack together during the day.

And the cause of which, of course, is Genma.

@ Tornado Ninja Fan: Man, you're a real piece of work. You're assuming that extenuating circumstances is the charge, and thus that Ranma is guilty, when I'm clearly arguing that Ranma is not guilty, and thus that I'm not arguing that Ranma is being charged with extenuating circumstances. I'm arguing that the extenuating circumstances themselves would lead to a not guilty verdict, not a guilty verdict mitigated by them. Yes, there is a clear difference, and law does not hold a monopoly over what "extenuating circumstances" means and implies.

I mean, honestly.

@ Claymade: Uh-huh... Right. Yes, I'm sure that the cliff and the gas station are comparable, especially since the Person A and Person B that were used in the example don't properly illustrate both Ranma and Ryoga. Actually, all it proves is how unlikely it is for both events to happen, and that both being so incidental that one can't blame one more than the other. It also ignores anything in the way of Ranma's state of mind, and the "Person C" that was responsible for it. Even your hunting accident example fails to properly assess the circumstances, because Genma would be the hunter and Ranma would be the gun, since Genma was the one who "set him off." And guns aren't to blame: it's the people who use them.

*coughs* So is it the question now? (And is it still a "nice analogy"? )

Trying to be sly, eh? Nope, still not the question. For one, it's a bit out of context. Aside from that, the question that you fail to grasp is, and has always been: should someone be at fault for what they can't expect? Yours asks if it's okay to do dangerous things in light of things that aren't expected, which has nothing to do with it. And that's why your hunting accident example is flawed, beyond the other things.

See, I'm not arguing that it's okay to do dangerous things. For one, Ranma isn't, because running around like that is much more relevant to his own safety in that environment, not others. In much the same way as Ryoga is responsible for his own safety around a cliff, because he has no reason to expect an outside factor to compromise his choice of locale.

Okay, I think I've come up with something that should make sense to everyone, considering only the collision itself. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.) Let's say that two drivers were playing chicken, and they both crashed into each other. The verdict would be that they would both be to blame for the crash, no question. It's like that for Ranma and Ryoga, except, for them, they had no idea. That's because their last decision is the driver, and they themselves are along for that ride. (Since their last decisions, to jump into the air, were made without being aware of the other's presence.) Ryoga couldn't do anything about his driver because he noticed the incoming car too late. Ranma couldn't do anything with his driver, either, because he was focused on yelling at his driver to chase someone, rather than where the driver was going in order to reach his target.

The only reasonable and sensible way to lay the blame at Ranma's feet, for the midair collision, is if he could have done something to redirect Ryoga, so that he would have a safer landing. Which means judging whether Ranma was mentally capable of doing so, at the time. I don't think he was, as I mentioned near the beginning of this post, as well as in other posts.

[Zwzn]

Actually they are quite common. In fact, that is one of the defining characteristics of a valley. In an old mountain range, time has worn the cliffs down so that you have gentler slopes, but this was in a mountain range that is very young, geologically speaking, and thus has a lot more sheer drops. It is also possible that the water from Jusendo carved that part of the valley floor much like how the Grand Canyon formed, giving an area of deep cliffs in the middle of a gentler sloped valley.

There are no cliffs at the bottom of a valley. The cursed springs are at the bottom of a very large valley, and it would be in this valley that Ranma would have been chasing Genma.

In the anime, Ryouga isn't walking along a path, he is standing on a promontory of rock, surrounded by air on three sides. Just jumping up in that situation makes a lot more sense. The panda would have seemed so panicked that it was going to run off a cliff, which Genma did, followed by Ranma, as they jumped to a further series of promontories. This behaviour is sufficiently unusual in a wild animal to make Ryouga uncertain how to act, though if this had been a natural panda in this situation, it likely would have stopped at the cliff edge and turned to face its pursuer, meaning that Ryouga's actions would have put him in much more danger as he landed between a panda and one of the only animals to hunt them, a tiger.

In the manga he is in a reasonable large, flat open area, and moves closer to the bamboo when he hears the noise.

http://img1.maxmanga.com/0/0807/17/77/460712li.jpg
http://img1.maxmanga.com/0/0807/17/77/467431fo.jpg
http://img1.maxmanga.com/0/0807/17/77/469540dx.jpg

Ryoga did not bother to look where he was going as he jumped, and Ranma could not have seen him until it was to late. If Ryoga had been watching where he was going he would have been able to see Ranma before Ranma could have seen him.

Had the panda run off the cliff that we never see any sign of then Genma would have been doubly cursed. So we know Genma did not run off any cliffs Ryoga would have seen.

Also, man Ranma is horribly dubbed. I was just looking for the way the scene looks so I didn't bother looking for subbed, just grabbing the first version of it I could find. That was horrible...

I don't like, nor talk about the anime. For me it altered the characters too drastically.



Had the panda run off the cliff that we never see any sign of then Genma would have been doubly cursed. So we know Genma did not run off any cliffs Ryoga would have seen.

[Zwzn]

Well I don't think Ryoga actually believes that. He folded to easily when called on it.

I consider his hunting Ranma to be what he considers to be a way to redeem his honor.

I'm not sure what you mean by Ryouga 'folding.' (I know the term, I just don't remember him backing down on that point.)

He certainly doesn't consider it the 'worst' of Ranma's 'offenses,' and it largely falls by the wayside after Ryouga fights Ranma in the Fuurinkan yard... but Ryouga still used it as a means to jump to the 'higher offenses' for a bit. (If Ranma hadn't run out on the fight, A and B and C wouldn't have happened, etc.)

He dropped the topic as soon as he was called on it, and never brought it up again. If he truly believed it then he would not have just dropped it.

As this seems to tie into your position that Ryouga's making everything up/scheming more than I'd originally thought, I'll bow out here and let the others continue to debate the larger picture. ^_^

It's not like he doesn't scheme and lie in several story lines. It's a reasonably common behavior for him.

[Wyrd]

@ Zwzn That post was describing the events of the anime because they are so different from those depicted in the manga. In the anime, he jumps off of the cliff to another outthrust of rock, never going all the way back into the portion of the valley that holds the actual springs. Ranma follows, also jumping from rock to rock. I much prefer the manga, but know that some people prefer the anime and so felt that looking at how it depicted this event was important to the discussion.

As far as the valley itself goes, in the flashback that shows Ranma being cursed, you can see that the springs of Jusenkyo are in a depression surrounded by steep cliffs. The tops of those cliffs could extend fairly levelly for quite a ways before rising into the surrounding mountains. The valley itself is the large area between mountains, with Jusenkyo being an area that has been cut to a much lower elevation by the waters that feed the springs. The cliffs are at the very edges of the frames depicting that scene, and so are easy to miss, but they do support Ryouga's assertion that he fell from the cliffs above Jusenkyo into one of its pools as being possible.

[Kyoumen]

Before I go over other things, I just wanted to mention that there have been cases of sleepwalkers that have either critically injured or killed someone and, after tests to confirm that they sleepwalk and possibly have other sleep-related problems, have been found not guilty. Here's one example. Basically, the charge comes down to conscious control of one's thoughts and actions, which indicates both mens rea and actus reus respectively.

Except Ranma wasn't sleepwalking, and in fact there's absolutely no evidence he was anything but "angry". And if being angry excuses you for anything you do, then I certainly hope you find Ryouga (and Akane for that matter) to be utterly blameless for, mm, pretty much anything in the manga.

See, I'm not arguing that it's okay to do dangerous things. For one, Ranma isn't, because running around like that is much more relevant to his own safety in that environment, not others.

Except, of course, that Ranma knocked an innocent bystander off a cliff as a direct result of running around like that. I mean, how much more dangerous to others can you get than that? I guess Ranma could have been knocking people into active volcanoes. Would that be worthy of criticism?

Okay, I think I've come up with something that should make sense to everyone, considering only the collision itself. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.) Let's say that two drivers were playing chicken, and they both crashed into each other. The verdict would be that they would both be to blame for the crash, no question. It's like that for Ranma and Ryoga, except, for them, they had no idea.

It's exactly like that! Except they aren't driving, one runs into the other instead of them both smashing into each other, and one was not watching where he was driving whereas the other one was just trapped by a different car in a position where they couldn't get out of the way, and only one driver was hurt. So I guess it's not like that at all, and no, it does not make any sense to me you think that is an appropriate analogy. I remain absolutely flabbergasted that anybody would try to put moral equivalency between "guy who got knocked off of cliff" and "guy who knocked him off a cliff as a direct result of not paying attention to what he was doing".

That's because their last decision is the driver, and they themselves are along for that ride. (Since their last decisions, to jump into the air, were made without being aware of the other's presence.) Ryoga couldn't do anything about his driver because he noticed the incoming car too late. Ranma couldn't do anything with his driver, either, because he was focused on yelling at his driver to chase someone, rather than where the driver was going in order to reach his target.

You pretty much just damned your own argument with your own words. The collision occurred because the Ranma "driver" was not paying attention to where he was driving and then hit someone else. This would not be a "both are to blame" situation, it would be entirely the Ranma driver's fault. His argument of "I was so road raged it was impossible for me to pay attention to what I was doing or what the car was hitting" would not exactly go over well in court, either. It would go over even less well if it was "my passenger was so road raged it was impossible for me to pay attention".

The only reasonable and sensible way to lay the blame at Ranma's feet, for the midair collision, is if he could have done something to redirect Ryoga, so that he would have a safer landing. Which means judging whether Ranma was mentally capable of doing so, at the time. I don't think he was, as I mentioned near the beginning of this post, as well as in other posts.

Uh, no, that is not reasonable or sensible. First, as your own analogy (and Ranma's admission) shows, Ranma is completely at fault for the collision. Regardless of whether he could have done anything about it after hitting, the only reason it happened was due to Ranma's recklessness. Second, Ranma most certainly could have done something to redirect Ryouga if he had been paying attention to his surroundings. He could have knocked Ryouga towards the ground, just grabbed and thrown him, and even quite likely could have rescued him after the collision. He's kind of good at mid-air combat, or so I've heard.

Not that it matters, since Ryouga never would have been in danger if Ranma hadn't been idiotically charging around at high speed in a dangerous area without bothering to look where he was going.