Poor Student Ranma

[Lioconvoy]

Especially given that it's an english translation, and they tend to localize things. So yeah, 100 is probably the highest score.

[Zwzn]

In all the manga and anime I've seen involving schools 100 is the best score. Every time. So it's safe to assume that it's the same here.

The problem is we are told 86 points is a bad score. If 86 point is a bad score then either it is possible to score much higher, or the lower the score the better.

Do the Japanese use the same word for points and percentage? I tried google translate and bablefish, and both say points.

[Zwzn]

Uh... Grade school tests are usually graded on a scale of 0-100. That should be a no-brainer.

The manga specifically says points, and I know from experience that you can score more then 100 points on a test. You are thinking of percentages.

Akane's reaction was that of someone who was depressed about her grade leading us to believe 86 points was not a high score.

Also, Ranma is more concerned about people thinking that he's an idiot, because of what the principle had said, and how he had behaved. He was confident enough about his test score to want to get it back and show it himself, to prove that he wasn't an idiot (aside from wanting to stop the principal on general principle, of course).

But if Ranma did not care about his grades, or doing well in school he would not consider such things as proof of anything.

Unless Ranma consistently gets good grades he would have no reason to believe the test would show a score that would suit his needs.

One of the things that I noticed was that Akane didn't show any sign that she had an expectation about the kind of score that Ranma would get. You'd think that she would have some idea, given the fact that they sit next to each other in class and live in the same house. This might suggest that his grades seldom follow a predictable pattern.

As odd as a lot of fanfics make it sound, Ranma does not talk about himself or brag much, and in fact makes himself out to not be as good at something as he is. Akane also does not seem to pay attention to facts she may not like. It is implied that the grades are normally a private matter.

If Ranma's grades don't follow a predictable pattern then why would he be so willing to risk the test having a bad grade?

Ranma's reaction to his test score either means that he did better than the principal had led him to believe, he did better than he had expected for that particular test, or he had done better than his average scores. Genma's remark seems to only confuse matters, for several reasons: Ranma was okay with his score; it wasn't so bad that Akane bothered to say anything about it; and there seems to be a difference between Viz's translation and the original Japanese text.

Ranma's score has to be average to above average to "prove I'm not an idiot". Ranma also isn't the type to be happy with below average anything when it comes to his skills.

What Genma says doesn't matter since he is known to insult Ranma's skills for no reason.

Of course, if you take the principal's word for it (that he's the worst student in the school), and the student's word for it (wondering when he had ever cared about his grades), and Ranma's own admission that test scores were meaningless to him, one could easily construe that to mean that he's a poor student.

The principal calling Ranma the worst student tells us nothing about Ranma's grades. Hinako was brought in to deal with trouble makers, and not teach. The principal also said everyone done badly on the test. What Principal Kuno thinks is a good student likely has little to do with grades.

In the context of the story, Ranma's statement that he didn't care about grades was an attempt to get the principal to give up on his plan, or let down his guard. The entire story line makes no sense if Ranma does not get at least average grades, and cares about doing well in school in spite of what the other characters think. In spite of what fan fiction may have people believe Ranma tries to follow the Art of War, he isn't a dumb jock like Akane.

[Lioconvoy]

The manga specifically says points, and I know from experience that you can score more then 100 points on a test. You are thinking of percentages.

Akane's reaction was that of someone who was depressed about her grade leading us to believe 86 points was not a high score.

Go ahead and ignore what I said why don't you. With english translations, they tend to localize things. So yeah, 100 is probably the highest score.

Also Akane may look depressed to you, but to me she seems indifferent. That scene may lead you to believe one thing, but like a lot of things in Takahashi's works, it isn't that cut and dry. We really don't get enough information there to assume Akane's grade is better or worse that Ranma's. You have your take, but the facts, the facts don't really show anything in this instance.

Please give me one other instance that shows Ranma's grades are good, or Akane's are bad.

[Konsaki]

"I refute your reality and substitute my own!"

Seems to sum up alot of this debate, imo.

[Lioconvoy]

I agree entirely with that statement. Given the lack of facts that's all one can do.

Again I do believe Ranma is smart, but I can't think of one cannon instance where he actually applies this intellegence to school, which means the writers who think he gets bad grades have just as much right to think what they do.

As for Akane, I can buy she's not as smart as Ranma, but again I don't see any evidence that her grades are worse than his. Or that her grades are even bad.

[PCHeintz72]

As far as I am aware, we only have one piece of indirect evidence comparing Ranma to someone else as far as school intellegence.

The incident with Ranma and Ryoga when Ryoga was studying to get into high school.

The fact Ranma does nto seem to struggle near as much as Ryoga that we've seen, yet still maintain the same grade level as Akane, is the thing..

But Comparing Ranma to Ryoga and viewing either as a baseline would be a sever mistake.

[three headed dog]

Akane is probably doing poorly in a couple classes because she is shown to be bad at pretty much every single aspect of home ec (cooking, cleaning, repairing things, sewing) and she is in a class that teaches that. It is likely that she does poorly in related classes such as say chemistry as well. Swimming is a requirement in Japanese schools I don't know exactly what percentage of the grade it is or if the teacher gives her points for effort but it would lower her grade in that class (when I went to school where I went, which was not Japan, swimming was worth 25% of the final grade).

Now onto Ranma. What school teaches is a lot of memorization of useless facts (and from my observations wrong facts at that particularly in history - this definitely applies to Japan where there has been significant controversy since the school books whitewash the actions of the Empire of Japan during WWII), to follow orders (obey your superior), and to be a conformist (sit in orderly rows, obey the rules, etc). School's also give a lot of useless busy work and is very repetitive. A person like Ranma who is shown to be a very fast learner (surprising martial artists with decades of experience on multiple occasions), has a good, though not instantaneous recall, memory (able to recall minor things that happened ten years earlier and things across years such as food items Genma stole from him), and who bucks social and cultural convention (Ranma has very little qualms about say breaking the rules or laws and does not view being older than him as a reason to show them respect) doesn't really do well in a standard school environment.

Considering how much class time Ranma misses during the manga and how much he is implied to have missed prior to the manga and that he is in the correct grade for his age; it is likely that Ranma learns the vast majority of the stuff taught in school via book learning. Ranma most likely reads and understands his textbooks and does well on tests but skips lectures, some of his homework, class participation, and the like. He most likely does not get the best grades he is able too but it is also highly unlikely he is failing any of his classes for a few reasons but the largest being Ranma's ego would not allow it (also Genma would bother Ranma about it as well). Ranma cares too much about how people view him and is far too competitive to allow himself to fail at anything (we also see he is knowledgeable on a large and eclectic number of topics for example he can sew, repair things, cook, clean, has knowledge and an understanding on the workings of tornadoes and vacuums, multiple martial art styles, etc.).

[Wyrd]

As far as I am aware, we only have one piece of indirect evidence comparing Ranma to someone else as far as school intellegence.

The incident with Ranma and Ryoga when Ryoga was studying to get into high school.

The fact Ranma does nto seem to struggle near as much as Ryoga that we've seen, yet still maintain the same grade level as Akane, is the thing..

But Comparing Ranma to Ryoga and viewing either as a baseline would be a sever mistake.

Giving that Ryouga's history made it clear that without Ranma's help he only rarely made it to school, intelligence would play minimally into his ability to learn school topics. His horrible sense of direction is his biggest single weakness, and I would interpret it as the direct cause of many of his other weaknesses, such as a lack of development of social skills(also demonstrated to a lesser degree by Ranma, who has Genma to blame for most of his weaknesses).

I have heard that Japanese students are not allowed to take their text books with them. Unless it occurred to Ryouga to ask for an exception so he could study wherever he was, and the school was willing to grant that exception, it would be very difficult for him to study on the road. Ranma, on the other hand, manages to get to school often enough that if he is a fast reader and reads through his books whenever he makes it to class, then he could very well be keeping up with or even surpassing his fellow students.

I understand falling asleep in class after you have already read the entire textbook. I did that in my high school chemistry class. The teacher got onto me for sleeping through class until I sat up and, in a monotone, answered every single question he asked the class before he had a chance to finish it. He then told me to go back to sleep. The only test I didn't get an A+ on in that class was the final, because it had been so long since I read the book. The biggest troublemakers in classrooms are sometimes the brightest, who are just bored out of their minds.

[Lioconvoy]

When was the chapter with Ryoga trying to get into High School?

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

It was actually an anime episode, not a manga chapter. Ryoga's "Tendo Dojo Houseguest" Diary, that's what it was called, from season 4. Not sure if it really counts for this, because the reason Ryoga was doing so poorly was because:

A - Happosai decided to be a jerkass and pester him.

And:

B - Akane's well-meaning efforts to tutor Ryoga were just getting him distracted; he was so caught up in his love for her and so nervous at being so close to her that he just couldn't stop thinking about her, even when he was sitting into the dojo trying to study on his own.

[Crescent Pulsar R]

The biggest troublemakers in classrooms are sometimes the brightest, who are just bored out of their minds.

Some also behave that way as a means of dealing with being shy. As someone who was both shy and had no trouble with school work, while also being a troublemaker and class clown, I agree with the general sentiment of your statement.

[Zwzn]

The manga specifically says points, and I know from experience that you can score more then 100 points on a test. You are thinking of percentages.

Akane's reaction was that of someone who was depressed about her grade leading us to believe 86 points was not a high score.

Go ahead and ignore what I said why don't you. With english translations, they tend to localize things. So yeah, 100 is probably the highest score.

It depends on how the test was written. If the test had 100 questions, and each question is worth 1 point then a score of 86 POINTS is a very good, but if the test had for example the possibility of scoring 200 points then 86 would be a bad score. As I have already said repeatedly, we don't know enough about the test to say Akane scored well, and what is normal for schools, or more specifically Japanese schools does not matter because the school Ranma and Akane go to is hardly the norm in a number of ways from what I recall.

You are the one ignoring what I write. I've tried translating what I was told was the original japanese, and the translation came out to be 86 points. Without knowing what a point is worth we can't know what 86 points means.

It's rather interesting that you can read the grades on the TV when the grades are being read off.

61

86

72 or 76

91 or 11

Also Akane may look depressed to you, but to me she seems indifferent. That scene may lead you to believe one thing, but like a lot of things in Takahashi's works, it isn't that cut and dry. We really don't get enough information there to assume Akane's grade is better or worse that Ranma's. You have your take, but the facts, the facts don't really show anything in this instance.

Akane certainly was not happy about her grade.

Please give me one other instance that shows Ranma's grades are good, or Akane's are bad.

Akane is failing gym.

Akane is certainly not doing well in home economics since that includes just about everything she can't do.

Akane is likely not aloud near the chem lab.

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Lio, I'd advise not reasoning with Zwzn any further on the matter. If Akane thinks that her grade was "so-so" (as in: it's okay; there's nothing to be worried about) yet he reasons it's a "bad grade" and she was "depressed," trying to correct him would just be a bridge leading to nowhere. You're not going to get across to him. He's already contradicted himself, as it is:

The problem is we are told 86 points is a bad score. If 86 point is a bad score then either it is possible to score much higher, or the lower the score the better.

You are the one ignoring what I write. I've tried translating what I was told was the original japanese, and the translation came out to be 86 points. Without knowing what a point is worth we can't know what 86 points means.

On the matter of test scores, one shouldn't assume they know better about how a character is doing in school if one has no earthly idea how tests are scored, much less what the significance of the numbers are. Personally, I've seen more than enough examples in anime and manga that use 100 as being the perfect score, so I have no reason to doubt Akane's assessment of her own score, which places her between the highest score and what is usually considered a failing grade. You know, so-so.

That aside, I was wondering about something. Did the tests make it to America, since the station was CMN? Or is the name of the station a matter of localization?

[Lioconvoy]

Lio, I'd advise not reasoning with Zwzn any further on the matter. If Akane thinks that her grade was "so-so" (as in: it's okay; there's nothing to be worried about) yet he reasons it's a "bad grade" and she was "depressed," trying to correct him would just be a bridge leading to nowhere. You're not going to get across to him.

I have the volume right in front of my face, her expression is emotionless. I don't want him to see things my way, I just want him to admit it's open to interpertation.

Akane is failing gym.

Akane is certainly not doing well in home economics since that includes just about everything she can't do.

Akane is likely not aloud near the chem lab.

Evidece please. In what story are any of those pointed specifically stated. You're making conclusions. For all we know the Home Ec Teacher gives Akane good grades just so she doesn't repeat the class. Yes we see Akane can't cook, but we have no idea what grades she's gotten.