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

[Spokavriel]

Does Genma even bother to acknowledge the girls puberty beyond telling them to clean themselves up and saying its natural and they won't die from it.

Would Genma think its his place to tell them of their family obligation?

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Well, Ranma clearly knows some basic details of sex - he's just shy and well aware that returning intimacy would see him forced into a marriage post-haste. So, yeah, Genma would probably give them the basics of "the talk", seeing as how they are his charges while on this trip and so it's his responsibility.

And you have a point, but Genma may well come to the conclusion that telling them that they're expected to be together after they've finished growing up would be a good way to either dissaude them from "experimenting" with the new urges that come of puberty or persuade them to only "experiment" with each other - the last thing Genma would want, in any canon, is for his son to run around with some strange woman before getting married. It's dishonorable.

[Spokavriel]

Why am I imagining Genma starting a surprise sparring session with any of them should he find any of them touching themselves just because he wants to head off the curiosity.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

In canon, possibly, but here, for all he knows, one of these girls is going to be Ranma's future wife. Does he really have any reason to stop them? After all, wouldn't there be a chain of thought that it's best and healthiest to let them to get to know each other now, before they put the ring on each other's finger?

[Spokavriel]

Its a massive distraction from just about everything when first getting familiar with those sorts of things.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Good point. So, he might have told them the talk and that they're going to be married when they're older, but he's probably done his best to keep them relatively disinterested in sex.

Anyway, now that that's settled, let's return to the topic of cursing Natsume. As I mentioned, a Yukionna curse could fit in with the fact she can be sweet, or dangerously cold, but it doesn't "feel" right to me, for some reason. What else could be possibly done with her?

[Spokavriel]

Well think of Jusenkyo. There is a spring with a combined curse that involves a Yetti how about a spring of young yetti. The white fur and all of a more traditional Yetti. How much like Cannon is she going to turn out? How will the fight over the springs go. Will there be any side liners? Genma Must get cursed to IMO its just too fitting having him as a Panda to skip on that curse.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Hmm... Spring of Young Yeti might work, if you can suggest what it would actually look like.

I don't think it would be that much out of character for Ranma and Natsume to chase Genma down and then throw him into a spring on purpose for taking them here and getting them cursed. As you mentioned, there is a good deal of synchronicity with the Panda curse... but, now that I think about it, and just out of curiosity, wouldn't the Tanuki have a similar resonance? I'm just asking; Ranma and Natsume would probably deliberately ask whether there's a Spring of Drowned Panda and where it is so they can throw Genma into it.

Yeah, I'm thinking it would make most sense for Genma to order Ranma and Natsume onto the poles to spar (and Kurumi too, if you think there's a curse that could be suitable for her), while he waits on the ground and judges them. As he is training more than one student in this story, that means it's a valid teaching method for him to pit the students against each other and observe their technique so he can comment on areas that have improved/need improving.

[Spokavriel]

Tanuki may be playful and in allot of stories beneficial but look at the movie Pom-Poko all the tricks they used were based on other Tanuki legends. What would Genma do with that kind of power? And he's strong enough to easily take advantage of all a Tanuki's abilities. Panda's on the other hand don't have supernatural shape changing nor magical abilities.

Edit: How about Kurumi as a Tanuki? She does love to eat and is a free spirit.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I've never actually seen Pom Poko, but I get your basic meaning. Hmm... that actually sounds pretty good, and could even lead to a joke about the "theme": the teens are all mystical type critters (and while it may not be quite so magical as a kitsune or tanuki, the sheer strength and size of Natsume's yeti form is going to come into its own - Taro stands, what, 20ft tall? And a fully grown yeti might actually be taller, he's been shortchanged (pardon the pun) in the leg department), and yet Genma is just an ugly fat panda (when a female panda calls you too ugly to be a panda, you got to be bloody ugly, yes?), with the explanation that the kids "earned" their curses by risking their lives on the poles, and Genma got a panda curse because they were pissed off and threw him into the first ridiculous and weak cursed spring they could think of.

...I'm guessing they never even made it into Shampoo's village. Nobody in their right mind is going to let two shapeshifting obake and a fuzzy giant ape-woman hauling a battered looking panda around on the end of a rope into their village, are they? Particularly not if they're used to dealing with monsters and demons and the like.

[Spokavriel]

I think for the Young Yetti the appearance should be almost the same only covered in long white,Sheepdog like, fur and twice as tall as she is in Human form. Everything perfectly proportioned. The strength and even having brown short fur and those pathetic legs are from the Bull + Crane Being humanoid and larger than even a Bovine grows comes from the Yetti.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I think that the anime actually depicts the yeti as white in the mental flashback for Taro's first episode anyway...

So, basically, you're suggesting that Natsume's cursed form would be slightly stronger, as a result of being twice as tall as she was before, but still nowhere near as strong as Taro, who has both the advantage of having a more mature yeti-form and an extra dose of strength due to the bull essence in his curse?

[Spokavriel]

Yep. And he also has allot of extra upper body strength due to the Crane. Don't forget in birds its the chest muscles that pull the wings allowing them to fly. Sure his curse bypasses that but it didn't slack in enhancing the muscles from the combination.

Another name for Yetti is Abominable Snowman. Sometimes thought to be cold weather/environment relatives of Bigfoot. Of course there are also stories of Abominables that have nothing to do with yetti but this is just to help give an idea why I came up with the description I did.

You know if she could shave off the white fur in cursed form she'd probably be able to pass as a giant or at least a Super Model foreigner.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

So she's somewhat stronger and all but impervious to cold weather... but, on the downside, she sticks out like a sore thumb, she's not going to appreciate looking like a beast, and that fur is going to be bloody murder in a Japanese summer. Why do I have the feeling that Natsume will probably be more focused on getting herself some Nyanniichuan than Ranma will be on finding some Nanniichuan?

[Spokavriel]

Because anyone who has taken care of Polar Bear in temperate and warmer clime zoos can tell you wet fur in warm weather stinks and its even worse when it mildews. At least on the Tundra its cold enough that the microscopic plants can't start growing in it.