The Tendo school of anything goes?

[Atlan]

Now, i'm sure you all have noticed something about Akane. She isnt teribly skilled at martial arts (as an akane fan, thats the worst i'll say, though other might say that she's completly incompetant), and her father has demonstrated exactly one tequnuque in all his screen time- the Demon Head.
Now, Tendo never realy atacks, and akane never does anything exceptional, so why bother "Joining the Schools"?
My theroy- The Saoutome and the Tendo schools are matched, like the Umisenken and the Yamasenken, in that they are polar opisites.
The Saotome school focouses on ariel combat, adaption, speed, and Ofence. This isnt just ranma, Genma shows adaption two (the Devil's cradle- he knows ranma will always be better, but invents a tequnique to at least make sure that he can humilate ranma and win).
Akane, and to a lesser extent Soun, are the opisite. They show a predispisition towards ground combat, a reluctance to learn new things, Brute strength, and Psychologicl warefare.
The psychological warefare- the only move Soun does is designed to paralize the oponent with fear. Akane was always looking as scary as posible in her morning battles, and her battlecry "I hate Boys!" was unnerving as well. Akane glows red with battle aura, but never uses it beyond intimidation, and is so unprectiblely volitale that noone knows what to expect from her.
Now, while the Saotome school is clearly the superior, imagine the combined knologe of the schools being joined- Happosai.
Well, not the perverted part. But Happi fights with both ilusion (like his battle aura being huge), intimidation (the hand battle aura he uses soon after he shows up), strangth, speed, ariel and groundbassed to an extent that ranma never bothers with.
The hyper adaptivity of the Saotome school mixed with the unwilingness to learn of the Tendo school would proudce, in the best case, someone who learned new moves fast, but truly incorpated them into their style of combat (ranma laerned moves like the Armigukian, or the Moko Takabishia, but never incorprated moves like the Hyroshoten ha and the UmiSenken into true, everybattle varationes).
So, while Genma and Soun are Idiots, obsesed with joining the schools, the end result is almost worth all the efort.

[A.Nonymous]

I'm a fan of the "Seven Deadly Sins" school of "Anything goes"
As I see it, there are seven styles to the Anything Goes school, three Saotome, three Tendo and one Master. Thus there are seven practitioners of the school, Happosai (lust), Genma (gluttony), Soun (sloth), Ranma (pride), Akane (rage?), Nabiki (greed)...and oddly enough, Ryoga (envy) <<I'm not entirely sure about Akane/Ryoga>>.
That said:
Soun's "style" is "sloth." Soun will never get off his ass and do something when he can get Ranma to do it for him. Notice it's always Ranma who's forced to rescue Akane. Ranma (and Akane) who protect the dojo from destroyers. Hell, Soun hasn't worked for 10 years and hasn't truly trained his daughters in the school. The Tendo school specializes in extortion and intimidation...

[Atlan]

Ummmm... ryoga dosn't have a style. Unless you want to call it "Hibiki brute force and Umbrella- fu"
And who are we to say that Soun HASN'T trained akane fully?
I hear it on the net alot, but i never read it in the manga.
So for all we know, Akane knows the whole Tendo school, but as it's so designed to work with the Saotome school (the two fathers trained together for quite a while) she is too slow to be compeditive.
Thats another point. The Saotome school is excelent as a standalone school, but the tendo is designed as a partner for the Saotome. Think abou it- genma has gone out to fight alone, but Soun only goes to battle (though never realy fighting) if genma is around.

[Drawde]

Despite what people say about her, Akane's a decent martial artist (she jumped around on the orochi pretty well, avoiding the heads). She's just not as good as Ranma (or Shampoo the one time you see them fight). It's possible she just hasn't reached the point where she can use the higher level Tendo skills.

[antimatterenergy]

It's also possible that there is no real difference between the Tendo and Soatome schools because both are branches of the same school. Genma focused on what he was good at and so did Soun. Also the Tendo branch maybe more weapon based since Akane trained with the sword and Soun usually puts on armor and shoots arrows. As for the reason Akane's not as good as the others that's really simple Akane has spent and spends less time training then the others. She appears to view martial arts more as a hobby where as the other characters view it as a way of life. (Ranma does normal things in ways that can be considered training like walking on the fence, Shampoo is trained while waitressing, Uyko's martial art and job are the same, Ryoga has little to do when lost but train, etc...)
The Tendo school also might just be inferior to the Soatome school because Genma's a better martial artist then Soun and Ranma has an incredibly fast learning speed for martial arts.
It's also likely that Soun didn't train Akane in any real advanced techniques becuase of her problem controlling her anger. It's also likely that he didn't train Akane as hard as the others were trained becuase of the amount of pain involved and becuase she has a life outside of martial arts much moreso than anyone else.

[Rei-chan]

I rather agree with Anti on this one. I believe the reason Akane is no where near the level of the others is she doesn't have to do this to survive. For both Ranma and Ryouga, martial arts were about the only way to stay alive to see this day. For Shampoo and Mousse, the art is the way of life for their people. Which makes sense considering the powerful rival tribes that inhabit the same area, so again this is purely for survival. For Ukyou, she trained to kill two people who wronged her for 10 years, people she knew were master class martial artists. I think this is why she may not be as good as the other 4, but she is better than Akane. For Akane, she does martial arts, but its in a dojo and a family tradition to her. Even if she treated it more seriously, she could not get to their level without it being a matter of life and death. I am inclined to go with most people on the belief that the Tendo school is more ground and brute power than the Saotome school is but beyond that anything about thier school of martial arts is speculation.

[Zwzn]

Here is my two cents. I know some people have been saying similar things.
I think the Tendo school may be all but dead. The skills we see Akane use seem to be low level skills, and we know her father stopped training her at a young age for some reason. We have also seen other heirs, and they seemed to have more skill then Akane.
This is why Akane's father needs to join the schools. He really has no heir because he did not train one for some reason.
I personally think each practitioner of anything goes makes their own branch/school. Therefore Genma and Ranma do not practice the same branch/school.
Lastly Ranma has seems to be better then Akane in the art in armed and unarmed combat, and both on the ground and in the air. I think that Ranma and his father practicing in the air is to show how much better they are then Akane and her father. It seems to me ground combat is for beginers.

[Acey]

Despite what people say about her, Akane's a decent martial artist (she jumped around on the orochi pretty well, avoiding the heads).

And was confidently able to thrash several dozen of her male schoolmates, many of whom appeared to be involved in sports/martial arts clubs eg. wrestling/sumo wrestling.

It's possible she just hasn't reached the point where she can use the higher level Tendo skills.

I think it's closer to outright certain than just possible. I know we rarely if ever see Soun fight properly, but I have a hard time accepting that the displays Akane shows throughout the series are the full extent of the Tendo branch. However, I've no doubt that Genma is likely the better martial artist of the two, and certianly the more dedicated.

It's also possible that there is no real difference between the Tendo and Soatome schools because both are branches of the same school. Genma focused on what he was good at and so did Soun.

Could be. The two practitioners of the Saotome school that we see are simply so more proficient than the one Tendo practitioner (Akane) that's it unfair to use their respective displays of skill as a basis for judging the differences between the two schools.

For Shampoo and Mousse, the art is the way of life for their people. Which makes sense considering the powerful rival tribes that inhabit the same area, so again this is purely for survival.

But the thing is Walter, that the only nearby tribe or village we see the Amazons even intreracting with is Pink and Link's apparently benign village, which seemed more well known for the herbs produced there than anything else.
They don't even know of the existence of the Phoenix tribe, and believe the Musk to be extinct.
I doubt that the Amazons are a dedicated warrior tribe, considering their greatest young female fighter is well below the level of the better martial artists we see in Nerima and throughout the series. Mousse - presumably one of the best male fighters from the village - is one these better martial artists, but is definitely on a lower tier than many we see.
The archaic laws that demand death/marriage based on the outcome of a fight seem to be cultural baggage that the Amazons are unwilling to leave behind them.

For Ukyou, she trained to kill two people who wronged her for 10 years, people she knew were master class martial artists.

I don't think she trained to kill them. Defeat them certainly, but kill them? She seemed entirely satisfied with just beating up Genma in the manga (even if he did take a dive).

I think this is why she may not be as good as the other 4, but she is better than Akane.

She's at least as good as Shampoo and there's a lot from the manga that you could draw upon to make a good argument that she's better than her.

I am inclined to go with most people on the belief that the Tendo school is more ground and brute power than the Saotome school is but beyond that anything about thier school of martial arts is speculation.

I think there's perhaps a little more finesse present in the Saotome school than the Tendo. I'd hazard to guess that the latter is more about playing to your individual strengths than master specific techniques. Like how the relatively sluggish Akane rarely goes airborne and relies predominatly on her strength rather than speed/agilty.

[A.Nonymous]

I read an essay a while ago that explained what Ranma was about, at least in the beginning...before it became a farce. H haven't been able to find the essay again, but here goes.
Ranma is a sexual comedy. That is, a comedy about the differences between the sexes, IN JAPAN.
Ranma is the equivalent of the American movie "Tootsie." Ranma, a "guy" is put into the traditional role of the "girl" in an arranged marriage. The author pointed out numerous pieces of symbolism, like the fact that Ranma didn't have betrothal gifts and was dumped on the floor like a sack of potatoes." The point of the series was to point out numerous common sticking points the "GIRLS" (that's Ranma) have to put up with.
One of the major points made was that girls have to "ooh" and "aah" over their fiance's superior skills, no matter how inferior they really are. To make Akane a "real martial artist" is to negate one of the major points of the series. Akane is just a hobbiest, who hadn't really been taught anything since she was six...and gave even that up once she had a protector.
That and "girls" have to apologize to their fiance no matter who's at fault. That's why Akane never apologizes to Ranma and Genma is always yelling "Apologize to your fiancee."

[A.Nonymous]

Ummmm... ryoga dosn't have a style. Unless you want to call it "Hibiki brute force and Umbrella- fu"

Actually, Ryoga knows the "iron cloth" school. That's the one where you can make your clothing into a weapon. The "Umbrella" is one of the traditional cortisan weapons in Japan. Also, geisha and dancers use it...it's awfully girly. Ryoga is supposed to twirl it and act coquettish, to disorient his opponent. It's supposed to have a spiral pattern of flowers or something printed on top to add to the effect.

Thats another point. The Saotome school is excellent as a standalone school, but the tendo is designed as a partner for the Saotome. Think about it- genma has gone out to fight alone, but Soun only goes to battle (though never really fighting) if genma is around.

Soun is always jumping out in full Samurai armor, with a Naginata. Which by the way is traditionally a weapon of home defense. It's actually considered a woman's weapon. He's never used it as far as I remember, more to scare whoever is attacking off.
Soun is more of a "paper tiger" of a warrior, all bluff, and a coward once you call his bluff.

[Togashi Gaijin]

Soun, in the manga when he's in his great armor, uses a *bow*, not a naginata. Look at the first extended Happosai arc for a good example (Viz vol6 page 109).
-Togashi Gaijin-

[Atlan]

Actually, Ryoga knows the "iron cloth" school. That's the one where you can make your clothing into a weapon. The "Umbrella" is one of the traditional cortisan weapons in Japan. Also, geisha and dancers use it...it's awfully girly. Ryoga is supposed to twirl it and act coquettish, to disorient his opponent. It's supposed to have a spiral pattern of flowers or something printed on top to add to the effect

oh...my....god. Ryoga uses a CORTISAN style!?!!??!?! Big, tough, "i snap huge pillars thinking im hugging a cute girl" ryoga!?!?!?!?!?
Man, how much do we lose in the different culture values?
Out of intrest, does it say anywhere in the manga (or anime) that he uses the "iron cloth" school? I always thought that was along the lines of "Nermia Wrecking Crew", something that was drempt up on a board like this. And that was always calling it a tequnique, not a school.

[Dragonboy]

I'm pretty certain that Ryoga's fighting style is never mentioned in either the manga or anime. In fact, in an interview with Rumiko Takahashi that I read some time ago, she mentioned that Ryoga was self taught by wandering in the wilderness alone and fighting wild animals. Being self-taught would explain why his speed and skill levels aren't as good as Ranma's and why he focuses more on brute strength. I'll see if I can't find the link for that interview again and post it later.
Other than that, the only real fighting style that Ryoga is mentioned knowing in the series seems to be Martial Arts Rythmic Dancing (How or why he learned that I've no clue).
EDIT: Well, it's not the original one that I read before, but I found a different one that asked a similar question.

QUESTION: Ryoga's mind seems to wander heavily from time to time, but I think in Ranma 1/2 he's the most normal character. But what's really abnormal about him is his really bad sense of direction. Why is he like this?
TAKAHASHI: In the comics, I mentioned Ryoga and his family once, but the Hibiki family all have a really horrible sense of direction. It's been passed on from generation to generation. But in Ryoga's case, since he's wandering all over the place around Japan, he has various encounters with vicious beasts and lives alone in desolate areas. The result of it is, it's his training and allows him to have the strength that he does.

[crystlshake]

I think when he strengthens his belt into a sword he says its the iron cloth technique. Considering his bandanna trick seems to opperate on a simmilar principle, and that he is tough to damage (could arguably be using it on his clothes for a type of armor) I can see someone making the leap in logic of calling it a school.

[Anchoku]

I have to agree with Togashi Gaijin. While the Tendo version of Musabetsu Kakutou is based on kenpo, just like the Saotome style, and both are derrived from Happosai's school, there are enough examples in the manga to indicate the Tendo style includes more weapons training.
This is not to say the Saotome style doesn't use weapons and definately dosen't mean Ranma has never trained in weapons. "Saotome" is a farmer's name. Farmers were in the next class below the samurai. It was where the samurai ranks were originally drawn from and farmers were expected to supply lords with men to fight whenever necessary. Farmers also had to defend their crops, food and land so they learned to fight without weapons and with farm tools. Some traditional Japanese weapons, I think, were derrived from farm tools.
So it would be no surprise at all if both the Saotome and Tendo styles included weapons training. Why Ranma doesn't use them may be because he doesn't need them and has been trainded to defend against them (and, because weapons kill people, which is frowned on nowadays).