Rei turned her unblinking red eyes towards her fiance. "Because in my brief perusal of these stories, the female lead always has a pet name or phrase that she bestows frequently upon the male of her interest. Except in the case of girl-girl pairings. I am continuing to accumulate data in this regard."
"Huh?" said Ranma.
"Ranma you idiot," grumbled Akane from her seat.
"Like that," said Asuka, realizing that wondergirl was on to something. "Got you. Got any more of those?"
Rei absently handed Asuka a copy of "Love Hina" - which had a promising name but the lack of partly nonhuman suitors had reduced the usefulness to herself as a field guide.
"Maybe 'Ranma-dono'," mused Misato.
"Real life ain't like that," insisted Ranma. "People don't show up shouting identifiable tag lines all'a time."
"Ranma you idiot," repeated Akane, not at all interested.
"Yeah like that or 'Ranma prepare to die' or 'Osage no onna' or..." Ranma stopped absolutely dead still as he experienced one of those moments of total epiphany that was almost zazen in intensity. "Whoa."
"That jerk!" Akane asked the window. "Yo, you're one fine looking mama."
"I've already called him 'Ranma-koibito' a couple of times," said Kiyone. "That'll be my catchphrase."
"Hmmmm," said Ranma, still overwhelmed as he put the idea of catchphrases and applied it to his own life. Kodachi had that black rose petal thing and that horrible 'crazed noblewoman' laugh. The true blunder would always be ranting about his 'pigtailed girl' and Kasumi was always saying 'oh my' and fretting about something silly. Nabiki didn't have one, but damn near everytime he saw her she was talking about money. Ryoga had two or three to announce himself with. Happosai usually was making some ecchi remark. Hmmm.
"They're so cuuuuute," exclaimed Azusa.
"It's Pinky and the Brain, brain, brain..."
Nabiki stepped back from the cage and massaged her mouth. Okay, she couldn't lift the cage door up and her ferret form didn't have the strength to manage the lock.
She couldn't gnaw through the metal bars. She could scratch through the ribbon and toss the bits outside the cage.
"BAD JEAN!" scolded Azusa. "Just for that, no soup for you!"
"Pfeh," managed Nabiki, sticking her tongue out at the demented figure skater.
"Ooooh, Jean has been very bad. Azusa will just have to PUNISH!" Azusa nodded. "Like the song says 'You have to be kind to be cruel.'"
Nabiki chittered just to let her know that she had the song wrong. Wait a minute. That meant.
Azusa sat down and clicked on a radio. "Little Azusa will have to leave but Frances here will keep you company!"
Nabiki hissed and started scrabbling at the bars. It was THAT kind of music!
"Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart."
Old time Country Western.
The next song deepened the horror. There was only one station in all of Japan that would put Enka after American Country-Western. KOKE - the Karaoke Station.
Nabiki wondered if maybe it would have been better if the monkeys had caught her.
Genma growfed and continued eating as the hot water hit him, missing entirely the significance of the event.
It took him spilling some hot tea on his arm and staring at the steam rising from his fur to realize that something was wrong with this picture.
"It worked," said Rhea as she observed from the other side of the cage.
"He is now completely a panda," approved Gaia. "No more changing back and forth. Splash once with cold Jusenkyo water and then use the heated water for a second treatment. The sedatives in the food will eventually put him back to sleep, then we should move him to a natural setting far from here. I almost envy him."
"We have much work to do," pointed out Rhea. "What of this 'Instant Jusenkyo Powder' and the cloud-seeding project?"
"As an extortion project to gain more money, it has potential. For a true change in society - negligible. All we'd do in that regard is panic a few people. We're checking into the effects of drinking Jusenkyo water," admitted Gaia. "If it works out, we might be able to introduce it to the water supply of a major city."
"Let us pray to the Earth Mother that this is so," said Rhea.
"Okay, the plane's going to refuel before taking off, but I'm going to have to stick around here," said Kiyone. "Guess this is where we part company for now."
"Guess so," agreed Ranma.
"Take care, Kiyone," said Misato, waving as the secret agent went back into the plane.
"So what do you want to do now, Ranma-kun?" asked Asuka.
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(Posted Sun, 09 May 2004 06:01)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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