But here, something WAS different. Ranma was not clad in a white gi but wore more 'wordly' clothes : Shirt, fringed trousers, biker's jacket, scarf, fingerless gloves, sunglasses... The young pony-tailed martial artist was literally the poster boy for fashion dating back to the Seventies.
His father, on the other hand, was faithful to his multiversal self, except he seemed to be permanently grumbling. Each time he looked at his son, he couldn't help but show disappointment and irritation on his face.
Ranma ignored his old man's unspoken recriminations. He was in a good mood and was singing his favorite tunes to pass the time.
"Tobase, tekken! Rocket Punch!
Imada, dasunda, Breast Fire!"
Genma shook his head in dismay and wondered, once again, why things had turned this way...
"V V V Victory!
Combine 1... 2... 3...
4... 5... Shutsugekida!
Daichyu yurugasu chodenji robot..."
And their training trip had begun so well... Everything had been working fine until Genma had decided Ranma was ready for the Touched Soul training.
"Uchuu space number one!
Sengoku majin number one!"
Of course, the training had been banned because half the trainees died and the other half went completely insane attempting it. But he and Soun had gotten through it unscathed... Mostly unscathed anyway (Soun was now a blubbering weenie most of the time and Genma would never admit that his judgement was severely impaired since then). Surely, his own son would be up to the challenge!
"Ikare! Hagane no Cyborg...
Akai tategami kimi no ude...
Hikari kagayaku G-Stone...
Chikyuu no kiboho... mamoru tame
Ima koso tachiagare!"
At first, Ranma had given all signs of having succeeded in the training in only one night, exceeding his wildest expectations. Then as Time passed, Genma started noticing things about his son. He seemed more and more hot-headed, disdaining more and more the dishonorable subtle parts of Anything Goes. Ranma began to rely on sheer stubborness and never-say-die attitude rather than tactics.
"I JUST KEEP BURNING LOVE!
Kimi underu aru tameni
Ore wa umare iki teki tayo"
One day, Genma finally admitted that Ranma has not come out of the Touched Soul without damage. When he found him watching anime in front of a shop rather than stealing their next meal, he had found the cause. Somehow, he had imprinted on giant robot anime and adopted that genre's rules as a way of life.
"Moyase! Moyase! Makani moyase!
Hikaru, kokoro no hi o tsukero
Toase! Taose! Chikara no kagiri!
Omae no karate o miseteyare!"
Genma had tried to beat it out of his son, of course. However, with Ranma's new personality, it had the opposite effect. Worse, he kept watching more anime in secret and started devising martial arts techniques based on them! He had given a name to this unorthodox style : Hagane no Ken, the Full Metal Fist! The worst part of it was that... It worked!!!
"Chikyuu wa konani chiisa ikeredo
Seigi to aitode kagayaku hoshi da
Mamore, mamore, mamore!
Ningen no hoshi, Minna no Chikyuu!"
Ranma had somehow invented a way to access monstrous amounts of ki to power his techniques. Whenever Genma asked him how he did it , he got nonsensical answers about getter rays, photonic energy, Minovsky fusion or obscure technobabble.
"FLYING IN THE SKY!
Takaku abatake oozora o doko made mo!
SHINING FINGER!
Kagayaku hikari ga...
Chi no ha te de rashi kiseki o yobu SPELL!"
Add to this his dealings with an expert in Hidden Weapons techniques with the fiasco with the school of Cosplaying martial arts and you got a severely unstable (in Genma's opinion) Ranma who acted the parts of anime characters seemingly at random. The worst thing was that he could emulate said characters' mecha's moves.
"Gan! Gan! Gan! Gan!
Wakai inochi ga maka ni moete
Getter Spark... Sora takaku"
At least, some of these characters were more acceptable than others in Genma's eyes when they were martial artists in their own right : Kazuya Ryuuzaki, Rom Stoll, Ryoma Nagare, Tobikage or anyone from G Gundam for example. Wait... Except for Master Asia, it was like going against a sane, non-perverted and dead serious version of the Master *shudder*
"Nichirin no kagayaki o mune ni hime
Ore no karada o; ore no karada o, moeteiru"
And when they passed through Hong-Kong a few weeks earlier, someone had introduced him to the Super Robot Wars video game series, adding even more to the fire of Ranma's drive to be a true neketsu hero. That's when he came up with his background music secret technique. Everytime he pulled out a special technique, the corresponding anime's musical theme would play out of nowhere.
"CROSS FIGHT! CROSS FIGHT!
JUST CROSS FOR ONE!
Atsuku, atsuku, atsuku tatakae...!"
Genma shuddered again, thinking of the (now added to the Hagane no Ken forbidden techniques) Minmei attack he had developed right after. Oh, the horror of feeling your brain melt and losing the will to fight over anything... Even his Sen Ken techniques were not THAT dangerous!
"Hashiri daseyo... Run and run and run
Kokoro kimeta ima sugu nimo..."
Genma couldn't make Ranma listen to him anymore on most subjects. He hadn't been able to beat his son without cheating for a long time now. His only hope was to marry him to one of Tendo's daughters as soon as they returned to Japan and that his new wife would beat some sense into him.
"This is it, mister customers! Training ground of cursed springs, Jusenkyo!," said the guide. They had finally arrived at their destination, "There be more than one thousand springs in valley, each with very tragic story!"
"Doesn't look like much...," observed a nonchalant Ranma, "Balance training like that is useless to me..."
Genma grumbled some more. His son had a point since he could fly in many of his personas. He wasn't going to let him get away with it though... He jumped on a pole "Ranma, follow me!"
The guide was rightfully alarmed "Ah, mister customer, what you doing!? Very bad if you fall in spring!"
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Jamil Nate
(Posted Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:57)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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