While the Cat-Fist training was a common Junction, spawning a wide number of timelines, the variations could be the result of any number of causes.
Probably the most common was for Genma to become separated from Ranma at this point (for whatever reason), resulting in Ranma being found and raised by someone else. The "Worse/Better Father than Genma" contest contributed a number of interesting variations on this, but they were by no means the only ones.
Another common occurrence was having everything happen the same prior to the training, but have the results of the training turn out different. In some, Ranma never emerges from the effects of the Neko-ken. In others, Ranma fully masters it, resulting in a substantial increase in his fighting ability and peculiar effects on his personality. Sometimes Genma tries using other animals after the initial training fails.
Sometimes, the results of the training was different due to a change that occurred long before Genma throws his son into the pit of cats. Perhaps Ranma had an unusual heritage that manifests due to the training (were-cheetah?). Perhaps the training itself had a far different purpose than an exotic (and fairly lunatic) martial arts technique.
Less common were changes that happened not so many years before the training. In one timeline, Ukyou had managed to stay with the Saotomes on their trip, only to be thrown in the pit along with Ranma. Sometimes Genma had got together with Soun and decided to bring Akane (or one of her sisters) along on the training trip, with similar results.
One of the stranger ones was where Ranma had been unusually mischievous as a child and insisted on taking a stuffed tiger his mother had given him along with him on the training trip. When Genma attempted the Neko-ken training, that Ranma had not exactly developed a fear of cats, but the results were not what Genma had hoped for.
And finally there were the odd ones. Changes that refused to be easily classified, or that seemed to fit more than one category.
(Posted Sun, 20 Oct 2002 02:39)
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