Ranma 1/2: One Page Per Volume, Part Twenty

[rainsometimes]

Art is flipped and reads left to right. Sorry, again, about the wonky quality of the scan!


The Shishi Hokodan arc is great for character interaction between Ranma and Ryoga, and to a slightly lesser extent Akane. Shishi Hokodan, an attack of compressed air shaped and guided by the ki of a heavy heart, has the peculiar effective that it's less effect the better and more confident you feel about yourself - but the more it seems you'll lose, the stronger you get! It is also pretty damn powerful: Ranma tried fighting Ryoga normally after Ryoga had learned the move, but couldn't even come close enough to touch him, and that's with Ranma’s speed!

Two warriors with equal tendency to grow heavy-hearted can probably battle on for a long time, but between Ranma and Ryoga there's no contest in that area. It's not so much about objective reasons to be downcast - Ranma has plenty of those when you take a look at his life - it's more about temperament/personality/coping strategies. And Ryoga's a wallower in angst to the core. (One can only hope he'll develop some distance and sense of humour one day - he does need it!) As Cologne says and Akane realises, the attack isn't good for your mental health in the long run - but, as many fic writers have made note of, it's very handy as an emergency back-up move!

Incidentally I have always been rather impressed by Ranma's sheer refusal to be dragged down by Ryoga’s heavy emotions, and how he didn’t try to win by cheering Ryoga up, but instead developed his own unique move powered by cockiness, the Moko Takabisha. I'm particularly fond of the page where he reveals his new move. He looks so damn proud of himself in an utterly silly way. I just had to laugh. I love the guy.

Ryoga lands two victories on Ranma in this arc before losing in the final, official fight. The first two wins were labelled as training matches, so Ranma didn't "officially" lose - but he did give it his all. And from this moment on Ryoga doesn't really challenge Ranma seriously again, or at least he doesn't issue another "let's see who's the strongest" kind of challenge with no other immediate reason. It might just be that Takahashi didn't have any more ideas in that area... But looking at it character-wise, it's not hard to imagine that the unofficial but honest wins that Ryoga got in this arc took away some of the bitter edge in his grudge against Ranma. The two are still often at odds in future stories, yet something seems to have shifted. (Meanwhile, Ranma still won the official fight, so he's fine with the outcome, too!)

Comments

[mudousetsuna]

That's really interesting and cool to know! Ryoga is one of my favorites but I really need to actually read/watch everything because these things you are posting are clearly showing me I missed out on a lot I wasn't aware of.

And I would really love to see Usopp use something like that, lol!! It reminds me of how the negatives didn't work on him. I lost my shit when that happened! You are giving me ideas for my RP because I want to give Usopp nen abilities from Hunter x Hunter (all the characters are but I was stumped on him)... maybe it'll be something along these lines. I NEVER would've thought of that on my own, so thanks! XD

[rainsometimes]

I utterly loved Usopp vs Perona! (I've written some about it here if you're interested.) And it reminded me a lot of the Shishi Hokodan arc. Ryoga would have been equally immune to negative ghosts, to be sure.

You should definitely check out the Shishi Hokodan arc! It's five or six chapters, so not long. But so good.

Oh, that sounds great!