From: takahash@ntmtv.UUCP (Alan Takahashi)
Subject: Re: replacement for `Ranma 1/2 Netto^hen' on Fuji TV
Reply-To: takahash@ntmtv.UUCP (Alan Takahashi)
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 21:04:25 GMT

[My apologies for quoting Mr. Crispin as much as I do, but I didn't
 think I could paraphrase much without losing the general tone of
 what he said... - AMT]

In article <MS-C.715564627.662824084.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> Mark Crispin <mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> writes:
>["Ranma 1/2 Nettouhen" to be replaced by "Super Zugan"]
>
>Fuji TV is notoriously ratings-sensitive, and I think they were very
>disappointed by the poor ratings Ranma got.  Here's my post-mortem
>analysis of what went wrong:
>
>1) The first series started too early, before there was much manga
>material to draw on.  It also ran through the manga episodes too
>quickly.  The result was that the TV series quickly ran out of
>available original author material, something that badly hurt the
>second series.

This leads to my biggest gripe about Ranma 1/2...the quality was
wildly *inconsistent*.  The result was a horrible mishmash during
the second series.  Often, some character development would be made,
which would disappear by the next episode...and might reappear 4 or
5 episodes down the line, then disappear again...

>2) Some of the casting in the first series was terrible.  The
>katakana-Chinese spoken by Shampoo was particularly egregious.  This
>was fixed in the second series, creating some gaping inconsistancies.

Forgivable...though I don't understand Chinese and have no idea how
the Japanese audiences felt about this...

>3) The first series spent a lot of time and effort on character
>development and in artistry, and forgot the action, belly-laughs, and
>slapstick that was expected as well.  The second series
>over-compensated and targeted at a much younger market.  Sometimes, it
>all came together; episode 31 (the one where Ranma got bopped on the
>head and acquired a girl's personality) was great!  But for each one
>of these there were a number of truly stupid episodes.  
>[remainder deleted]

I'm sorry to say that the number of stupid episodes seems to outnumber
the good ones...though there were quite a few good ones.  See point 1.

>4) There was a lack of continuity and downright wierdness that hurt
>the series.  One had to wonder if they weren't grasping at straws to
>find some forumla that would work.  [...]  

The wierdness *could* work sometimes, but didn't seem to often.
The ones with Picolet were, at first glance, *very* wierd...but
they turned out to be 3 of the more interesting episodes.

Most of the ones that *didn't* work for me revolved around
Happosai.  There are two facets to his character...he is a master
martial artist and he loves panties.  The problem is that he does
the *same thing* all the time.  This gets dull, fast, but the
writer's didn't seem to know what ELSE to do with him.

There were many other characters that *could* have livened things
up without starting another martial arts fight...Kasumi for one.
After all this time, we STILL don't know very much about her besides
the fact that she is always calm, is oblivious of Tofu-sensei, and
has acted as surrogate mother to Nabiki and Akane (this facet was
never really explored!).  

>Still, I'll be sorry to see it go.  There are some hints in `Movement!'
>magazine about the final episodes, but I'll leave it as a surprise.

Does it look like a good send off?  I hope so...

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