Red's Reviews: The Great Crossover Crisis Divergence Title: The Great Crossover Crisis Author: Hung Nguyen Status: Ongoing Rating: 8.0 Originally, I was going to pass up reading The Great Crossover Crisis, but after reading a few of Animeaddiction's works, I decided to give it a whirl. And I was glad I did. Why would I pass it up, you ask? Because of the genre involved. GCC is a fanfic crossover. Not a crossover involving two or more anime series, but between two or more fanfics themselves. The only other examples of such stories I'd found until the time I read GCC were the ill-fated Converging Series and Jim Bader's ill-conceived Reality Bytes series. These two fanfics each embodied two of the easiest multi-fanfic-cross problems: far too many characters and subplots for the reader to keep track of without using some a database program. Fortunately, GCC avoids these problems by keeping the number of crossed characters to a relatively small five characters. Plot: The basic plot is thus: Five different Ranmas jump from universe to universe (usually Anime universes) trying to get home. Normally, I wouldn't have been too impressed with that kind of plot, if it weren't for the specific Ranmas involved. Each Ranma comes from another of Animeaddiction’s ongoing fanfics: Ranmatech, Dragon Child, Fist of the Pikachu, Fighting Blind, and Cat Fist Fury. The more general plotline changes with each new world the five jump to, although the story seems to have reached its final world. Slayers, Sailor Moon, and now the canonic Ranma worlds all get a visit from the fearsome fivesome. If you're a fan of transformational-style shows (Sailor Moon, Transformers, Digimon, Ronin Warriors, etc) then you'll really love the Sailor Moon world in this story. It's just simply hilarious, while at the same time keeping alive a strong feeling of suspense. All the while the transformational and the battle sequences were unfolding, I kept hearing the ending theme to Transformers: The Movie running through my head. C'mon, you know the one. Anyone who'd seen the movie when they were a kid will instinctively know what I mean. :) (I just can't stop making myself look so OLD, can I?) As later chapter progress, we begin to see what the purpose behind the primary plot (the dimensional hopping) was, and who is responsible. I was rather surprised, actually. Another thing I was surprised at is just how nicely the five are brought together. Each of them comes from a different fanfic, but try as I might I could not find any instance of the characters specifying from what point in the plot of their original fanfics they were pulled. With the possible exception of the Ranma from FoP, but even that isn't more than a general idea. In my opinion, this is very good. It doesn't give away any surprises in the original fics, leaves a lot of room for new plotlines, and makes me wonder if the happenings in GCC will ever receive any mention in the other stories. Characters and Characterizations: Since the primary characters in this fanfic are Altaverse and divergence creations of the author to begin with, a lot of leeway can and should be given. These five primaries all match perfectly to their counterparts in their respective fanfics. The secondary characters (the Slayers cast, the Sailor Moon cast, and the canonic Ranma cast) all seem to work well with their canonic originals, at least as far as I can tell. In this section there is, unfortunately, a problem. The names with which the five Ranmas identify themselves seem to change with some frequency. Fairly early on, they each choose names for themselves that fit their natures, such as: Prototype (Ranmatech) Draco (Dragon Child) Koga (Fighting Blind) Kojiro (Cat Fist Fury) Ranko / Trainer / Ash (Fist of the Pikachu) These names are good! They fit them nicely, they work, and they're easy to remember... but they seem to get forgotten in the course of the story, as the characters are frequently referred to by their more confusing designations: T- Ranma, D-Ranma, B-Ranma, C-Ranma, and P-Ranma respectively. If the author were to go through the story and replace these with their personal names, it would be a MUCH improved story. I'd be inclined to bump the rating I gave it up a few decimal places. Story Mechanics: GCC doesn't suffer from many of the problems some of the author's other works does, as far as grammar and construction go. It reads easily, and can be readily understood by anyone. A tune-up here and there would be a good idea, but there's nothing really worth going on about. Overall: Okay, it's no Shampoo 1/2, but Shampoo 1/2 was never this much FUN. Yes, fun. This story has everything that makes for a good well-rounded read. Comedy, action, a little romancy interpersonal stuff, some really good plots, all bound together by five of the oddest Ranma's you'll ever read. Should you read this? Oh yes. Should you check for updates frequently? Oh heck yes. Should you email the author and tell him just how great this story is? Sure, why the heck not. DO NOT MISS THIS STORY. It's a BIG load of fun.