The
Ghost of Curses Past
J.P. Buckner
OTHER STUFF BY BUCKNER: Saotome’s Choice (excellent)
OVERALL RATING: 6.0
Plot: 6.0
Grammar/Spelling: 6.7
In a Nutshell: Yet another Ranma/Ranko split, but this has a twist. Ranko is fed up and leaves the Tendos. Akane comes back, asking for a favor only Ranko can grant. Things get interesting from there.
Critique: Okay, so this one caught me off guard, and this usually pleases me. I thought one thing was going to happen (i.e. Akane gets a curse) and this is not what occurred. Still, while this is a good story with a surprising ending, and Ranko’s pain is pretty real, it seems like the author skimmed over the less ‘exciting’ scenes and ran with the ones he liked. This was its great failing. For once, a story’s strong sense of plot was its downfall! :o I’m serious: the author just wanted to get to the parts that were fun to write as fast as possible and so ignored some potentially interesting scenes to get to the punchline. The hospital scene was a little contrived. Plus, the end has a... er, glitch. Still, it’s worth it to hear Ranko’s well-thought-out tirade against Akane, and to see Akane’s solution to their difficulties.
Sum and Substance: I did like this story, despite what I said above; in fact, a story can be crap and I will gladly read it if it can believably surprise me. The problem was the lack of believability. Don’t get me wrong: it’s perfectly believable that everyone would ignore or mistreat Ranko. After all, they mistreat Ranma all the time! But Ukyo and Ryoga’s reactions were surprising to me. Why would they act that way? Ukyo viewed Ranma as a buddy originally, and so you’d think she of all people would attempt to get over her difficulties concerning Ranko. There has always been pseudo-attraction between Ranma-onna and Ryoga, so you’d think he might have less of a problem with a permanently female Ranma (or maybe that’s why he had trouble!) Everybody else’s flipping out is entirely acceptable, esp. his father’s and Shampoo’s.
The next problem with believability that I had was the way everybody finds out about Ranko’s kidney donation. It’s doubtful that either Kasumi or especially Nabiki would allow themselves to be sent down to ‘fetch tea’ at a time like this! And Tofu’s asking Akane if she would check up on a patient of his strikes me as strange... even though he knows about Ranko’s presence, and is attempting to get Ranko and Akane to talk to one another, Akane and Ranma should at least think his request is a little strange. How could the person be a patient of Tofu’s? They’re at the hospital at the time, not at his clinic. ‘Former patient’ might have made this a little bit more understandable. Besides which, it’s hard to believe that any doctor would involve an inexperienced young girl in the treatment of his patient.
Finally (and this is the only really big problem, as far as I see it...) Akane does a very silly thing by splashing herself with instant Nyaniichuan. Presumably the spell will split her into her male and female selves. Presumably, since it’s instant, it will wear off. Then what will happen? Will there be two female Akanes? More likely, the guy half will disappear. At least, that’s my theory, since her curse would disappear, in time. Imagine how pissed-off Ranko would be then. Akane should’ve gotten the real McCoy, ne?
This story got voted best oneshot in January 2001.
Back to Reviews Main
Back to the Garden
