Red's Reviews: Fist of the Pikachu 

Divergence Title: Fist of the Pikachu
Author: Hung Nguyen
Status: Ongoing
Rating: 6.9

     	I've read several of this author's works before, and while they're no 
masterpieces, they are quite good. I'm especially interested in Cat Fist Fury 
and Fighting Blind. It had been a while since I'd been to his website, so upon 
my latest visit I was surprised to see something called (of all things) Fist of 
the Pikachu. Not having been overly impressed with the Ranma / Pokemon 
crossover's I'd seen before, I decided to give this one a try.
	As I finished reading what was available of Fist of the Pikachu, I tried 
to summarize the overall feeling I got about it and I came up with "nice." Yes, 
nice. It was a good story that was a lot of fun to read. Despite a really BAD 
running gag in one of the later chapters (read it, you'll see it) and 
increasingly ridiculous Team Rocket names (but let's face it, isn't Team Rocket 
increasingly ridiculous by nature?) Fist of the Pikachu had me chuckling 
throughout most of its chapters.
     	Plot: Ranma is magically transported to Pokemon-Earth just after Jusenkyou 
and prior to the Amazons village. He has to deal with the fact that he may never 
get home, and that there are very few martial artists in this New World. He 
copes well, after a shaky start.
     	Okay, let's be realistic. The plot is a bit silly. However, I think that 
is the point here. This is a story that wants to simply to make you think "hey 
neat!" and keep you reading to the next chapter. It succeeds in that quite well.
     	The plot has many good points. It moves along nicely, with some nice 
surprises here and there. Nevertheless, like all good stories, it has its down 
points too.
     	Very little of the Ranma cast. I understand that this is supposed to be an 
almost-fusion with Pokemon, but I would like to see more of the Ranma cast 
getting involved. Perhaps the Amazons, trying to find out what went wrong with 
their spell.
     	The battle scenes tend to degenerate rapidly into simply yelling out 
attack names and describing their effects.
     	Ranma seems to develop his ki-throwing abilities rather easily, and he and 
his Pokemon are abnormally superpowered from the get-go. This rather dampens the 
anticipation of any upcoming Pokemon battle in this story. On the other hand, 
there were some surprises. His loss to Sabrina, and the fight in the warehouse 
between Butch & Cassidy's Pokemon and Ranma & Raiden for example.
     	The rather easy avoidance of Ranma's Jusenkyou curse and the problems it 
might cause. It is quite a long time until it comes into play in this story.
     	The re-use of Pokemon storylines, characters, and even some of the jokes. 
The Pokemon Race story, the burning-down of the gym in Celadon City, and Ranma 
starting out with Pikachu in Pallet Town, to name a few.
     	Characters and Characterization: This is really tough to get into, since 
the only real Ranma cast member is this fanfic is Ranma himself, and most of the 
characters in the original Pokemon story were one-use characters with very 
little definition.
     	This Ranma matures a little too quickly for my mind to believe it fully. 
Granted, being flipped between universes and losing contact with everything you 
could possibly rely on or be familiar with would be enough to cause rapid 
maturity, but it seems to happen a little too fast.
     	Despite how quickly it happens, this is very close to what I thought would 
happen if Ranma were suddenly and completely on his own without support. He has 
to learn to be completely self-sufficient, that his fists cannot solve 
everything, and the responsibility of caring for someone or something that 
depends on him. I really like this, though I wish it had taken a little longer 
to come together.
     	I found Ranma's reluctance to capture Pokemon very appropriate. The 
canonical Ranma hates it when he is forced into doing what he does not wish to 
do at another's bidding. He will do it if there is no way out, but only under 
protest. His comparison of capturing Pokemon and making them battle to slavery 
was particularly effective. I can very easily believe the canonical Ranma 
feeling this way.
     	Story Mechanics: Fair. The chapters are of a good meaty size, giving the 
reader a nice long read. The chapters cut off at appropriate points in the 
story, some being cliffhangers and some just closing out a chapter. Very nice.
     	However, the reason I was forced to give Fist of the Pikachu a lower 
rating than I wanted to falls within this portion of the review as well. The 
grammar and structure of this story is not good. Missing words, wrong words, and 
Pidgin English were this story's major problem. Couple this with a good handful 
of instances where the story just skimmed over what could have been important 
additions to the story, and you have the reason why I dropped a point from the 
overall rating. The services of a proofreader or two are needed.

     	Summary: I liked Fist of the Pikachu very much, despite its problems. It 
was fun to read and quite entertaining, even touching in some parts. If the 
author were to iron out the grammatical bugs then this story would indeed become 
a great fanfic. I definitely recommend reading this story.