Series Title: Glory Days
Story Title: Orchid in Full Bloom
By Horosha
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Viz Communications and Kitty Productions
If you have any comments, my email address is:
V_Bashaw@hotmail.com
WARNING: This is an adult fanfic so if you are under the age of 18 or you don't want to read a work that contains adult situations and content, like sex and violence, stop here.
Forward: A while ago, a friend of mine asked me to write a Ranma fanfic where Ranma voluntarily choose to be a full girl. In other words, Ranma decides to stay female. Now anyone who has read Ranma fanfics know, this is a common theme in many of them, but in those, Ranma is either forced to be female by some outside influence (as in Girl Days) or Ranma was originally a girl at birth and was forced to be male (as in Genma's Daughter). I have yet to find one where Ranma choose to be female was made of his own free will.
So I'm giving it a shot.
Epilog: When I'm Seventeen
The white limousine pulled up to the main entrance to the Tendo residence. The back door closest to the door opened, which allowed Ran to climb out of the backseat with her crutches, "I wish I could just carry Akane to our home, Tofu-sensei."
"I don't need another patient having a relapse," Doctor Tofu came out of the other backdoor, heading for the back of the long automobile, heading for the trunk.
"Yare-yare," Ran growled, her dark red hair nicely complimented her dark green blouse, pale green knee skirt and black tights. The sound of the soft giggle drew her eyes down to Akane, still seated, her pink turtleneck sweater cling to her upper body while her creamy white slacks help show off the curves.
"Let Xian Pu help!" Shampoo came out of the front entrance, her cheeks red from the nip of chill in the springtime air. She stopped suddenly at the open car door, bowing deeply to Akane, "Konnichiwa, Akane-chan," her young body in a bright yellow sweater and tights with an unzipped red jacket to aid in warmth. The purple-haired girl expression was pleading, trying to overcome the disdain coming from seated girl. Akane looked at Ran, who swallowed at the intensity coming from her wife, before the dark-haired girl sighed and held out her arms to Shampoo.
"Yatta!" Only Shampoo grinned as she leaned into the backseat, her strong arms going around Akane's back and the underside of her legs, while Akane's arms went around Shampoo's neck. Carefully Shampoo lifted Akane out of the limousine, turning her whole body while Doctor Tofu rolled the wheelchair to that side of the car.
"I see we are here just in time," Nodoka smiled at the group around the back of the car, the elder woman having to forego her usual kimono for thick cotton slacks, shirt and heavy boots, which matched Ukyo's Scottish red-and-black plaid outfit, "Okaeri, Akane-chan."
Akane smiled at Nodoka before her gazed shifted to Ukyo, who's right arm was still held immobile against her chest, "It is so good to see you, Akane-chan," puffs of breath coming from the tomboy's lips, "I really missed you."
Shampoo placed Akane carefully in the wheelchair, before she fished out Akane's purse from the backseat and gave it to her former rival-in-love. Akane opened the purse and pulled out a piece of white chalk and a small chalkboard. Since coming out of her drug-induced coma, Akane had been practicing her writing ever minute she wasn't pulled away by food, sleep and the rehab center down in the hospital basement. Akane carefully wrote on the black surface before holding it up for all to see, "Harem."
"Kya iie zo!" Ran shook her head, held her hands up in surrender while armrests of her crutches held firm by her armpits, "I had no idea what my mother or Nabiki were planning to do!"
"Honto?" the new word on the slate board.
"Honto-honto," Giggles and laughter came from the rest of the women, with a cute smile on Akane's lips. Ran sighed with relief when she realized her beloved was teasing her, "I’m glad things did work out the way they did," she leaned down, kissing Akane on the lips, "and I missed you a lot da."
Clapping came from the entrance to the compound, where Kasumi, Nabiki, Sayari and Yaka stood, "Come on, everyone," Nabiki grinned, "you're missing the celebration."
Akane blinked and looked at everyone, "It's a wedding celebration," Ran told her, another soft kiss to Akane's lips, "our friends insisted on it."
Akane blushed and rubbed a tear from the corners of her eyes. Ran moved to push the wheelchair but Shampoo got there first, "Xian Pu push chair for Akane-chan." So Ran ended up hobbling on her crutches next to Akane, one of her hands holding one of her beloved’s hands.
Music reached their ears as the group moved closer to the dojo, where several students from Fuurinkan High School stood chatting or eating, while a few further inside danced to a jazz song played by a student band. Ran felt her hand squeezed, looked down at the blushing Akane, who whispered softly, her words slurred as she worked her tongue around them, "Anata...ai shite'ru yo."
"I love you too," Ran replied, squeezing Akane's hand, "now and forever."
Kasumi smiled at hearing the exchanged of words between Akane and Ran, saying to Nabiki, "It is a magic time when you're seventeen."
"Hai," Nabiki agreed.
********
Footnotes:
A friend of mine is a big fan of Ranko fanfics, but she wanted one where Ranma voluntarily choose to become fully female. From my own readings, most of the Ranko stories either have Ranma discovering he was really born as a female or someone forces him to be fully female with magic, giving him no choice in the matter. Rape has also been used in some stories, locking Ranma in girl form because she is pregnant.
One thing I come away from the Ranma canon is Ranma willingness to sacrifice to save others. So my conclusion is Ranma would willingly sacrifice his maleness to save Akane.
This is the first installment of a new series by me, but don't expect the next installment to come anytime soon. I have two other series I'm working on, but I hope you will like them as well. So in some degree this is an introduction story, an eighty-eight pages introduction story true, but it should give you and idea as to where I'm heading. Yes, I did leave several story threads unfinished but they will be concluded later.
The reason I went back to an older style, using Japanese words in the story, was because I felt it would work fine here. Most of the words are familiar ones for anyone who watches fansubs or subtitled anime. Some of them are Japanese slang and are meant to add color to the story.
If you are curious about the name of the series, Glory Days, it comes from a Bruce Springsteen song, which spoke of the days of high school as glory days, times when things were great and wonderful, when each moment was lived to its fullest.
I did try to stay as much as possible in-character, but once you introduce new situations, then there is the necessity of allowing character development to occur, to allow the characters to learn from the new experiences and grow.
Most of the locations used in Ranma can be found on a map of Nerima and Japan. Nerima itself is suburb of Tokyo, located north-west of the megacity, and can be reached by going on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. Until its urban development, this area was mostly farming and still known for dankon radishes, but it also has several colleges and universities as well as several anime companies. Nerima represents the sleepy small towns which dot the map of Japan, which are used as background in Japanese anime like Ranma, Yamada and many others.
What are the origins of Ranma? Rumiko was the only girl in a family of seven boys. So she was exposed to shoren manga her brothers would read. Another source was the mangaki she learned the manga craft from, was the creator of the Crying Freeman series. Another possible influence was the successful Yawara manga, where the main character is a female judo champion. The Yawara anime and the Ranma anime were done by Kitty Productions, with evidence there were some cross-influence between the two series. There is even a parody song done in the anime about Yawara in Ranma. Although Ranma was a huge hit outside of Japan, it was Yawara that was more popular in Japan. One of the reasons for the popularity of Yawara was the inclusion of judo as a women's event in the Summer Olympics for 1992 and the winning of a silver medal in judo by a Japanese female athlete. This same woman became the first female athlete to win five Olympic medals at five different Olympics. Currently she is a popular politician.
Trying to write a dramatic fanfic from what is in essence is a gag comedy manga/anime is hard. Even Rumiko admitted in an interview, the one reason she didn't finish Ranma was because of the tangle of plotlines was too big to untangle even for her. Ranma is meant to be a gag comedy and in some of the one-shot stories it became a parody of itself. Like some of the animated episodes of Sailor Moon in the later seasons, they are funny and fun to read and watch, but character development and story progression takes a backseat. Towards the end of the manga series, when dealing with Nodoka and the Musk Dynasty do you have a return of a balance between drama, comedy and character development, but as shown in the last Ranma story, the wedding fiasco, Rumiko couldn't let it go without turning it into a gag.
I know there are some characters that I didn't handle in the story, but I really couldn't come up with a good way to get them in. I did think of having Hikaru Gosunkugi show up at the hospital dressed as a female nurse, but I decided against it.
Ran instead of Ranko. The reason I went for Ran as Ranma choice for a new name was pretty simple. In my mind, I believed Ranma would be ashamed of the pretense he performed with his father and the Tendo family to hid himself behind the illusion of Tendo Ranko. For him to adopt the name of Ranko as his new name, I thought would be too much of a reminder of his shameful, unmanly hoax. By choosing Ran, I figured it would serve as two purposes: One to allow Ranma to have a nice female name, and two a more modern spelling of a girl's name. Nowadays the traditional endings for girls' names are not used as often.
The harem. Yes, I have preserved the harem. Why? Because I enjoy all of the characters, even Kuno and Kodachi. Of course I have given them new roles and new reasons to be around Ran and the Tendo family. Since I do plan to write more stories in this series, it would be better to keep the familiar characters together so I don't have to bring in any original characters more than I have to. I'll probably even shake a few of Rumiko's own stories to see if I can use some of the minor characters from them.
I really get tired of hearing the so-called experts on Japanese manga and animation say how most portrayals of gays and lesbians characters in manga and anime are self-destructive and negative. In fact sexuality identity is a hallmark of Japanese manga and later, anime, going clean back to its early beginnings. Genderbending, sexual confusion, individual self-identity and the resurrection of self can be used for comedy, tragedy and drama. Both gay and lesbian characters are found on the sides of good, evil or indifferent. In some ways American understanding of sex and gender roles in manga and anime, were limited by the material translated into English. If you really want to understand this element better, I would recommend reading any books written by Frederik L. Schodt.
Ukyo was the only character that surprised me as I wrote the story. I was having a hard time coming up with a purpose and reason for her to stay with the group once she lost the marriage war. I reread parts of Ukyo's story and thought hard about her relationship with her father, with Akane and with Ranma. It dawned on me or maybe Ukyo whispered to me, what she really wanted was a family that accepted her femininity. Her turnabout on Ranma was caused because of his statement about her looking cute, feminine. In Japanese society, family is a part of individual identity. I also did a better job in presenting Kuno Tatewaki. The first time around he only got a walk-on and it was pretty weak.
GPS in Tokyo taxis: While I have no idea if a Tokyo taxi would have a GPS system, they might. The addresses for Tokyo and many of the other major cities of Japan are a mess. The reason for this is the addresses are a mix from small towns and rural locations. During the occupation of Japan after the last world war, the Americans established an address system, which are used in the United States. Once the occupation ended, the Japanese government went back to the old system and the chaos ensured. Even today, taxi companies and postal services depend very much on the memory of their employees, when it comes to taking people to their right destinations and taking their mail to the right locations.
This is my second attempt to write this fanfic. My first attempt to create this story was lost after I had wrote 68 pages, as my computer's hard drive was hit by a virus and I had to reformat it. I don't know if this is even close in quality my first attempt. For me writing is creation, it is like catching lightning in a bottle. I did cover the same territory in my second attempt as I did in my first one, and I was even able to add a few scenes, which gave some characters better opportunities to express themselves. Sometimes I feel like I'm more of a recorder of factual events than I am a fictional writer. I write something creative each day, pushing myself to keep my creative juices going either by way of fanfic writing or MU rpging.
I also sucked in a lot of information from reading fiction and non-fiction, always looking at different angles and not accepting the agreed upon conclusions or observations. As an old political said, "The truth is surrounded by a bodyguard of lies." So is it true with fictional writing, what might be looked up as established truth or what is commonly called canon, doesn't always mean this is the complete truth. For example, I was struck at how dissimilar each version of Ranma was. We have manga Ranma, television Ranma, OVA Ranma and movie Ranma. I have watched and read all of them and do find subtle differences.
If some of you are wondering why Nodoka told Genma about Akane and Ranma being seventeen before their birthdays, in Japan is both officially and by tradition that a person’s age is increased at the beginning of the New Year. One of the reasons for giving kids and teenagers gifts of money by parents and relatives at this time was not only to celebrate the New Year, but also those children’s becoming one year older, so in some ways a kid in Japan celebrate his/her birthday in two parts, at New Years Day and on their birthday. In traditional Japan, this was meant to take care of children who were born and the parents didn’t know the birthday
