Ramble 12

Is It Really Love? Not in my Book

After reading some stories on fanfiction.net , I came across another rant that made me think about the relationships in Ranma ½ and other anime, and it really drove home how some pairings just won’t work, and of course, top of my list is the Ranma/Akane pairing, (ugh!)

I have ranted about this before, but this is the one pairing that will NEVER see the light of day in my stories. Quite simply, it just doesn’t work, especially for the majority; it’s always Ranma who must be punished while Akane gets off relatively Scott-free. Yes, I’ve ranted and rambled about how she NEVER gets the bad part of any deal, and even if it’s not Ranma’s fault, he still gets the short end of the stick due to some unfair quirk of fate or when he’s blamed for the trouble anyhow.

Now the reason why I’m ranting is because of a certain fic that a fellow author named Rewind Gone Nuts wrote about how Ranma points out just how pathetic Mousse is with his so-called love for Shampoo. Here’s an excerpt…

"If you lose… you are going to give up this mad crush on Shampoo, once and for all, on the same oath I just swore – and I mean on your honor as a man, as a martial artist, and as a member of your family, so don't get cute!" He snapped this last part, thankful that he'd remembered what Cologne had said. "In the event you can't prove that Shampoo loves you, you are going to leave this here arena and you are going to get your life in order! Make someone of yourself, someone more than just Shampoo's stupid blind stalker!" Ranma insisted.

Mousse didn't know he had the blood left in him to turn purple with rage, but he evidently did. Finally, he managed to swallow the barbed lump in his throat. "…Alright. I accept your terms. Well, for starters, ever heard the phrase 'actions speak louder than words'? Well, if I just keep trying, if I just have a little more time, then I'll prove how good I am, and Shampoo will be able to admit she loves me, not just show it."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I heard it. So what? Since when has Shampoo ever been the type to shy away from saying what she's felt? You've known her thirteen years, and you can honestly say that she doesn't with a straight face? Do you even know who Shampoo is? And then there's the actions part of that… even if she was the type to let her actions speak for her, when has she ever shown you anything other than disdain and derogation, huh?" He demanded.

"What about when I lost that duel to you? Or when I saved her from Toristan?" Mousse countered.

"You just got your ass kicked so badly you looked half-dead. If I had been in Shampoo's place, I would have taken you for medical attention and tried to help you get better – and I sure as hell don't love you!"

"I should hope not, you sick pervert!" Mousse snapped in genuine disgust.

"There ain't no kindness she's ever shown you that isn't either the same sort of thing anybody who wasn't pure evil would have shown you, or had its own sting in the tail." Ranma stated coldly. "Remember that time you made that big speech about going home to China? You talked a pretty talk, but that's all it was – talk! All the time, you were looking for an excuse to say, some small glimmer of her caring… you never found anything, did you?"

"She made that feast for me!" Mousse protested, half-rising before the pain of his injuries sent him crashing back to the broken sod.

"Yeah, because they knew you were still in the neighborhood and they knew you'd watch the shop for free if they did – real sign of affection there." Ranma said, fighting hard to keep it from sounding like he was jeering Mousse.

"And then there was that incident with Maomolin." Ranma continued. "Let's see… from the beginning, she was adamant that only the man who she loved would be able to cure her with a kiss – and she was adamant that I was that man! She rejected you with words and blows every time you got near her – even when she was on the verge of losing her humanity, she was still insisting that your kiss wasn't going to cut it! To make things worse, you actually tried to stop me from kissing her! If she hadn't managed to squeeze through the bars and kiss me before that last bell toll, she'd be Maomolin's kitty-bride right now!" He thundered, a wrathful expression on his face. To be trapped in cursed form for all time… nobody deserved that kind of fate!

"But! I!" Mousse spat, clearly wracking his brains to think of something more to say.

"Face it, man. You've gotten more real, meaningful sympathy and affection from Akane Tendo than you ever have from Shampoo." Ranma interjected.

"It's… It's all that old ghoul's fault!" Mousse protested. "Shampoo can't disobey her, and she just wants you because you're the strongest martial artist around – if there was somebody stronger…"

"Oh, yes, it's Cologne's fault, however could it not be?" Ranma mocked – and this time, he wasn't bothering trying to hide his jeers. "That's clearly why she taught me the Hiryu Shoten Ha. She had the perfect excuse to drop me like a side of maggoty beef – she had all the reason to do it, too. Not only was I weaker than a baby, I'd fought her and cursed her and challenged her ever since she showed up in Japan! I'd done all but spit in her eye by that point! And she still chose to help me when I was at my lowest, even though she could have taken it as the perfect excuse to leave and find somebody else. Hell, she could have cut my head off after turning me into a girl, simply because I wouldn't be able to fight her and to ensure that there would be no stain on Shampoo's honor. And you know what she did? She took me in, she gave me a move passed down for generations through the Joketsuzoku, and she did everything she possibly could to help me get my strength back!"

Mousse muttered and moaned, clearly wracking his brains, desperate to think of something, but Ranma continued on, mercilessly.

"As for Shampoo only doing what Cologne says… so that's why, when she first found out about my curse, despite thinking that I was only a girl and I had betrayed and humiliated her, despite there not being any Cologne around, she turned and left with tears in her eyes, unable to hurt me? That's why she told me that Cologne had a cure to the Full Body Cat's Tongue, when she could have just left me to suffer under the move until I gave in and became her husband? That's why, when I asked her to help me fight her own great-grandmother, in a battle that would free me from the Full Body Cat's Tongue if I won, she agreed and gave her all to help me win?" Ranma shot back, Mousse convulsing as if each sentence was a bullet slamming home into his body.

"Thirteen years, man. Thirteen long years before I ever darkened the front gates of your little village! You grew up together, you flirted and bowed and scraped and primped and posed and begged and wept and otherwise did everything you could to prove your love to her… all for nothing! If Shampoo felt anything for you, any single scrap of love or desire, she'd have told you by now! I am – I was – nothing more than a scapegoat, somebody you could point to and say 'oh, it's not my fault she doesn't love me, it's his'! Well, not anymore! You had your chance, you've made your toss, and you. Have. Lost!" Ranma thundered, aura burning and finger pointing ominously down at the prone Mousse like a god delivering final judgment to a sinner.

End of excerpt…

You’ve got to admit that Ranma pulled up a lot of good points, in which Mousse couldn’t counter with sound reasoning. However, in canon, sound reasoning is about as useful as a solar-powered flashlight. The same thing goes for Kuno and Ryoga, with their supposed love for Akane. We all know that it’s not true love but rather an obsession. And once obsession kicks in, all forms of weird reality and compromises appear so that to them, it makes perfect sense.

Ryoga: Despite my curse, I found someone who loves me!

Ranma: Yeah, well wishing about it, don’t make it true.

And of course, we know about the Blue Blunder and his idiocy with Akane and the Pig-Tailed Girl.

A lot of times, when other fans keep saying that Mousse deserves Shampoo, I ask what has he DONE to deserve her?!

1) Drives Shampoo crazy throughout their childhood and does not give her any chance with any other boy.

2) First appearance, he kicks Ranma after hugging him, thinking he was Shampoo, then declaring himself as her future husband, even after Shampoo said, “That not true! You only stupid friend from child times!”

3) Challenges Ranma to a fight for no real reason.

4) Kidnaps Akane then tries to turn Ranma into a duck!

5) Tries to kill Ranma when he was ‘trying to lose on purpose’

6) Promised to leave Japan after challenging Ranma, but goes back on his word.

7) Attacks Ranma when he was defenseless and weak.

8) Almost got Shampoo turned permanently into a cat during that Ghost Cat fiasco.

I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is that everything that Mousse had done to ‘win his beloved Shampoo’ has NOT been for her sake, but rather for his own benefit. He can’t take a hint, like Blue Blunder and the Lost Boy, and they all have one thing in common. They don’t know anything about love. They have confused it with obsession.