Akari - Not Just A Kasumi Clone and Why She is Right for Ryouga

This is a character study of Akari, as a response to e-mails who claim 
that she isn't worth the paper she is printed on:

>   Anyone else on here feel that Akari just doesn't feel right?  Shee's
> just too easy.  I guess I feel the "the course of tru luv never did run
> smooth".  Don't like any of Takahashi's "ready made mates" (stole this
> phrase from someone on the UY list), except maybe Nagisa.

Why doesn't anyone stop to actually look at Akari, and only see her as
a 2-D character? (Well, more 2-D than the rest of the characters from
Ranma 1/2)

Here's a look at Akari's character I did because no-one seems to 
understand the poor girl.

(Oh, and after that is an argument on why Ukyou isn't Ryouga's
perfect lover/girlfriend/wife/whatever.)

> > I would have to support Ukyou/Ryoga cuz I dunno who Akari is.
> Akari is a digustingly sweet little girl who loves pigs and loves 
> Ryouga only because he could beat up her sumo pig...  The way I see 
> it, any Ranma character could have moped the floor with that pig, 
> Ryouga just happened to be the one there...

'Disgustingly sweet'? You haven't been reading the manga much! Akari
has much more character than just that. She's the most normal of
the girls in Ranma 1/2, apart from her pig fetish. She's just like
a NORMAL Japanese high-school girl, and acts like one ... But she's
somewhat more understanding of Ryouga's sense of direction (and so
being late for dates) than most girls would be.

She's sweet, yes, but she's got a will of her own. When she wants
something, she'll do what needs to be done to get it. She loves
Ryouga, and so she tried to make herself hate pigs because she
thought that he hated them ... 

She's obviously been travelling far to find a man to marry, since there 
aren't any farms in the area. So she's brave and independant, as well.

She runs a pig farm by herself - her grandfather is too old to do
work, and her parents are dead (otherwise her grandfather wouldn't have
told her to get married in the way he did) ... So she's good at training
animals, looking after them, selling them, and quite probably killing
them to sell, and eating them herself. So she's pretty smart, running
a farm by herself (though she may have some farm workers, since she's
obviously a land owner)

But, with her will, she would rather go and live at Ryouga's house
with him, and sell her farm... or continue letting her workers look
after the farm while she's away. She loves Ryouga more than her pigs.

But she isn't a fighter - and, lets face it, what NORMAL high-school
girl (in Japan) is a martial artist? But her pigs do sumo wrestling,
so she doesn't NEED to fight. She's in need of protection - and Ryouga
is perfect to protect her ... This is why her grandfather wants her
to marry a stong man - for protection.

She's very understanding of some things, too. She's understanding of
how Ryouga gets lost ... She'd wait for him, however long he takes.
She'd make a good wife for him - she'd stay at his house and look after
it till he returned home. She's got Katsunishiki, and, at Ryouga's
house, Shirokuro and her puppies to look after. She's very motherly,
too ... wanting to look after things.

But, however understanding she is, she would not put up with him two
timing - she isn't a door mat. Because she loves him so much, she would
rather leave him, if she thought that he loved someone else, so that he
could be happy, with the other girl, without putting up with her around
to cause the other girl jealousy - she runs off because she knows that
he can't follow. But if they were engaged or married, she would very
probably give him the silent treatment, as she wouldn't run away from
her responsibilities... She's not a Kasumi-clone. She does have limits.

But most people don't get these qualities because they only give Akari
a cursory glance, and say "She's a fix-up character, she's worthless!"
and don't bother looking any deeper.

As to the bit about Ryouga happening to be the one who beat up the pig,
hai, that's right. She has honour and responsibiliy - her grandfather
wished her to do that, so he could rest easy, knowing she'd be looked
after after he died.

And she pretended to love him, at first ... but she truly fell in love
with him when she saw his qualities, rather than just a duty thing.
Unlike Shampoo, Akari is in love with the one she is honour bound to
marry - she cares about his feelings and what he wants, more than what
she wants.

And Ryouga's gave up on Akane, in the end, for Akari. Because he loves
her.

> Hai, I know that...  You can't really get much out of a character 
> with only 3 apperances...  How about this...  In an alternate Ranma 
> dimension where Ryouga never meets Akari, Ukyou is right for him, but 
> in the dimension with Akari, she is his soul mate, and in yet another 
> dimension, I guess you can have him Kun-chan-sama...

But, however right you think that Ukyou is for Ryouga doesn't matter
one little bit since Ryouga doesn't love Ukyou and Ukyou doesn't love
Ryouga. If you think they are right for each other, that's what you
think - not what they think!

Ryouga can fall in love with a girl at the drop of a hat ... and he
doesn't with Ukyou. That's either because he thinks she's:

'one of the boys'
not cute enough
someone who manipulates him
only a friend
not nice to him

After all, he doesn't care if the girl he loves is Ranma's girl, so
her being Ranma's fiancee wouldn't stop him ...

And he fell for any girl who was nice to him ... that must mean that
he doesn't think that Ukyou's nice to him.

So there's a reason he didn't fall for her ... or Shampoo ... or Kodachi.
It's because they only have eyes for Ranma, and they don't care about
him one bit - they are too busy worrying about if they get Ranma or
not.

Akane was nice to him, and he fell for her. Ranma pretending to be a girl
was nice to him a few times, and he fell for those disguises and fell for
the 'girls'... And Akari was really nice to him, and he fell in love with
her, too.

Ryouga isn't the most ... faithful of men, really. His heart flutters to
and fro among girls who he thinks likes or love him ...

If Ukyou was nice to him, he would probably fall for her, but the point
is that she's too wrapped up in heself and her quest for Ranma that she
just uses Ryouga as a pawn. If she started to be really nice to Ryouga,
he (even with his ability to fall for almost anything) wouldn't believe
her, and think that it's another plot to use him get Ranma, somehow.

Ryouga doesn't care for Ukyou, especially as a girlfriend or more. He
doesn't love her.

Ukyou, equally, doesn't love Ryouga. She used him for her own ends ...
although a few times, it may have helped Ryouga, but if it was ONLY
to help Ryouga, she wouldn't have done it.

Ukyou loves Ranma and only has eyes for him.

Why would ANY girl fall for their 'pawn'? Someone you can manipulate
so easily isn't worthy of respect, let alone love. So why would she
fall for Ryouga?

You say that they could cry on each other's shoulders, and so find love
that way, ne?

There's a problem with rebound relationships - they never last long.

And I don't see Ryouga the happy house-husband that Ukyou wants,
personally. She wants someone to look after the kids while she works,
and someone to look after the resturant.

Ryouga, if trained a lot, may POSSIBLY be able to stay around and look
after the resturant... after a while. But then, he doesn't even know
where his house is. But he would NOT be a house-husband.

And I don't see Ukyou putting up with his getting lost - she wouldn't
be able to leave the resturant to go searching for him, and she'd be
VERY lonely for most of her life - married to a man she would hardly
ever see. She's had enough heart break in her life already ... Why would
she want to marry into loneliness?

Since Ryouga doesn't love Ukyou, and since Ukyou doesn't love Ryouga,
and since neither of them really like the other ... they, themselves,
wouldn't want each other for marriage, or anything else.

However perfect one thinks they are for each other, they don't think that
they are suited for anything more than maybe friendship, tinged with
resentment and distain.