Relatively Absent/Analysis

This was originally posted by Stephan Sokolow as part of his blog article Recommended "Voluntary Fukufics", and last updated on 2019-04-18.

Relatively Absent by Togashii Gaijin

Length: Prologue, 11 chapters, and 2 side-story chapters
Status: Incomplete

Unfortunately, you'll have to find someone who can e-mail you a copy of this if you want to read it, because the author has attempted to expunge it from the 'net. That said, while it didn't progress very far into its story arc, it's not bad enough to merit removal ...the author just felt it was somehow shameful that he'd once written fanfiction.

That said, this is a very special case because it's the only example I can remember running into where the choice is quite literally "take the job or die", but it works!

The basic setup is that, in the aftermath of his fight with Prince Herb, Ranma winds up buried under the collapsing mountain. At the same time, Sailor Pluto has used Time Stop and the Gates, bearing an intelligence that Pluto hasn't talked to in a millennium, decide that a new guardian is warranted. Ranma is the only suitable candidate without looking outside the Sol system.

What makes this work is how the author combines a bunch of smaller details so that it feels real rather than just railroading Ranma into a convenient position. Yes, it's a Hobson's choice. Ranma flat out says "some choice" while his life is ebbing away. It works because Ranma making the best of the situation is a central element of what's going on. Because Ranma took the job to save his own life, there's no immediate threat to steal the spotlight and the conflict can focus on Ranma dealing with the changed circumstances.

It especially helps that, despite being forced to take up the mantle of being "Guardian Khronos", the story clearly shows that Ranma's Ranma-ness isn't going to be worn down by the job, as he pounces on every opportunity to make it less about being a magical girl and more about being a martial artist in a stupid outfit with some useful new abilities.

With the explanation of why the fukufic aspect words handled, let's focus on the story itself. Most of it focuses around Ranma meeting the rest of his family on his mother's side, who had been keeping an eye on him but not interfering as a result of a big falling-out between Nodoka and her mother. It features quite a few OCs and original locales, and is paced in a way which suggests that it was meant to be just the beginning of quite a long-running fic. (Basically, think of it as just the beginning of a multi-way crossover with one of the series being the author's original work.)

Given the reveal that the Silver Crystal and Silence Glaive also have minds of their own, plus the associated Senshi scenes, it's pretty clear that the Sailor Moon cast was intended to play a bigger role as the story would have unfolded. However, the set of chapters that actually got written are skewed fairly heavily in the direction of the author's original elements.

...at the same time, I also think it's a fairly clear case of "the author was on a course to gunk things up". First, the events which occur when it cuts back to Nerima in the later chapters feel like the author started a "close that chapter of Ranma's life" fix-fic and then got carried away with those parts rather than using them to close down Nerima quickly. Second, Genma is portrayed in a way which makes it clear he would have come back later, and to the story's detriment. Third, there's a foreshadowed antagonist that I sense would come back in a way which stole too much of the spotlight in the wrong way. Fourth, there's a scene involving D.C. Comics characters which feels like it would have been better for the story as a whole if it were done with original characters instead. Finally, there's an excuse to send Ranma to the U.S. and the last chapter that got written has Ranma on the plane.

All in all, it feels like it would have developed into one of those messy multi-crosses between Ranma ½, Sailor Moon, D.C. Comics, and an original vision with enough development and focus behind it to be a source unto itself. However, what actually got written for the Ranma side is surprisingly self-contained and could be easily pruned to form the beginning of a working "Ranma in a Sailor Moon – Original crossover".

It's certainly not your typical fukufic by any means, but, if you can find a copy, it's something I'd suggest reading at least once. It's one of those interesting and somewhat unique artifacts of the era before Fanfiction.net, when fanfiction was centred around the FFML, the rec.arts.anime.creative Usenet group, and private websites, and fics often had varying degrees of influence from that "Usenet college writing" flavour that showed up in works from the period. (For example, the Spells R Us series, Siaru's The Virus: Interpersonal Effects (available in the VFFA bundle for The Virus), and various text-parser-driven adventure games from the 80s and 90s, both text-only and graphical.)