Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The rise and fall of Jusenkyo valley

This idea is fairly simple, it is just a fictional account of the Jusenkyo valley as told by someone who is investigating the area for historical purposes via their journal. Basically an alternate history that explains some of the things seen in the Ranma ½ manga in greater detail. The reason I decided to not write this story is because this idea is lacking in many things like drama, comedy, suspense, etc. While those could be introduced they were not what I was thinking about when this idea came to me. I notice that a problem with a lot of my ideas is that they are not so much to tell a story but to point out an aspect of the manga in more detail.

Here are some things that I had thought about including:
-A long time ago at around the time that civilizations were being built up around the Indus river, the Yellow river, the Nile River and the Tigris-Euphrates rivers; Another civilization existed around the area of Jusenkyo which is in the Bayan Har (Bayankala) Mountains in the Qinghai Province of China and is where the Yellow river originates from.
- A wannabe historian learns something about Jusenkyo and goes to investigate.
- We are told in the manga that Jusendo has been guarded by the Phoenix people for more than 4000 years. Which would mean that their civilization dates back to at least what is traditionally thought as the first civilizations. It would also mean that the taps of Jusendo have been around for at least as long as the pyramids of Egypt.
- Was considering using the Dropa stone discs, which are thought to have come from that area and some people believe were constructed by aliens. That those aliens who left the Dropa stones built something deep under a mountain and its run off eventually got into the water that is the source for Jusendo.
- Answer questions like who created Jusendo and for what purpose? How long has the area been settled? How old are the various races?
- Show what life is like for the various cultures in the area (Joketsuzoku, Musk, Phoenix, and Yakusai).
- Magical level (Joketsuzoku have toys and weapons that are magic), herbology (Yakusai have fast growing and multiple kinds of plants), and technological levels (printing press and phones are shown; other technology probably around as well since Shampoo had no trouble acclimating herself to the technology in Japan).
- Explain why so few people know about the people of Jusenkyo and Jusenkyo itself (The ruling people of each village uses magic to keep themselves hidden away from the majority of the human population. A compulsion to stay away from the entire area was placed a long time ago and they mind control the few people who ignore the compulsion and do come into the area anyways).
- Explain why the Chinese government does not do anything about the people in the area. Namely it's a remote area with little interest to them and three out of the four cultures that live there have demonstrated knowledge about mind control (It is shown that the Phoenix people mind control government officials using the magic eggs in the manga).
- Talk about possible wars they have had. Come up with a reason why the Phoenix people have become so xenophobic that the other cultures do not even know they exist (Cologne knew of them only from myths). What happened to the Musk, while not creatures of myth like the Phoenix people, they are still so little known that Cologne had thought them extinct.
- Come up with the various usages the various cultures have developed for Jusendo and Jusenkyo (Phoenix people for Saffron's ascension and to hide amongst humans; Musk used to acquire animal traits - though no longer do so; Joketsuzoku used it for a training ground - but very rarely since Shampoo did not even know of its existence prior to being taken there for training).
- Mention that there are tribes of people living in remote areas of Africa and South America who have just been found recently.

There is probably all kinds of other things I could include but as I said probably won't write this fic. This type of fic does have some obvious advantages, in that writing it as a personal journal, would give a lot of latitude in the writing of it.

Possible start would be similar to this:

November 1st 2009

I've never actually kept a journal before so I am unsure how I should go about writing this. I guess I should start with my name; my name is Neil Fenimore (name gotten from Random Name Generator). I consider myself to be a historian. Technically I am only a student at Johns Hopkins University, but I am enrolled in the history courses and am planning to major in history. I recently learned of an organization known only as Jusenkyo corp. from an anonymous letter sent to my professor. I never heard of them before. I asked my professor as to whom they are and he said that he did not know, but an internet search came up with them being a company run out of a remote area of China that claims to sell magic items.

1 comment:

Drekal said...

I've thought about something similar, on occasion. Here are a few of my own thoughts.

To begin with, there is a lot of symbology throughout the series that represents the dragon and the phoenix. It might be possible to construct a story that connects these symbols together.

Perhaps make the story a tragic one in its nature? After all, it is called the Valley of Sorrow. Perhaps there's another reason it's called that, than the suffering caused by the curses? Something tied into its creation? If I were to write something like this, I may have certain key events reflect the final two volumes of the manga. Not direct copies, mind. Similar certainly, but not directly the same.

The idea is an ambitious one, and I'd love to see it done by someone with a decent enough writing ability. If I had that and the time to devote, I'd probably take a stab at it myself.
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