Story Concept - "Nyaniichuan Rejuvenation."

Nyaniichuan Rejuvenation
Story concept by Michael A. Ivins

The anime I have of Ranma ½ always translates Nyaniichuan as “Spring of Drowned Young girl,” while Naniichuan is always translated as Spring of Drowned Man. I’m not the first person to notice this because there have been fanfics that made use of that. One of them is “Destiny’s Child by Fire. In that story Ranma fell into the spring 400 years ago and his cursed form was that of a 12 year old girl. When in girl form she didn’t age and it took almost boiling water to change to male so Ranma spent most of his time in that form. (He also turned out to be the reincarnation of Sailor Saturn, but that’s not relevant to this story concept.)

I don’t remember the titles but I do recall reading at least two fics where Cologne used Nyaniichuan water to change from old crone to teenage hottie. The usual problem with that is that such a rejuvenation causes her to change her priorities. She would decide that instead of helping Shampoo to catch Ranma, she decides to take him for herself.

I would formalize the concept as follows: I would say it so that Naniichuan (with no age reference in the name) will change a young girl to an adult male while an adult woman would change to a man of the same age as she started out. A male child would also change to an adult man while an adult man falling into the spring wouldn’t change at all.

The rule for Nyaniichuan would be that a girl of less than age 20 would suffer no change from falling into that spring. A woman 20 or older who fell in would change to a teenaged girl. If a boy of less than 20 fell into Nyaniichuan fell into the spring he would change into a girl of near the same age or slightly younger. If a man older than 20 fell into the same spring he would change into a teenage girl.

That gives the basic rules of magic for the background of the story. At some point in the story this would be explained. Now we come to the actual story concept.

I postulate the existence of a very old man. For this to be properly effective I would write him as being beyond a normal span of years for a human. He would be old enough that he would be tired of life. I would also conceive of this old man as being something of an adventurer so that he finds the infirmities of age especially onerous.

Because this old man is tired of his life and would like a chance to return to youth I propose that this man would be willing to give up his masculinity to use Nyniichuan to become a young girl and get a chance at a new life as a woman.

While this is obviously in the Ranma universe, so far nothing that I’ve said would require Ranma’s presence. To properly make this a Ranma story I would have the old man seek out Ranma to help him get hold of cursed water as well as water from Chiisuiton to lock the curse.

I would like to put into the story that after our old man becomes the young girl that she gets involved in romance with a member of the NWC. I haven’t decided which one yet.

Now as to who the old man is, I’ve had thoughts on 3 different men. One of them stays within the Ranmaverse. I was thinking that Happosai would begin to lose the ability to absorb female chi. Further the girl water would normally be fatal for him but with a talisman he gets just before the start of the story, he can now survive.

My second idea for the old man was Indiana Jones. If there are any people who would say there is no way Indie would still be alive in the 21st century, I would propose that he got some kind of magic that let him live longer. He also seems like the kind of person that Ranma would take a liking to and would want to help.

The third possibility for the Old Man is an OC. I was thinking of a nobleman in either England or Europe 400-500 years ago. This man befriends crashed aliens who zap him with a device that arrests his aging. He travels the world because he doesn’t dare stay in one place long enough for people to notice that he is not aging while everyone around him is. While traveling in the orient he learns martial arts because it is known that some martial artists can use ki techniques to prolong their lives.

An alternate version of that last one would have the Old Man as a Templar Knight. At any rate the concept would be that he was a middle aged man when his aging was frozen. The freeze on his aging wore off and about 20 years before he meets Ranma, he has started to age again at a normal rate.

I would like to hear what people think of these story ideas. Do you like the concept and if so which of the possible Old Men would you like to see put into a story? Which of the NWC would you like to see the transformed girl get romantically involved with? It doesn’t have to be a male member of the NWC either