Hearts
of Ice
Krista Perry
OVERALL: 9.2
(haven’t read this? And you call
yourself a fan?!)
Plot: 9.0
Grammar/Spelling: 9.0
In a Nutshell: Ranma and Akane are separated by a great, impenetrable distance; Ranma remains in Nerima, but Akane is transported to the kami plane.
Critique: Perry’s fame is growing to be practically as large as Takahashi’s, or it seems so these days. I’ve noted people calling her Perry-sama on many occasions! That is how well her fanfiction is known, especially Hearts of Ice. With so much to recommend it, you scarcely need my permission. In fact, if you haven’t read this fic, and you’re a Ranma fan... have you been living in a box? Did it contain a computer...? Top ten—possibly best ever.
Sum and Substance: One word: “awwwww.” This story is so full of WAFFy moments that pop up from the woodwork. And because they are presented that way, and not so openly, they don’t usually get annoying. One particular bit like this sticks in my mind: when Akane and Ranma hold hands in the very first scene, Ranma contemplates the tinyness of Akane’s hand, and how much her grip steadies him. I didn’t know she could do that, he thinks wonderingly. Akane is thinking the reverse: his hand is so huge it swallows mine! (Let’s all say it together, people: “Awwww....”)
Things abruptly get darker when Akane is whisked away to the kami-plane and the abode of Akane’s sometime-patron sometime-adversary Yuki-onna, the snow woman. I wonder, does Perry-san know that Yuki-onna is actually a character in Ranma ˝ that appears on a Christmas episode? It doesn’t seem so, as they are not much alike in personality. Also, in Ranma the girl is “a snow woman” while in HoI, there is considered to be only one Yuki-onna. Maybe that’s just the template for Yuki-onna.
So. Why is Perry’s story so addictive to otaku everywhere? Well, it delivers. It has the trickery that suspense and mystery lovers adore, offered up via Nabiki, Cologne, and Yuki-onna. It’s got the sappy romantic bits. Admit it—you love the sappy romantic bits. The part where Ranma cries over Akane’s severed braid is priceless. It also has adventure: Akane righteously chopping up lustful demons left and right, Ranma and Co. going to find her, and Cologne off to stop them... it all makes for some good fight/adventure scenes. Finally, it has those angsty bits you wouldn’t expect in such a sweet story about love—except that love has a dark side, which is well-exploited here. What would Ranma do if nobody believed Akane existed but him? He begins to think she might after all be a figment of his imagination. Akane pines for Ranma years longer than Ranma must pine for her. Angst, angst... but good angst.
Amongst my favorite themes/scenes/bits of HoI:
Akane is the main character. Not Ranma. And she kicks ass.
Everybody forgets Akane but Ranma; Ryoga is suddenly Ranma’s best buddy.
Nabiki gets the better of Cologne in my favorite scene in ANY fanfic EVER!
Nabiki shoots Cologne. The wind speaking and hissing at her... was cool beyond words.
Nabiki speaks to Kuno, directly after he saves her life.
The voices in Ranma’s head, telling him he’ll never find Akane, but that she’s alive.
Shampoo’s finally giving in and pledging her help and essentially her loyalty to Ranma and his cause. Frankly, I was always convinced it would take something of this magnitude for her to give up on Ranma. Another favorite bit of mine is when Shampoo realizes she loves Mousse.
Everybody and his brother has something good to say about this fic. So is there anything bad? Of course there is! No story’s perfect (though this comes close) and this one isn’t out of its first revision online as of this review.
First of all, Akane cries too much. A quote comes to mind: “Smiles too much! How can anyone smile too much?” Some may say this of Akane’s tears: she’s sad, damn it, and she’s away from her true love. I agree, and in all honesty, during the first read-through, this did not bother me. Then, I read the story again awhile later and became annoyed. She’s crying again! I said to myself, and after awhile I found myself thinking, Not again. C’mon, Akane, it’s been years. Show a little backbone! The number of times tears spring to Akane’s eyes over something is practically incalculable in a story this long. In the beginning of the tale, and towards the end, this didn’t bother me. In the middle, when two years have passed since she’s left, and nothing has really served to remind her of Ranma, and yet she bursts into tears anyway... that’s when it began to grate.
I guess I don’t understand true love... Still, some sort of alternative reaction might be explored...? Akane cries when she can’t cook the rice properly.
Finally, and this is the most tenuous of problems... I didn’t like the whole hell/dragon bit. Not yet, anyway, as the story is not complete. I mean, they’re finally reunited and then there’s the dragon, which very predictably turned out to be a seemingly harmless old man, and then Ranma’s dead. It almost seemed comic, after all that build-up. I think by then I’d had enough of what had come between them and was ready for the aftermath; Ranma and Akane dealing with the age difference, and all that sort of thing; trying to explain Akane’s change in age and skill level; trying to explain what Akane had been doing all this time. This last-ditch plot device seemed a little contrived and very out of the blue. The big quest was to get Akane home, and now it’s over; she’s home. The reader is happy. The reader feels the story to be done. The dead-thing is a side-plot, essentially, and I cross my fingers in hopes that Perry-san keeps it that way. This is my most common complaint about a story I like a great deal: the writer doesn’t know where the story should begin/end.
Finally, this story has been going on since I was too young to read it. Many have complained about Perry’s slowness (which I find amusing... it’s her story and she’s doing it for fun) and this has made her understandably angry. At which point she tends to stop posting. The last chapter was posted years ago and there has been no news concerning it. Krista has also started up a webcomic recently, and is undoubtedly focusing a lot of energy on it.
Don’t worry, HoI is long; if you start reading it now, she might be done by the time you finish...
Okay, so that was a joke.
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