Train to defeat Ranma Saotome!

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Congratulations, you have been tasked with finding a worthy candidate to challenge, and defeat, end of series Ranma Saotome (Ranma 1/2) in combat!

Now, the catch is that your candidate must be at least as weak as Ranma is in his first appearance and is being given trainers and one year to train, can they succeed and defeat Nerima’s king of chaotic martial artists?.


Can they do it?

The Trainers:

-Genkai (Yu-Yu-Hakusho)
-Third Hokage (Naruto)
-Hayato Furinji (History’s Strongest Disciple: Kenichi)
-Master Asia (G-Gundam)

Each trainer has your candidate for three months.


Bonus:

Replace the trainers with your own lineup. How does that change things?

[BitVyper]

I'm basing my suggestions on people who have a point low enough to have qualified and have feats for improving to the point I think they can win in the actual timeframe provided. I'm leaving out anyone with super forms or items that couldn't be acquired as part of the training. I'm also not counting anyone based on creative interpretations of "weak," like saying The Flash is technically not strong.

Well first appearance Ranma, before he had any substantial improvements, is still pretty strong. I might go with Yusuke. He'd be decently along before he really passed starter Ranma, like maybe even past his first Genkai training, and there's a tipping point where he gets solidly into DBZ territory. IIRC, didn't the training in HSD pretty regularly work Kenichi to death's door where they had to use weird karate medicine and stuff to put him back together? I just checked. Yes they absolutely killed Kenichi at least once. Genkai would absolutely get on board with training that was just beating Yusuke to death, and that'd mean there's a solid chance of Yusuke awakening his demon blood, which I think pushes him into something Ranma can't beat.

Goku needed considerably more than a year of training to go from starter Ranma levels to something that could have a chance at beating Ranma. He might also benefit from being worked to death and saved, but I think he'd pass their ability to do that to without cresting the level he needs to be at.

There's.... there's the nerdy dude in Breath of Fire 3. Zig! I'm not really sure where to scale him, but training improves him very rapidly in durability at the very least, to where he can survive Ryu's dragon forms within a handful of nights, so I feel like with a full year of dedicated training, he might get too durable.

If he can stay on task and not get lost, Ryoga might be able to pull it off with that much training. He got the Bakusei Tenketsu in a few days and the shishihokodan pretty well instantly. He generally managed to keep no more than a leg behind Ranma and the only time anyone took special interest in him was for the bakusei tenketsu.

I wanna suggest Seiya, but he was supersonic from the outset, so he never had a level low enough to fit here.

Various NIS-verse characters can do it if they have access to their universe's reincarnation mechanics. Prier can probably just do it period. The Disgaea 6 protag (forget his name) literally just needs to die repeatedly to get ridiculously tough even by in-universe standards, and we're given to understand he started as a normal zombie. HIS reincarnation is automatic. His trainers only serve the purpose of killing him.

Repeated deaths also sets up a good scenario for Yoh Asakura. Oversouls are a bit cheaty for this, but I'm allowing it in my estimation because I feel like Ranma could probably figure out a way to beat one.

Asellus went from a normal girl to conquering all mystics in a setting where decent level bullet timing (interpose themselves between gunfire/machinegun fire/railgun fire/artillery fire and an ally after it is fired from some nebulous but not inconsiderable distance away) is something basically anybody who holds a sword for more than five minutes is going to demonstrate, and can graduate to quintuple afterimage speedblitzes. We don't know the exact span of time, but it feels like under a year, particularly since in Fuse's chapter, he's able to work every case in the game without getting visibly older. She learns mystic magic naturally, which includes some mind control. Better yet, the Third Hokage can chuck out summons for her to eat, which comes with huge bonuses. Speed might not be high enough to really contend with Ranma, but she's very durable, and has stuff that should give her a chance at winning anyway.

[Nik Hasta]

Hero Hunter Garou seems like a good choice. He was weaker than Ranma when he first appeared but his growth is almost unmatched.

[The MunchKING]

Goku needed considerably more than a year of training to go from starter Ranma levels to something that could have a chance at beating Ranma. He might also benefit from being worked to death and saved, but I think he'd pass their ability to do that to without cresting the level he needs to be at.

Didn't he go from "bulletproof monkey" to "just barely loses to Roshi" in a couple of months? Also his biggest asset would be the ability to see any move once and either mimic it or instantly figure out how to counter it. If anyone could show him Ranma's moves, then Goku wouldn't even need to improvise in battle.

[Nik Hasta]

Didn't he go from "bulletproof monkey" to "just barely loses to Roshi" in a couple of months? Also his biggest asset would be the ability to see any move once and either mimic it or instantly figure out how to counter it. If anyone could show him Ranma's moves, then Goku wouldn't even need to improvise in battle.

Goku trained with Roshi and Krillen for eight months.

It's worth noting that, in the manga at least, none of the Kame Senin school of training actually involved teaching them techniques or a specific martial arts style. They just worked on core stats like speed, strength and stamina by digging roads, ploughing fields, delivering milk and working out a lot.

Ton of cardio in there.

Given that this would be arguably better training, he might be able to do it. Might be a bit lacking in speed though for my money. End of Series Ranma is pretty wildly fast.

[BitVyper]

Didn't he go from "bulletproof monkey" to "just barely loses to Roshi" in a couple of months? Also his biggest asset would be the ability to see any move once and either mimic it or instantly figure out how to counter it. If anyone could show him Ranma's moves, then Goku wouldn't even need to improvise in battle.

I generally estimate Ranma around 22nd Budokai level. I don't think Goku is throwing around anything in the 21st that wouldn't get him destroyed by Ranma. It took Goku an additional 3 years to get to where he was in the 22nd

Given that this would be arguably better training, he might be able to do it. Might be a bit lacking in speed though for my money. End of Series Ranma is pretty wildly fast.

I dunno if I'd say that technical training is "better" for kid Goku than just blasting his core stats as high as possible (Roshi specifically didn't think so), but to be fair, Genkai is absolutely going to do the latter and probably also more ki training.

[Nik Hasta]

I dunno if I'd say that technical training is "better" for kid Goku than just blasting his core stats as high as possible (Roshi specifically didn't think so), but to be fair, Genkai is absolutely going to do the latter and probably also more ki training.

I feel like technique is the better route against Ranma though.

I don't think DB Goku can get his stats high enough to just brute force End of Series Ranma in a year. At best they will be around equal, I'd personally put it at Ranma's advantage. He needs technique to even the gap.

[Primetime Harder]

Carrot Ironfoundersson.

[Nik Hasta]

Carrot Ironfoundersson.

Genuinely curious as to what led you to suggest Carrot?

He's not noted for being a particularly skilled fighter, quick learner or dedicated trainer. His top feats are well below even early Ranma in terms of scale so...

Erm... why him?

[Sharpandpointies]

I feel like technique is the better route against Ranma though.

I don't think DB Goku can get his stats high enough to just brute force End of Series Ranma in a year. At best they will be around equal, I'd personally put it at Ranma's advantage. He needs technique to even the gap.

I would tend to agree - 'having equal stats' to Ranma and not a whole lot more is just going to end with Ranma utterly humiliating someone while making stupid-faces at them.

[Sharpandpointies]

One of the issues here is that we have four different trainers, each with only three months to train the person. Which means the person chosen will be getting wildly different training in wildly different things for short periods.

I don't think this is necessarily the way to go.

With the option given of subbing in our own trainers, I feel it would be wiser to bring in four characters from the same universe who use similar kinds of martial arts/training. For example, one could say 'Dragon Tiger Gate', and go with -

1. Black Dragon for toughness and generic Ki training;
2. Tiger Wong for speed training and further Ki training;
3. Barbarian for power training and further Ki training;
4. Ancestor for final Ki training and technique refinement.

All four of them could also be training in martial skill.

Any of these characters would easily be a solid match for Ranma end-of-manga (those who can't quite match him in speed can, yes, simply tank his best stuff until they manage to land something on him), or beat him outright. The character they train would, of course, be stuck dealing with the fact that he's being taught by people who use different styles of Ki (qi in their case) development and fighting systems, but they are FAMILIAR with each other's fighting systems, the Ki development is at least based on similar foundations (and some of these people are fully familiar with each other's Ki development systems), and so a lot of the training should 'stack'.

...no idea who they could train. I guess someone like Guy from the same series? Or Baldie? Those two started actually weaker than beginning of manga Ranma but showed some pretty serious improvement over the series, to a level where they're almost equal to the above group (sans Ancestor), and that's without having four of the best people coaching them 24/7 for a year. Plus, again, they would have familiarity and the basics already.

Might be enough.

I could alternately sub in characters from Force of Buddha's Palm or the like. Heck, mix any Jademan comics characters - they all use similar Ki stuff, it's the same universe, etc. Having Nine Continents train some character in Buddha's Palm to deal with Ranma would be crazy, and better yet, his in-canon student could take the trainer session before him to get the basics down pat first.

[Jackalope89]

Yeah, Goku is not gonna be the guy to train you to quickly improve.

Piccolo though, he got a brat that had no training, to about the same level as Raditz (resting) within a year. A toddler. One with incredible potential, but still.

[The MunchKING]

I feel like technique is the better route against Ranma though.

I don't think DB Goku can get his stats high enough to just brute force End of Series Ranma in a year. At best they will be around equal, I'd personally put it at Ranma's advantage. He needs technique to even the gap.

The thing is he HAS techniques. and he was really good at copying or countering other peoples techniques after he saw them once.

[Nik Hasta]

The thing is he HAS techniques. and he was really good at copying or countering other peoples techniques after he saw them once.

He learnt the kamehameha by seeing it once and then... taught himself to fly like four years later, right? What else does he have in Dragonball?

In Z he learnt the kaioken and the spirit bomb after training with King Kai for a while.

That's a pretty limited moveset and pretty slow progress compared to Ranma who learns wildly different techniques in like a few days as a matter of course.

If we're measuring purely by skill, Ranma vastly outstrips Goku.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

He learnt the kamehameha by seeing it once and then... taught himself to fly like four years later, right? What else does he have in Dragonball?

In Z he learnt the kaioken and the spirit bomb after training with King Kai for a while.

That's a pretty limited moveset and pretty slow progress compared to Ranma who learns wildly different techniques in like a few days as a matter of course.

If we're measuring purely by skill, Ranma vastly outstrips Goku.

Solar Flare and Multi-Form somewhere down the line too.