Girl Days/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Author's Saving Throw: Kenko's explanation that Pillow Creek, being a magical town, "wanders" -- to explain away forgetting what state he originally set it in the second time he wrote about it.
  • Did Not Do the Research: In chapter 6, Ranma allegedly taste-tests "the first ramen okonomiyaki". Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki — arguably the "original" version of the modern recipe — already includes a heaping mound of noodles as one of its standard ingredients. Kansai-style (AKA Osaka-style), which is probably what Ukyo cooks given her Kansai accent in the original Japanese, doesn't normally have noodles, but they are a popular enough addition that the resulting dish has its own name — modan-yaki.
  • Shout-Out: So many you can lose count, including to other fanfics.
    • Haynie's alternate title for the story, Girl Days, or how I learned to stop worrying and love my bra, references the full title of Dr. Strangelove.
    • Ranma in her teal-and-gold-chains bikini is described as looking like something out of a Frank Frazetta painting.
    • Genma shouting "Look— the Winged Victory of Samothrace!" to distract Soun in chapter 4 is a direct reference to a moment in Bored of the Rings when Goodgulf shouts the same line for the same purpose.
    • Also in chapter 4, Akane compares Prince Midol to the Energizer rabbit.
    • In chapter 6, Ranma, the fiancées, and about 25 other girls raid a mallet factory outlet store for weapons with which to punish perverts. Upon learning their purpose, the owner muses that their target is "either Happosai or Ryo" (Ryo Saeba from City Hunter).
    • In chapter 8, when Kuno triggers one of her period-induced mood swings, Ranma briefly turns into Lum from Urusei Yatsura, levitates into the air, and smacks him with a lightning bolt.
    • Tex Avery randomly appears to comment on Tsubasa's hang time in chapter 9.
    • In chapter 11, Ranma gives Akane a Cheongsam-like fighting outfit (which she insists suits Akane better than something like Ranma's battle leathers). The narrator explicitly compares her to a more modest Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury.
    • The costume party arc starting in chapter 11 is just full of them — one per character, and a lot more. There are so many that rather than list them all it's much easier to refer the reader to the chapters in question, where the narrator very kindly identifies almost every one for you. The plot itself is probably a Whole-Plot Reference to the infamous "Halloween" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which had been first broadcast only a couple years before (possibly making this fic a precursor to the infamous "Yet Another Halloween Fic" subgenre of Buffyfic).
    • In chapter 11, when the Narrator is leading up to introducing the reader to the mysteries of the secret mystic stronghold of Pillow Creek, Michigan, he makes comparisons to Tanis, Egypt and Arkham, Massachusetts and Miskatonic University, among other locations. In the same passage, the narrator notes that wizards like to do things like watch The Witches of Eastwick and laugh at the errors.
    • Chapter 14: Kenchuro Tojo's third outfit is "a nearly perfect replica of the sort of idealized version of the all around Renaissance Man costume from the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch about the sinking ship."
    • In chapter 15, a demon notes that Happosai is the "[g]reatest pervert to have ever lived, with the exception of the guy who wrote that Overfiend crap". Said demon also talks about how he likes a good Reuben sandwich in a way that echoes Billy Crystal's "mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich" bit in The Princess Bride.
    • Fred Yamada, American-style burger-maker extraordinaire, comes from Ed Becerra's Ranma fic Pagliacci, for which Haynie wrote a side story.
    • The Gender Flipped Ryoga is described in chapter 17 as looking like "a fanged Rei Ayanami".
    • Finally, Principal Kuno's given name in this story, "Paulette", was the subject of shout-outs in other fanfics written afterwards.