Bad fanon that trumps the canon for the far to long

[Ayiekie]

yesilmavi wrote:

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My take is somewhat the reverse of that. Both are cannon.

Yes, they are both "a" canon. The anime canon and the manga canon. The difference is that the manga is the original, far more consistent
canon and therefore the one most people use to have a serious discussion on Ranma. People act wildly differently and have completely different abilities in the
anime version of Ranma from episode to episode (Ryouga being one of the most blatant examples, to say nothing of Akane).

The author (if he/she is alive) generally does have a say in it.

No, they generally don't. For instance, both Akira Toriyama and Naoko Takeuchi have noted they were surprised (pleasantly and unpleasantly,
respectively) by things that happened in the animated adaptations of their works. It is certainly true Takahashi had nothing to do with the anime scripts and
that several of them departed completely from the original manga versions or even contradicted them.

A collaborative effort can produce better results than a single effort. (more mass appeal) Two minds are better than one.

You're entitled to your opinion. As a collaborative writer myself, I disagree completely that that is always or even often true.
Writing-by-committee is not usually better than a singular author's vision, and I would certainly say that of the Ranma 1/2 anime.

Now the manga is probably also a collaborative effort, but an anime costs more to produce so i'm thinking there is a larger focus on mass appeal.

The manga wasn't a collaborative effort. It was written and drawn by Rumiko Takahashi. (Of course, it also had editors and background artists,
but so does virtually every manga.)

So for most fanfic writers and readers anime is more cannon than the manga is.

That has not generally been the case in over ten years. Most serious Ranma fanfiction writers have been using the manga only since at least 1997.