Martial Arts Dining

Without question one of the most gimmicky of all the martial arts styles present in the Ranma ½ world, Martial Arts Dining is a particularly strange form of highly ritualized eating competition, in which competitors do battle to see who can eat the most the fastest, while aiming to be so quick and neat that they cannot even be seen to open their mouths or swallow the food. In an official match, being seen eating will earn the offender a swat from the referee, a mocking taunt, and an extra plate of food as a penalty.

One canonically established school of Martial Arts Dining is La Belle France School of Martial Arts, currently headed by Picolet Chardin II, though the anime shows that there are still other schools of it in existence.

As it is intended entirely for its own form of eating contest, Martial Arts Dining does not in and of itself provide any canoncially identified training for self defense. Known special techniques of the style are...

Absolute Mouth Control: The fundamental aspect of the style, a Martial Arts Diner has incredible control over their mouth. They can distend their jaws and throat wide enough to swallow watermelons (or even a petite human upper torso) whole, push their lips out into a form of trunk that can be moved in any direction, and otherwise distort their face in any way they wish. Properly used, the Absolute Mouth Control can serve as a shield against the Parlay du Foie Gras.

Un-Deux-Trois: Presumably part of the Absolute Mouth Control, this is the ability for the Martial Arts Diner to extend, retract and control their tongue like a prehensile tentacle. A skilled user can effortlessly pluck a petit for from the top of their head, too fast for the eye to follow, with only their tongue.

Parlay du Foie Gras: A renegade sect of Martial Arts Dining objected to disfiguring themselves in order to acquire the early forms of Absolute Mouth Control. However, this sect's refusal to learn this put them at a severe disadvantage when facing off against conventional practitioners of the style. "Le Petit Bouche", as they called themselves, developed the Parlay du Foie Gras as a counter, taking advantage of a loophole in the rules of Martial Arts Dining and turning the Absolute Mouth Control against its wielders. That loophole was that the winning contestant merely needed to clear off their plates first, they didn't need to actually eat the food themselves. Parlay du Foie Gras, which is inspired by pate du foie gras (pate made by force-feeding a goose so that their liver becomes extremely huge and fatty), consists of force-feeding your food to your opponent, which simultaneously slows down their intake of their own food, removes food from your plate, and can potentially cause them to receive penalty plates. There is a danger to relying exclusively on this technique, though; moving so fast burns up a lot of energy and calories, and so the user can easily starve to death if they rely solely on this to win.

Anti-Foie Gras: Directly developed from the Absolute Mouth Control, the user sticks a whole plate in their mouth to create a shield to deflect incoming food. Ranma Saotome discovered the weakness in this technique is the sheer elasticity of the Absolute Mouth Control; she jammed a second plate into Picolet's mouth alongside the first, then forcefed him through the open space between them at the bottom of his mouth.