\"Many of the characters are played as ruthless, callous, crude, vulgar, intolerant, sadistic, bullying, and manipulative sociopathic overpowered Jerk Ass types\"
Just like canon, you mean? Most of the Ranma cast have, at some point or another, attempted to murder Ranma, Akane or both. Even after being helped by them. Even repeteadly, and with no remorses whatsoever after the fact. Most of the characters display one streak of Jerkassery or another, often to gratuitous levels, and very rarely really worry about anyone\'s wellbeing or feelings but their own. Several mistreat their own families horribly or place them in danger and are never seriously called out or punished on it.
\"and Sadist Show style butt monkeys\"
Oh yes, because of course Takahashi and the anime crew didn\'t ever do that themselves either. I guess I imagibed the existences of Gosunkugi and Sasuke, for instance, or even Ranma\'s, whose life is pretty much a long string of being mistreated, abused and distrusted by most people around him, over and over, most often for the sake of our laughs, even if he won\'t let that weigh him down.
\"Rumiko Takahashi once said that the key message of her work was \"be kind (and tolerant) to others\"
Citation Needed, but if true, Death of the Author then, at least in Ranma\'s (and Urusei Yatsura\'s) case. Although I think we aren\'t supposed to take any of the themes of Ranma or UY seriously at all. But by actually looking at the manga and seeing the actions of most of the characters, I don\'t think we are intended to learn kindness and tolerance from the overwhelming majority of them. Even Ranma and Akane, the two most noble characters in the setting, can be often guilty of pettiness and lack of trust even for their alleged loved ones, in a regular and unrepentant basis.
Even Ryouga, the most consistently honorable of Ranma\'s rivals, isn\'t above keeping using constant deception to stay close to the woman he is obsessed with, and would try to murder a harmless Ranma as late as in the Fishing Rod storyarc. Alliances that seem heartfelt are quickly turned around and betrayed for the sake of a joke.
\"and malevolent need to corrupt and defile anything kind and harmless.\"
Again, if two words aren\'t fit to describe most of the Ranma cast, those are \'kind and harmless\'. They are horrible people to each other consistently in the name of comedy, and that stands true as long as one doesn\'t approach the original material with rose-tinted idealization glasses. Maybe in the anime, where everyone but Akane takes a level in kindness, but even so...
My advice? Please stop sugarcoating the Ranma characters in your mind and accept them for what they actually come off as in the printed page; quirky and amusingly colorful characters who are easy to love BECAUSE of their many, MASSIVE flaws, instead of clean cut good guys portraying a message of friendship.
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Somewhat well-written, but...
The main problem with this romp is the prevalence of Jerk Sues and even one or two Villain Sues. Many of the characters are played as ruthless, callous, crude, vulgar, intolerant, sadistic, bullying, and manipulative sociopathic overpowered Jerk Ass types, complete with Revenge Fic, Troll Fic, and Sadist Show style butt monkeys, and heavily applauded for it. (Nabiki's comment: "I'm going to go Nanking on your ass", which is more or less equivalent to finding the holocaust hilarious, is pretty symptomatic.)
The Ranma cast partially started out just bad enough to stand to begin with, so making them over a dozen times worse and almost surgically removing all traces of kindness, turns them so unsympathetic that you wish somebody would just drop a million ton anvil on them and be done with it.
Rumiko Takahashi once said that the key message of her work was "be kind (and tolerant) to others", and yes it really did fit for anybody paying attention, but this largely lets the cast suffer demonic possession, severely distorts all contexts, rips out the heart of the manga, sets fire to it, and cracks bro-infested dirty jokes while watching it go up in flames.
And no, this is not a good thing at all. It may not be quite as offensive as say Partially Kissed Hero, but it features characters that I care about, so I prefer Lighter and Softer romps with much closer to original characterisation, rather than a bunch of cruel, bullying, heartless Karma Houdini psychopaths with mostly identical personalities and speech patterns (Mark Millar would be proud), and pasted on borrowed names.
It isn't even remotely a deconstruction. That has been overdone to extremes elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the original work, and oozes with sadistic glee, sociopathic ideology, universal hatred, and malevolent need to corrupt and defile anything kind and harmless.
The author does have some talent. He is just using it in a thoroughly morally reprehensible manner.
Of course, given his (or their, although the ip was in New York, and the personality intersects with several equally heinous comicbook writers) own comment "I take excruciating pleasure in your anguish" the characters may simply work as mirrors of what passes for his soul, making him incapable of producing anything else.