Ranma 1 ⁄ 2

ranma 1⁄2 jpn Ranma Nibun no Ichi, aka Ranma Nibun no Ichi Nettohen. 1989–92. TV series. (161 X 30 min.) Comedy/drama. dir Tomomichi Mochizuki, Junji Nishimura, Koji Sawai, Tsutomu Shibayama.

ranma 1⁄2 oav series aka Ranma 1⁄2 Special, aka Ranma 1⁄2 Super. 1993–96. OAV series. (12 X 30 min.) dir Junji Nishimura. -jd

The third hit TV series to be based on a manga serial by Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma 1⁄2 is a martial arts action-comedy that blends fairy-tale-style transformations with a complex web of star-crossed romances. The result is a unique and zany take on the boy-meets-girl tale.

Thanks to a mishap on a martial arts training trip to mainland China, teenaged martial artist Ranma Saotome and his father Genma find their lives forever changed. The pair visit Jusenkyo, a training ground famous for its cursed springs, whose waters transform anyone who bathes in them into whatever type of creature once drowned there in the ancient past. Ranma falls into the “spring of drowned girl,” and turns into a buxom female version of himself. Genma lands in the “spring of drowned panda,” changing him into a giant panda bear. The changes aren’t permanent—hot water switches them back again—but as any random splash of cold water, from sudden rainfall to a convenient puddle, will trigger the same transformation, gender and species switches occur often, with comedic results.

Thus afflicted, father and son return to their homeland of Japan and seek out one of Genma’s old training buddies, Soun Tendo, at his martial arts dojo. A marriage between Ranma and one of the three Tendo daughters had been arranged many years ago, and Akane, the youngest daughter, is promptly chosen by the family to be Ranma’s fiancée, even though the two of them had never met before. Tomboyish and surly, Akane claims to hate boys, making her a perfect match for a boy who’s 50 percent girl. So begins a teenage romance that consists mostly of bickering, playful insults, and jealousy, as well as some very real and growing affections.

The series soon settles into a comfortable pattern: a typical plot involves a new character showing up to issue a martial arts challenge, the possibility of a cure for Ranma’s curse, the appearance of a new suitor for Ranma or Akane, or all of the above. Thanks to his gender switching, Ranma rapidly accumulates love interests of both sexes. There’s Shampoo, a Chinese Amazon, who starts out wanting to kill female Ranma and later becomes determined to marry the boy version. Ukyo is another fiancée arranged by Genma, as a trade for her father’s food cart. Tatewaki Kuno was one of Akane’s fervent swains until girl Ranma turned his head, and now he wants them both. Akane’s most adoring suitor is Ryoga, a powerful but hapless martial artist who is too shy to tell her what he really feels. A surprising number of these nitwits went to the same cursed Jusenkyo springs and picked up animal transformations of their own. Ryoga changes into a miniature black pig; Shampoo into a cat; Mousse, a suitor of Shampoo’s from China, a duck. Add in a few busybodies such as Cologne, Shampoo’s great-grandmother who’s determined to see Shampoo married to Ranma, and Happosai, a dirty old man who steals women’s underwear, and there’s more than enough conflict to keep the fictional Tokyo subdivision of Furinkan hopping in a neverending free-for-all.

The Ranma 1⁄2 movies are stand-alone adventures that take place after the end of the TV series. Both revolve around the kidnapping of Akane, and the large cast swinging into action to save her. In the first film, Big Trouble in Nekonron, China, Akane is abducted by a Chinese prince. In the second film, Nihao My Concubine, Ranma and friends are stranded on a tropical island, where a prince loosely based on the Japanese legend of Momotaro steals women for brides. A third movie, a
30-minute mini-film created for a seasonal animated film festival, uses a plot reminiscent of the movie Gremlins, in which Kuno purchases a Phoenix egg that he is warned never to place on his head. Of course this immediately happens, the Phoenix hatches and grows bigger and bigger, eventually reaching Rodan-like proportions.

The OAV series takes place after the first two movies. Some episodes are stand-alone comedies, and others are poignant, multiepisode dramas based on some of the more dramatic story arcs in Takahashi’s manga. “The One to Carry On” is a two-part story about a pair of girls claiming to be Soun Tendo’s daughters, and their insistence that only the strongest martial artists should carry on the family dojo. An emotionally charged battle pitting the two sisters against Ranma and Akane results in a surprise upset, then a period of intense training followed by a rematch. “Reawakening Memories” is a bittersweet love story between Akane and Shinnosuke, a forgetful young man who is dying from a wound he suffered as a child. The only cure for his condition is the moss growing on the back of a legendary monster, the Yamata no Orochi, which likes to feed on young girls. Akane is determined to cure Shinnosuke, no matter what the cost. Popular characters in the manga who did not appear in the TV series, such as the creepy Hikaru Gosunkugi and the shape-changing Miss Hinako, appear for the first time in the OAVs.

The character designs of Ranma 1⁄2 are a good match for Takahashi’s original manga artwork: simple, expressive, with wide, circular eyes and round, friendly faces. The anime adds bright, clear colors to aid in character identification. Ranma has black hair when male, and red hair when female, and his Chinese-style shirt is bright red; Shampoo has purple hair done in a distinctive style; Ryoga wears a yellow-and-black headband that becomes a kerchief when he transforms into his porcine “P-Chan” form.

Martial arts moves are animated with robust athleticism. Aside from training exercises or workouts, there’s a general disregard for gravity and physics. Characters frequently make superhuman vertical leaps onto rooftops, and punches or kicks send people flying into the sky. Diligent martial arts training results in explosions, fireballs, and hurricane-force winds. Many of the martial arts practiced in the series are cartoonish exaggerations of mundane disciplines such as cooking, ice-skating, or gymnastics. Anything can become a combat sport, goes the series’ philosophy, if you take it to a big enough extreme.

The movies and the OAV series have higher budgets and thus more lavish animation, but are otherwise stylistically consistent with the TV series. The female characters receive noticeable bust enhancements in the second movie, a change that is carried over into the OAVs.

The Ranma 1⁄2 TV series is actually two separate series in Japan: the first eighteen-episode series, Ranma Nibun no Ichi (literally “one half”), aired in 1989, and was followed by 143 episodes of Ranma Nibun no Ichi Nettohen (“hard battle”) that aired from 1989 to 1992. The two series were released in North America broken up into seven “seasons”:

Ranma 1⁄2 (18 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Anything Goes Martial Arts (22 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Hard Battle (24 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Outta Control (24 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Martial Mayhem (24 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Random Rhapsody (24 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2: Ranma Forever (25 eps.)

OAVs (released in North America as a single series):

Ranma 1⁄2 (1993–94, 6 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2 Special (1994–95, 2 eps.)

Ranma 1⁄2 Super (1995–96, 3 eps.)

Movies:

Ranma 1⁄2 the Movie: Big Trouble in Nekonron, China (1991)

Ranma 1⁄2 the Movie 2: Nihao My Concubine (1992)

Ranma 1⁄2: One Flew Over the Kuno’s Nest (1994, a 30-minute festival feature, released in North America as part of the OAV series)

On its simplest level, Ranma 1⁄2 is a pure comedy, relying on a tried-and-true bag of tricks to provoke laughs. Aside from the magical transformations, nearly every character in the series has at least one endearing flaw. Ranma is hopelessly competitive. Akane is a horrifically bad cook. Happosai is a lecher who steals panties. Ryoga is constantly getting lost. On top of which, most of the Jusenkyo curses are classic comedic reversals. Ranma, who prides himself on his martial arts prowess and macho posturing, transforms into a gorgeous babe. Ryoga, with his carefully constructed persona of the manly loner, changes into a cuddly miniature pig. The alluring Shampoo changes into a cat, the one thing that Ranma loathes and fears above all else. But there’s an extra level beyond that—the curses also reveal essential truths about the characters. Ranma grows to enjoy exploiting his girl form, boasting about his bust size and batting his eyelashes at ice cream vendors to score free samples. Ryoga embraces his role as “P-Chan,” Akane’s lap pet.

Ranma 1⁄2 is actually a complicated layer cake of genres—a romance, a sitcom, a martial arts drama. It’s set in a world full of wonder—magic, ghosts, demons, curses, and spells. Herbal pills can make a person fall in love for an instant, a day, or a lifetime. A shiatsu technique removes memory. Food is regularly doctored, with love potions in dumplings, strength enhancers in noodles, paralyzing poisons in cookies. Ancient artifacts abound, from magic swords and mirrors to musical instruments and pottery. These rotating devices keep the story moving, even though the plot itself doesn’t offer much in the way of forward motion. The romances tease, but never consummate, the martial artists train, but gain only the occasional new technique. It’s a saga of not-quite-there-yet, an infinite holding pattern of one-shot challenges from visiting rivals, and love affairs that never quite get off the ground.

Just because the romances never go anywhere, however, doesn’t mean that they’re devoid of emotional impact. The ongoing rivalry between Ryoga and Ranma, with Akane in the middle as the object of their affection, yields some of the series’ best episodes. In Ranma 1⁄2, martial arts are easy and smashing buildings is harmless fun, but emotions are deadly serious. If Akane’s feelings are hurt, or her carefully tended hair is damaged in a fight, then everything screeches to a halt while the clashing kung fu titans reel in sympathetic horror.

The OAV series, with its variety of comedy one-shots and multipart dramatic stories cherry-picked from the best of Takahashi’s manga, can be viewed as a showcase of the entire range of the story. There are comedic reversals: a magic gem changes Shampoo’s affection for Ranma to hatred in “Curse of the Contrary Jewel” and a martial arts technique allows schoolteacher Miss Hinako to switch bodies from a preteen girl to a tall, sexy babe. There are possessions: “The Two Akanes, ‘Ranma, Look at Me!’” has Akane switching bodies with a traditional Japanese doll, and “Hell Hath No Fury Like Kasumi Scorned!” shows what happens when Akane’s oldest sister, the gentle Kasumi, is controlled by an evil demon. Finally, there are episodes that pack real emotional progress into comedy situations, such as “Akane vs. Ranma! I’ll Be the One to Inherit Mother’s Recipes!” which turns Akane’s legendary inability to cook into a poignant story about the Tendo family’s loss of their mother.

The gender confusion caused by Ranma’s changes never fails to provide comedy in the series, as well as some wry commentary on teenage attitudes toward sexuality. The hormonal mix never gets more confusing than “I Love You! My Dear Ukyo,” the saga of Ukyo’s suitor Tsubasa Kurenai. A cross-dressing boy with a penchant for disguising himself (preferably as common objects such as mailboxes and trash cans, all the better to surprise people on the street), Tsubasa manages to drag the competitive Ranma into a contest to decide which of them is the prettiest “girl.”

The OAV episode “Oh, Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love! Let My Love Be Forever!” sends virtually the entire cast on a summer trip to a haunted cave rumored to break up happy couples. Inside the spooky cavern, filled with drifiting ghosts and traditional Japanese monsters, the paired couples form and reform, scheme and bicker, until the ghosts themselves finally give up in frustration.

Manga artist and series creator Rumiko Takahashi has proved one of anime’s most reliable sources for bankable hits: her long-running series Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1⁄2, and Inuyasha all became popular animated works, as were Mermaid Forest, One-Pound Gospel, and Rumiko Takahashi Anthology.

Character designer and animation director Atsuko Nakajima was also an animation director on Urusei Yatsura (TV) and has designed characters for You’re Under Arrest!, Getbackers, Mon Colle Knights, and Trinity Blood.

Japanese fans were polled on which manga story they most wanted to see animated, and chose the story featured in the OAV episodes “Reawakening Memories” parts 1 and 2.

Several of the Japanese voice actors were also accomplished singers and formed a group called DoCo, consisting of Megumi Hayashibara (female Ranma), Noriko Hidaka (Akane), Kikuko Inoue (Kasumi), Rei Sakuma (Shampoo), and Minami Takayama (Nabiki). The group performed several songs for the series, and released CDs.

Ranma 1⁄2 was one of the first long-running anime series to be completely dubbed into English solely for home video release as opposed to TV broadcast. Completing the entire 161 episodes took years, and involved a major casting change: boy-type Ranma was played by Sarah Strange in seasons 1–3, the OAVs, and the movies, and by Richard Ian Cox (also Inuyasha’s English voice) in seasons 4–7. The English voice-cast includes actors that can be seen in various live action TV series, such as Teryl Rothery (Kodachi Kuno’s voice for the first four seasons), who played Dr. Janet Fraiser on Stargate SG-1.

violence Silly martial arts action on the level of a fighting video game, such as Street Fighter II. nudity Fairly constant. Thanks to the hot and cold water required for transformations, characters are always popping in and out of the bathtub or shower, and there are many shots of naked butts and breasts. Ranma’s essential boyish nature is often expressed by his/her lack of shame in female form, and his/her horror at being touched lasciviously by men. Additionally, any appearance of Happosai is guaranteed to involve women’s panties being stolen, skirts being flipped up, or breasts being groped.