Review: 'Ranma ½'

Anime: Ranma ½ (Entire Series)Genre: Action, Harem, Reverse Harem, Martial ArtsAge Rating: Good for AllStudio: Studio DeenMusic: Hideharu Mori, Kenji KawaiAuthor: Rumiko TakahashiDub/Sub: Dubbed and SubbedEcchi Level: Nosebleed (Exposed breasts.)Triggers: N/A

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So, considering I binged the entire series, both movies, and every OVA, I’m gonna do each one section by section.

So, I would like to introduce you all to my very first anime. There were others I watched before this, of course. I was a kid growing up in the 90s, so I had me some Dragonball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and the rest of the Toonami lineup on my TV constantly. But this one was the one that really showed me that anime was something different from the cultivated kids stuff they slapped on Saturday morning television. How did I see this you may ask? I went to a pawn shop, saw a VHS tape of it on the shelf, and bought it for a whopping $3 of my allowance. So I took it home, popped it into my shitty VCR, and was blown away at the potential of anime.

And now here we are. Me, a grown ass man, now in love with anime thanks to this gemstone. I’ve been wanting to get back to this for a while, and actually watch through the entire thing, as I’ve never actually collected all of the VHS, DVDs, or any other media it came in. Now, I’ve done it. I watched every episode, every OVA, and both movies. Now, let’s get started!

So first, let’s talk about the main series. The show starts off with a redhead and a panda visiting the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Soun Tendo, the father of three pretty daughters. As exposition tells us, Soun has made a deal with his old partner Genma Saotome, that one of his own daughters would marry Genma’s son, Ranma, and take over the Tendo Dojo to secure its future. Well, this redheaded girl now claims to be Ranma, throwing a wrench into their plans.

But, as it’s discovered shortly after, the girl and the panda are actually a boy and a man. Having been cursed by a haunted training ground they visited on their journeys, both Ranma and his father Genma are now cursed to change form when splashed with cold water. Genma turns into a giant fluffy panda, while Ranma turns into a girl. This setup creates all kinds of antics for the future of the series. After discovering that Ranma wasn’t permanently a girl, Mister Tendo decides that the problem isn’t that bad, and gives the choice of who to marry the young Ranma to his daughters. Kasumi, the oldest and the matron of the family, Nabiki, the money hungry middle child, or Akane, the brutal martial artist and youngest. Akane is chosen involuntarily, and so Ranma and Akane become engaged.

From here, the series just kinda jumps from one episode to the next. Most episodes are rarely based on previous episodes, making it feel more like an animated sitcom than an anime. But for a comedy, this works wonders. Really the only kind of continuity comes from special martial arts techniques learned by Ranma and his rivals. You’ll see them used later in the series after they learn them, which is about as good as you’re going to get.

Now, I’m going to go ahead and give you a heads up about this. You’ll have to suspend any kind of common sense you have if you want to watch it without a permanent handprint mark on your forehead. The characters, while obviously done for comedic effect, have zero common sense. Every other episode happens entirely due to either one character being completely dense, or over some misunderstanding that could easily be cleared up with a simple explanation. Especially when it comes to Ranma and Akane themselves. And keep in mind, there are seven seasons of this. While it does occasionally make for good comedy, you will probably find yourself asking, “Haven’t they learned their damn lesson yet?” The answer is no. They haven’t, and they never will.

With that PSA out of the way, the draws to this story are the diverse cast of comical characters. From the lone wolf Ryoga, to the adorable amazon Shampoo, the pretentious Kuno siblings, and so on. Each character feels unique. And not just unique in the day it was made, but unique to modern day as well. Too often characters are sloppily slammed into cookie-cutter shaped tropes by writers who can’t write believable characters. And while some of the characters may have tropes, they themselves are not, which is a blessing to such a long running series. Each character feels like an individual specially crafted by the author, the lovely and talented Rumiko Takahashi... with the exception of Happosai. But we don't talk about him.

More on the story; what throws this series into even further chaos is the fact that both Ranma and Akane don’t just have each other's affections (or lack thereof) to deal with. Both have multiple suitors, Ranma even having one for his female half as well. And that’s where the harem and reverse harem comes in. While Ranma and Akane are dealing with their feelings for each other, they also have others trying to win their hearts as well. Some more serious, and some more comedic. Oftentimes, this comes with gold quality comedy moments, but sometimes, it can seem a bit intrusive when used in an inappropriate moment.

That said, what I love about this series is not only the slice of life-like randomness of the episodes. But the content. With Ranma’s martial arts style called “Anything Goes,” it should come as no surprise that literally anything can become a martial art in this series. Ice skating, tea ceremony, cheerleading, and even eating. Anything is on the table, as long as you add martial arts to the title; and it’s hilarious. Though, the actual martial arts episodes are a bit spread out. Even so, the series was fairly action packed, so you probably won’t be bored from dialogue.

There isn’t much more to tell you about with the series except that early on, the animation quality was fairly unpolished. Not surprising given that the series first aired in 1989. But even with the lower quality of the early episodes, it’s not bad enough that you won’t enjoy yourself. The dubbed voice actors are awesome quality, with Venus Terzo stealing the show for me as female Ranma.

But... this series has an issue. And the issue spans across the entire series, both movies, and all the OVAs as well. See, I know now from watching this series, and from having to drudge through Inuyasha, that Rumiko Takahashi has an issue with lengthy series’ like this. Oftentimes, she reuses jokes or gags that were in previous episodes. They were funny the first time, but the more you see them, the less funny they become. And this couldn’t be more apparent in the example I mentioned above, where someone falls victim to a misunderstanding, and then falls victim again in another damn episode. I love Rumiko, but she really needs to keep her series more short-lived, or come up with some better comedic plots.

Speaking of Rumiko-san, while I adore the relatively few actual romance scenes she puts in the series, they’re either all ruined by another comical mishap by the gender-bending protagonist, or interrupted by something for the purposes of comedy. If you’re looking for a romance series, you will be disappointed in this. There is no resolution to anyone’s relationship in the series. There’ll be occasional moments where they reflect on their own thoughts, or where one’s love of the other drives them to do something to save them, but otherwise, the closest we get is in one of the OVAs where the two manage to hold hands without it resolving in another poorly timed comedic blunder by Ranma.

As for everything else, the music is fucking fantastic; whether its intros and outros, or the music during episodes. The soundtrack to this is incredible. Just listening to the opening of the very first episode already had me nodding my head from side to side at how adorable and comical it was. The story is as told above. No continuity, and in fact, a few continuity errors in season one where Akane recalls something that doesn’t happen til season two. But if you’re in it for the laughs, then this shouldn’t be a big deal for you.

There were a few other confusing ass plot points that easily make anyone with half a brain scratch their heads, but I’ll go over those in the spoiler section.

With the main series out of the way, let’s get to the others.

OVAs

It’s easy to see when watching the OVAs that they had a bigger budget than the original series. The animation is graceful and incredible, and is candy for the eyes. The stories are pretty varied and comical, and believe it or not, weren’t recycled jokes in different forms from the series. This is how OVAs should be done. They even gave us a cherry on the cake by having the cast sing some of the intros and outros. All of these were magical, and even if the main series wasn’t for you, I’d recommend giving them a watch.

Movies

There are two movies in the Ranma fimography, and while they both have different plots, those plots basically revolve around the same basic trope of Akane getting kidnapped, and Ranma having to rescue her. It was slightly annoying to see the same already overused trope used twice, but on top of that, it seems like the characters learned nothing from the series itself. This seems like another issue related to the lack of continuity, but they use the same lack of self awareness of the characters in the movies as well. While they weren’t unenjoyable, I’d recommend the OVAs over the movies any day of the year.

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TLDR

This show/manga is basically the progenitor for hundreds of others of the modern day. Many writers, artists, and video game creators drew inspiration from this series and its creator, Rumiko Takahashi. And I can’t blame them. It’s a comedic, martial arts, slice of life with a love shape that I’m pretty sure doesn’t have a geometric name. That said, it has its downfalls. From reused jokes, to no continuity, to the lack of common sense of the characters, and lastly the utter void where any kind of resolution should be. I would still highly suggest it based on the comedy alone, but I can see this not being for everyone. Especially given that it’s definitely a product of its time, with homosexuality (though a misunderstanding) and crossdressing seen as some kind of perversion, and blatant sexism rampant in the series. Even with all that, it’s not intrusive or blatant without being called out. So, if you can deal with the bad, then the good is amazing. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

Ratings

Animation: 6/10

Music: 9/10

Story: 6/10

Comedy: 10/10

Overall Rating: 8/10

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Spoiler Talk

So, a few things here. First, I’d like to address certain plot points that were ignored for the sake of comedy. Obviously, if Ranma didn’t have his boy/girl transformation, we wouldn’t have nearly as interesting a show as we do. That said, he, Ryoga, his father, Shampoo, and Mousse all jump at any chance they get to try and get back to the Jusenkyo training ground where they were originally cursed. They say it’s so that they can access the Nannichuan, or the Spring of Drowned Man, so that they can get rid of their curse. However, that spring is in the same training ground as the one that cursed them in the first place. SO WHY DIDN’T THEY GO DIVE INTO THE SPRING WHILE THEY WERE STILL THERE? Ranma and Ryoga, even had a guide while they were there!

Speaking of the cursed spring, there’s no explanation of how exactly that would work. Later in the series, a character named... and I shit you not, Pantyhose Taro, shows us that one person can be affected by multiple springs at the same time, resulting in him transforming into an enormous mix of an ox, eel, crane, and giant hairy man. On top of that, in another episode, a character turns from themself into ANOTHER HUMAN. So even if Ranma took a dip in the Spring of Drowned Man, would that get rid of his female side? I’m inclined to believe not. In fact, it might just change him into whichever unfortunate soul drowned in that spring, which would only add to the chaos even more. And not gonna lie, I love Ranma’s female form. It really made anime redheads a thing for me.

OH! And can someone tell me why the hell the Hiryuu Shoten Ha suddenly changed from an actual technique of moving in a spiral, into some kind of fucking energy punch? Anyone? Because it’s like they forgot how the move worked after they used it in the first episode. And let’s ignore the fact that in one of the movies, Ranma straight up used a Kameha Wave from Dragonball with no explanation. Nothing to fucking see there!

The last thing I want to say is about the loss of potential here. My two favorite episodes (technically three) were the visit to the mushroom shrine, and the OVA with Shinnosuke’s lost memories. And both of those were because of the relationship aspect. In almost every other episode where Ranma and Akane almost come to an understanding, it’s ruined by some snide remark, causing another ham-fisted comedic moment of Akane chasing Ranma and trying to knock him out. The mushroom temple episode did end this way, but it was full of them both (under the effects of a love mushroom) doting on each other, and I nearly melted the entire way until Nabiki fucking ruined it. Granted, I’m glad she ruined it, because they shouldn’t be forced to love each other due to the effects of anything except their own emotions. But it was still sad to see them no longer lavishing each other with affection.

As for the OVA, Akane visits a location from her past where she finds a now grown up man who rescued her when they were both children. She finds out that he’s dying, and agrees to help his grandfather find something to help him. During that process, Shinnosuke admits his love for Akane, which hits Ranma hard, especially whens he can’t explain that she didn’t reject his feelings because he was dying. It was the first time I saw Ranma acting actually mature, and putting Akane before himself. Like, I could feel for the guy in that moment. While it was just another misunderstanding, it’s one that didn’t result in senseless violence for the sake of comedy.

I really wish that the manga, and by extension the anime actually reached some conclusion about their relationship. One of the early episodes even showed Akane married to Ryoga in a vision of the future, so it makes it feel like Rumiko never wanted them to actually end up being together, but didn’t have the heart to break it to the fans after they’d been together for so long. They even could have done it in one of the movies, or the damn OVAs, but no. Just more “lol those darn kids” moments where Ranma drops the ball by being a dick.

Best Girl: Kasumi Tendo

That’s right. Not my favorite character, which happens to be female Ranma. Not the coolest female, which happens to be Ukyo. And not even the cutest, which happens to be shared by almost every female (aside from Kodachi) in the series. Kasumi is a rock in a storm. Despite Genma’s obsessive eating, despite Ranma and Akane’s fighting, despite the geostorm of chaos that everyone brings into the house via phoenixes, magical curses, rivalries, ghosts, gamblers, etc. Kasumi always has a smile on her face. She always cooks the food, she always keeps the place clean, and she puts up with an ungodly amount of stress thanks to her family. She is an angel, a goddess, and nobody deserves Kasumi. As much as I loved every girl in this series for various reasons, there was no competition for best girl. Even in one episode where she was possessed by an evil oni, she was still a sweetheart who nobody can touch. That’s why she is number one.

Best Bro: Ryoga Hibiki

Despite him using his pig form to take advantage of Akane, he’s still a cool guy. He’s there to help when he’s needed, and is Ranma’s number one rival. Hell, he’s the only other character in the series that actually learns techniques, and improves his martial arts, rather than just relying on their same old song and dance. And I know that he’s in love with Akane. To be honest, I used to ship the pair until I saw how good Ranma and Akane could have gone together with decent writing. Still, he has helped Ranma, despite hating him, and he’s sacrificed his own love to help Ranma and Akane stay together before. So he’s obviously best bro. Though, after what Mousse did for Shampoo in that movie, he was a close second. Ranma will never get Best Bro, because he’s about as thick as a brick when it comes to his own fiance’s feelings.