#School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Well, howdy there. I’m up to episode 8 of Ranma 1/2, the second episode of the introductory arc for the best boy in anime history, Ryoga Hibiki. Last episode gave us a general idea of who he is, but it’s this one where we’ll get to see him and Ranma actually fight, as the title gives away. I’ve said it before, but I absolutely adore titles like this. One time I was writing a fanfic for this series, and I won’t lie, making up similar styled titles for chapters was one of the best parts. So, excited to watch it, next paragraph I’ll have done just that!

That...was kind of disappointing. I was really looking forward to this episode, and while there was a ton of stuff I really enjoyed about it, there was a lot I did not care for in the slightest. But before I talk more about that, I’ll do my recap.

Though there is a bit of an issue there, too. About half or more of this episode is Ranma and Ryoga fighting. I’m recapping the episode to you in a text-based format, so going blow-by-blow to describe every move of the fight would be pretty boring, I’d imagine, even if a lot of what happens is actually really great and ties together well. But on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of the plot momentum in the story is carried by the ebb and flow of the fight scene, so just glossing over it wouldn’t work either. I’m going to try for a middle path, but I apologize if I don’t stick that landing.

The episode starts at Furinkan High School, in the middle of the night, as the school’s Chemistry Club is secretly meeting to put their finishing touches on an...explosive mine? Which then blows up? I’d love to tell you this makes sense later...but it does not.

We cut from there to Ryoga, who is dramatically monoguing about how badly he wants to kill Ranma. NEXT SCENE. At the Tendo Household, Ranma and Akane are discussing again why Ryoga wants to beat Ranma up so badly. He’s still confused, since he was sure it was because of the bread. Speaking of Ryoga, Kasumi shows up to deliver a letter that arrived from Ranma, from his rival. It’s a letter of challenge, but the date on it was the day before. Ranma doesn’t think that’s a problem though, considering Ryoga’s relationship with timeliness. To accentuate that point, we get a small scene of Ryoga misunderstanding someone’s directions and going the wrong way, again.

The next day, in what looks to be between classes or during lunch or something, one of Akane’s friends comments on how long her hair has grown out. Akane notes in narration that it’s “finally” longer than Kasumi’s, to really connect the dots we see she’s thinking of Dr. Tofu. But there’s no time for that, Ryoga is back again! In the sports field! While sports are going on! He gets knocked out by a stray ball, but in no time Ranma is down there to fight him, and most of the school has gone down to watch.

Nabiki and her henchwomen, which she has apparently, smell an opportunity, and organize a betting ring on the fight. There’s some brief banter between Ranma and Ryoga, during which it’s revealed it’s actually been a month since the last episode and Ryoga ended up on Okinawa while lost (meaning he’s now been to all four of Japan’s main islands), but then the fight finally begins. Ryoga starts by mainly using his umbrella, and Ranma sticks to dodging.

From there, we get a few audience cutaways. It turns out everyone put their money on Ranma, so Nabiki realizes she’ll need to do something to make sure Ranma loses and she doesn’t lose a ton of money on the bets. The Chemistry Club shows up, and they realize that if Ranma dies, they’ll have a chance to...do something to Akane they never clarify, but is implied to be somehow taking ownership of her. Yeah.

Back to the fight, Ryoga tosses his umbrella at Ranma as a distraction, then pulls out a length of wire and throws a handcuff onto Ranma’s wrist. Now they’re chained at the hand, so they’ll have to fight close quarters, which favors Ryoga more. The umbrella ended up landing near the audience, and some of them try to lift it, only to realize it weighs an incredible amount. Even Akane, who is quite strong, can barely lift in less than a foot off the ground. Realizing that Ryoga’s been carrying this monster of a weapon with one hand this whole time, seemingly with no difficulties, Akane tries to warn Ranma that his opponent is far stronger than he seems.

We cut from there to a student running to see Kuno, and let him know Ranma is fighting some really strong guy who seems to be around Ranma’s level. Kuno claims he is “meditating”, which turns out to just be looking at posters of Ranma in his cursed form and Akane while trying to decide if he likes one more than the other.

Ranma finally decides to take this fight seriously, and uses Ryoga’s trick to his advantage by tangling Ryoga into being grappled, with only one hand to use and Ranma sitting on his back. It’s a great move, but Ryoga is in fact so strong that, with one hand, he can throw both of them dozens of feet into the air, where they start fighting mid-air. That was a miscalculation on Ryoga’s part though, as Ranma is basically built for air juggling.

They end up outside the initial fighting area, right where the Chemistry Club hid a bunch of their explosive mines. They don’t blow up as they’re stepped on though, and after several gags they end up trying to beat up Ranma by jumping out with mallets...right as the fighters dart away for somewhere else, setting off their mines and blowing themselves up. And that was the last anyone heard of them. I guess they’re actually dead. It’s canon now.

Nabiki runs after Ranma and Ryoga as they leave the school entirely for their fight. They’re just on some random street of the city now, and the handcuff tether broke as they left the filler characters behind. Nabiki approaches Ryoga as they’re fighting, offering him what she claims to be a steroid, but is actually just some vitamin pills. Ryoga takes them anyway, and with that plus Nabiki’s thorough encouragement, he acts as though he’s suddenly far stronger. Thanks, Placebo Effect! In fact, he lefts a cement telephone pole out of the ground and uses it as a melee weapon. Amazing.

Ryoga chases Ranma through the city and into the zoo, where some animals are let out from the carnage of their battle. By this point, Ryoga is getting tired of Ranma running away all the time, and says he’s acting like a girl. That hits Ranma’s Berserk Button, and he starts fighting back, breaking the weaponized piece of public property and several other things just as the other students start arriving to keep watching the fight.

The only problem is that A) Ranma broke a water fountain, making it spray water everywhere; B) Ryoga dodged the water using his umbrella, but Ranma got splashed and his curse activated; C) Ranma’s favorite shirt was slashed in the chest area earlier, meaning now parts of his breasts are showing. Ryoga is confused for a second, and Ranma actually gets really emotional, making it clear how much he hates his curse, how much of a struggle living with it is. From Akane’s face in the background, she finds it a bit overwrought. Kuno also briefly shows up to leap at Ranma, only to be taken out with a kick.

If Ranma thought the reveal of his curse and his explanation of how bad it makes him feel would make Ryoga take it easy on him, he thought wrong. In fact, Ryoga seems even more angry now, pissed off at the idea that looking so attractive could be a genuine problem. (Some fuel for you Ranma/Ryoga shippers out there.) Ryoga reveals a new trick. Apparently he has a bunch of bandanas, and he can throw them as sharp boomerangs? Okay.

Worried about him, Akane tries to help Ranma get out of there, sure he wouldn’t be able to win in his cursed form, only for Ranma to have to protect her, picking her up into his arms to run away to get some room away from their assailant. They then have a brief moment of realizing how close they just were, and each struggling with whether to go into why they’re upset at the other or say something about their cute moment. They both decide to go with the former. Oh, and there’s a brief cutaway scene of some zoo person trying to catch an animal, seeing Mr. Saotome come out of a store in his cursed form, and assuming he’s an escaped animal too.

While Ranma and Akane argue in a tree, or as Ryoga accurately calls it, “flirting”, he cuts down the tree using his best, which can apparently become tense and really sharp? Anyway, he’s on the attack again, and in the heat of the moment Ranma says a very bad thing, insinuating that he doesn’t like Akane. She slaps him, absolutely done with him. After all, she’s been worried about him, tried to help him, and in response he’s gotten angry and insulted her. Ranma tries to recover, going after her, but she dramatically turns around to say she is done caring about what he thinks...right as one of Ryoga’s sharp weapons falls from the sky, cutting off a large chunk of her hair mid-turn.

That’s the end of the episode! It was a lot, but it also wasn’t. Hmm...where to start, where to start...should I begin with what I didn’t like, or what I did? I think I’ll actually get the rougher parts out of the way first, so then I can relish talking about what I enjoyed.

There are no two ways about it: this fight, which I had remembered so fondly over the years, is full of filler material. To no one’s surprise, the Chemistry Club are anime-only characters, and unlike other such new elements from later in the series, which I enjoy to certain extents, these characters are nothing. Actually, nothing would have been better. They add no stakes, nothing worthwhile at all, they break up the fight in the process, and what we see of their characters is genuinely despicable, even worse than Kuno. It is left vague exactly what they want Akane for, but it’s left open to interpretation enough that it could be anything from getting her to join as their only girl club member, to being their shared sexual object. If you think I’m reaching for that, please, watch the episode. These are the inceliest incels who ever inceled, and they kind of scare me.

They’re not the only rancid fat in this episode. Kuno did not need to be here. At first, I was happy to see we’d get a little bit of him during this story, but his first scene was just a boring repeat of an already becoming stale joke (Hahaha isn’t it funny that he’s in love with two people at the same time?) and his second scene lasts for about four seconds and is a dull moment in the middle of an emotional scene for Ranma. Genma’s cutaway scenes aren’t as bad, but they’re not really good either. They’re the most neutral.

Of all the side-stories going on here, the only one I actually liked was Nabiki’s. It affected the plot a little, it was in-character for her while driving further to show how money-obsessed she is, she got some anime-only henchwomen out of it (Kikuko and Ryonami for those who care), and I never felt like it was hurting the fight itself. I get that a lot of these other elements of the episode were there for comic relief, but in my opinion it was bad comic relief. It undercut what the other parts of the episode were trying to do, not accentuating them like they should have, and they were just unappetizing. My last complaint would just be a lot of the opening scenes, which were basically mini-recaps about who Ryoga is and what he’s like, didn’t really feel needed.

All of that out of the way, allow me to now gush over what I love about this episode. This fight isn’t the best Ranma vs. Ryoga fight in the series (In fact, I don’t think it would make my Top 3. Yes, if you haven’t seen this show, they really do fight that many times over the course of it.) But it is still a pretty good fight with lots of memorable moments. Ryoga is the first opponent to actually test Ranma’s strength in any real ways, and there are some really killer bits of action here, such as the grappling, the mid-air fighting, and the telephone pole weapon.

What makes this more than just a cool looking fight are the emotional aspects to it. On Ranma’s side, he doesn’t really care about fighting Ryoga, up until his pride is hurt by Ryoga’s comments. For the first time, it’s Ranma getting mad, and from that we get to see how Ranma feels about his situation. That draws out some hints to the mystery behind why Ryoga is angry as well, if you’re paying attention to the clues. (I couldn’t think of anywhere else to mention this, but I am still reeling from how often Ryoga this early in the series relied on weird weapons. Where does he get them? I am quite glad (if I remember correctly) that they phased that part of him out with time.)

On Akane’s end, in addition to another case of Ranma saying the wrong thing to really hurt their attempts to connect with one another, we also learn more about her hair. While a little clumsy, early on it’s made clear, without being outright stated, that the reason Akane wears her hair long, and has been actively growing it out, is so she looks more like Kasumi, hoping to catch Dr. Tofu’s eye. Thus, when the episode ends with that hair being accidentally rendered far shorter, we know that means something to her.

I’d also say this episode does a good job of getting us further into the idea of a status quo developing. After all, it’s apparently been another month of Ranma living with the Tendo’s now, and the school at large seems to be settling into what Ranma brings to them with his presence. They’re not stunned by someone showing up to fight Ranma, they’re chasing after them to watch it. Only other thing to note is, in addition to Nabiki’s minions, Akane’s best friends finally appeared, Yuka and Sayuri. I actually wasn’t sure at first, since Yuka’s hair is a lot shorter than will be her norm later on, but I did confirm that they are in fact her equivalents to Ranma’s Hiroshi and Daisuke. They get even less characterization than those guys do, but they’re a nice addition to the growing cast regardless.

I still have a few characters who have shown up that I haven’t done a spotlight on, but none of them really featured in this episode, so I decided to do my first repeat. That’s right, we’re talking about Ranma again, and because I’ve already discussed his voice actors and actresses, I won’t need to go over them again, except to say I still love his Japanese voice actor for his uncursed state, but find his actress in that language to not quite work for me.

So, it’s been a little while since the first episode, and we’ve gotten to see Ranma a little more. Since this was an action-heavy episode, I think I’ll start with talking more about his fighting style. I said in that first episode that Ranma is fast, and he is. So far, he’s spent most of his fights dodging his opponent, rather than attacking them, and when he does it’s sometimes with such speed that they don’t even see it happening. It’s the very fact he’s more defensive that is occasionally shown to annoy Akane, and you can see it having another layer to it: Ranma would much rather avoid things he doesn’t like, rather than face them head-on.

But he’s not just quick, he’s quick-witted. To match his meticulous mobility, Ranma thinks on his feet, always looking for ways to outmaneuver or outsmart his opponents. We can see from how easily he lifts Ryoga’s umbrella, even in his cursed form, at the end of this episode that Ranma is also very strong, but he doesn’t rely on that strength, he uses his brain instead. Personally, I’ve always thought that was evidence that, at least with Ryoga of all people, he would probably lose a straight-up strength vs strength fight, but I’m not sure if that’s ever openly stated. Still, I also don’t see Ranma lifting telephone poles out of the ground.

In terms of his personality, I’d argue that through the episodes thus far, Ranma has shown to be a complex protagonist. On the surface layer, he’s a fairly abrasive person. He enjoys nettling people, at least those he knows are easy to rile up, and frequently says the worst possible thing to someone without realizing the damage his comment will do.

But there’s also more to him than that. Whether he wants to admit it or not, and he clearly doesn’t want to, Ranma does care for Akane. He does go out of his way to try and comfort her, cheer her up when she’s down, give her advice with her problems. When she might be in danger, Ranma runs in to help, and is upset that she’d endanger herself during his fight with Ryoga. In other words, Ranma is a tsundere, leaning fairly heavily on the tsun side.

One other important piece of who he is that we’ve gotten only hints of here or there so far is his pride and how it relates to his masculinity. Ranma is a very proud person, and he’s clearly not a fan of people taking him lightly or treating him in a way he doesn’t like. That includes being treated as though he was a girl, because he isn’t.

That is honestly understandable. Sometimes, completely outside of Ranma’s control, his physical body changes into something he doesn’t feel comfortable with. When he’s in his cursed form, people see him and treat him differently, and he keeps trying to assert his masculinity, to no avail. Ryoga gets Ranma angry by saying he was acting like a “girl”, completely unaware of the curse at the time. As I’ve said before, I think this actually relates quite well to the transgender experience, in these cases specifcally gender dysphoria and midgendering. I can’t remember how much we’ve seen of it up to now, but Ranma’s rejection of femininity in any way, something he does to try and preserve his masculine pride, often leads to him acting rude or even misogynistic to others. It’s an interesting part of his character, but I do feel the need to say right now that I absolutely hate the stereotype with trans men where some people claim they act misogynistic to try and be more masculine. Like, I know some people do it, but using that brush on all trans men is just wrong and transphobic, no thank you.

Welp, that certainly was an episode. Even after going into all the really interesting and good parts of this episode, I am still left with a bad taste in my mouth. By no means did the bad outweigh the good, but the fact the worst parts of the episode were frequently interspersed among the best parts of it broke up the pacing in a bad way for me. It’s still in the top half of the episodes so far, as I’d put it between episodes 6 and 4. The current ranking is now:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

This storyline isn’t over just yet though! Next week, we’ll be looking at the fallout of Akane’s impromptu haircut in episode 9, “True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!”. See you all then!

[bloodberi-arts]

Nabiki and Kuno Tandem: Incapable

Season 1 Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

[jusendork]

Ranma 1/2 30 Day Challenge: Day 3

Favorite anime episode:

Akane no Shitsuren Datte Shōganai Janai /  Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know is my favorite anime episode. From the first season, sure, but this episode is really kinda sweet as it sets the staging, for instance, of Ranma and Akane’s growing relationship, as Akane battles with her feelings of inadequacy in her femininity, and her crush on Dr. Tofuu, who is oblivious and obviously in love with Kasumi. The remainder of this anime arc (including  Enter Ryoga! The Eternal "Lost Boy", School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga, and  True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life! are also some of my favorites because it’s really good emotional development!

I also like the Shampoo introduction arc, but not nearly as much as the Akane-Tofuu stuff.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 25: The Abduction of P-Chan

Y’all, it has finally COME. The arc I have been wanting to rewatch for ages. One of my favorite arcs in the series. It’s time for figure skating, I’m pretty sure I remember this arc very well, and I look forward to seeing if I still love it as much as I used to.

Oh, but before I do that, I just want to go over something. I already talked about this during Season 1, but some of you might be confused why I’ve waited so long to cover this arc. It’s because the original broadcast order and the production order are different, and Hulu has things in the production order. I wanted to cover the series by broadcast date, so even though this takes place right before the original Shampoo arc, we’re not watching it until, well, now. But anyway, that done, let’s watch the episode!

I am not disappointed.

The episode starts at an ice-skating rink, where Akane is there with a few unnamed friends who want her to join the skating club, because she’s genuinely that good. However, she brought P-Chan with her and left him on the ice. Before she can get back to our transformed lost boy, someone else finds him and takes him away, calling him ‘Charlotte’.

From there, we cut to a ramen shop where Ranma is getting grilled by his friends Hiroshi and Daisuke, who want to date ‘the other Ranma’. That request goes as well as you can expect (though I do have to wonder, since it’s unclear if they think the ‘other Ranma’ is Ranma’s girlfriend or his sister, and they both want to date her, if this would be an actual polycule), but just as Ranma starts walking away, insulting Akane because his friends brought her up, she appears, looking upset.

Ranma immediately regrets that and starts backpedaling, only to realize she doesn’t care about that, she wants his help finding her pet. Luckily, that won’t be too hard, because the thief enters the same shop they’re in, carrying Ryoga around with her. Akane tries taking him back, but the girl resists.

That’s when someone shows up to help Akane, a tall attractive young man who acts like the ultimate pretty boy romance option. He apologizes, explaining his friend has a bad habit of taking things she finds cute and naming them. That just sets the girl off though, whining more and more about the matter until she challenges Akane to a figure skating match.

It’s then that we learn who these two are: Mikado Sanzenin and Azusa Shiratore from Kolholtz High School. Together, they’re a figure skating duo known as the Golden Pair, and they’ve won 950 matches with no losses. Despite this, Akane is ready to fight.

Mikado starts putting the moves on her, causing Ranma to flick some food at him. The figure skater takes that as a challenge, so it’ll be a doubles match of Ranma and Akane versus Mikado and Azusa, and it’ll be in one week.

That night at dinner, Ranma and Ryoga argue over who gets to skate with Akane, each bragging over what they can do...the only issue there is that neither can actually skate at all. Akane starts helping Ranma after he goes into the bathroom and activates his and Ryoga’s curses, since he feels like failing so badly at skating looks worse when he’s masculine.

The Golden Pair return, with Azusa snatching P-Chan to put a new collar on him, one only she can unlock, and Mikado now trying to flirt with Ranma. It’s revealed that they’re both masters of Martial Arts Figure Skating, and that’s what the match really is, as they train by defeating a hundred opponents in just nine seconds. Things get worse when he actually steals a kiss from Ranma, causing Ranma to go use hot water to turn himself back and enter the ice rink ready to fight. He punches the ice so hard that he leaves an enormous crack in it, and he claims it’s the first time in his life he’s been really mad.

That’s where the episode leaves us! But wow, I still feel like a lot happened in this one. There’s a heck of a lot for me to cover, but let’s just start with, well, all the Ranma/Akane. I’m sorry! I can’t help myself!! There was just so much of it! Whether it be Ranma worrying about making Akane mad from another “she’s not cute” kind of thing and being ready to take it back, to how annoyed he gets from Mikado flirting with her, to how after being kissed by Mikado one of the first things he worries about is that it was in front of Akane.

It was adorable!

I also think it’s remarkable how this story is just carried by the personalities of its characters. This isn’t some plot that happens to have the Golden Pair in it. The conflict is driven by Azusa’s strange kleptomania and my Mikado’s predatory behavior. Compared to some other storylines I can think of, this approach makes this one feel much more focused, as well as emphasizing the antagonists of the arc.

I’m going to give each of them their own Character Spotlight in coming weeks, but I did want to say here that I think it’s really interesting how Mikado is frequently animated to make his possessive behavior clear just through visuals, like how he holds Ranma’s arms while carrying him, to keep him from resisting his advances.

The comedy felt strong in this episode, as did the action. I wasn’t laughing the whole time or anything, but I was entertained throughout, and that’s not something I can say for a lot of episodes, sadly. It’s a strong start to this arc, and it just gets better from here...or at least that’s what the opinions I formed in high school tell me, from across the vast distance of time.

Instead of doing a Character Spotlight, I’m going to FINALLY talk about Season 2’s Opening! Since, for some reason, this is the first episode to have it...when due to broadcast order versus production order a lot of places don’t even have it in Season 1!

This song is called “Little Date”, performed by the band Ribbon. It’s a very cute little song, with elements of lighter and sillier moments but also of more emotional ones. I like it a lot more than the first opening’s song, and while I’m not sure if it’s my favorite opening, it’s one of the ones I love going back to listen to the most.

The visuals are...okay. The first half is pretty meh, a combination of original art, images from the manga, and overall less animated stuff. It’s also kind of infamous for showing Ranma’s cursed form topless, right at the start. The second half is better, and I especially love Shampoo’s introduction. The way she and the music fit together is really good, and the fact it’s at the bubbliest part of the song works really well.

On the whole, even with some more lackluster visuals, I’d still put it above the first seasons’s OP.

If it isn’t obvious, I’m very happy to be starting the Martial Arts Figure Skating Arc. I don’t know how popular it is in the larger Ranma fandom, but I know I’ve always been a big fan of it, and this time around it’s still good, at least so far. Honestly? I’m actually going to put this as the second best episode so far, I liked it that much.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 25: The Abduction of P-Chan

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

This arc continues next week, and if I’m being honest, I think it’s going to top this. But maybe I’m wrong! We’ll see with “Close Call! The Dance of Death... On Ice!”. Can it be as good as Reptaur on Ice? I doubt it.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

(CONTENT WARNING: This blog post contains discussion of phobias, child abuse, and people doing the worst thing to intensify those problems. Those things are in the show, I didn’t just bring them up out of nowhere.)

Well, it’s that time again. Time to grab a balloon and tell my friends what I think of an episode of Ranma 1/2. We’re starting the first arc of season two with this episode, though oddly enough I feel like I mostly remember what stuff is going to happen in it. But maybe I don’t remember right? I’d love it if that is the case. Though...speaking of that...there is a certain character I have dreaded appearing in this series, and I’d hoped he wouldn’t appear for a while, but I checked and he appears this season. I...I thought I had more time. Oh well, let’s do this episode and I’ll worry about him when he gets here.

Okay, well, for the most part, this episode is actually a lot better than I remember it being. As it turns out, some of the details mutated in my head in the decade since I last saw it, and I actually thought things were worse than they were.

The episode starts in the Kuno manor, where our favorite swordsman is practicing to once again fight Ranma Saotome. But he’s not alone, because for the first time we meet Kuno’s henchman, Sasuke. He’s a ninja, and he’ll do whatever Kuno tells him to do, but he probably won’t do it very well.

From there, we see Ranma’s dad is training him in stupid ways again, and they get back to the house to find Shampoo has mailed Ranma something from China: a pink cat. That’s a problem, because Ranma has a severe cat phobia. It’s not random, either, Genma directly created it. See, when Ranma was 6, Genma thought he should teach his son Cat Fu, which he heard about from an ancient martial arts manuscript. The way to teach it is to cover the disciple in fish sausage and through them into a room with starving cats.

Obviously, that just ended up traumatizing Ranma, and the very next page of the book would have told Genma that training someone that way is very stupid. Kasumi, drawing on the common misunderstandings people have about exposure therapy, thinks that just inviting a ton of cats to be around will help, but of course it doesn’t, it makes Ranma even more distressed. Sasuke is hiding under the floorboards though, and he runs off to tell Kuno about Ranma’s weakness.

At first, Kuno says something about how he could never cowardly use an opponent’s weakness to unfairly win, but then he still makes Sasuke tell him about it, because he can still use it to win in an honorable way. The plan they go for is pretty ridiculous: they leave a note in Ranma’s locker that Akane’s been kidnapped, and he has to go to the gym to save her. But Akane is standing next to Ranma as he reads the note, so he knows that’s not true.

He goes anyway out of curiosity, only to find Sasuke there dressed up as Akane. With the wrong color wig. Even though the trap keeps failing, Ranma walks into it anyway because he has nothing better to do, until he realizes what is going on: cats. But Ranma manages to fight the fear and pretend he’s okay, hoping to just take Akane out of there, but then it becomes clear Sasuke took the extra step of also bringing an enormous tiger.

That’s when we cut back to Genma and Kasumi, and the old man explains that he tried curing Ranma of his phobia, but his way of doing so was to just keep throwing him at hungry cats, only changing the type of food attached to his body. All of it just made the problem worse, but it also actually led to Ranma developing Cat Fu. When Ranma gets scared enough, his mind just let’s go and he mentally becomes a cat.

That happens in the basement of the school, making it easy for him to beat the tiger and escape, just in time to kick Kuno’s butt without even trying. But he doesn’t stop there, and starts running around the school still acting like a cat. Akane follows him just as the dads show up. Genma says the only way to break Ranma out of it when he was a kid was with the help of a kindly old lady, but she’s dead. So, Genma tries dressing up and doing it himself. That fails, so they try catnip, forgetting that Ranma just thinks he’s a cat, so the stuff doesn’t really affect him.

The situation does kind of solve itself, as Ranma doesn’t attack Akane, as she’s afraid of, but instead curls up in her lap to purr. The whole school is watching, so that’s embarrassing for her, but then he kisses her and she freezes for a second before throwing Ranma into the school pool. Oh, and the pink cat is watching and didn’t like that. The curse activating returns his brain to normal, and Ranma has no clue why he was thrown in a pool. Akane walks home, cursing Ranma for doing that, but sounding conflicted.

So, the big thing I misremembered about this episode was I thought Genma did all the cat stuff with 0 thoughts about how it would affect Ranma and not giving a crap how it affected his son. That is actually not the case, he’s clearly really torn up about the phobia, though he still says some bad stuff about Ranma being ‘unmanly’ for having a phobia. He even tried to cure Ranma, a few times. It’s just that, well, his actions still traumatized Ranma. Sufficient ignorance is indistinguishable from malice, as they say. Genma is still, on the whole, abusive to Ranma in my opinion, but he’s not as bad as he could have been, I have to admit.

This was also just a funny episode. The comedy largely worked, even if some of the jokes didn’t quite land. Kuno and Sasuke were especially good, and I found Ranma fighting his fear both humorous and kind of inspiring. The man has a hell of a willpower. Not going to lie, the Cat-Ranma just immediately going for Akane’s lap and then kissing her was cute, I really liked that. Of course, I’m a sucker for anything with them, so I’m an easy mark there.

It’s also interesting how this works as the first part of a large arc, because if you didn’t know that was the case I can imagine thinking this was just a standalone episode. The pink cat was the impetus for the plot, but it’s what will drive the coming episodes forward.

One thing I found annoying was how different the dub and sub were this time around, in terms of script. The dub had a lot more bashing of Ranma for being scared of cats, including from Akane. That isn’t in the subtitled version at all, and I thought the episode worked a lot better there. I’m always a fan of taking liberties with a localization in order to make the story work better in the new country, but I don’t think we needed Akane insulting Ranma for his trauma.

Hey, a Character Spotlight again! Haven’t had one of these in a bit, and this one is for Sasuke Sarugakure. Let’s start with his voice actors. In the English dub, he’s voiced by Robert O. Smith. Does that name sound familiar? It should, I talked about him recently, since he’s the one who voiced Genma Saotome in the dub as well. His voice for Sasuke is extremely comedic, going for an over-the-top pathetic voice. He makes Sasuke just sound like comic relief, which he is. What’s interesting is what the other actor does with him.

In Japanese, he’s played by Shigeru Chiba, another voice actor from this show in Japan who is just known for a billion things. Standouts include Buggy the Clown in One Piece, Emperor Pilaf and Raditz in the Dragon Ball franchise, and dubbing over John de Lancie as Discord in the Japanese dub of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I was completely shocked to hear him play Sasuke with more gravitas, using a very serious voice that one would expect from a ninja, which clashed perfectly with the situations and his character design to make the comedy far better than in the dub. One of those rare times I’m actually preferring the Japanese version!

As a character, Sasuke is interesting because he’s not in the manga at all. For reasons none seem to know, the creative team for the anime decided to delay introducing minor character Hikaru Gosenkugi, and replaced him with Sasuke. We’ll get to Hikaru when he appears, but I don’t really mind Sasuke’s addition to the show. Giving Kuno a henchman just makes his dynamic even better, and there’s something I just really like to Sasuke’s almost naive way of trying to plot and scheme. I don’t actually have any deep analysis, at least not as of yet, just wanted to give him a moment in the Spotlight for being something interesting.

I didn’t expect to like this episode so much! It wasn’t great, there were parts I didn’t care for, but on the whole I’m happy to see my expectations overcome. I’m putting this episode in the middle of the pack, at the #10 slot. It was fun, but it has a lot of better episodes when it comes to making me smile. (Or cry.)

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Next time we’ll continue this tale with "This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!" which, as you might guess from the title, will introduce a new character. This one’s actually from the manga! See you then, y’all.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Welcome back! It’s once again that time for me to watch some more Ranma 1/2, in doing so looking at it with fresh eyes and a different perspective from when I was younger. We’re already up to episode 13, and with it the end of Kodachi Kuno’s introductory arc. I’m guessing this is going to be almost a full episode of fighting, but how good that fighting will be, I don’t recall. But by next paragraph, I’ll have rewatched the episode, and I can talk about it just a bit better. See you then!

That certainly was almost a single fight for the entire episode. Now, unlike the full episode fight against Ryoga, my summary is going to be a lot shorter. There’s a lot fewer moving parts here, and I feel like going blow by bow would be boring.

In general, the idea of the fight is that the combatants lose if they go outside the ring, and they get a foul (though the exact penalty isn’t made clear) if they hit each other directly without using tools or weapons. Besides that, there are no rules. Kodachi and Ranma both have new items thrown to them when they need it, but Kodachi is obviously the one who stretches the rules the most. Most of the fight is her pulling new insane things out of nowhere that Ranma has to work around.

When it comes to actual plot stuff, the first big thing is when Kodachi mouths off again about how much she loves Ranma and can’t wait to date him and stuff. Ranma gets annoyed, and Kodachi interprets this as Ranma loving, well, Ranma too. Kuno jumps into the ring at that (By which I mean Tatewaki Kuno. I know they both have that last name, but when I say ‘Kuno’, assume I just mean him), and demands to know if this is true. Instead of denying it or playing into the idea, Ranma takes a third option and says something that’s technically true, that he and Ranma are one in body and mind, because of destiny.

Of course, the two rich folks immediately interpret that in some serious ways, though exactly what they think that means isn’t spelled out. Do they think Ranma and Ranma bang or something? Anyway, a little after that, Genma shows up looking like a panda in the stands, carrying a kettle of hot water. Whether that’s for him when he decides he’s done being a panda or for Ranma to use after the fight, I don’t know.

The problem is, by this point, Ranma and Kodachi have entered the stage in the fight where they’re using their ribbons to grab stuff from outside the ring and hurl it as each other. Kodachi takes the kettle, and notices immediately how scared Ranma and P-chan are. Oh, yeah, Ryoga is still chained to Ranma, and he does what he can to try and make Ranma lose every so often.

Kodachi uses a pretty clever trick of slicing the kettle in mid-air to soak Ranma and Ryoga, and they change back in mid-air. Luckily for them, Akane saw that coming, and enters back into the gym carrying a fire hose, with water cold enough to turn them back into their cursed forms. It also means Ranma has to swim for dear life to stop from getting knocked out of the ring, but it works.

A bit later on, the show cuts to a group of teenage girls somewhere dark, and we get a nice little break from the fight as they chat amongst themselves. But when it gets back to the fight, Ranma is able to finally knock Kodachi flying, far outside the ring’s boundaries. But all she has to do is whistle, and the ring gets up and moves across the gym so she still lands inside it. Ranma quickly puts together what’s going on, and destroys the floor of the ring, exposing the girls we saw before, who run away.

Now there’s no place to stand except the four corners and the ropes, but Ranma is fine with that, pointing out that he has an advantage in aerial fights. Too bad that he forgot Ryoga is still attached to him, and his rival goes extra far in trying to shake him off. The chain is broken, but Ranma doesn’t have any tools left to fight with. So instead of getting a foul by just getting Kodachi, he kicks the post she’s standing on, sending her sprawling to the ground for a win.

After the match, she tearfully agrees to abandon her ‘present’ love for Ranma Saotome, and everything seems to have worked out great. At least, that is until later, when Ranma and Ryoga are taking a hot bath together. Ranma complains about Ryoga’s attempts to sabotage the fight, which he defends with a reminder that he wants Akane himself. Then he uses cold water to be P-chan just as Akane calls for him, leading to another case of Ranma running into Akane’s room and getting assumed a pervert as he chases Ryoga.

After that, Ranma gets back to back flowers from each Kuno sibling. He sees Tatewaki uncursed, and Kodachi cursed, so each gives the bouquet to deliver to the Ranma that they love. Leaving Ranma holding a bunch of flowers and having to contend with the fact that he now has two Kuno’s to worry about, long-term. Kodachi defends her continued pursuit of Ranma by saying she abandoned her ‘present’ love and developed a new one.

So, what is there to say about that episode? Well, a lot, actually. It didn’t necessarily blow me away, but I do think it was a stronger fight than the last time a whole episode was centered on a battle, since this one doesn't have nearly as many cutaways to unnecessary plot points. There was a short scene of just listening to the announcer describe the fight while we just saw outside the school, which felt a bit chief, but on the other hand I really liked the little bit we got with the gymnasts under the mat. Those minor characters got more definition than they necessarily needed, and it made the coming cheat more fun than the others.

This is also kind of a big first for the series. Namely, it’s the first time Ranma has fought someone who practices a strange, ultra-specific kind of martial art and did so while following all of that school’s rules. Sure, Tatewaki Kuno fights with a wooden sword, but those were all basically street matches, as was Ranma’s fight with Ryoga. But this is an official match, and Ranma obeys all the rules wherein and still wins.

That is something that will be incredibly common from here on out, in manga-adapted stories and anime-original stories. I’ve yet to see it mentioned in-series, and I can’t recall it doing so later on, but it’s generally accepted as canon by fans that this is for a reason. Ranma and Akane’s school, Anything Goes Martial Arts, isn’t called that for no reason. They are supposed to fight other styles, learn from them, and take what’s useful to use themselves. It’s a great way to add more moves to the protagonists’ repertoire, and get them into fights with silly fighters.

This specific fight was...okay. Actually, I feel like I’m a bit of a grump for saying that, it was good. There were some neat moves, lots of back and forth with stuff, it was enjoyable to see. It wasn’t anywhere near what I think this series can do at its best, but it was a good way to end this mini-arc. I do feel like Kodachi, as a character, doesn’t get the same level of badassery even her brother does from the story, and that feels kind of lame. It seems like, in general, Ranma 1/2 saves all the cool stuff for the guys.

To continue what I was talking about with Kodachi last week, I do think it’s really interesting how different she is in each language. It’s a strange case of part-translation and part-acting, but the english version of the character definitely hits different, and not in a good way. It’s actually making me reevaluate her a little, just because the version in the original Japanese is so much better. It feels a lot less like “she’s crazy!” and more “she’s a highly driven and amoral rich girl!”

This was a good episode. I am once again pleasantly surprised by this arc, and it’s raising my hopes that further stories will be better than I recall. As for where to put it in my rankings exactly, I actually think I’ll put it one step above the last single episode of just fighting, and right below that emotional episode about Akane’s feelings for Dr. Tofu. What can I say? I like the feels. That puts the current ranking at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Now, if you’re watching this series on Hulu like I am, you might think the next episode is the first part of the Martial Arts Figure Skating arc. And while, wow, I sure wish it was, that is actually wrong. I don’t know why, but some of the arcs are in the wrong order on Hulu, but I’m watching the series in the actual order. Which means, instead of watching one of my favorite arcs in the series, the next episode is actually “Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan”. My hopes...are not high. See you all...then...I suppose...

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Oh my! It’s here! It is finally here! This is it, the 18th and final episode of the first season of Ranma 1/2. It feels like it took such a long journey to get here, but when you think about how much more of this series there is to come, I really haven’t even made a dent. Still, I’m eager to see what this one is like, because I have only the vaguest memories of what it entailed. Next paragraph, I’ll have rewatched the episode, and be ready to discuss it fully.

...

It was a clip show.

How did I not remember, the end of the season, was a clip show?!

I didn’t even bother watching it a second time subbed! Why would I?! More than half the episode isn’t actual content!

Okay, so, here is what did happen. This episode consists of Ranma telling his dad that he wants to head to China to find a cure for his curse, and his Dad telling him not to. Ranma complains about all the stuff he has to go through, Genma tells him to stop whining.

This goes on, and on, in-between clips. Then, all the main cast shows up to be mad at Ranma because they misunderstood what he was saying, and think he wants to head to China to marry Shampoo. Akane hits him the end.

I...genuinely have nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true, but a lot of what I want to say about this episode should be reserved for the Character Spotlight. The pacing was terrible, because of course it was, and there was no real plot here. My brain somehow invented that this whole episode would actually be about Ranma being tempted to head back to China (even though he did that last episode), but nooooooooooo.

You know what? Screw it, next paragraph I’m talking about Genma.

I have been waiting, and waiting, and WAITING for an episode to focus on Genma Saotome so I can finally do a Character Spotlight on him, and I feel like it’s kind of fitting that this, of all episodes, was it.

In terms of voice actors, in the English dub he was voiced by Robert O. Smith, who...did some stuff? But I haven’t really seen any of it? In contrast, his Japanese voice actor was Kenichi Ogata, who is considered “The Father Figure of the Japanese Voice-Acting Industry”. Things I know him for include Gran Turino in My Hero Academia, the professor in Detective Conan, and Shamisen in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Their voices for the character aren’t incredibly dissimilar, but from what I can tell Smith makes Genma sound a bit deeper and more gruff, while Ogata is a bit more focused.

Um, so, I don’t really like Genma Saotome. He’s kind of a trash dad. This episode was a great examination into why. Ranma wants to tell his father about all the stuff he’s going through. He wants to help make his dad understand why he wants to go to China, to deal with his curse. Genma responds by getting annoyed that Ranma is even talking about any of this. He refuses to accept any blame in what happened to his son, and he is annoyed at about Ranma ‘whining’.

This is just, like, my opinion, man. But parents shutting down their child’s attempts to communicate? Penalizing them for being emotionally honest? Being rude about them voicing their complaints? That’s bad. That’s very bad. And when it’s being done because the child is a ‘man’, and they need to ‘man up’, it is toxic masculinity in effect.

When you look at how Genma has raised Ranma, you can start to see where some of the boy’s rougher edges have formed. Why is Ranma so bad at talking to anyone, especially Akane, but his emotions? Maybe because Genma disincentivized that with his parenting. Genma doesn’t seem to value education much, so why should Ranma?

Now, to be fair, Genma does seem to be a lot more willing to choke on his own pride than Ranma is. He’s constantly annoyed by how Ranma messes up his relationship with Akane, and he’s pretty much willing to do anything to survive. He’s far from the worst character in the series, but he’s one I don’t care to dwell on for too long.

We’re not heading into the Ranking just yet, because with the end of this season, we should discuss the ED’s! The start of the season was where I covered the OP, so I thought it would be some nice symmetry to things.

The odd thing is, because of some of the strange production stuff I talked about before on this blog, there are actually two ED songs, and three different ending credits sequences. The first song was “Platonic Tsuranuite” by Kaori Sakagami. I love this song, and it’s been one of the best finds for me with this blog so far. I never listened to it before, but this song just slaps. I don’t know anything about music, so all I can really tell you is that it’s delicious cheesy 90’s goodness, in the best way possible.

Now, this one song had two different ending sequences. The first was a bunch of still images with credits over them, and it was fine. Lots of anime have done something like that, and I do like the art style on the characters in the visuals.

The second set of visuals, which came somewhere around halfway through the season, had actual animation. It shows Ranma and his father, who is in panda form, relaxing on a hill looking at what seems to be the ocean before sundown. They’re just relaxing, then Akane walks up and laughs about something. That sets Ranma off, they start arguing, and then they stop, and we get close-ups of each of their faces. Then they smile, lean a little towards each other, and it zooms out to show they’re all actually looking at a billboard. I just adore the little character animation here, it’s so nice, wonderful ED.

The second song, with the third set of visuals, is “EQUALロマンス” by Coco, the girl group I’ve mentioned here and there that formed from five of the voice actresses in the original Japanese production. The song is...okay. Very low energy, just kinda cute, nothing worth thinking too much about in my opinion. The visuals are a bunch of still images cut into different shapes, showing the characters. It exists. No other opinion.

Well, that sure is the final episode all talked about and one with! Now, this might not be something you’re aware of, but I didn’t much care for this episode! The only question with ranking is, is it the worst so far, or still better than the Dr. Tofu episode? Is nothing better than something displeasing? I...think I’ll actually say this one was the worst. Right now, boredom is a bigger sin than annoying me.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

So, that’s this season done with. I’m not taking a break, though. Next week, I’ll be back ready to start Season 2. The episode then? “Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race”. I definitely remember that one. Tschuss!

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

I can’t believe it, 2020 is finally over. Or at least, it will be on the day this goes up. From where I’m writing it, we’re nearing the finish line, but haven’t yet reached it. Part of me wishes I could have finished season 1 in the same year I started this blog, but I’m getting close to there anyway, so I shouldn’t despair. This episode...yeah, looking at the episode title, I cannot remember for the life of me what the Shiatsu Technique is. By next paragraph, I’ll have rewatched the episodes, and I’ll know. See you in a second!

That was an...interesting direction for Shampoo’s introductory arc? I mean, it’s her second episode, and she’s barely in it. I think I’ll have quite a bit to talk about, but I will say once again I’m holding off on doing a Shampoo Character Spotlight just yet, just because I want to have more material to discuss.

So, anyway, the episode starts with the Tendo’s asking Akane to wake up Ranma, and it’s made clear once again just how angry and jealous she is over the whole Shampoo situation. That doesn’t get any better when she relents but finds that Shampoo is snuggling in Ranma’s bed with him, without him knowing. She dumps water on them, activating the curse, Shampoo tries to kill Ranma, he turns back, she wants to kiss him, it’s a bunch of hijinks.

As Ranma and Akane walk to school, they bicker a little more fiercely than usual, now that the spectre of Shampoo’s affections have come into the picture. Ryoga is chilling on a nearby rooftop, and he’s actually ready to leave. He’s being very angsty, upset that Akane only likes him as P-chan, and knows that if Akane ever admits to loving Ranma, it would break his heart. He tries to head back on the road, only for him to get hit by random water throwing lady’s water, at which point Shampoo finds the piglet in the road.

Next scene, the amazon breaks down the wall of Ranma’s classroom to give him lunch, which as it turns out is Ryoga, though he hasn’t been killed or ever really cooked. Still, Akane and even Ranma are concerned, even if Ryoga doesn’t really appreciate the latter. Angry at Akane ruining her plans for Ranma several times now, Shampoo gives Akane the Kiss of Death, but Akane doesn’t back down, and is ready for a match, despite the fact that Ranma seems absolutely sure that Akane has no way of winning.

By the time Ranma gets to the place they are fighting at, the match is already over. Shampoo is gone, and Akane is unconscious on the ground. When she wakes up, she feels rather refreshed, but is more than anything confused: Akane has no clue who Ranma is. It isn’t regular amnesia, either. She still remembers her classmates, Ryoga, even Ranma’s dad.

After a lot of Ranma trying over and over again to remind Akane who he is, which even fails when Ranma activates his curse, they eventually go to Dr. Tofu. As it turns out, he knows what did this: the titular Shiatsu Technique. It actually has a much longer name, but I will stick with that. Anyway, Ranma’s dad was passing by and saw the whole thing. The move is actually just washing and styling the person’s hair, but using specific herbs and massaging scalpel pressure points to specifically remove memories of a single person.

The only way Dr. Tofu can imagine curing it would be with more Chinese herbs, so Ranma takes Akane out on the city to try and find Shampoo and get what they need. Only thing is, Shampoo shows up at the clinic right afterwards, because it turns out she’s been living there, working with Dr. Tofu.

So, that’s the episode. I’m going to start with some things I didn’t like as much, before getting into what I thought actually worked. The entire premise is just a bit...odd? Like, I have to admit I’m kind of down on amnesia plots in general, just as a matter of personal preference, but even if I wasn’t I feel like using one in the middle of a main character’s introduction arc is a tad bit strange.

I talked a bit last week about how I find that shows using jealousy as a way to show much a person cared about another is kinda sucky, so I won’t go over it again, except to say I’m still not a fan. I’m even less a fan of the fact that Akane is still being looked over as a fighter. First she never really got to fight Kodachi, and now that Shampoo is here they get...a fight we don’t see that only lasts a few seconds.

Shampoo is an amazon warrior, I get that. But I just find it annoying that they completely sideline that conflict for the amnesia one, when giving Akane an opponent to fight who is better than her would be a great way to make her grow. Even if we got a real fight and she lost, it could be something to build on later, a way to see where Akane is as a martial artist. Sadly, this series doesn’t really take Akane seriously as a martial artist, so that wasn’t ever going to happen.

Only other small thing to cover in the negatives column is that I didn’t really like the whole comedy bit of, “Uh oh, Ranma shows Akane his curse, but she thinks he’s a cross-dressing pervert!” It’s just...yeah, I don’t have the mental energy to dive into that topic, let’s just say it left a very bad taste in my mouth.

So, what did I like about the episode, then? Well, quite a lot. As much as I dislike the general idea of doing an amnesia plot here, I liked some of the specifics of it. The fact that not only had Akane forgotten Ranma, and only Ranma, but that it seemed as though she couldn’t even form new memories of him, no matter how much he or others tried to make her understand, definitely added urgency. In a good way.

I also found myself liking the technique itself, strangely enough. The fact it’s just washing the person’s hair, but with special martial arts stuff, is just kind of amazing, ridiculous in that exact Ranma 1/2 kind of way. The fact that all of the characters treat it dead seriously, none of them laughing at the idea, also helps make it even funnier.

Speaking of funny, the slapstick was pretty on-point this episode. It wasn’t quite as funny as some other episodes, but I definitely was at least smiling for a good portion of it. The whole scene of their class trying to help Akane remember Ranma was pretty funny too, in English and Japanese.

For something more heartfelt, I love that after half an episode of Ranma teasing Akane, of so many episodes of Ranma kind of being a jerk, his immediate response to her forgetting him is to do everything he can to fix it. It goes uncommented on so far, but he clearly hates the idea of Akane never knowing who he is. It could just as easily have been done with Ranma not caring in the slightest, being an aloof jerk, but this shows that Ranma does genuinely care about Akane, even if he often has a bad way of showing it.

Ooh, also, on the characters front! Ryoga! My boy! I haven’t really talked about it in a while, but I’ve been kind of unhappy with how Ryoga is being portrayed for a while now. Ever since his arc, he’s just been chilling as P-chan, only turning back to try and take Akane from Ranma in some way. He’s been very scheming and underhanded, which doesn’t fit what I remembered of his character at all.

This episode was much more like it. Ryoga fits so much better as the brooding boy, stuck in the moral dilemma of what to do about his position with Akane, scared of how she might really feel. More of this, please, and less of him making schemes to steal her.

So then, how does this episode shake out, on the whole? Well, I don’t think it’s a surprise that I wouldn’t say it’s as good as last week’s. In fact, it’s dropped quite a few places. Just barely in the top half of episodes I’ve seen thus far, I’m putting this episode just above the Ranma vs Ryoga fight and one spot below the big fight that ended Kodachi’s arc. So, here is the new ranking.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Next week, I think we’re finishing this arc? I’m not completely sure? We’ll have to see? All I know is, the penultimate episode of the season is titled “I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye”. Sadly, unlike Ranma, I do have to say goodbye, but only until next week. See you all then!

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

I cannot believe it’s here. Welcome back to the Ranma Rewatch, and it’s time to finish the Phoenix Pill story arc with this episode. I think. I’m pretty sure. I...do not remember this episode at all, really. Like I said last week, most of what I can recall is from the mockery of a YouTuber I used to follow. But I am unshackled from his opinion! I watch this episode with new eyes! Let us see what sights I shall witness!

...

I should have listened.

I wasn’t prepared for this.

So, here’s the plot. They’re on a snowy mountain. Why? No clue, I guess they just wanted to go skiing. Ranma isn’t skiing, Cologne shows up, they start to fight a little, and she reveals that there’s some competition going on, and the winner gets a date with Shampoo and if Ranma wins he gets the Phoenix Pill.

Everyone gets made because of the date with Shampoo part, even though...like, it’s really obvious that he’s just doing it for the pill. There’s a lot of forced conflict over that, and it ends up being just Cologne vs Ranma. It looks like he’s winning, she offers to make this all about their duel. If he wins, he gets the pill, if she loses, he has to marry Shampoo.

When Ranma accepts those terms, she immediately starts wiping the floor with him, and nothing he does makes a difference. In the end, the only way to win is to get Shampoo’s help. She turns into her cat form, which terrifies Ranma until he starts using Cat-Fu. That is actually able to kick Cologne’s butt, and eventually she gives up and hands over the pill. Ranma turns back to his uncursed state, happy to be cured, but he did it in a women’s bath so he looks like a pervert. THE END.

I’m...going to start by talking about the few things I liked here. I think having Cat-Fu being the way to defeat Cologne is a pretty cool idea, especially since it was that story that began this arc. Little bit of a full-circle thing.

There was a decent smattering of cute Akane stuff, and I like that she once again is the one who can immediately calm down the raging Cat Ranma. Not only that, but the Shampoo stuff wasn’t bad. The episode showed off her more scheming side, as she was happy to use Cologne’s plan as a way to steal Ranma’s affections and get a date from him, but in the end she was also happy to work against that plan just to help Ranma out. Plus, Ranma purposefully playing on her love for him was a pretty classic Ranma thing to do.

That’s all my niceness.

This was, by my estimation, one of the biggest drops in animation quality I’ve ever seen. That episode of Gurren Lagann where everyone is super off model? That looks like that show at its best compared to this episode. There’s just...so little animation, and what we do have is frequently full of errors. It’s an action-heavy episode, too, and none of it looks good.

It was bad-funny at first, but after a while...it just became hard to watch. So much reused animation, so many errors, so much still shots. I am not an animation person! I normally don’t care about any of this! But is actively made watching this more difficult.

It’s also just...an underwhelming way to end the arc. They’re just randomly in the mountains, no reason why. Cologne bets everything on a fight against Ranma, he finds a way to win, here’s the pill. Some of the ideas could have worked, I think, if given proper backing. But there’s just nothing here.

Not only that, but wow the dub was bad here. Not only was this a case where, because I preferred Cologne’s Japanese actress and she was in it a lot it was better, but also because the translation for the dub was terrible. There’s one line change that is so baffling, it turns a kind of okay line into something incomprehensible. I was looking forward to my watch on the sub, if only so I could figure out what had just happened.

Hey, why not, the arc is done, let’s talk about Cologne. Neither of her voice actresses are incredibly well known, but at least her Japanese voice actress, Miyoko Aso, has also been Pinako Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist and Shoga from Inuyasha. (She also passed away in 2018, after living quite a long life. Rest in peace.) The english voice actress, Elan Ross Gibson, is also fairly unknown, with her biggest work being as Baba in one of the Dragon Ball Z dubs.

As I mentioned before, they do play the character differently. They’re both going for “wizened old woman”, but Gibson’s Cologne is a lot more...toothless? She mostly sounds tired and bored. Aso gave the character a lot more life, more energy, and it’s that performance that’s working much better for me so far.

As a character, Cologne is...okay. She’s a very old Amazon warrior, the first character to appear who is, flat out, far stronger than Ranma. She serves as both an obstacle, what with the whole pressure point scenario, and a mentor, teaching him his signature move. There’s a sense that as much as she is trying to get one particular thing for him, namely marrying Shampoo, she’s also interested in seeing how he’ll develop, she’s impressed by his potential to grow stronger.

That said, she’s not even close to being among my favorite characters. She’s useful for dispensing exposition or teaching techniques, but her plots to get Ranma to marry Shampoo just...feel kind of boring to me. That’s genuinely all I have to say about her, at least for now. But who knows? Maybe one day my tune will change with this rewatch.

Y’all, I think it’s obvious, but I didn’t like this episode. I have no hesitation saying it was worse that Dr. Tofu’s mom’s episode. But the real question is: is it worse than the clip show? One was basically nothing, the other the active presence of bad. How you weigh one versus the other is a matter of personal preference, but for me, I’m going to say this episode was worse. At the very least, the season 1 finale had the animation from good episodes to show us.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

But that’s it! The story arc is done, and next week...I can’t believe it. I’m so happy! With next week’s “The Abduction of P-Chan”, we’re starting a little arc I’ve been dying to revisit for ages! If you’re watching it on the Hulu order, then you’ve already seen it, but I’ll talk more about that next time! See you then!

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

It has been a heck of a week for me, how about all of you? But now it’s time to sit down and watch some Ranma 1/2, and this time we’re digging into season two, known here in the US as “Anything-Goes Martial Arts”. I actually do think I remember this episode, at least a little bit, though whether I liked it or not has been lost to my decaying neurons. Time to form a new opinion then, see you next paragraph!

I’ll be honest, that turned out better than expected. But before I get into that kind of stuff, let me talk about what happens in the episode. Sadly, starting with Season 2, they’ve added a little recap thing to the beginning of every episode. It’s the same animation and voice acting every time, just meant to catch up the viewer on the premise of the show. I hated it when I was younger, and I hate it more now. I have a hard time articulating why, it just rubs me the wrong way.

From there, the actual episode begins with a flashback to when Ranma was a baby, and his father carried him on his back in a martial arts pilgrimage. That turned out to be a bad idea, because at one point Genma was starving in an inhospitable wilderness. He did run into someone with food, and that someone also had a daughter around Ranma’s age. This man only agreed to share food with Genma in exchange for taking Ranma, so he’d have an heir to his school of martial arts. With pretty much no hesitation, Genma agreed, but later stole Ranma back when the man wasn’t looking.

It cuts to the present from there, where Ranma and his father are fighting over some pickles. This is interrupted when the man from the opening, Mr. Daikoku, shows up in a fancy car with his now teenage daughter, who is in a ceremonial bride’s dress. He hasn’t forgotten about the promise Genma made, and is ready to take Ranma to marry his daughter Kaori.

But Soun Tendo isn’t about to just let that happen, since Ranma is supposed to marry Akane. During the conversation there is a lot of bickering between all of them, much of it from Akane and Ranma about them even really being engaged, but Kaori can tell that Akane actually likes Ranma more than she says, and so challenges her to a contest for Ranma’s hand. There’s a Martial Arts Takeout Race going on soon, and the winner of that gets one year’s worth of ramen.

Even more than making sure Ranma and Akane get married, the chance to get all that free food nudges Soun and Genma into accepting the deal. It quickly turns out that may have been a bad idea, since Kaori removes the robe to reveal she is a powerful martial artist, specifically a master of Martial Arts Delivery.

It’s a chaotic race from there, but the long and short of it is that Kaori pulls out a bunch of secret techniques to try and win, including one that numbs Akane’s leg and another that strangles her neck with noodles until she forfeits. At that point, Ranma is seriously considering jumping into the fray to help, even though he’d sworn not to use his curse to enter the race. A nudge from his dad forces Ranma into water though, and from there Ranma and Akane work together to help her win. The Daikoku’s accept the defeat, the family has a bunch of ramen, and all’s well that ends well...at least until another man shows up claiming that Ranma is supposed to marry his daughter. Wap wap.

So, there wasn’t a ton of plot to speak of, but on the whole I quite liked this episode. First of all, it had a wacky energy to it unlike anything in the first season. The Martial Arts Gymnastic competition was the only thing that came close, but this episode from beginning to end moved at a quick pace, with lots of jokes, smooth(er than usual) animation, and a whole new over-the-top martial arts school. Not everything about it worked for me, some of the jokes felt like duds, but then there’s the Ramen Round-Up Noodle Noose, Akane skateboarding, and the fact that Genma sold Ranma for a single meal.

I am kind of sad I literally just did a Character Spotlight on Genma last episode, I should have waited. This is perhaps the first time we’ve really gotten a chance to see just how awful a father Genma can be. I love everyone’s reactions to the news of the trade as well, and Genma doesn’t even really have a defense for it. The interplay between him, Soun, and Mr. Daikoku was also just enjoyable.

Kaori Daikoku herself is also something interesting. Anime-only or not, she’s the first rival for Akane who was also bequeathed to Ranma by his father in the past, though she won’t be the last. Once she was in the fight, Kaori actually worked pretty well, for a single-episode character. I actually like her character design, and as silly as all her food attacks are, she uses them with a kind of ferocious glee that gives her a unique aura, even if she’s still not a particularly deep character.

It’s me, so I also have to comment on how much I liked the Ranma/Akane stuff in this episode, whether it was Kaori noticing that Akane doth protest too much, that Akane was actually arguing for marrying Ranma at one point in the big kerfuffle, or the ending tête-à-tête between them (though the shipping fodder there was a dub only line). Something about the teamwork they used to win at the end was adorable too.

As for my negatives, the big one is that, well, in any scene with a big crowd (and there were a few), the random people looked really bad. Or rather, they didn’t match the art style for the rest of the characters in this show, they felt like they were from a different show entirely. Another small one is that there was no opening theme, and that sucks because I was looking forward to covering it, but I’ll have to wait for it to actually be used in an episode. Other than that, my only other minor issues were the aforementioned jokes that didn’t land for me.

If it wasn’t obvious before, I am vibing with this episode. Not completely, but i was very unsure going in if I’d like it at all. It captured a kind of energy that I hadn’t realized I was missing, and was generally interesting enough that I’ll put it at #6 on my rankings, just above the second part of the Dr. Tofu mini-arc, and right behind the second episode, where Kuno was introduced.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Season 2 is here and there is so much more to see! We only had a break from her for two episodes, but next week is the start of a new arc that unveils the return of the amazon Shampoo, with “You Really Do Hate Cats!” What does that have to do with Shampoo? Well, you’ll just have to see next week, won’t you? Tschuss!

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Sorry about taking a week off, y’all, I just had a rough go of it. Still sort of am, but I’m back anyway. We’re still in the middle of the arc that introduces Shampoo’s relative Cologne into the cast, and last time Ranma was hit with something that made changing back nigh impossible, forcing him to be stuck in his cursed form. This week should, from what I recall, be how Ranma learns the technique that will become his signature move. Other than that, I think there’s a festival? We’ll see, next paragraph.

Hey, I was right! There was a festival! Though, that’s not where the episode starts off. It begins where it left off, with the realization that Cologne had done something to Ranma that made it so that his skin was so sensitive to heat. He tries to overcome that by jumping into some water that I will assume is warm or hot, but the pain is so much that he passes out immediately, then wakes up being tended to by Kasumi and Nabiki, who dressed Ranma up in some of Nabiki’s lingerie.

He’s annoyed that they did that, but they’re of the opinion that Ranma should lighten up about the fact his body is stuck in a way he doesn’t want it and embrace acting like a girl. I do not like that. He goes on a walk, and is immediately attacked by Kuno, first as an actual attack and then with romance when he sees it’s his ‘pig-tailed girl’. Akane comes in to help, however.

Shampoo shows up, wanting to help Ranma. She says there is a way for him to be able to get rid of what Cologne did to him, and that way is the Phoenix Pill. It gives whoever takes it incredible heat resistance, and Cologne has one with her. When Akane asks why Shampoo is helping, she says it’s because she prefers Ranma’s uncursed state, and basically calls Akane a perverted lesbian for being okay with Ranma as he is.

Heading to the ramen restaurant that Cologne owns, Ranma finds she is waiting for him, openly carrying the pill he needs around her neck, but he’ll have to take it from her by force. He tries, and fails, a lot. Then he sees the cafe is hiring, and uses that as a way to try and get more opportunities to get the pill.

That doesn’t really work either, though Ranma’s presence as a cute waiter does make the place more popular with men. Eventually, Cologne shows Ranma a secret technique of the Amazons, one that would certainly help him get the pill: titular Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire technique. It’s basically a hand-to-hand move that involves moving the hands so quickly they can pull out chestnuts from a fire without burning the hands.

Ranma tries learning it with his father’s help later, but it doesn’t seem to be working, even when Cologne stops by to show him it again. The fact Genma can’t do it either is a bit of a factor too, of course. The others suggest Ranma go to the fair to relax, and Akane goes with him. He quickly starts having fun, to Akane’s relief, but then she sees a kid being scammed by a stall out of getting a fish.

She tries to help, but she can’t win the game either. Ranma jumps in, and handily manages to scoop up fish using a net that’s basically nonexistent. The stall-owner, not wanting to actually have to give away a prize, demands Ranma do it again with piranhas, but he realizes he can do it: all that time with Cologne has enhanced his speed, and what he’d need to do to catch the piranhas is basically the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken (which just sounds cooler than the translation), and he does it.

Now confident, Ranma goes to find Cologne, only to fall into a trapdoor. She sends illusions based on characters from Journey to the West after him, but he manages to chase her out of there and into an enormous public path area. She heads out onto the water, but Ranma uses a stick he stole from a monkey pretending to be the Monkey King to get out on the water. He does manage to use the technique and take what he thinks is the pill, only for Cologne to realize, just before he falls into hot water, that it’s a fake since she was afraid he might master the ability. The episode ends with him vowing to get the real one, and turn back to normal.

So, a lot happened, except also not a lot did. The big thing, obviously, was Ranma learning the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken, which will be basically his staple move. It works well for him, despite the silly name. Ranma’s always been fast, so giving him a technique built on speed just fits him. This is also basically the first time in the series he’s had to train and level up to face a tougher foe, so that’s neat.

Not as neat is all the misgendering. I know, to a lot of folks, all the stuff about other people wishing Ranma would just act ‘like a girl’ is either fun or harmless, but that’s not the case for me. Like I’ve said before, Ranma’s situation with his curse reads a lot to me like someone as a trans man, as he tries over and over again to insist to everyone that he is, in fact, a man regardless of what he looks like. There have been small moments of the Tendo sisters trying to get him to dress femininely before, but actually putting him in women’s clothes in his sleep just feels really wrong to me.

The front half of the episode was also pretty filler-y, not a lot happened, and the fluff wasn’t even particularly enjoyable. There were also a lot of coloring errors for a few characters hair, namely Shampoo and Ranma’s, as well as quite a few shots were some of them looked off-model, so it wasn’t particularly pleasing to the eyes, on the whole.

All of that said, I did enjoy a lot of the Akane stuff with this episode. Despite griping here and there, something about her being happy that Ranma, who has been run ragged, is able to enjoy himself at the festival, and about her trying to help that kid win a fish, it’s just cute. There were also just a lot of small moments between Ranma and Akane I liked peppered throughout.

This wasn’t really a bad episode, but it wasn’t a particularly good one either. It was a step on the path towards Ranma getting cured of his new ailment, as well as the story of how he learned his signature move. This episode was near the bottom for me, right between the first episode of the series and the third.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Now, next time we have another new character appearing, and it is once again to be someone we’ll get to know a lot more throughout the run of the series. Next time, we’ll cover “Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan” and perhaps I’ll get new insight into a character I was never originally a huge fan of. See you all then.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Aaaaaaaaand we’re back! It’s a new story arc on the Ranma Rewatch, and we’re more than halfway through Season 1 of Ranma 1/2. I honestly did not remember that the focal character for this arc was introduced now, I thought she wouldn’t be a thing until at least Season 2. To be honest, I’m also not super excited, just because this new character is probably my least favorite main member of the love dodecahedron. But hey, maybe I’ll like her more this time around! Next paragraph, I’ll have watched the episode, and we’ll see what I think.

So, uh, before I start the recap for this episode, one thing I feel like I have to say first.

CW: Attempted Sexual Assault played for humor

For now, make of that what you will. Anyway, the episode starts off with Ranma having just used his cursed form to score some extra sweets for what money he had, and is heading home. But he runs into three girls from his school facing down another girl from somewhere else. The Furinkan High girls are all injured, but still try to fight, only to be thrashed by the other girl’s ribbon and then sadistically assaulted by her.

Not liking that, Ranma intercedes, easily able to dodge the girl’s attacks, showing this newcomer that he can hold his own. She gives her name and title, Kodachi the Black Rose, throwing Ranma a literal black rose before leaping away and laughing. Ranma takes the hurt girls to Akane, who hears what’s going on.

The girls are all from Furinkan’s gymnastics club, and they were scheduled to enter a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics tournament. Only problem: Kodachi and her team ambushed and injured them badly enough that they can’t compete. With no other hope, they ask Akane to fight in their place, to which she accepts.

There’s only one major problem there: Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics requires the participants to use Rhythmic Gymnastic items as weapons, and while Akane tries to train with them, it becomes clear that she doesn’t have the skill necessary to use them. Think of Akane as a Fighter with high STR but low DEX. She gets angrier and angrier as she continues to try to find something she can do, only to be met with failure after failure.

Ryoga, as P-Chan, was hanging around watching, but can’t take it anymore. He runs into the bathtub, currently occupied by Mr. Tendo, and jumps into the hot water, changing back in front of him and heading back to the training hall to help Akane. He does everything he can to improve Akane’s skills, for which she’s grateful, but at the end of the session it’s clear Akane’s about as rubbish as she had been at the start.

As Akane goes to bed, Ranma tries talking to Ryoga, annoyed that he’s still trying to worm his way into Akane’s life. Ryoga’s reply is to insinuate that Ranma is getting jealous, something his immediate reaction makes look pretty accurate. But then before they can talk more, Ryoga jumps into the pond to return to being P-Chan, eager to snuggle up with Akane in bed again, something Ranma doesn’t want to let happen.

While Ranma chases the piglet around the house, Akane returns to her room and tries to sleep, only to realize that Kodachi was waiting for her, holding herself up in the ceiling, ready to attack. They start to fight, but just as Kodachi gets the upper hand Ranma enters in his chase of P-Chan, giving Akane the ability to break free of the ribbon. After they dart away again, Kodachi decides it’s enough for the night, and tells Akane they’ll finish the fight in the tournament.

As Kodachi runs along the Tendo families roof, she runs right into Ranma’s kettle of hot water, knocking her off the building. Seeing that, Ranma catches her, and she falls for him instantly. She uses a paralyzing powder to completely freeze Ranma in place, and then tries to kiss him while he can’t resist. The only thing that stops her is Akane investigating the noise on her roof, finding the two, and assuming Kodachi and Ranma were about to do the do over her bedroom. She sends Kodachi packing, but leaves Ranma up on the roof, unaware he had no say in the matter.

That’s the basic idea of the episode. Like I said at the start, this is the first episode to the next arc, so it’s mostly set-up. For the most part, it works to set up the character of Kodachi, and it does that well. She’s clearly eager to win at any cost, and a lot of attention is spent contrasting her aristocratic way of speaking with her underhanded and deadly actions. She is something unique, though there are hints of what will later connect her better to what we’ve had before.

She’s also the first rival Akane gets, and we see already that she’s into Ranma. It’s also shown that, specialties aside, she’s probably around Akane’s skill level in combat. Of course, it’s also shown that she’s way below Ranma’s strength, which is a bit disappointing. I don’t like that they chose to make Akane’s rival weak enough for Ranma to handle easily, instead of giving her a stronger opponent that she would have had to work harder to overcome. But of course, that would have meant giving Akane’s martial arts skills more of a focus.

Speaking of focus, can we talk about why I had a content warning in this? I can see why some people might feel it may be a bit over-the-top to use such a warning, since Kodachi seemed to just be after some lip-to-lip action, but I felt it was a good idea regardless. Kiss or no, Kodachi wanted Ranma utterly helpless so she could do whatever she wanted to him, and it’s hard not to look at it as sexual assault, or at least attempted sexual assault. I’m a little iffy on that as a thing to use to set up the bad guy, and we’ll see if that’s a trend that continues with her.

I’m not doing a Character Spotlight this week because I feel it’s too early to talk about Kodachi just yet, and I don’t think there are any other characters I’d like to cover more in-depth. Genma Saotome is the only regular so far I haven’t covered with a Spotlight, and that’s because I’ve wanted him to actually be a bit more involved in an episode’s plot, which we haven’t had in a while.

As for my thoughts on this episode as a whole, I’m not totally against it. It does a good job setting up what’s to come next, Kodachi gets a decent introduction as a villain, and there were a few moments I liked. But aside from the uncomfortable rooftop scene, on the whole the episode was mostly just sort of “there”. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m actually putting it exactly in the middle of what I’ve covered so far. Room for improvement, which I hope to see next week.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Next time I’ll be covering Episode 12, the midpoint of this arc, titled “A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!” Once again, I love this kinds of titles. Hope to see you all then!