#genderfluid ranma for the win

[canadiancryptid]

Discovered Ranma 1/2 for the first time. For those who haven't heard of it, basic premise is that Ranma Satome and Akane Tendo are in an arranged marage by their fathers, intended to unite both their family's martial arts schools. Neither of them are thrilled about it.

Oh and because of his dumbass father bringing him to a legendary training ground in China and not stopping long enough to heed the warnings, Ranma has a curse that causes him to turn into a girl whenever he's splashed by cold water. Hot water reverses the effects. Also an important detail.

Enjoying it so far. Went back to watch some of the original 1989 run, and while they did have to condense some parts of the story in the new version, it seems to be an improvement in every way. Looking forward to seeing more whenever the next season comes out, hopefully. Not sure if that's been confirmed yet.

[volleypearlfan]

Ranma 1/2 Intro for Newcomers

The popular classic anime Ranma 1/2 is getting a remake. Ranma tends to be a favorite among older anime crowds, but it's not very known by today's generation, and since the remake will lead to a spike in interest for the Ranma franchise, here is everything you need to know.

Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi, the same author behind Urusei Yatsura, whose remake recently wrapped up, and Inuyasha. The basic premise is about a young martial artist named Ranma who is cursed to turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, and can turn back into a guy when splashed with hot water. He is engaged to be married to a girl named Akane, who has a hot temper and bickers with him a lot. Soon, Ranma, both in male and female forms, attracts multiple admirers who try to win his affection, as does Akane, resulting in a humongous love dodecahedron balanced with comedy and martial-arts action.

Things to know:

Ranma pioneered the harem anime genre, but it is very different from the stuff you see nowadays, since his harem is pretty small compared to others (he only ends up being engaged to three girls), and Ranma is not a bland self-insert like modern harem protags. He actually has a personality, agency, and is not perverted like other harem MCs. That doesn't stop Akane from mistaking him for one though.

There is a lot of wacky slapstick humor in the series, usually consisting of Akane punching Ranma. Akane and Ranma both qualify as tsundere characters. They do actually love each other even though they fight a lot, they're just too insecure to show it.

Other characters possess their own curses. Ranma's father is cursed to turn into a panda; Shampoo, one of Ranma's fiancee, is cursed to turn into a cat, Mousse, who has an unrequited crush on Shampoo, is cursed to turn into a duck; and Ryoga, who has a crush on Akane, is cursed to turn into a pig named "P-Chan"

Although martial arts is a big part of the story, I'd say most of the drama and development are centered around the romance stuff.

Unlike other shonen series, who stretch out their arcs, Ranma has multiple small, self-contained arcs focused on introducing new characters or martial arts techniques. A complete list of them is available here.

The anime has a lot of filler episodes (as in, not adapted from the manga), but a few of them are worth watching. My personal favorites are Akane Goes to the Hospital and Am I... Pretty? Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood

Ranma has a huge LGBT following due to its gender bending premise. Many transfems cite it as helping them realize they were trans. The title character is commonly interpreted to be a trans woman, genderfluid, bigender, etc. The latter episode mentioned above is a favorite among them because in it, Ranma hits his head and starts acting girlier, even in his male form. This is notable because Ranma usually seems to not like his female form. Like other amnesia episodes, this doesn't last, but Ranma seemed genuinely happier like this.

That said, the series is also outdated in some respects. Look no further than the Tsubasa arc. The character, Tsubasa, was originally thought to be a lesbian, which disgusted the characters. It turns out that he's actually a cishet guy who likes crossdressing, which relieves the characters, but still disgusts them because of the crossdressing part. It's painful to watch.

The earlier episodes of the anime have lots of uncensored nudity (male and female alike), even showing nipples. This gets dialed back in later seasons, though. I don't recall Ukyo, the last of Ranma's fiances, ever getting nude scenes like Akane and Shampoo did. It’s not pornographic by any means, it’s just kinda there.

All of the characters are flawed people (except for Kasumi) who do bad things, some worse than others. This is what makes the series funny and interesting

There is a perverted character named Happosai, an old guy who likes stealing girls underwear. Unlike a character like Master Roshi, however, Happosai is not a good guy. He’s one of the villains in the series and is consistently portrayed in a negative light, since, besides being a pervert, he abused Genma and Soun.

There are technically two runs of the original anime. The first run ran for 18 episodes before being cancelled. Soon, it came back with a much longer run called “Ranma 1/2 Netto-hen.” The martial arts figure skating arc episodes were supposed to be in the original run, but they were pulled because of then-current events. The arc involves P-chan being kidnapped, and around the time it was supposed to air, Tsutomu Miyazaki kidnapped and murdered several young girls. The arc was later aired as part of Nettohen, but on the Blu-ray and on streaming, the arc is included as part of season 1.

Ranma had some of the earliest “waifu wars” in anime fandom. In the early days of the internet, people would go into “trench wars” on forums about whether Akane, Shampoo, or Ukyo is better it’s Akane btw

Ranma has a very large fan fiction presence, so you’ll likely never run out of Ranma fics to read

Ranma has a large Mexican fanbase, and it is very easy to find fan pages and information in Spanish. It’s popular in Mexico for the same reason that Dragon Ball is - it aired on local TV in the 80s and 90s.

The anime was dubbed in Vancouver, and you might recognize familiar voices from the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, Inuyasha, and Death Note. Brigitta Dau was the first voice of female Ranma, but after six episodes, she moved away and was replaced by Venus Terzo for the rest of the series. In the dub, male Ranma was actually voiced by a woman, Sarah Strange, at first, but starting with episode 65, she was replaced by a man, Richard Ian Cox. Good luck trying to unhear Inuyasha.

Besides the anime series, there are several movies and OVAs, some of which adapt manga stories.

The anime is available on Tubi, Peacock, and Hulu

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 195 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: The gang’s all here and it’s the final roundup before the attack on the Death Star. There’s this kinda funny scene where the Space UN tests trying to fight outside the Wifi Net Quiet Zero has and their shield is impervious to energy and takes control of any guided missiles they throw, like I know bullets are illegal in space because it’s basically zero gravity pollution and that gets messy real fast but you might wanna try it just this once. Anyway Miorine’s in full blanket burrito mode and Guel challenges Suletta to an Utena duel and I’m not entirely sure why he’s doing this. Like I don’t wanna say he throws the duel because that would be kind of an insult to Suletta and all she’s done but the reason he gives is kind of that silly pride shit he’s supposed to have outgrown. So like I think he is trying but knows she’ll win regardless and free Miorine from the idea of being married to the strongest person chosen for her so she can meet with the person she already chose dressed in the champion’s regalia she deserves. The two finally meet and have a very nice conversation that kinda converges their character arcs, Suletta has to act even if it’s hopeless because she can’t live with doing nothing, and Miorine has to overcome her fear of making mistakes that get people killed by letting Suletta risk her life and taking decisive action on her own. The part I really like about the next bit is they plan to send Chuchu’s suit in without wifi enabled so Quiet Zero can’t do shit to it like sending an old landline computer in to infilitrate a wifi network and they compare it to driving while blindfolded which is EXACTLY what Chuchu did in her intro, like that’s some beautiful foreshadowing, I kinda love how on the nose it is. Suletta clears the test of not fucking dying when they strap her into the Monster Energy Drink Gundam and Miorine closes a deal with Shadiq so they can have all their character arc cameos ready for the Hopes & Dreams Save the World final battle. Lauda picked the absolute worst time to fight it out with Guel about killing their dead in giant unpainted mobile suits and Suletta charges in determined to communicate with Eri and Prospera, good shit.

Ranma ½: A lot of this first episode really plays around with the dramatic irony of the premise which is kind of a double-edged sword since if most people know anything about Ranma as a series it’s the premise. Trans Icon Ranma Saotome was cursed to turn into a girl whenever he’s dipped in water and turns back into a boy when dipped in hot water, with his dad doing the same but he becomes some sort of Kung Fu Panda, what a ridiculous idea. I like how tongue in cheek the cursed springs are like they’re literally just a hundred different premises for various anime about cursed people and Ranma just happened to get the only one that gives him massive tits. Anyway now the main story kicks in where Ranma and Genma are returning from China, having for some reason picked NOW for the time his genderfluid son has to engage in an arranged power marriage instead of figuring out the whole ‘am I okay with sometimes having tits or do I wanna get the curse broken’ deal. There’s three choices but realistically the only one Ranma has any chemistry with and the only one with any interest in running a dojo is comedically overpowered Akane. They go through a whole thing of showing how Ranma’s ridiculously faster than her but they don’t touch on if he’s actually stronger since she seems to just kinda have the kind of sociopathic superstrength that makes beating the shit out of someone with a random background object funny, like she’s Shizuo Heiwajima without the invulnerability. Problem being Akane has some massive misandry issues and sees Ranma as a man first and feels lied to about him introducing himself as a woman (I feel like there’s some trans subtext there, I don’t generally like pushing that on things where people almost certainly weren’t thinking like that at the time but it is worth noting that it does kinda line up nicely) meanwhile Ranma has some complicated feelings about it given he really did want to be friends with Akane and bonded with her over fighting but feels his gender got in the way in the end. Some complex emotional stuff right off the bat and I am kinda here for it even if these people seem to take a crazy amount of baths since we have to do the ‘they walk in on each other naked’ bit like three times in the same night. But yeah, interesting start, I know a lot of this is gonna be slapstick and fanservice but I am kinda interested in how the gender issues and the psychological stuff is handled given their relationship has hit such a roadblock right away and both feel betrayed by the other. I remember a lot of the Inuyasha filler kinda defaulted to “Kagome’s right because she’s mad and the mad person is always right” but if I recall the canon stuff was a bit more nuanced and of course the ‘women are always right’ tropes is kind of challenged when Ranma is also sometimes a woman so we’ll see how that goes.  

Castlevania: We’re like three episodes from the end so it seems to be a weird time to be building up a new villain in Varney and especially in Ratko but a good chunk of the episode is just them shouting their philosophies at each other. Now that Hector and Isaac’s plots are wrapped up there’s an odd tacked-on feeling to the more episodic plot of resurrecting Dracula. Still, Alucard’s starting to regrow some of his humanity now that survivors have started staying at the castle and it’s clear he’s not willing to even begin processing all the fucked up shit his dad did and what he had to do to stop him but needing to actually store people in the castle is kind of forcing his hand a bit. Meanwhile Germain’s setting up Hector’s portal magic in weirdly conspicuous spots around paintings and eventually plants the end point on the spot where Dracula died so yeah that’s gonna be a mess. Last but not least Trevor and Sypha finally make it down to the court of miracles and find the royalty is fucking dead and this girl that’s been taxing everyone is just crazy and… yeah that was kind of obvious from the start, they kinda play with how insane she is but honestly she’s just kinda the worst, it’s just kind of a ‘Cool story, still despotism’ situation but before anybody can worry about getting the citizens any actual help Ratko barges in with his demon dogs to presumably look for the incredibly powerful broken magical thing Trevor’s been muttering in the corner about for the past ten minutes.

Dandadan: Momo is a very un-average girl that no one understands and gets into a fierce dork-off with local nerd Ken after her boyfriend dumped her and the two resolve to call the other one’s supernatural beliefs stupid, with Ken believing in aliens and Momo believing in ghosts, welp turns out they’re both right and we have a Gintama style anachronism soup right here. Momo reveals her adoptive grandmother is a Monogatari-style ghost asskicker whose general weirdness alienated her from Momo even though she loves her. Meanwhile Ken’s just a fucking lonely-ass dude who wanted alien friends since he was also literally alienated and the two aren’t so different. Ken ends up getting cursed by an old lady ghost that steals his dick and gives him superpowers while Momo gets captured by Pixie Aliens that want to sexually assault her because this is still an anime and we gotta have someone in their underwear in the first episode. Points for subversion though as it turns out Ken’s ghost powers are kinda berserker and useless while Momo gets esper powers from the alien drugs unlocking her latent chi and is able to basically turn into Tatsumaki from One Punch Man and blow up the whole fucking spaceship. So yeah, good opening, aliens are defeated but they still have to deal with Ken’s curse and stop him from going crazy while they sort out his whole deal. Really neat start, reminds me of when I watched the first episode of Jujutsu Kaisen and they’re laying the emotional groundwork while not cleaning up the initial encounter right away, it’s always a vibe to see those initial few grounded episodes before things start getting really crazy.

Delicious in Dungeon: The group has finally become level 4 friends and unlocked Senshi’s tragic backstory. Turns out when Senshi was a kid his group got trapped in the dungeon looking for gold and ended up running out of food and getting picked off by a Griffin. All of that would be enough to traumatize Senshi but what’s worse is his leader fet him some of the supposed griffin meat right after getting into a heated argument with their last surviving member so Senshi’s not sure if he really ate a Griffin or he ended up being a cannibal and really enjoying it. Once he was left alone he made friends with the orcs and grew up in the dungeon, finding that even though he could physically leave it, too much had happened for him to ever be able to mentally leave it. So now the group make a fun cooking adventure out of the question “Is Senshi a cannibal?” and there’s some shenanigans but short answer is no he’s not, the dwarves were just bad at monster classification and they ate a Hippogriff instead and as convenience has it, the griffin they killed was actually a transformed hippogriff (good because having another pinned sidequest would kinda wreck the pacing). Now that all that’s wrapped up, the party’s also transformed by the mushrooms that got the Hippogriffin and all swap races, shenanignas ensue. It’s pretty funny watching everyone weigh the pros and cons of their new race but given it’s not what they’ve trained to specialize in all their lives, it’s a major disadvantage for most of them. Now they’ve reached the Skyrim Steampunk Dwarven ruins and before they end up having to fight any steampunk golems they camp out and have some dumplings and try to figure out a way to change back.

Gleipnir: Shuuichi is an average kid that no one understands (Hey, had to play that straight once this week) and he’s actively burying his talents in some Yoshikage Kira-esque attempt to be seen as normal, except instead of cutting off hands and summoning punching ghosts he turns into a dog mascot that’s basically a shitty clumsy version of Inuyasha without the sword. He gets an enhanced sense of smell and is seemingly very sensitive to the scent of death when he stops a young girl from killing herself via arson and the Shinji Ikari factor kicks in and he wants to take her panties off because this is still an anime and we WILL have someone in their underwear in the first episode. So I expected Clair to be the key to the inevitable impending death game that involves transforming mascot characters but no, turns out she’s just a suicidal girl and a jerk that blackmails Shuuichi (I mean to be fair he did sexually assault her so they’re both kinda jerks, idk who I’m supposed to be rooting for but Clair’s the more outwardly scummy out the gate) but they do end up getting attacked by another transforming assassin and will surely unravel said inevitable death game soon enough. Side note but my GOD this anime is horny, like obviously that’s not something I particularly mind given I just finished Konosuba and Ranma and Dandadan are on the block but this one’s different there’s a lot of underwear and panties and bras and shit for no real reason and it just feels like it’s just there to be voyeuristic and wish-fulfillment as opposed to adding flavor or character or even comedy, like ngl Clair’s hot don’t get me wrong but the fanservice here is so wild and blatant something kinda rubs me the wrong way since we’ve essentially got more panties than plot in the first episode.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: We pick up right where we left off last time with Saiyonji being exepelled and going presumably on his own Chazz Princeton rich boy humbling arc like Guel. This whole episode we see how two-faced Touga can be as he promises to care for Saiyonji’s safe passage and immediately burns his diary and how he pretends to not know what’s going on despite having an Aizen-like plan for this whole thing. Turns out he’s the next up to fight Utena but he still hasn’t healed, luckily there’s another Skywalker to come fight the pink-haired anime girl. Nanami’s pissed at Utena for getting Touga injured and Utena just kinda takes it since she’s feeling a little guilty too. Her whole demeanor towards Touga is softer and more awkward for a lot of the episode and she feels like if she can just thank him she can get it off her chest. At Touga’s birthday party they try to talk but Nanami steps in to shove them away and we get intermittent flashbacks of her giving Touga a kitten for his birthday when they were little which thanks to the cosmic parallel factor of the Utena world is what Anthy got him this year. They really do some work to make Nanami seem like a genuine threat again and that’s a hard sell given we’ve had several straight episodes of her failing Team Rocket style and getting trampled by elephants. Still the flashbacks reveal she fucking killed the original cat since he liked it too much despite her earnest hardwork in giving it to him being the reason he liked it in the first place, like that crosses the line between comedically crazy girl to genuine nutcase. Either way this all proceeds according to Touga’s plan and he crowns Nanami as the next duelist and she and Utena will fight. The actual duel’s kind hilariously quick but Nanami’s not here to marry Anthy she just wants to straight up kill Utena and comes out for blood. Eventually they get her restrained and Touga gets the info he needs to fight Utena next, also Nanami kinda looks better with her hair down, damn.

[wirewitchviolet]

Let’s talk about how Ranma is trans, part 2

Continuing on from this post, up to the midpoint of the original manga run, there’s a couple comments I’ve gotten that I should address. First off, I typoed Genma’s name as Gendo a LOT (which I’ve since fixed). To be fair, they’re both really horrible fathers. A couple people raised the point that there is a much stronger case to be made that Ranma is genderfluid than a girl, and... I mean, yeah. It’s literally a story about someone flipping back and forth between being a boy and a girl effectively at will and if I were every in some weird situation where various underrepresented minorities were having some kind of draft for who officially gets to claim which fictional characters, Team Genderfluid totally gets to claim Ranma (and Marvel Loki, and actual-mythology Loki, but keep your hands off all these girls). For purposes of this thought exercise here though, all the arguments and evidence stay the same, it’s just that her going boy-mode for large chunks of the day and avoiding/curing conditions that leave her “stuck” as a girl get written off as “sometimes she prefers that” rather than “the trauma and looming threat from her parents don’t allow her to get too comfortable and make her feel guilty and anxious as a full-time girl,” which is also why she half-heartedly pursues a “cure” now and then.

Also someone in the comments of part 1 pointed out that at the end of V3C10, Ranma, referring to the random one-off villain who gives her her first kiss, says “For the first time in my whole life, I’m really mad!” and it shows. Which, you know, further proves that she didn’t get mad over, say, getting cursed. There’s also a strong argument that all the times Ranma “accidentally” ends up in girl mode early on are secretly intentional (I mean, she consistently trains on the lips of ponds, walks on fences on the sides of bridges, etc.) but pointing that out felt like reaching and it’s not like there’s a shortage of clear cut stuff to point at. On which note, hey, how does Volume 11 start?

... It really is just amazing how deeply messed up the whole Ranma/Akane/Ryoga relationship is. I glossed over this before since I was counting on everyone reading this to already be fairly familiar with the material, but the deal is, Ryoga is an old friend/rival of Ranma’s from grade school, who once challenged her to a fight over something inconsequential like the last sausage in the lunch room (basically every conflict in Ranma is motivated by the concept that you can win someone’s affection through a challenge, or by “hey I was going to eat that!”) but they never had that fight, because Ryoga’s sense of direction is so terrible he often gets lost for hours/days trying to get to places a few blocks away. He ends up following her to China looking to have that fight, also gets cursed (turning into a cute little black piglet), there’s an issue with almost accidentally being eaten, but eventually they have their much-delayed fight, and mostly catch up as friends, to the point where Ryoga basically moves in with her and the Tendos.

Past that, Ranma Akane and Ryoga are all really good friends, hanging out together, training together, teaming up in every possible configuration for absurd battles against whoever. This story here kicks off with Ryoga wanting to check on his unseen family’s dog after she had puppies and Ranma dropping everything to help him get there without getting lost.

Those would be the healthiest relationships in the series (and arguably they still are because again, everyone is a jerk), but gets complicated by how all three have crushes on each other they don’t want to admit, and denial there gets twisted into stuff like Ryoga’s curse form getting adopted as Akane’s pet pig she treats like a stuffed animal, with nobody ever correcting her, and Ranma sabotaging any situation where the other two might start dating, never by pointing out that she and Akane are formally a couple and engaged even, but by... going girl mode and laying claim to Ryoga herself.

Worst part is, if she ever admitted her actual motivation for doing it, they’d probably have the most stable and healthy romantic relationship in the series. Nobody else comes close to their levels of trust and chemistry.

Incidentally, it isn’t impossible to argue that Ryoga is also a closeted trans girl. He reacts to Ranma with the same “how is turning into a hot girl a curse!?” every trans woman does, doesn’t really exhibit any of the toxic masculinity every single other guy in the series is overwhelmingly defined by, and coaches both Ranma and Akane in how to do a couple things too typically feminine for either of them to have familiarity with, and develops a fighting technique that weaponizes self-loathing. Oh and he actually falls for the above ruse of Ranma beng a younger sister he somehow forgot he had by the way (and not Akane, and this goes on for 2 chapters and change).

I actually don’t expect a lot of fresh evidence in this batch that isn’t “Ranma comes up with a plan to do something that involves dressing in a very cute and feminine outfit and acting super girly where it would be easier to stay in boy mode. To keep from skipping too far ahead without commentary, here’s another relatable to trans people out of context page.

Volume 12 has her putting on a skimpy Hawaiian dress and full on seducing Kuno to avoid getting a mandated uniform hair cut for school... and then goes for another instance of “I’ll pretend to be Ryoga’s girlfriend to interrupt a date between him and Akane.” And then almost immediately follows that with a plan that involves... dressing as Akane and passionately hugging Ryoga under a waterfall (admittedly there’s a lot of convolution going on where this actually is a reasonable thing to do), with one goal being the obtainment of a bar of “water proof soap” which has consistently been shown in this volume to be so powerful that just having it briefly bounce off one’s head is enough to lock them, theoretically permanently, in the form they are in. So, this would qualify based on what everyone is aware of:

Unfortunately it washes off after a bit, so Ryoga’s still stuck going pig and Ranma still goes all manly when having a hot bath.

Volume 13 is basically all just training for a fight against the closest thing the series has to a straight up villain, but it does involve Ranma voluntarily doing a sexy photo shoot as a distraction and everyone else pointing out that this is basically her approach to every problem:

Volume 15 starts with... Ranma going ultra girl mode to seduce a guy for contrived reasons. Take a shot. Oh and it’s a case where every character acknowledges that she hasn’t thought this plan through and there is literally no way it’d actually work.

Volume 16... take a shot.

Seriously though, we spend an entire book (and continue into volume 17 with this arc where Ranma gets engaged to a random French guy, moves in with him, and goes through all this training to be a properly elegant lady wearing corsets and gowns and practicing etiquette with no goal in mind other than learning his family’s secret technique for... eating food. Because said technique has “martial” in the name. I’m not really a fan of this arc, if only because I hate seeing trans girls starve themselves to fit in tight dresses (and the bit with the metal corset so tight she can’t switch to boy mode reminds me of Forced Feminizaton stories). Still, I don’t see how anyone can read this arc and make any serious claim that Ranma is actually a guy.

I believe this arc is also where the site I’m swiping scans from switches to fan translations, for some reason. It’s worth noting though that the following storyline is basically “Hey, Ranma? You wanna maybe try sticking in boy mode for more than 5 minutes and try being in the more masculine role on a date for a change?” And she is... visibly uncomfortable as hell with that.

Volume 18 brings us the victim of the “spring of drowned yeti riding an ox holding a crane in one hand and an eel in the other,” a one-dimensional villain. And, going by this translation anyway, he just up and goes there.

Note the telling smirk of the trans girl who has suffered the correctly gendered insult though. But of course being a cartoon villain, he really leans into that one.

Yeah yeah, you and the nazis and the TERFs. Take a number. Also get out of my weirdly trans-positive manga you creep. I am curious what term he actually uses in the original Japanese here though. Based on the age, and a fan translator going that specific, I would guess ニューハーフ?

Anyway, in keeping with trans coding being all over this series, this villain’s motivation is where he’s from, nobody will recognize a legal name change without your original birth certificate. Or, without the creepy old lecherous dude who gave it to you giving you a new one, technically. But still, I hate Pantyhose Taro, and his whole book of an arc.

Volume 19, wherein Kuno gets amnesia, Ranma gets a sexy new bathing suit because why shouldn’t she, and randomly has a dream about settling down with him and having a bunch of kids. To date we have seen 2 of Ranma’s dreams, and in both, she’s hooking up with this dude.

Volume 20 starts off with Ranma hitting on Ryoga again. No date to interrupt though, he just picked up that depression based attack, and she’s buttering him up to get a demonstration so she can study it. Seriously though just bang already. I find myself shipping these two so hard on this reread. Oh and in V20C9 Ranma agrees to go on a pity date with the disembodied soul of a comatose old man who’s been showng up in her romantic dreams in Kuno’s place for a change. She actually has a really good time, too.

Seriously, nothing’s at stake there, there’s no mind control, or bet, or challenge, or promise. Just, yeah heck with it, I’ll date the astrally projecting old man. And that one just ends by finding out she isn’t standing in for his dead wife and he isn’t actually dying, so, it’d be weird to keep it going. And then there’s a quick Kuno arc where she’s just worried about him ending up with an album of her candid nudes.

So yeah, at the halfway point of Ranma 1/2 here, Ranma has... frankly just totally embraced the fact that she’s a girl, and that she’s bi. No more making excuses, no more pretending she doesn’t like wearing girly clothes, getting into all the feminine stuff she missed out on as a little girl because of her parents. And I mean, again, this doesn’t require any sort of deep reading. I’m not skipping over anything that really enforces masculinity. This whole quarter of the entire work is just fight scenes, embracing girliness, and a couple awkward efforts at living the cis dude life which are clearly uncomfortable. Plus dealing with her first proper transphobic bigot. Ranma is totally freaking trans, folks.

Continued in Part 3.