520https://www.animefeminist.com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/10/Ranma.C2BD.full.10098.jpg I was a boy when I first watched Ranma . Today I am a man if not mentally then legally and physically. While childhood nostalgia shouldnt interfere with rating a work Im giving a fair warning if you dont think Im being objective enough. Ranma is important to me. I recall watching the show during middle school. We didnt have internet then so Id ride my bike across my halfsquare mile township furiously pedalling to get to the local library where Id go to Youtube to MP4 and download Ranma episodes onto my flash drive to watch on my netbook in the evenings. Ranma never failed to make me laugh. For what its worth childhood or no I dont think Id continue to watch a show so passionately if it wasnt any good. The final episode was bittersweet I finally had finished my favorite anime. Hungry for more it wasnt long until I decided to pick up the manga which continued after the animes cancellation. And now that Ive turned the page of the last chapter of the last volume Im left with that same feeling as I had years ago when I finished the show: bittersweet. Allow me to share with you the sweetness I experienced while reading Ranma . Ranma served as a gateway series for many an anime fan in the nineties not unlike Sailor Moon and a bit later Dragon Ball Z. Given the timeframe of the height of Ranma s popularity it gave birth to one of the biggest anime fan communities on the web. To this day it isnt hard at all to find Ranma fanfiction. Its easy to underestimate just how big Ranma was because its virtually unknown today. If the name Rumiko Takahashi means anything to the layman anime watcher its probably as the creator of Inuyasha with many people watching anime today never even hearing of Ranma . So an explanation of the insane plot is in order. Ranma Saotome is forced by his father Genma Saotome to accompany him to Furinkan a neighborhood in Nerima Tokyo Japan where his martial arts buddy Soun Tendo lives with his three daughters. Ranma Saotome is set to be betrothed to the middle Tendo daughter Akane a tomboy. Not long after meeting its clear that Akane and Ranma dont take to one another too well. Making Ranmas life even more of a pain is his secret. After falling in the spring of drowned girl while on a training expedition in China with his father Ranma was cursed. When splashed with cold water he becomes a she and hot water turns him back into a male. 420https://am22.akamaized.net/tms/cnt/uploads/2014/12/ranma4704x1024.jpg Ranma is a romantic comedy harem ecchi martial arts sitcom manga. Crazier than even the plot and crazier than how many different categories Ranma falls under is the fact that it works. Ranma starts out as a romantic comedy focusing on the dynamics between Ranma and Akane. Before long as more and more characters are added to the cast Ranma transforms in a way that cements it as one of the best comedy manga. Ranma features a truly colorful cast of characters from the honorable brooding lovesick Ryoga Hibiki one of my favorite characters of all time to the violent yet affectionate Shampoo to the lecherous martial arts master Happosai to the moneyobsessed and morally dubious Nabiki Tendo to the kind yet dangerously setinherways matriarch of the Saotome household Nadoka Saotome. Ranma 1/2 is light on character development your mileage may vary as to this being a bad thing/how bad this is which Ill get into in a bit but in spite or perhaps somewhat because of this the characters in the manga are very very welldefined. The characters are so distinct and animated that it would be a shame not to see how these characters interact with one another. Fortunately Takahashi seems to know this and after the principal characters are introduced Ranma shifts its focus from Akane and Ranma to the cast at large as we see how they play off of one another. Hilarity ensues and I love it because the possibilities are endless and the characters are so wild that they get into truly insane scenarios. Takahasis creativity knows no bounds and even oneshot characters often leave impressions because theyre so outthere in terms of concept design or both one such character that comes to mind for me is the Panda Doodle a poorlydrawn picture of a panda that comes to life and wont go back into her scroll until shes kissed by a handsome man. Its also interesting to see what new Jusenkyo curses will pop up. The situations in the manga are driven by the characters outlandish personalities such as Ranmas insane ego that doesnt allow him to lose anything. Adding to the comedy are the facial expressions which turn my chuckles into fullon laughs. Im partial to Takahashis running visual gag of drawing the faces of flabbergasted characters often Ranma as Henohenomoheji . 520https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ranma/images/4/4d/HenoHenoMoheji.png/revision/latest?cb=20130321053241 Besides being a sitcom Ranma is an action manga featuring loads of martial arts. The wackiness of the plot bleeds into this. Ranma features a whole slew of mundane activities that are given a competitive martial spin such as martial arts cooking. That said as shown by her later works such as Inuyasha Takahashi is no slouch when it comes to bonafide action and my action itch was scratched when Takahasi got serious and showed fights with stakes. The manga can definitely be serious at times in both terms of action and plot. This is a nice break from the episodic nature of the series at times but it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of characterization. I generally have a kneejerk reaction to harem manga. Ranma features one of the largest being the trope codifier for love dodecahedronhttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoveDodecahedron and unwanted haremhttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwantedHarem. Given this you may wonder how I can stomach it. The secret lies in the latter trope: the harem is unwanted and its played for comedy. The harem generally exists to make Ranmas life miserable and while sure you can insert yourself due to liking a few members of the harem the point of it isnt just to be mindless eye candy. If harems arent your thing it being a part of Ranma isnt a reason to skip over this series. Its weird critiquing something you love. Because you must now think about why you love such a thing perhaps realizing that you cant quite articulate why. Or worse in taking a hard look at its faults you realize it isnt as good as you realized. And despite that you may still love it. 520https://data.whicdn.com/images/15577291/large.jpg I still love Ranma though I realize that even if its the perfect show for me its not perfect for everyone and perhaps it wouldnt even be the perfect show for me if I was introduced to it when I was older and not via the anime DVD section of my local library when I was twelve. Perhaps you being the astute reader have realized another problem: Im enamored with the anime not the manga. Dont get me wrong. I still love the manga and there are problems that the manga and anime both share for sure but the manga has unique problems as well. I wont focus on the lack of music and that dated 80s art and the EDs that blast me back to a time the I never experienced yet have an odd sense of nostalgia towards all the same. This isnt a fault of the manga. The mangas greatest strength its characters plays a part in its greatest weakness the lack of recurring characters. Let me explain. As stated before Ranma features loads upon loads of characters and when they interact its great but they dont do it enough for my liking leading me to feel like theyre underused. More often than not Ranma and Akane meet a oneoff character. Adding salt to the wound is the fact that there are characters with their own epic arcs such as Pantyhose Taro and Herb but theyre only seen twice at best. I can count the number of times one of my favorite characters Principal Kuno appeared in the manga using one hand. Fans of manga say that the anime cuts out various characters. Im inclined to care less when the characters dont really appear that much. Granted the characters are still great I just wish they interacted more like in the anime. Then theres the lack of growth. In fostering a light tone status quo often needs to be maintained. Without some sense of status quo the episodic nature wouldnt work but still its downright oppressive at times in that nothing ever changes. I get that its not a romantic comedy anymore but it makes me not care about Ranma or Akane at all. It just gets tiring with no romantic progress especially since the mangaka wants us to like them as a couple but throughout the manga they hardly ever make nice. The manga doesnt even let them have a happilyeverafter they just argue a bit more. I know that this is supposed to give the sense of the adventures continuing indefinitely but it just makes me feel like the ending is cheap. It was cute seeing all the characters one last time though. I didnt bother putting a spoiler tag because nothing really matters in Ranma the sooner you realize this the sooner youll be happier. I remember years ago screencapping Ranma and Akane kissing and excitedly showing a sibling only to unpause the video and discover that Akane had applied duct tape to Ranmas lips. 520https://wallpaperset.com/w/full/9/5/b/140612.jpg The comedy can also be a bit hit or miss. At times it can be a bit juvenile and crass possibly due to the temporal and geological borders there is an unconscious body swap joke at least twice. And as kind of hinted before the tone can be a bit dismal with no one seemingly getting along with each other. If you take this too seriously it can make the manga uncomfortable to read after a while. For what its worth the anime does a better job of making me happy though both the manga and anime can make me laugh. When its all said and done I still love Ranma whether in anime or manga form. My love isnt completely irrational while its not perfect Ranma is still a humorously zany manga that needs to be seen to be believed. Im glad I discovered it. It is my hope that in reading this others can come to love the anime and manga the same way I have. Love it so much that if they ever want to go to Japan then like me theyd want to visit Nerima. At the end of the final original Viz publication of the manga Rumiko Takahashi wrote to her readers expressing that she would be happy if the characters from Ranma would stay in their hearts and remain their friends for life. I know that shell never read this but Im pleased to say at least for one man her wish has been granted. Whether I die tomorrow or in eighty years the cast of Ranma will remain in my heart for the rest of my life and seeing them will always bring a smile to my face even in the fiercest of storms and the darkest of nights. 8.5/10 B But a 9 for the manga and a 10 for the anime in my heart 320https://i.pin.com/236x/91/5e/92/915e928336f3202262293db7bbbd6d95mangabooksmangaanime.jpg