Ranma ½

I am completely addicted to this classic show. Even though there are a ton of clichés and anime stereotypes here (this is forgivable as this show came before so many others), I never got tired of watching Ranma turn into a girl/punched/rage or felt that the comedy or romance didn't click. Ranma 1/2 just has a feel and style of its own that can't be copied. It's such an entertaining, comical and lighthearted show that you can't help but to keep on watching until the very (long) end.

I watched a little of it dubbed when I was younger but the original Japanese voices and subs make this show sooooooooo much better. While the animation is a bit old, I would highly recommend checking out the recently remastered BluRay (ahem... Doki subs... ahem) release as it improves the visual quality by leaps and bounds. The fight scenes are still well done for a show from the very early 90s. And of course, the characters are what truly make this show shine. Shampoo (wo ai ni), Ranma, Happosai, Genma, Ryouga, Ukyo, Cologne, the Kuno siblings (I'll even throw in Akane) are just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on. Once the full cast is introduced (especially Master Happosai in the middle of season 2), the show just becomes a well-oiled machine of laughs.

Some complain that there are too many fillers vs the manga material, but I enjoyed them all nonetheless. Unfortunately, the show does just kind of end without resolving things but that is what the manga is for. It finishes off the rest of the adventure and does not disappoint at all. I highly recommend watching (or rewatching) Ranma 1/2 for all anime fans, old and young, because it is a classic for a reason. And when the battle theme below comes on, you can't help but get in the fighting spirit yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z04FpaILfE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGd5F0tCke8

**Pros:**
**Ranma 1/2** hooks the watcher at the start with an interesting premise. That being martial arts and fantastical elements like curses. Mixing both these elements results in a lot of unique and interesting situations. Throughout the first 18 episodes of the show, it slowly expands the cast of characters and before you know it, you're attached to almost all of the characters. This works in the show's favour as a lot of the episodes are about interactions between various characters and placing them in unique circumstances. Each character has clear motivations and quirks that are set up when they're introduced. These are used for great comedic effect throughout the show and result in a generally funny show, that got a chuckle out of me quite often. My favourite character relationship is Ranma's and Akane's and the emotional scenes they do have are always nice to see. (I'll get back to this later.)

The OST is also stellar. This goes for the background music during the episodes, where the emotional tracks shine but more so for the openings and endings. My favourites are Little Date, Where Do We Go From Here?, Mutual Love is Complex and Equal Romance. Mutual Love is Complex gets extra credit for being a great opening for the final OVA episode. I felt that it encapsulated the show as a whole well, although the same goes for Where Do We Go From Here, which is used for the English Dub.

**Neutral:**
Ranma 1/2 at its nature is an episodic show, even more so than the manga it's adapting. It is nearly 50% filler anime-exclusive episodes. This would be a death sentence for most adaptations, but due to the show's episodic nature, the filler episodes blend in well with the episodes drawn from the manga. You wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't already know beforehand. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because there are a lot of great filler episodes that surpass their manga counterparts. My favourite would be episode 49 "Am I Pretty? Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood".

**Cons:**
There are disadvantages to an episodic format, which do hurt the show, especially near the end. Because of the episodic format, episodes always need to return to the status quo near the end. Sometimes it is reasonable enough, but for others, it is baffling and annoying. This wouldn't be as bad if there were more status quo changes within the show after the last main cast member, [spoiler]Ukyo[/spoiler] gets introduced in [spoiler]episode 41.[/spoiler] However, past that there are only two major ones and even those are just introducing new characters instead of changing any existing dynamics. The only real development that occurs throughout the entire show is Ranma's and Akane's budding romance. Even that statement is dubious because there is very little development in the filler episodes. The ending of an episode would have you believe that Ranma and Akane have grown closer only to negate that development at the last second by having them have another argument and essentially resetting them to square one. The reason why I say that there is any development is because, near the end of the show, it suddenly seems that they are a lot closer than they should be. This is likely because they adapted those scenes from the manga, which I've heard has a much more natural progression due to not being hindered by any filler. The problems of the episodic format and the lack of resolution that results from it, really come to a head in the finale of the show.

The finale is frankly terrible. It doesn't provide a resolution to the story in the slightest. It doesn't resolve any plot threads and creates new ones by [spoiler]introducing a new character, Nodoka.[/spoiler] The only hint that the final episode is the last one is one scene at the very end with a vague goodbye to the audience. The worst part is that they knew that the series was ending and yet took zero steps to provide a satisfying ending. If it got cancelled and they didn't see it coming, then that at the very least would be understandable. The entire last episode is spent [spoiler]dancing around whether Ranma will reveal his male half to his mother[/spoiler] but it doesn't end up happening. Now this would be a pretty interesting plot dynamic, where [spoiler]Ranma has to pretend to be a girl whenever Nodoka's around.[/spoiler] The problem is that it's worthless since it's the last episode of the series. You don't set up a plot thread that could get paid off later when there are no other episodes left. It's like they ripped the story arc straight from the manga without realizing that this was their last episode, while the manga still had 16 volumes to go! It's not like a halfway decent ending would've been impossible. The last episode could've [spoiler]revealed the curse to Nodoka, had her accept Ranma, reunite with Genma[/spoiler] and ended on an emotional but positive note. To make the ending even better, [spoiler]in episode 158, Ryoga could've found out that Akane doesn't love him and grow from that.[/spoiler] There's no point in upholding the status quo, when there are only 3 other episodes afterwards in the series. Why not set up the ending a bit with some actual changes?

The only reason I could see them for not providing a more definitive ending is because they wanted to keep it open for the OVAs. Except those could easily just have taken place before the ending chronologically. The only OVA that wouldn't be possible due to this change would be the 3rd one, but that OVA is the worst one and didn't even do anything interesting with the plot dynamic that [spoiler]Nodoka[/spoiler] set up.

This ending rant may have come off as overly negative and left you with the impression that I dislike the show. However, it is only because I like the show and its cast of characters that the ending was so disappointing. I was hoping for a better resolution. Especially after seeing how the second movie managed to pull it off.

(from my old collection of anime reviews circa 2003)

Martial arts romance comedy.

Season 1: Ranma, expert in the Anything-Goes school of martial arts, turns into a girl when splashed with water. Complications ensue, and love hexagons abound. First episode is a must-see.

Season 2: Still funny, but since there's no character development other than introducing new characters, some episodes are repetitive. This gets worse, apparently, over the 7 season run.

The 2024 updated version with better graphics I feel that it should've been instead a modern day adaptation of the original series from the "80s" just kinda like how it was done with the 2013 updated (modern day back then) version of the 1976 movie of "Carrie" of which the only update was about it was that the characters were using smartphones and computers/laptops cuz it doesn't exactly fits in with today's animes being that since for those of us who have watched the original series... well!... we already know the story.