By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

I’ve joked several times in the last few weeks about warning people that this volume features the debut of Happosai, but there’s a kernel of truth to that warning: Happosai is repugnant, and a polarizing figure both within Ranma fandom and within the series itself. Not because anyone really likes him – even his fans think he adds some fun comedy but don’t like him personally – but whether the comedy he adds to the series is really needed. Because Happi is defined by being a pervert – yes, an incredibly strong martial arts master pervert, but a pervert just the same. He feels up women, he steals their underwear, he literally gains strength through contact with females. He is a walking trigger warning. He’s meant to be the male version of Cologne, but Cologne’s actions all serve a greater purpose – at least so far – and Ranma learns a great deal from her. For all that Happi is supposed to be training Ranma as his successor, there’s no lessons, no training, and no point. He is a pox on Ranma 1/2, and will be here till the end of the series. He doesn’t even make horrible puns, like Cherry, his spiritual predecessor from UY, did.

(breaths out) I feel better. Now let’s talk about what was fun this volume. Ranma has settled into doing what it does best, which is ‘almost anything goes in the name of comedy’. (It’s not *quite* as over the top as UY, so I added the ‘almost’.) There’s lots of martial arts battles, as we see Ranma, Akane and Shampoo compete in martial arts takeout delivery, as well as Akane and Ranma fighting to defend the name of their supposed school when a Dojo Destroyer comes to town (the Destroyer himself looks like a ridiculous over the top stereotype, and barely speaks, but I’ll gloss over that for now. And there’s plenty of comedy, as Ranma’s class puts on a production of Romeo and Juliet, which means a lot to Akane (who was Romeo as a kid, but now finally gets to be Juliet), but little to any of the various competing Romeos, including Ranma. (I was highly amused to see her yelling at Ranma for not reading the play, as in the end all Takahashi takes from the original is ‘balcony scene’ and ‘kiss’.)

There’s quite a lot of time devoted to Ranma (and sometimes Genma) trying to find a cure for the curse, and there are a few temporary cures but nothing really permanent. While this will still play out across the series, as we get further in Ranma simply gets more accepting of his dual nature, and seeing the desperation shown here is interesting. As for Ranma and Akane themselves, they’re both quite attracted to each other and sympathetic to each other’s pain once they pause to think – but they hardly ever do that anymore, so when we do see such moments (Akane bringing Ranma warm food and drink in the backlot), it’s nice and heartwarming. (The box Happi hides under in that scene, by the way, has a reference to Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. Wrong company! Shogakukan should be turning in its grave! Don’t tell me they aren’t dead, I’ve seen what Sunday sales in Japan are like lately.)

Miscellaneous thoughts: At one point, when Genma is at his absolute sketchiest, Kasumi calls him annoying. For Kasumi, this is a devastating comment, particularly this late in the series. Both Genma and Soun come off particularly badly in this volume, both as former disciples of Happi who want to be free of him but can’t do anything about it, and as parents who try to trick their children into marrying each other. Nabiki still exists mostly as the “normal” character – we see her deny she’s related to her family more than once in this volume – and Takahashi’s habit of showing her constantly eating is in full force here. Kuno and Gosunkugi are also as loopy as ever – Gosunkugi in particular suffers so much and is loathed by so many you can’t help but laugh at his pathetic awfulness.

Another solid volume of Ranma, though those who found the series beginning to grate at this point and hoping for more plot resolution are only going to get more annoyed as it goes on. Next time around we’ll introduce our final main cast member, and one who’s even more polarizing in her own way. Not because of her own characteristics, but because of how she gave fans who hate Akane a real alternative, and the ship wars truly began in earnest. Next time, we’ll talk Ukyou Kuonji.

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

One of the benefits of re-reading this series after so many years is seeing which characters I’ve changed my opinion on in the interim, and after more experience with anime and manga in other forms. Most of this volume deals with the Chinese Amazons – Shampoo, who returns to Nerima; her great-grandmother Cologne, who is determined to marry her to Ranma; and Mousse, Shampoo’s childhood friend who loves her but is unable to take no for an answer. I’ve never really liked any of the characters, and made an effort to avoid writing any of them in the Ranma fanfics I wrote back in the day. To an extent, that’s still true; Mousse is a creep, and his “master of hidden weapons” schtick is something he uses as a license to fight dirty. Shampoo is surprisingly passive in this volume, mostly relying on either her body or her grandmother in order to win Ranma; she still needs a stronger personality. That leaves Cologne, and she was the one I found myself appreciating more this time around.

Cologne is your standard trickster mentor character, and for all that she’s here to ensure Shampoo marry Ranma, this becomes a secondary concern once she realizes that Ranma has real potential. She’s sizing him up, testing his resolve and his stubbornness along with his martial arts skills. Not to spoil anything, but it’s notable that she’s the one major antagonist he never defeats through the series – at least not in a physical fight. After their first major battle, which is mostly ‘you will stay a girl forever till you agree to marry Shampoo’, Cologne surrenders the cure because Ranma actually made her try hard in a fight – something she hasn’t done in “over fifty years”. This isn’t just about Shampoo’s spouse anymore, Cologne wants to train Ranma personally.

That said, Ranma is not the type to simply acquiesce to this, so we see the start of many training matches couched as something else – in this case, a fight with Ryouga deep in the mountains. Ryouga too is reluctant to accept Cologne’s help in training, until he realizes that Ranma, driven by the events in the first half of this book, has grown MUCH better as a martial artist – to the point where Akane is almost giving him a pitiful look, his worst nightmare. Cologne takes him on, not so much for Ryouga’s sake as to drive Ranma into more desperate situations. Ranma tends to learn fastest when he’s under duress or threat of some sort, and Ryouga’s sheer toughness helps there. Akane, unfortunately, is used as kidnap bait here – she’s as disgusted with this as we are, thankfully, and for the most part rescues herself.

Speaking of Akane, she’s now settled into her standard characterization – whenever jealous, embarrassed, or otherwise emotionally overwhelmed, she lashes out at Ranma, mostly with drop kicks. Now that the majority of the cast are miles above her in martial arts talent (leaving her merely one of the most talented martial artists in the entire town – just wanted to note that), she tends to function as a Greek Chorus a lot, and her sideways flat glance, with implied, “…really?”, will also become a trademark. Akane has, I think, been burned out by too much chaos in her life all at once, and it will take a long time to sort out.

If I forgot to mention Gosunkugi, that isn’t a surprise. He’s played up as a non-entity from the start, with people not even noticing him till he draws attention to himself. He’s a grade A stalker creep, though, managing to learn of Ranma’s secret weakness by hiding under floorboards, in bushes, etc. He also has a fondness for voodoo dolls, which seem to accomplish nothing. The anime wrote him out of the early episodes, replacing him with the Kuno’s comedic ninja, Sasuke (who is anime-only). It didn’t really affect anything to see him dropped, either. He does, however, allow us to see the Cat Fist, which shows off the sheer stupidity of Genma Saotome. Genma tries to imply that he hadn’t read the instruction noting how stupid the training was, but honestly, I think he’d have done it anyway – certainly Ranma’s cat Fist *is* strong, and I think mental and emotional trauma would not bother Genma in the least if this was the result.

There are some long running gags that get introduced here: Akane’s horrible cooking, and her inability to swim, as well as the Saotome Secret Technique, one of the best gags in the entire volume. We also get Martial Arts Watermelon Smashing, which given it’s a beach story I can just about accept, and then we see Martial Arts tea ceremony, which is right about where the idea loses touch with reality altogether. Though it doesn’t help that this is easily the weakest arc in the book, with Sentaro being painfully stupid, and the story being too short to really develop anything further than ‘lol, my fiancee is a gorilla’.

The art is, as with the previous two omnibuses, taken from cleaner scans and looking much nicer in general. The translation is pretty much the same as before, with some nice lines (“Shampoo, I think it’s time we had a talk about bathtubs and men”.) Shampoo still talks in broken Japanese, but Cologne does not – her excellent Japanese is commented on, which is fine, as she’s over 100 years old. Mousse seems to speak perfect Japanese too, and one worries that Takahashi is using Shampoo’s accent for comedy effect. It also has a tendency for Western readers to devalue her intelligence (which varies from story to story, but generally she’s more with it than one would expect).

By the way, the design of Cologne is striking – Cherry was short and wizened in UY, but still looked vaguely human. Cologne’s wizened form in Ranma resembles a bird more than an old woman, something not helped by the way she pogoes around on her walking stick. In the next volume of Ranma 1/2, we’ll meet her male counterpart – one of the most loathed characters in the entire series, both in universe and out. Duck, everyone, Happosai is coming soon to a bookstore near you.

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

(Warning: This is Ranma 1/2 For Experts, basically – I do refer to future volumes a bit here, mostly the next one.)

As we get deeper into the Ranma 1/2 story, it’s starting to separate itself more and more from its predecessor, Urusei Yatsura. This despite adding two characters who are very much ‘based on’ similar UY characters in these two volumes. But while UY ran on escalation – take a situation, put people in it, and watch it expand till it explodes in comedic chaos – Ranma 1/2 almost seems driven by delusion. So many of the characters have a fixed idea of who someone is, what their goal is, or how people feel about them, and that fixed idea drives the comedy. So we have Kuno’s love for the ‘Pig-Tailed Girl’, Kodachi’s similar obsession with Ranma (and inability to tell that he and his girl side are the same person), Mikado’s ladykiller instincts, and even Ryouga’s delusion that all he has to do is defeat Ranma once and suddenly he’ll get Akane and be happy. Everyone in Ranma is deluded for the sake of comedy.

We start off with Kodachi, who we already know likes to win her matches by disabling her opponent before they begin. Akane isn’t so easily dispatched (in fact, it’s her own misstep that forces her out of the match), so Kodachi resorts to her backup plan – cheating her way through the entire match. Throughout, she bears a strong resemblance to Ryouko Mendou from UY, something that is helped along when we find out that Tatewaki Kuno is in fact her older brother. (Yes, yes, mix and match the romanji. Leave me my bad habits.) Kodachi likewise has a flair for the overdramatic. She’ll stick around, but is probably the least important of the major Ranma harem girls – and the only one who never gets a ‘softer side’, even once we find out about her family situation (we’ve got a few more omnibuses to go there).

Martial Arts Gymnastics in the Kodachi story is followed by Martial Arts Ice Skating with Mikado and Azusa, and I advise the reader to get used to “Martial Arts _______” throughout the entire Ranma series. It’s a useful way to incorporate any silly situation Takahashi wants into the series, and it also serves as an obvious motivator for Ranma, who can’t resist a fight and whose ego says that he’ll always win in any martial arts situation – even if he can’t skate.

Mikado and Azusa are the first ‘arc villains’ we have who won’t be returning, though I think the anime adaptation brought them back a few times. They’re a lot of fun, but there’s not much you can really do with them, and neither of them have either the likeability or over the top madness that tends to bring back the best of Ranma’s recurring characters. I was quite pleased to see that, though they perform as a couple, they don’t actually seem to like each other at all. Azusa (who is Ran in UY with the anger replaced by more cute) also seems to get away with most of the antics she inspires here. Mikado, who sexually assaults Ranma by “stealing her lips”, is a Grade-A creep, however, and he gets the majority of the violence dealt out here.

Ryouga still features heavily here, and his anger remains, but we’re also starting to see his swirling pool of depression, something that will come to define his character for a long time to come. Ryouga is at his strongest when his mood is blackest, but this means that we rarely get to see him be happy. It’s probably not helped that, throughout both of these arcs, Ranma and Akane are still looking quite couple-y. Sure, they grump sat each other, but that seems almost friendly now, and Ranma is quick to whip out the ‘my fiancee’ card. It’s really quite cute.

…and then Shampoo hits the series, literally smashing through a wall and attempting to kill Ranma’s female half. My old memories of this point in the series made me think that it was Shampoo who was a catalyst for what Ranma and Akane will eventually become after this, but to be honest she doesn’t really play all that big a part. Akane’s hair-trigger temper and jealousy just seem to increase naturally, and we see Ranma having to restore her memories later by firing a volley of insults at her, as if all he’s been doing is calling her uncute for the past 3 1/2 volumes. Which isn’t true, as we’ve seen, but it’s another canon rewrite as we read. Ranma and Akane will have their moments from now on, certainly, but there’s a certain tension between them after this arc. Ranma turns to insults more swiftly and loses his ‘I will observe first, then act’ persona. And Akane will distrust Ranma unless proven otherwise… and sometimes even then.

Back to Shampoo, and I will bring up Urusei Yatsura again, sorry. She is clearly meant to be Lum, only here Ranma and Akane have had some time together to make the readers like them, and Shampoo gets a lot fewer ‘cute and likeable’ points. Many have seen this as Takahashi trying to ‘fix’ UY, where she originally wanted Ataru and Shinobu as the couple, but fans and editors made her change it to Lum. The thing is, fans and editors were correct, and I’m sure she realized that very fast. Ataru was the sort of person who worked much better with Lum. But as I’ve noted, Ataru and Ranma are NOT all that alike, and thus the Ranma/Shampoo pairing feels as out of place as Ataru/Shinobu did. He needs someone like Akane, who brings out who he really is – for good and ill.

I was going to discuss Shampoo’s accent, and how it’s dealt with both in the original Japanese and in the English release, but it may be better to save that till Cologne and Mousse show up.

Some random observations… Tofu has already become a one-gag character, and it’s an annoying gag. Kasumi and Nabiki barely appear, though notably when they do they’re trying to fix things up between Ranma and Akane – Nabiki still doesn’t quite have that aura of ‘only out for myself’ she’ll gain later. I quite liked Ranma trying to explain that the tribe’s ‘rule’ that Shampoo had to marry the man who defeated her was ‘from the Stone age’ – he’s absolutely correct, though it does also point out how steeped in ancient traditions Shampoo’s tribe is. And yes, Formula 911 was Formula 119 in the Japanese, but they basically are the same gag – it’s the phone # for emergencies.

By the way, for all that Shampoo is supposedly trying to kill Ranma, she never even gets close. And notably, when she gives the ‘kiss of death’ to Akane, who she’s clearly a superior fighter to, she just wipes Akane’s memories rather than, as Ranma fears, leaving her corpse on the outside of the school. In other words, she doesn’t really look like she’s able to go through with actually killing anyone. We see that again at the end, where Ranma leaves herself open and Shampoo can’t do it – she leaves in tears. It’s a rare serious moment in Ranma 1/2, and sad, because we know that this is the end, and we’ll never see Shampoo again – as she states, and the others imply.

Next time we’ll cover Volumes 5 and 6, where we see Shampoo again. We also get a few more introductions, two major – Cologne and Mousse from Shampoo’s Amazon village – and one minor, Gosunkugi, who is so sad the anime actually wrote him out for several seasons. In the meantime, this was a very enjoyable Ranma volume, and I look forward to gushing more words at you some July.