Ranma 1/2, Vols. 37-38

5 Replies

By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Kaori Inoue, Adapted by Gerard Jones.

And so at last we come to the end of the great Ranma 1/2 reissue. Inu Yasha may have had a broader reach, Urusei Yatsura may have had a bigger impact on Japan itself, and Maison Ikkoku may have had more maturity and resolution, but Ranma will still be THE anime gateway for many fans, along with Sailor Moon and Bubblegum Crisis. Having read the series again, I am able to see why it was so wildly popular, as well as why revisiting it can be frustrating. Ranma does not have depth – in fact, it actively leaps out of the way of depth – which makes it perfect for creative fans who want to give it that depth. It’s no coincidence that more than AMVs or fanart, it was fanfiction that was the biggest part of the mid-90s Ranma boom. Still, this does not mean that Takahashi’s manga is not good. It’s very good indeed.

Please do not be fooled by the cover – yes, there is a wedding at the end of the book, but we don’t even get to the ceremony before everything is completely destroyed and we return to the status quo. Well, status quo except that it seems that if there had not been chaos, Ranma and Akane might have gone through with the wedding. But there is always chaos in Ranma, it’s practically the main cast member. This manga ends much the same way that many of the classic UY anime episodes ended – with more and more of the cast showing up, each trying to beat up somebody else, until everything finally turns into a giant pile of destruction. Ranma 1/2 is not a romantic comedy, or a harem manga, or even a martial arts comedy. It’s pure slapstick.

The martial arts gets a good workout in the main part of this volume, though, as we return to China to battle another major villain. You get the sense that Takahashi is trying to figure out a way to top Herb, and she doesn’t manage it, really, but A for effort. The whole main cast is there (poor Ukyou, guess you were supporting after all), and there’s lots of cool fights and dramatic kicks and Akane and Shampoo in distress a lot of the time. That said, even when captured or dehydrated down to the size of a doll, Akane is still thinking hard and trying to get herself out of her predicament. Shampoo, alas, is merely mind-controlled most of the time. (I will note that Akane not noticing Ryouga transforming several times in this beggars belief, but hey.)

And so Ranma ends with our main couple waving goodbye to the readers as they head off to school again. It’s never quite confirmed that they do have mutual feelings for each other, mostly as I think Takahashi hoped people could read between the lines and see that she’d had them show their love without saying their love several times. (UY did this too – Ataru in particular was the poster child for “show, don’t tell”.) It didn’t quite work, and fans who disliked Akane were always quick to point out the open-endedness of the ending meant that they didn’t end up together. Takahashi later did one of those “character relationship charts”, filled with one-sided arrows, except for two – Ranma and Akane, and Ryouga and Akari. So she knew they loved each other.

But we don’t read Ranma for resolution of romantic tension. We read it for genderswapping and bizarre martial arts contests and so many fights and “Ranma no baka!” and in order to flesh out our 800,000 word epic fanfic with smatterings of actual canon. And we read it because we love the characters, flat as they are. Of course, we may not always love the SAME characters, but any Ranma fan is obsessed with at least one of them (except Happosai). Ranma 1/2 was a roadmap to modern anime fandom, and the road may be less traveled these days but it’s worth walking back over.

Accel World: The Seven-Thousand-Year Prayer

Leave a reply

By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

And so, at last, we come to the end of the Armor of Catastrophe arc, which was not only deliberately meant to be a long arc but also grew out of the author’s control, as he’s admitted himself in the afterword. The volume gives us a lot of what readers like about this series: good battles with some nice analysis from Haruyuki, some amusing harem comedy, some heartwarming romance with Kuroyukihime, and an examination of the nature of negative emotions and how to cope with them every day, because they don’t just magically go away merely because everyone believes in you really hard. That said, it also has some things that fans tend to not like as well: Haruyuki is not only the bestest person to ever be possessed by the evil armor, but he’s a shining magical beacon of hope for all. Oh, and he gets another girl confessing to him, and is caught with her lying on top of him, because harem comedy. It’s a balance.

The significant development here is a bit of a spoiler, but worth talking about. We learn the true identity of Ash Roller, which turns out to be somewhat confusing, meshing up a tragic tale of an introverted girl and her comatose brother with the nature of the neurolinkers that are omnipresent in this world. It’s left deliberately up in the air what’s going on here, whether Rin is literally being possessed by her brother while in the Accelerated world, or if she’s merely taking on his role to an almost absurd extent. (She genuinely seems to be unaware of what transpires without wearing her brother’s neurolinker, so odds are on the first.) That said, I admit to a bit of irritation at the fact that one of Haru’s only male friends turns out to really be a shy young girl who’s in love with him in real life. (The shyness is conveyed via an odd speech pattern – Rin talks in sentence fragments, and it’s unclear if this is a mental issue like Utai’s or if it’s meant to be natural introversion.)

That said, once again after a lot of harem tease we are reminded that at the end of the day there is only one who is top of the heap, and it’s Kuroyukihime. We get a little more insight into her real-life background – she lives alone in a very rich neighborhood, and it’s implied that the murder of the Red King in the Accelerated World had a counterpart in real life as well. That said, just as Haruyuki is a Pillar of Hope for All despite his omnipresent self-hatred, Kuroyukihime tends towards the perfect accepting girlfriend much of the time, listening calmly as Haru pours out his fears, getting the crap beaten out of her in the AW waiting for him to overcome the Disaster, and bushing cutely when he’s accidentally proposing marriage to her without actually realizing it.

So in the end Accel World has much the same strengths and weaknesses as the author’s other series, Sword Art Online. Which means fans of one will enjoy the other, and those who hate Kirito with a passion probably will find themselves getting annoyed at Haruyuki here. The next book should be standalone and lighthearted, and I fear that may mean MAXIMUM HAREM ANTICS. We shall see.

Hana & Hina After School, Vol. 1

Leave a reply

By Milk Morinaga. Released in Japan as “Hana to Hina wa Houkago” by Futabasha, serialized in the magazines Comic High and Weekly Action. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jennifer McKeon, Adapted by Shannon Fay.

This is the third of four quite similar yuri titles due out in February/March. I’ve already discussed Secret of the Princess and Kase-san And Morning Glories, and I have to save some of my energies and words for Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl. Here today we have the new series from Milk Morinaga, author of many other yuri series that have been brought over to North America. It gives fans of sweet yuri exactly what they want – these are cute girls, one short and brunette and one tall and blonde, having a difficult first meeting but gradually growing closer, and the first volume ends with a lot of “but we’re both girls” angst. It doesn’t break any rules or step outside the box, but it performs its function well.

Hana is the short one, and she’s diligent and nice but tends to overthink things, and she works after school at a shop that sells what I’ve always called tchotchkes, borrowing from the Yiddish. Stuffed animals, mugs, things like that. One day she gets a new co-worker in Hina, a tall leggy blonde who appears very standoffish and cold. Of course, this is merely Hana’s read on her. As we learn more about Hina, including her love of all things cute (to the point of almost being a cute otaku), it’s clear that Hina is acting this way around Hana to avoid getting too close – which makes it all the more awkward when the new school year begins and Hina shows up at Hana’s school – yes, the tall leggy blonde is an underclassman to the petite girl. The minimal plot here involves the fact that part-time jobs are against the rules, and this is doubly bad for Hina, who’s also a model, though she’s going to give that up.

What follows is, as I indicated above, predictable, in a way that many Milk Morinaga titles are. Hana is adorable and upbeat, and every time they interact it becomes increasingly difficult for Hina to keep her hands off her. That said, Hina also has a tragic past where she’s been called out for this before, if the minimal flashback we see is any proof, and when she asks some other classmates if they’d think a confession from another girl was weird, they say no… provided it’s just the typical admiration that Japanese schoolgirls are supposed to have. If it’s real romantic feelings… yes, they think it’s weird. And so Hina’s stuck, and stressing about it as the volume comes to a close.

Actually, I’d argue this is a step forward from some other Milk Morinaga series we’ve seen that are even fluffier than this. Real life brings real problems, especially if a girl decides she likes other girls, and they can complicate a relationship even more than “but what if she doesn’t like me that way?”. I’m hoping that the remaining two volumes of the series go into that deeper. In the meantime, this is definitely recommended for fans of yuri.