Ranma Saotome (Ran-chan)
Ranma Saotome just can't catch a break. First Genma, his father, hauls him off for brutal training in China, where he falls into a cursed spring. Now if he's splashed with cold water, he's no longer a he...but a she. (His dad turns into a panda.) And if that wasn't rough enough, Ranma gets the news that, when he returns to Japan, he's to marry one of the Tendo sisters, as part of a deal Ranma's father made with Soun Tendo. The sister that gets picked is Akane Tendo--and she hates Ranma with a white-hot passion.
Yes, Ranma's life is complicated. We haven't even gotten to the various other suitors he's going to acquire, people trying to either kill him or date him at his high school (in the case of Tatewaki Kuno, the same person wants to do both), random martial arts tournaments, and Happosai, the old pervert master. And there's always that annoying curse: the boy trained to be the manliest of men often ends up as a red-haired, well-endowed girl. Not that Ranma won't occasionally take advantage of that fact...or that Ranma doesn't more than occasionally isn't responsible for the chaos in his life.
Rumiko Takahashi began Ranma 1/2 in 1987 as a manga serial, and was adapted as an anime in 1989. She had started off as a low-paid assistant to Kazuo Koike (the artist of Crying Freeman and Lone Wolf and Cub), scored a minor success on her own with Maison Ikkoku and a bigger one with Urusei Yatsura, but Ranma was to be her breakout. It became hugely popular worldwide; Ranma was one of the first commercially available and popular manga/anime series in the United States. Along with the late 1990s success of Inu-Yasha, Ranma would make Takahashi the richest woman in Japan. Not bad for a series whose characters include Mousse, Shampoo, and Pantyhose Taro.
It's a testament to the popularity of Ranma 1/2 that Ranma cosplay is still quite common at conventions, now over 30 years since the series came out. I ran into this Ran-chan (female form Ranma) at Anime Central 2018. Ranma tends to wear a traditional Chinese martial arts uniform, shown here, no matter if he's a she or she's a he.
Ranma Saotome (Ran-chan)
Ranma Saotome just can't catch a break. First Genma, his father, hauls him off for brutal training in China, where he falls into a cursed spring. Now if he's splashed with cold water, he's no longer a he...but a she. (His dad turns into a panda.) And if that wasn't rough enough, Ranma gets the news that, when he returns to Japan, he's to marry one of the Tendo sisters, as part of a deal Ranma's father made with Soun Tendo. The sister that gets picked is Akane Tendo--and she hates Ranma with a white-hot passion.
Yes, Ranma's life is complicated. We haven't even gotten to the various other suitors he's going to acquire, people trying to either kill him or date him at his high school (in the case of Tatewaki Kuno, the same person wants to do both), random martial arts tournaments, and Happosai, the old pervert master. And there's always that annoying curse: the boy trained to be the manliest of men often ends up as a red-haired, well-endowed girl. Not that Ranma won't occasionally take advantage of that fact...or that Ranma doesn't more than occasionally isn't responsible for the chaos in his life.
Rumiko Takahashi began Ranma 1/2 in 1987 as a manga serial, and was adapted as an anime in 1989. She had started off as a low-paid assistant to Kazuo Koike (the artist of Crying Freeman and Lone Wolf and Cub), scored a minor success on her own with Maison Ikkoku and a bigger one with Urusei Yatsura, but Ranma was to be her breakout. It became hugely popular worldwide; Ranma was one of the first commercially available and popular manga/anime series in the United States. Along with the late 1990s success of Inu-Yasha, Ranma would make Takahashi the richest woman in Japan. Not bad for a series whose characters include Mousse, Shampoo, and Pantyhose Taro.
It's a testament to the popularity of Ranma 1/2 that Ranma cosplay is still quite common at conventions, now over 30 years since the series came out. I ran into this Ran-chan (female form Ranma) at Anime Central 2018. Ranma tends to wear a traditional Chinese martial arts uniform, shown here, no matter if he's a she or she's a he.