Anime Profile: Ranma 1/2

Ranma 1/2 is about a young man named Ranma Saotome, of the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts. His father, Genma Saotome, takes Ranma on a training mission to China. There, Ranma and his father fall into the Cursed Springs of Jusenkyo. Each spring has it's own individual curse, depending on what drowned in it many years ago. When splashed with cold water, Genma becomes a rather large panda, Ranma however, turns into a rather buxom read-haired girl. When splashed with hot water, they return to their original form.

To complicate matters, Genma has promised his old friend, Soun Tendo, to marry his son Ranma off to one of Tendo's three daughters. Kasumi, age 19, Nabiki, age 17, and Akane, age 16. When Ranma and Genma arrive in cursed form, nobody knows WHAT to think. To make things worse, Akane, a tom-boyish young girl, gets defeated in practice by Ranma-chan (female form), then stumbles onto Ranma's secret when she encounters Ranma-kun (male form) in the shower, both of them naked.

After sorting things out, Kasumi and Nabiki decide Akane should be Ranma's fiance, because "Akane hates boys, and since Ranma is half-girl...". Akane and Ranma get in a fight immediately, which ends up with Ranma calling Akane "un-cute", and Akane smashing Ranma over the head with a table. A beautiful start to a beautiful relationship.

Ranma 1/2 is a romantic comedy, and things only get worse for Ranma as fiances and people continually pop up to fight Ranma. Will Ranma ever get rid of his horrible curse?

Ranma 1/2 lasted 7 seasons on Japanese television, and then spawned 11 OVA episodes and 3 movies. The first two movies (Big Trouble in Nekonron, China and Nihao, My Concubine) were feature length films, while the third movie was only a half-hour in length. Thus, that one was compiled into the OVA set when released by VIZ. When VIZ brought out the TV show in America, they gave each season a unique title:

• Season 1: The Digital Dojo
• Season 2: Anything-Goes Martial Arts
• Season 3: Hard Battle
• Season 4: Outta Control
• Season 5: Martial Mayhem
• Season 6: Random Rhapsody
• Season 7: Ranma Forever

The story starts out as a young girl is yelling at a panda that she doesn't want to get married. She starts fighting with the panda, but the panda wins and hoists the girl over his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Soun Tendo is telling his three daughters that one of them is going to marry a young boy named Ranma Saotome. Akane doesn't seem interested in the idea. Then, a panda arrives with the girl on his shoulder, kicking and screaming. The girl introduces herself as being Ranma Saotome. Soun faints, and Akane asks Ranma if she would like to have a sparring match. Ranma agrees.

Akane is easily beaten by Ranma, but they are so sweaty that Akane tells Ranma that she should take a bath. Ranma declines at first, but then finally goes to take one. When Akane goes to the bathhouse, she thinks that it would be all right if she took a bath with Ranma since they are both girls.

When Akane goes in all the way, she sees a boy in the bathhouse. She runs down the hall screaming, "THERE'S A PERVERT IN THE BATHROOM!" When the boy comes out, he introduces himself as being Ranma Saotome. All of a sudden Ranma's dad, Genma, starts explaining that while on their ten year training trip, he and his son both fell into a cursed spring. Genma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Panda, while Ranma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Girl.

Soun does not think that it's so bad. So, he asks Ranma which girl he would would like to marry. The two sisters elect Akane since she doesn't like boys and Ranma is half girl.