Review of Ranma ½

Story: 7 Ranma 1/2 has a VERY interesting premise: The main character is cursed to transform into a girl whenever he's doused with cold water. He is not the only one: His father turns into a panda, and his rivals/suitors also turn into various different creatures in cold water; and cold water, being more plentiful than hot water (rain, lakes, pools, you name it), this makes for interesting and enjoyable plot points. Although the character's ultimate goals are to transform back to their normal selves, there less sense of it being an overarching storyline, allowing Ranma's creative writing team to come up with just about anythingin every episode. Granted, some storylines are better than others, and the series is overall very silly and not to be taken too seriously. That of course is part of it's charm.

Art: 7
Ranma's animation in its first season is clearly the series at its best, outside of the OVAs. It's also the closest in style to Rumiko Takahashi's manga. As the series progresses past the first 20 or so episodes, there's an obvious drop in overall quality, and some episodes look decent at best and almost amateurish at worst. The art style also gets closer in looking like the OVAs (but not as colorful or detailed) instead of Takahashi's manga, which leaves me feeling a bit conflicted since I really like that art style.

Sound: 8
Ranma's music has a Chinese influence to it, which is appropriate considering Ranma's style of clothing and fighting. The sound effects are par for what they were back in the day. However, I must say that in an era of really bad dubbing, Ranma 1/2 was clearly a cut above the rest. I love all of the English voice overs in the series (and that's not something I say often), with the only one feeling out of place is Sarah Strange as male Ranma. I know she has some hardcore fans fighting for her, but I just can't hear her pulling it off during fighting sequences and when Ranma is yelling. The voice actor changes in Season 4 (Outta Control in the Viz dub) and Ranma is now voiced by Richard Cox of Inuyasha fame. I believe he truly brings out Ranma's character for the rest of the series.

Characters: 6
Ranma has a HUGE cast of characters, making for a very lively anime. And sure enough, some of the best episodes are the ones where characters aside from Ranma and Akane are fleshed out (ie. the episodes featuring Ryoga, Sasuke, Nabiki and Gosunkugi stand out). Unfortunately, this is also balanced out by some of the poorer characters that are only around as a villain of the week. Although Akane is a tsundere archetype character, she could be considered the mother of all modern tsundere characters in anime, given the time this series was released.

Enjoyment: 9
It's hard to be bored while watching Ranma. There seems to always be something going on in each episode, and even the bad ones (ie. the teaser episode where we thought we were going to see Ranma's mom, the race in dinosaur land, etc) never fail to catch your attention. Since most of Ranma's storylines aren't overarching, you can easily skip some of these episodes and enjoy the best of what the show has to offer.

Overall: 7
Ranma 1/2 was one of my first anime series that I got to watch in its entirety. Though it had its ups and downs, I can definitely say I was satisfied with my watch, and it sits on the shelf as one of my most favorite anime ever.