Review of Ranma ½

(A little warning... this is a style of Review that I am trying out. I have three characters that are apart of my storyline that goes with my reviews. I am trying to integrate them into my reviews as well so please excuse the small conversation in it. This one is a trial version of where the male character Kurai suddenly turns into a girl as a April Fools joke by Angel.) So wow, um… as you read from the description or just by knowing this pretty well known anime, this is a gender bender harem. As such, the show has numerous amounts of fan service,awkward tension, misunderstandings, and secrets. You can’t watch the whole series without a boob popping out once in a while or the occasional pervert showing up now and again. (Kurai: “You are not going to be seeing mine!”) (Angel: “Sounding more like a girl already are we?”) (Kurai: “Shut up!”)

I have a big question, how is every freaken boy after Akane? I never see anything in her that would be the normal of a girl the boys would drool over. I guess in a way, that’s what makes this show special. She’s not the nerdy girl with glasses, the moe girl with childlike aspects, or a full adult style body. She’s just a normal girl who practices martial arts and is kind of (ok, really bad) at cooking. Sometimes she does have a sweet side but she doesn’t show it to just anyone so how they know about it would be beyond me. We can understand why everybody wants Ranma though; he’s strong, agile, and really athletic. He is also somewhat like a bad boy so it sums him up slightly. But even in the first episode, Ranma shows that he can be sweet and has a code that’s rather good. Now if only he wasn’t afraid of cats… (Kurai: “Ha! That’s the stupidest fear…”) (Angel: “Watch it or when I find out yours, your going down!”) (Kurai: *Shuts up*)

One could also wonder about a lot of characters in this show because they are really super stupid. They may have some times where they are at least a little smart but oh god that doesn’t last long at all. I can understand some of the love triangles and some of the problems with nearsightedness, directional problems, and other such things. BUT… that does not excuse more then half the stupid stuff they do. Believe me, if I go too much into the other characters, we will be here all night. That’s another problem with the series; we have the main characters; the supporting characters; the characters that come up every other episode; the ones that stay for a short time, go away and come back again in the next season; and then there are the characters we think may show up again and don’t. (Akuma: “What about the ones that turn into animals?”) (Angel: “I’m getting to that.”) The ones who turn into animals (and I talk about the ones that actually are more like main characters) are somewhat interesting and if you really get into the animals they turn into and their personalities, they pretty much all fit.

Ryoga who’s the pig, and he is pretty much as strong as a boar and a lot of times he runs head first into a situation without thinking. He gets lost easy to the point that he would get lost going to the bathroom in his own damn house! There is Mousse who turns into a duck, and he pretty much talks like one when he starts explaining things all the time. And yet, he is so nearsighted that even when standing two inches away from something, if he doesn’t have his glasses, he thinks it’s someone else. And then there is Shampoo who turns into a cat, she’s feisty and acts like a cat in how cunning she can be.

Then we get to the point where I bet every one wants me to point out, the fact the series runs to damn long! There are seven seasons, three movies, and 12 OVAs. I will get to the OVAs later on though but the seasons… this show should not of gone on as long as it did and it still didn’t end! The manga didn’t end either but I feel that most of the reason the series went on so long is they were playing it out for the end of the manga. The jokes are reused so many times that it feels stale and I hate to say it but most of the episodes aren’t really even part of the manga.

There are some inconsistencies that happen within the show, as in the first episode, Genma turns into a man after being a panda but he has clothing on. One of the big things about people who turn into animals is that they lose their clothing. It’s a major part of the story but yet at times it seems that it only happens when it inconsistencies them. Other times they turn back with clothing on. It makes it a little confusing.

The artwork is rather good for how old the show is and it aged rather well. It does get even better in its later episodes as it grew with the time although the older ones have a nice feeling that they did different animation for flashbacks to previous episodes. The female body is very sexually created and yet many of the girls do seem to have a bit of muscular body structure to show they have been working out. There is a lot of nudity and though in the earlier episodes, they luckily don’t show the nipple (Well, at least for the moving images but then they are sitting there, sometimes they do. In the later ones though, they show practically a well-detailed body.

The English voice acting… well it gets better over time. Oh come on now, you can’t tell me that after how many seasons Ranma got (and the many amounts of movies) it wouldn’t at least get better. Many times the lip sink does get out of sink but with so many characters screaming and having exaggerated mouth movements, it happens. The music can be really fun at times and then switch to a mysterious few cords. They may be annoying but since they have been used over and over, there are ones I can pick out perfectly as what the soundtrack is supposed to represent.