The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - Ranma ½ Season 2

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As Ranma continues to live out his daily life in Furinkan, while residing at the Tendos' residence with his father, an array of new rivals and previously engaged fiancés start to appear in town. Such as Amazonian warrior Shampoo, who now resides at a newly opened noodle shop with her great-grandmother, Cologne, the leader of the Amazons. Other individuals include Gosunkugi, a ritualistic wallflower who wants Akane for himself, Mousse a Chinese martial artist who wants to win Shampoo's heart by defeating Ranma, Ukyo, a tomboy okonomiyaki chef who was engaged to Ranma ten years prior, and finally Happosai, the founder and grandmaster of Anything Goes Martial Arts, who is a skilled fighter but is also a pervert.

Ranma ½ Season 2 is based on the manga series by Rumiko Takahashi. The anime series is streaming on Netflix on Saturdays.

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Rebecca Silverman
Episode 13 Rating:

If you had any remaining doubts about Genma Saotome's skills as a parent, let this episode lay them to rest: the man is a major contender for “worst anime dad.” Sure, he's got stiff competition from all of those Debt Dads and the deadbeats who abandon their families without obligatory crippling debts, but none of those guys wrapped their sons in cat food and tossed them into a pit of hungry felines. No, that's Ranma ½ level insanity, and poor Ranma is here to show just how well it worked: not at all. Of course, it's on par with Genma's other stellar parenting decisions, like “take child to cursed springs without doing research.” Truly, an amazing father.

But Ranma ½ isn't a tragic look at awful parents (that would be Happy Sugar Life), but a zany comedy, and this episode does deliver. And while Ranma acting like a cat or being terrified of cats is great, some of the best moments are the little ones. The brief scene of Nabiki punching Kuno in the opening theme, Nabiki draping Ranma in cats, or Mr. Tendo being lumped in with the Tendo family pets are all standout blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments that help both set the stage and support the main action. Because a lot of the joy of this series isn't just the interactions between the main characters, but the entire insane world Rumiko Takahashi builds around them. With each new character – this time another boy in love with Akane, who's basically Takahashi's answer to Junji Ito's Souichi – the world around the characters grows. And that allows the story to be silly and fun without devolving into inanity.

This manga-faithful adaptation continues to be a lot of fun, and the cat storyline helps to set the stage for Shampoo's next moves. This new season will introduce several more new manga characters, like Mousse and Ukyo, but the one that concerns me is Happosai, a character who wasn't funny or appropriate when I read the series in the late '90s. I'm concerned about how he'll function today, and I'm hoping his role will be downplayed, if not outright reduced. Still, this episode makes a good case for the adaptation to continue to be fun. I may miss the old dub voices, but I'm still looking forward to more.

Episode 14 Rating:

I don't think we talk about Nabiki enough when discussing Ranma ½. It's true that the middle Tendo sister doesn't have as much screentime as Akane or even Kasumi (whose airheaded calm can stand up to any number of bizarre visitors, whether they appear at the table or in the bath), but she's always been my favorite. Coolheaded, avaricious, and always ready to take advantage of the situation if she can, she's a welcome injection of dry humor every time she opens her mouth. Also, I love that the new opening theme has her punching Kuno. I am easily amused.

This episode isn't about Nabiki, however, but centers on the return of Shampoo and two more Chinese characters. Cologne, her irascible great-grandmother, is another low-key favorite of mine, largely because she's such a force of nature. A tiny, wizened whirlwind whose looks Nabiki needles, Cologne spends most of this episode hopping around on her walking stick, causing trouble for Ranma…and by extension, for Mousse and Akane. Cologne doesn't really care about either of them, but she is determined that tradition will be followed, which means that the man who defeated Shampoo (Ranma) will become her husband. Since Mousse got his ass kicked as a three-year-old, he's out of the running. And because Ranma took his girl, he figures he'll take Ranma's. If I were Akane, I would be very tired of being passed around like the proverbial hot potato.

This is a very bad episode for Ranma. He's got Cologne on his case; his feline-induced smooch has gotten him in a world of trouble with Akane, Kuno, and Ryoga, and then Cologne makes him unable to stand even lukewarm water, consigning him to a female body. Most of the time, I think that Ranma makes his own trouble, but this isn't one of those cases; it's no more his fault that his dad's a lunatic who gave him a fear of cats than it is that Shampoo fell into the Spring of Drowned Cat and got her own Jusenkyo curse. But everyone is intent on blaming him for all of those things. That's a lot for a not-too-mature teenage boy to handle.

All of this makes it very fortunate that Ranma ½ is a comedy and rarely lets the mean humor stick around for long. Mousse's ridiculous swan weapon and Dr. Tofu happily gazing at the sky through his newly ventilated ceiling are just two of the sillier moments that take the sting out, and the entire debacle is generally good-natured. That's the real magic of this series: it never goes too far, and this episode is a perfect example of just that.

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Jairus Taylor
Episode 13 Rating:
While the fall season looks to be a lot lighter on big sequels than what we got over the summer, a new season of Ranma ½ has managed to sneak its way into the lineup, and it's nice to have it back. Despite my initial misgivings that a reboot of Ranma could work in this day and age, much less be well received, MAPPA's new adaptation has done pretty well for itself, and has managed to strike a solid balance between being a bit more manga faithful than its '80s counterpart, while still being creative enough to avoid feeling like too much of a retread of what's come before. Strong as that first season was, though, it also benefited from the fact that the early parts of Ranma offer a lot of its best material, and while there's still laughs to be had later on, its level of consistency is a lot more hit or miss.

This premiere is a pretty good demonstration of that as we're introduced to our newest cast member, Gosunkugi. His presence here probably marks this reboot's biggest departure from the '80s anime, as while he did appear somewhat early into the manga's run, he didn't show up in the '80s anime until it had already passed over a hundred episodes, and seeing him here, I can sort of understand why the old anime held off on using him for a while. Gosunkugi's gimmick mainly consists of stalking Akane and trying to put straw doll curses on Ranma for getting in his way, while otherwise being helpless to deal with him. None of this is a total zero on the comedy department, but it gets old even just a couple of minutes into his introduction, and he's easily the weakest cast member we've met so far. Luckily, the episode also gives him Kuno to work off of. Since Kuno's unfounded bravado is always hysterical, he helps to elevate Gosunkugi's presence as the two of them try to search for Ranma's hidden weakness.

The real comedy here, though, comes when we discover what that weakness is: a deadly fear of cats. With how much Ranma loves to put on the image of a tough guy, learning that he's scared of kitties is just about the funniest weakness he could have been given. The episode delivers a wealth of great visual humor through his over-the-top reactions to seeing any feline friends in his vicinity.

At the same time though, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for him upon learning that this fear of cats comes from his dad constantly throwing him into pits of hungry cats as part of his martial arts training and while this bit is played for laughs, this also marks the start of a long list of reasons someone should have called CPS on Gemma Saotome years ago. Having Ranma become so consumed by fear that he essentially turns into a cat himself is a peculiar punchline for this to end on. Still, it does result in Cat Ranma smooching Akane, and with how much any romantic progress between these two is secondary to the show maintaining the status quo of its sitcom formula, it's best to take any scraps of romance the series offers when you can get it. This wasn't the funniest material that the new season could have opened with, but it gets the job done. While I am a bit worried about how well this season will be able to keep up the jokes (especially since the inevitable appearance of the worst old man fiction is looming over it), we are at least getting best girl Ukyo in here before it's through, so that alone should make it worth the price of admission.

Episode 14 Rating:

With how episodic a lot of Ranma ½ tends to be, I assumed last week's kiss between Ranma and Akane would be treated as a one-off joke, so I was a bit surprised to see it gets followed up on. I'm certainly glad it did, though, because watching all of Ranma's romantic rivals coming out of the woodwork to give him grief over it is pretty funny, and their petty reactions are made all the better by how little of this panic-induced smooch Ranma can even recall. Good as all this is for a laugh, I was also glad to see it serve as an excuse for a little more romantic tension between our lead couple. While Ranma operates under the impression that Akane is mad about being kissed at all, it's evident that, for all her complaining, she did want it to mean something, which adds more fuel to the fire for her when Ranma's attempt to move them past this incident is to downplay it. These are the kinds of misunderstandings I'd find frustrating in most other romantic comedies. Still, with how naturally stubborn the two of them are, it only makes sense that neither can be honest about how they feel, so rather than being annoying, watching them do anything but talk to each other adds to the comedy of errors going on in this episode.

The rest of the comedy here comes from some of the new and recurring faces in the cast, and we've got quite the lineup here. One of the biggest new additions here is, of course, the return of Shampoo, who's come back from China to continue chasing after Ranma, and is now plagued with a curse of her own that transforms her into a cat (which, given how bad his cat phobia is, seems like a recipe for him to want her around even less). Still, she also ends up bringing a couple of new characters into the cast along with her. First, we've got her great-grandmother, Cologne, who seems bent on forcing him to marry Shampoo by any means necessary, and while she might not look all that imposing, she ends up having quite a few tricks up her sleeve when it comes to getting Ranma to do what she wants. There's also Shampoo's childhood friend Mousse, who wants to take Shampoo for himself, and much like Gosunkugi last week, it's clear he doesn't have a chance since Shampoo is only here for Ranma. However, compared to how quickly Gosunkugi wore out his welcome, Mousse ends up being a lot funnier by virtue of the fact that Ranma himself would be all too happy to let Mousse whisk Shampoo out of his life, which makes Mousse's attempt to challenge Ranma for her all the more hysterical.

This is a lot of material to juggle in 20 minutes, obviously. The breakneck pacing here ends up balancing really well with all of the show's usual slapstick, and the jokes are given just enough room to breathe to keep this all from feeling like a bit too much. With how many new character introductions are left between now and the end of the season, there's almost certainly gonna be some cuts when it comes to what gets adapted here. I'm very curious to see which stories this new version of Ranma decides to go with on the way there. I'm still a bit worried about how the show will be able to maintain its momentum before it inevitably falls into the repetition of the original manga. However, it's still going strong, and as long as it can keep the laughs coming, it should keep making for one of the best comedies the Fall season has on offer.

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Caitlin Moore
Episode 13 Rating:

This episode of Ranma ½ is a landmark: the first time Gosunkugi has made an appearance in the anime, despite his debut plotline being load-bearing for the series. In the original adaptation, he was replaced with Sasuke, the Kuno family's ninja retainer. I was never crazy about this change, since I didn't really care for Sasuke as a character.

Like so many other secondary characters, Gosunkugi is obsessed with Akane Tendo, resenting Ranma for his involvement with her. While I wouldn't call anyone in Ranma ½ remarkably well-adjusted, Gosunkugi is high up on the list of freaks and weirdos: skulking in the bushes, making voodoo dolls, wearing candles on his head. He's played by Akira Ishida, whose unctuous voice is perfect for a creep like him, but I think he's better in complex dramatic roles than one-note gag characters like here. Gosunkugi makes a deal with Kuno to uncover Ranma's weakness in exchange for a date with Akane.

The thing that makes this episode load-bearing is that it introduces Ranma's fear of cats, a rich vein of comedy throughout the rest of the series. Along with that comes cat-fu, the technique his father foisted on him against his ten-year-old will, that causes him to start acting like a cat when his fear becomes too much for him to handle. As has often been the case with this adaptation, the jokes fly by a bit too fast for the comic timing to hit quite right, cramming a lot of story into a single episode. The fight sequence also flew by too quickly to make much of an impact, lacking the clever choreography or framing that were regularly highlights of the last season. The biggest laughs of the episode came from the voice actors' weird noises; Tomokazu Sugita's unhinged cackle as Kuno made me laugh so hard that I scared my cat.

And so, it's business as usual for the Ranma ½ gang. There are some character introductions I'm looking forward to this season, like my girl Ukyo. Then, there are some that I am… not, like a certain serial sexual assaulter. I'm so glad this episode brought back one of my favorites from the manga: Akane's iconic pocketwatch sweater dress.

Episode 14 Rating:

Another episode of Ranma ½, another character introduction. In fact, this one is a twofer: Shampoo has reentered the scene, bringing along her great-grandmother Cologne and her long-rejected suitor Mousse!

We have a bit to go before my favorite character enters, but for now, this trio brings their own chaos to the scene. Shampoo may not be trying to kill Ranma anymore, but she's still insisting on their engagement and, what's worse, she has a Jusenkyo curse of her own since falling into the Spring of the Drowned Cat. On her side is also Cologne, with her century's worth of craftiness and skill to back her up. Mousse, on the other hand, is too stupid to realize his and Ranma's interests are aligned and wants to fight him instead, because if he can't have Shampoo he might as well make everyone around him miserable, right?

This new adaptation continues their pattern of hewing closely to the manga with lovely animation, well-choreographed action, and comic timing that's just a touch too rapid-fire to maximize the humor's impact. I chose to watch the episode dubbed, if just for the sake of hearing SungWon Cho as Mousse. My nostalgia for Brad Swaile's take on the character runs deep, but I have to admit that Cho, at this point in his career, is a stronger voice actor than Swaile, who was still in his teens when he first played him. In Japanese, Toshihiko Seki is as delightful as ever.

For the newbies out there, these three characters will continue to feature very prominently in the series, unlike Gosunkugi, who will only pop up once or twice more unless we get some new anime-original material. For us old-hats, it's starting to feel a bit like a class reunion as more and more of the old gang returns.

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