Ranma ½ Season 3

Episodes 1-3

Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ was one of the very first manga I ever read. I snatched up as many Viz floppy comic issues as I could after my friend, and I rented the Ranma ½ Hard Battle SNES game for a weekend, and I was won over by the insane humor, bright colors, and bizarre character designs. It's no exaggeration to say that, for a few years, I was obsessed. I'm really happy, then, that MAPPA's super-shiny and fun modern anime remake has finally got around to adapting one of my very favorite storylines: The Breaking Point arc.

I was worried they might skip it, as last season adapted some manga chapters from later volumes, but I guess it's not unheard of for adaptations to reorder chapters, especially from such an episodic source material. This particular story works so well because it centers the main trio: Ranma. Ryoga and Akane, and their particularly weird love triangle/rivalries.

As a result of Ranma's training with Shampoo's great-grandmother Cologne, he's now so much faster than his opponents that he perceives them as slow. This is an issue for Ryoga, who feels humiliated in front of Akane when Ranma effortlessly beats him. The last thing Ryoga wants is to see a look of pity on his beloved's face.

Ever the opportunist, Cologne seizes the chance to train Ryoga in the hopes that by besting Ranma he can win Akane's affection, freeing up Ranma to marry Shampoo. The secret she wishes to impart? The terrifying Breaking Point technique that shatters boulders with the slightest touch. It's pure martial arts fantasy nonsense, but also about as serious and dramatic as this very silly show tends to get. Ryoga could potentially rip Ranma's body apart with such a move. Ranma does usually deserve a beatdown for his cocky attitude, but instant explosive evisceration is probably going a bit too far.

This episode's best animation sequence is easily Akane's cursed attempt at campfire cooking. The female protagonist being a poor cook is an overused trope these days, but I expect it was somewhat fresher back in the 1980s when first written. Everyone's reactions to her unintentional lethal poisoning are still very funny, and Ryoga's bloodshot eyes got the biggest laugh from my 15-year-old son, whose only exposure to the series has been via this anime. Sometimes the old gags remain the best.

MAPPA's work on Ranma ½ remains top-notch, and I'm excited to see what other chapters they've planned to adapt in the upcoming episodes. As long as there's more Shampoo, please. She only appears for such a brief moment in this first episode, and she remains my favorite character after all these years!

With episode 2, I can safely conclude that MAPPA's handling of one of my favorite parts of the original Ranma ½ manga has exceeded my expectations. The episode takes the series' usual comedy violence and ramps it up to eleven with a JJK-like blowout battle between Ryoga and Ranma that surely must have consumed a good proportion of the entire season's resources all in one go. Will it be only slide-shows to follow from now on?

In some ways, the spectacular fight between doom-punching Ryoga and fast-evading Ranma is even better than many of the battles in MAPPA's signature action series JJK. I sometimes find JJK's fights to be overwrought, flashy excesses that I struggle to parse what the hell is going on. With this relatively simple bout between two ridiculously overpowered opponents, I had no difficulty following the exact flow of battle, which was smooth, creative, and above all, extremely entertaining.

Ryoga's hellish training under Cologne has borne fruit – he's now able to utilize the terrifying Breaking Point technique, and with it he plans to shatter Ranma's body and win Akane's favor. Oddly, Akane seems almost accepting of her fate, though she does need to be incapacitated and trussed up by a demonic-looking Cologne first. Perhaps she assumes that no matter how powerful Ryoga has become, Ranma will still best him? Her anxiety about Ranma getting hurt suggests she has some doubts, however. Although she expresses a great deal of care towards Ryoga, I don't think she ever perceives him as a true romantic prospect.

Ranma's only able to beat Ranma due to his internalization of Cologne's previous tutorials on the “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” technique, plus his father's insane angry bee training. It's a wonder Ranma isn't more screwed up, considering the kind of adults he has to look up to. Cologne's a menace, training both Ryoga and Ranma in mutually exclusive techniques, then setting them against one another. What's next? Her teaching Akane to cook?

This is one of the funniest, most visually appealing episodes of any anime so far this season, and with it MAPPA proves they're an excellent choice of studio for this adaptation (if they hadn't already). I just hope they're treating their animation staff properly; this looks to have been a gruelling episode to work on.

The season's third episode changes things up a notch with a far more overtly comedic installment. There's more Shampoo! Hooray! Oh, and Happosai's back. Ugh… I thoroughly disliked Happosai back in the 90s, and I like him even less now. Thankfully, his main role in this episode is to act as an inciting agent of chaos, then get beaten up multiple times as the butt of the joke. Even so, his first few POV scenes leering at all of the swimsuit-clad girls at the beach is very uncomfortable viewing.

Our daft MacGuffin this time is a golden bangle inlaid with three magic gems that Happosai stole from Shampoo's village at some point in the distant past, when her great-grandmother was a young (and very pretty) woman. Cologne and Happosai's significantly differing accounts of their prior interactions are very telling. Even back then, Happosai was a deformed, perverted little thief, except in his mind's eye.

Now that Happosai learns the true nature of the inlaid gems (they're essentially love potions in pill form), he's ready to unleash true horror upon the world… mainly leading to highly amusing hijinks where either Ranma or Akane accidentally swallows pills that could make them fall in love with whichever person of the opposite sex they first see. Love potions have been a recurrent plot device in comedies from time immemorial; even Shakespeare used one in A Midsummer Night's Dream to make Queen Titania fall in love with an ass. In this version, Happosai is very much the ass, and thankfully his only successful engagement here is with a lovelorn octopus. I wish the happy couple an eternity of tentacly intimacy far beneath the sea, and far from our TV screens.

Other than the unsettling Happosai-centric stuff, the rest of the episode is hilarious screwball comedy, with everyone battling over who will fall in love with who. Ranma and Akane, as usual, completely fail to admit to one another their true feelings, yet do everything within their power to prevent the other from falling for someone else. The idea of a forced lifetime love pill is kind of horrific, if you think about it. We never do find out what happens if female Ranma were to take a pill and fall in love with a random man, though. We'll have to leave hot Ranma/Ryoga shipping to the more fetid corners of fanfiction.

Poor Ryoga in this episode merely blunders into the chaos with no idea what's going on, and Kuno's reduced to a ridiculously silly (but funny) cameo. There's quite enough going on here between Ranma, Akane, and Shampoo, with their elders jamming their oars in, that the wider cast isn't really needed. Also, Shampoo looks smoking hot in her sultry swimsuit. I know Ranma would never choose her (mad fool that he is), but she'll always be my number one girl in this show!

These daft, light-hearted episodes are a great palate cleanser after the (slightly) more serious story arcs like The Breaking Point. I feel like with this one, MAPPA has really nailed the comic timing, and captured the exaggerated facial expressions mangaka Rumiko Takahashi excelled at in her original manga. I'm super-happy with this adaptation so far, and will remain that way if we can try to keep Happosai's appearances to a minimum from now on.

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Ranma ½ Season 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.