Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Ranma 1/2
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Optitron
 Posts: 46 |
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Actually, Pantyhose Taro did fall (or rather jump) into more than just the monkey riding an ox and carrying a crane and a snake spring (I tried to guess that one from memory. Did I get it right?). My Ranma 1/2 books are currently rather buried, so I can't say exactly which volume this occurs in, but at a later point he goes back to Jusenkyo and takes a dip in the spring of drowned octopus (I feel like I should mention that an octopus can't drown, but if you read this far into the series I think you've long since abandoned any attempts at rationalizing the events that occur). And yes, in addition to changing into a minotaur-like creature with wings and a snake tail, going into the spring of drowned octopus causes him to also sprout several octopus legs that spray ink from their tips (again, not how an octopus functions, but whatever). So apparently using another spring does result in a fusion of the two transformations. Also, in regards to the question of whether the Jusenkyo curses change their victims into a duplicate of the original drowned entity or simply the animal / opposite-gendered version of him/herself, there's the case of spoiler[the Spring of Drowned Akane. During the Saffron Arc, one of the Jusendo bird-people captures Akane and drops her into a fresh Jusenkyo spring. Though Akane doesn't drown (as you would expect for the initial victim of a new Jusenkyo spring) her exposure to the waters allows the bird-person to transform into a perfect likeness of Akane.] So based on this, those who receive Jusenkyo curses change into perfect likenesses of the original victim. Oh, and by the way, the bird-people of Jusendo already have Jusenkyo curses, which means the bird-person spoiler[who gained the ability to change into Akane] was in fact able to completely alter the nature of her curse, which completely contradicts the case with Pantyhose Taro. So... yeah, I'm just gonna throw my hat in with whoever said that Rumiko Takahashi didn't have any rules for the curses set in stone. The lack of concrete rules governing how the curses work doesn't surprise me. The curses existed as a hook to draw readers into the series. At the heart of this manga is a story about a group of friends / friendly rivals and the adventures they have together. That's probably why it never bothered me that the series lacked a conclusive ending: I've always thought of this series as a story about a journey and the bonds of friendship forged along the way. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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It's the spring of drowned Yeti riding an ox and carrying a crane in one hand and a snake in the other. You are correct that Pantyhose Taro has two sets of curses overlapping each other. Also the Phoenix people where effected by the Jusenkyo water but was not actually cursed, they just gained bird attributes because they drank out of the Spring of Drowned bird. Its like how the Musk Dynasty gained animal abilities because their descendants married animals that where thrown into the Spring of Drowned Girl. I should also point out that Herb was also effected by the Spring of Drowned Girl and just gained a female form so there is no set form outside of the one spring. Keep in mind that in the original manga female Ranma had black hair. Compare Herb's female form to Ranma's female form. http://ranma.wikia.com/wiki/Herb |
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kgw
 Posts: 1066 Location: Spain, EU |
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Wow, after readling this I am SO glad Spanish publisher Glenat has started a Ranma 1/2 kanzenban edition...
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Optitron
Posts: 46 |
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Damn. I looked it up after I finished my initial response. Not only did I screw up the Yeti part, but it's also an eel, not a snake. Still, it has been several years since I last read the series. Sorry about misrepresenting the info about the Phoenix people. Like I said it's been a few years and I was going from memory. I remembered Herb, but it didn't even occur to me that his female form served as further proof that there were no set rules for the curses. I guess it's best to say that the curses are like the dragon balls in that they exist as plot devices whose powers and abilities can be changed based on the needs of the story (I think some of the extraneous Clow Cards from the Card Captor Sakura anime were also used in this way). Also, I remember reading a fan fiction once that made a good case for why female Ranma's hair was red even if the spring should have simply turned him into a female version of himself. The fanfic writer pointed out that Nodoka's (Ranma's Mother's) hair is red and that Ranma's female form might therefore take after his mother physically. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Also in the "whatever the mangaka feels like so don't think about it" vein, if you look at Shampoo's use of the "(only works once) make any water into a spring of drowned man" packet thing, after using that water Ranma (and Genma) stay in their normal male forms. Takahashi ALSO has random animals and such splashed with cursed waters to "prove they work" and their look is always random USUALLY with aspects of the original animal still intact (and one of the movies does the same altho that's debatable canonicity).
And all this doesn't even count the @$$-pull at the end spoiler[how DRINKING the water means it has no magical effect whatsoever]. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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See, it makes me think that Shampoo is also very temperamental, so that's her perfect cat form.  But I don't think there's a correct answer. Also, Ranma-chan's hair is drawn red by Takahashi on many occasions in the manga color illustrations as well.
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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Hm. I seem to be one of the few here who didn't learn about manga from this series.
Love Hina was my first. My brother actually had both, but he had only about 10 Ranma volumes and all of Love Hina except volume 4 (when I skipped to 5, I was a little confused on where Sara had come from ^^ , so I picked the series I could finish.
I read a few of his Ranma volumes, but it never hooked me like Love Hina did. |
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Sea Lion
 Posts: 307 |
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To this day I have a special place in my heart for Ranma 1/2. One time I went to a comic book store and saw they had a huge collection of Ranma 1/2 comics. A big regret of mine is I didn't part with the money to buy them, seeing as the store owner wanted something like 50 cents per comic.
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RGaspar
 Posts: 236 |
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Ranma was one of the very first animes I've ever seen, when I was a kid. Back then, it was one of my favorites, as well. The comedy was great, and the overuse of the same gags from episode to episode really helped me to identify the characters and have fun. I was always waiting for Genma to transform, or the old man to steal a panty.
Shampoo was my fav girl, btw 
A shame I never had the chance to watch the final episode, sounds like a sweet ending that I'd have loved in the day. |
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Sailor S
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I didn't really get going with Ranma 1/2 until I was fairly established as an anime fan, in part because I had a hard time parting with the $100 for the box sets, even though that was a pretty good deal especially at the time. I did eventually get to where I was collecting them as they came out though. But, as for the manga, I didn't start reading manga until a good 4 years after I started being an anime fan, and by that point, 2004 or so, unflipped manga was pretty much the norm so I couldn't bring myself to buy flipped manga. That might not bother me as much now, but I still don't have a burning desire to start collecting all 38 volumes. Maybe if Viz released a 3 in 1 version, I'd consider it.
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Lightning Leo
Posts: 311 Location: Earth |
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A while back when I was in Japan, I visited the second-hand bookstore BookOff and bought every single volume of Ranma 1/2 they had on their shelves (35 of the 38 volumes). They were SUPER cheap, about 100-300 yen a pop, an amazing deal, though the girl at the front desk was taken aback by the tower of books I carried to the counter. I only had to figure out how to ship'em back home, which was an interesting introduction to the Japanese postal system.
I've read and re-read all the books multiple times. I also breezed through some of the English version, which holds up very well comparatively to the Japanese (Viz did a great job IMO, especially the lettering). I've been a big fan of Takahashi since, and now have all of Maison Ikkoku, Rumic World Trilogy, and Rumic Theater. Ranma 1/2 really is a classic in it's own right, it perfectly captured the campy, wildly imaginative, optimistic, light-hearted and trendy spirit of the late 80's and early 90's in an original and innovative way. It's wacky, mindless, easy to get into rom-com martial arts fun, that anyone can revisit and enjoy for generations to come. Now I just need to get Urusei Yatsura... 
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14763 |
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Back before we even heard of it, before the manga and Viz videos, a friend brought this Japanese game for the SNES. We had this Hong Kong device that plugged on top of the SNES that allowed us to copy and play SNES games using the 3.5" floppy disk - and that's how we were able to play J-games. We couldn't read the J-writings, but we later learned it was Hard Battle, and that's our first encounter with Ranma 1/2. I recall that crazy chart resembling an American football play describing the love relationships.
By then, its Viz manga and videos dominated the "Japanimation" shelves, years before DBZ took over the shops, but it was at least $30 per 2 episodes. And that little fiasco when Viz's artbox originally described it something like "sexual romantic comedy" before changing it to "romantic comedy of the sexes." Hahahaha.......... ah, back when Japanese TV allowed anime nudity on primetime! Fortunately, we knew the owner of a comic shop that had a lot of anime videos and allowed us to rent up to 20 or so videos at a time, for just around $2 a pop (Blockbuster was charging at least $5), and just return 'em whenever we can (usually around a week) with no late fees. That's how ya get thru a lot of eps real quick.
Still have those larger-sized Viz first edition manga. But maybe what I won't miss were those endless debates and flame wars of Ranma vs Ryouga vs Pantyhose vs Herb vs Happy vs Cologne etc. and Akane vs Shampoo vs Ukyou etc. And those fanfictions! |
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Lightning Leo
Posts: 311 Location: Earth |
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@enurtsol - Man, I still have some of those old larger Viz first edition manga with the blocky thin squarish text logo... I even have some of the floppy comics, too!
There was a local comic shop I used to visit back in the day that had TONS of anime on VHS for rent, and Ranma was among the first I saw after blazing through Evangelion. Unfortunately, it was hard to figure out what order to rent the videos due to the ambiguous covers, so I only saw a few, but they were great. I finally saw Big Trouble in Nekonron China, and was pretty much hooked.
Though, my very first exposure to Ranma was reading episode summaries on the interwebs back in the days of dialup. Back then I could only dream of ever seeing the series stateside... Someday I'll finally collect the whole anime series, I really hope Viz will re-release it all in an easy to collect all-in-one format (with the OVA's and movies, too).
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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The first Ranma VHS dubbed and the first Oh My Goddess! VHS subbed were my gateway to anime and manga. I went on to collect all of the DVDs of both and all the comic floppies as long as they came out along with the trades.
Something I have still on VHS that I never saw on DVD is the Ranma 1/2 Juke Box. A compilation of all of the openings and endings (textless). |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2798 |
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I admit I haven't seen "Ranma 1/2" so I can't comment on it. But I used to see it around a lot. I used to see it at my local Blockbuster Video. And a lot times,they had the funniest titles that parodied Hollywood movies. I don't think it's been released on DVD.
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