Ranma ½

Episodes 20-21

How would you rate episode 20 of
Ranma ½ (TV 2025) ?

Community score: 4.6

How would you rate episode 21 of
Ranma ½ (TV 2025) ?

Community score: 4.6

Imagine me hooting, hollering, banging on the table, because my girl Ukyo Kuonji has arrived, and earlier than expected to boot! As a young teen reading Ranma ½, Akane may have been the most similar to me overall, but Ukyo was the girl I wanted to be: friendly and laid back, but capable of doing enormous damage when the occasion called for it. In the battle for Best Girl, there was never any competition for me.

This also might be the worst thing Genma has ever done, as we slowly learn throughout the first episode. Ukyo first appears on a stormy night, confronting Genma and calling herself “the child he left behind.” Akane, who happens to overhear, naturally assumes that Genma had an affair that produced a baby, which she then tells Ranma. Ranma pretends to be pleased that a guy with a mug like his dad's managed to convince more than one woman to sleep with him, but knocks Genma over next time he sees him.

It turns out, Genma didn't cheat on his wife! Nope, it was just his typical theft and fraud, with a side of child abandonment. When Ranma was a child on their training journey, Ukyo was a child of an okonomiyaki seller in their neighborhood. The two had a friendship founded on antagonism and fighting, as is typical for Ranma, but eventually, the time came for the Saotomes to move on. Ranma distinctly remembers Ukyo chasing after them, crying, but it takes some pressing for him to recall that, for some reason, they had the okonomiyaki cart. Why did Ranma never question this? Was it simply that he was too young, or was he just used to his father's moral turpitude, causing him to develop a skewed sense of right and wrong?

Well, it makes sense that Ukyo would be upset about that. Genma stole her family's livelihood! How terrible!

It gets worse.

The reason Genma thought for even half a second that he had a right to take the cart was that he's the kind of thief who'll twist logic into pretzels to suit his ends. Turns out, he'd promised Ukyo's dad that he'd take her with them as Ranma's fiancée, with the cart as a dowry. When confronted with the fact that Ranma already had a marriage arranged, he asked poor, innocent Ranma what he liked better: Ukyo or okonomiyaki. As a food-motivated small child, Ranma naturally picked okonomiyaki, which Genma used to justify his actions. Yep, a grown-ass man blaming his small child.

While I absolutely adore Ukyo, in case that isn't abundantly clear, her introductory arc isn't her best moment. It follows the same formula as Ryoga, Shampoo, and Mousse's introductions: someone comes to the Tendo dojo claiming Ranma wronged them in some way, which is generally justified. They try to kill Ranma, but then he neutralizes them in some way. As fun as Ukyo's gimmick of turning the ring into a giant okonomiyaki grill and using a giant spatula as her primary weapon is, seeing the pattern repeated for the fourth time in less than two seasons doesn't wow me. Plus, Ranma wins her over by flirting with her, charming her with uncharacteristically smooth sweet-talk and calling her cute.

I'm also unclear on why Ukyo is in disguise as a boy. Yeah, yeah, she gave up on womanhood and grilled okonomiyaki by the raging sea. But she has a boy's name, binds her chest, wears a boy's uniform, and ties back her hair at school. It's a total non-issue outside of a couple of throwaway gags, and she doesn't have any issues with femininity from this point forward. Maybe there's something about 80s Japanese gender roles that I'm missing. I don't know.

The next episode is a much better showcase of what I love about Ukyo. When Shampoo and Kodachi see Akane as their rival for Ranma's heart, they're ready for murder. But Ukyo doesn't roll that way. Ukyo has a moral compass and understands that murder is the answer for very few problems. Unlike anyone else in the show, Ukyo has at least three brain cells that are capable of working at the same time. Her solution is much simpler: she finds a cute boy who's already smitten with Akane, who Akane also has a soft spot for, and sets them up. With any luck, Akane's feelings will turn to love, and she'll be out of Ukyo and Ranma's hair!

Enter Ryoga.

The story proceeds from there as one would expect: Akane thinks Ryoga is being taken advantage of and fails to catch on to the fact that he's desperately in love with her. Ranma feels threatened and tries to interfere by putting on a wig and a dress, claiming to be Ryoga's fiancée. Akane doesn't understand who is doing what and why, only that Ranma is being a butthead and that she should be nice to Ryoga.

While this is a good episode for Ukyo, it's a rough showing for Ryoga. The poor boy is desperately, desperately lonely. He spends most of his life wandering around alone, and even when he makes it home, his parents are usually lost somewhere as well. Ranma is the closest thing he has to a friend, and the two are constantly at each other's throats, sometimes literally. Akane is the only person in the world who is consistently nice to him.

So when he has a pretty girl calling herself his fiancée, even going so far as to say she knows about his curse and is fine with him turning into a pig, he loses control. There's a heavy implication that if Ranma weren't capable of fending him off, he would have pushed himself on him physically without consent. Which is. Um. Assault? I hate to have to keep bringing it up, because Ranma ½ operates on the rule of what's funny, applying the same slapstick mentality to sexuality as it does to violence. But I make it a rule to point out comedy sexual assault when it comes up, and Ryoga, honey, you have to get a “yes.”

One thing to note: Ukyo is one of the few characters whose original actor didn't return to reprise the role in Japanese. Hiromi Tsuru was an icon of voice acting, not just as Ukyo but also Dragon Ball's Bulma, Kimagure Orange Road's Madoka Ayukawa, and Trigun's Meryl Strife, and passed away in 2017 due to an aortic dissection. Her replacement, Kaori Nazuka, has a lengthy resume but has never stood out to me as an actor, even in shows I watched. Her voice actors in both English and Japanese do a good job, though they don't stand out against the rest of the cast either.

I've given up on trying to understand the logic behind this season's reordering of the episodes. We're just jumping around willy-nilly now. I'm just in for the ride.

Rating:

Ranma ½ is currently streaming on Netflix.