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Ranma ½ (らんま½, Japanese pronunciation: Ranma
Nibun no Ichi) is a humorous
anime and
manga by
Rumiko Takahashi (高橋 留美子) about a boy named
Ranma Saotome (早乙女 乱馬) who was trained from early childhood to age 16 in
the
martial arts.
The manga was serialized in Shounen Sunday beginning in 1987. Takahashi
has stated in interviews that she wanted to produce a story that would be
popular with children. Ranma's main audience was girls from elementary to
junior high school age.
Story
Warning: Spoilers follow
At the introduction of the story, we learn that on a training journey in
China, Ranma and his father, Genma Saotome, fell into the cursed springs at
Jusenkyo. Each spring is associated with a story about someone or
something that drowned in it hundreds or thousands of years ago, and anyone
who falls in a spring is cursed to turn into whatever drowned in that spring
whenever they come in contact with cold water, although they keep their
original minds, personalities and skills in the new form; hot water reverts
the cursed to their original form. Genma fell into the Spring of the Drowned
Giant Panda, and Ranma fell in to the Spring of the Drowned Girl...
Upon returning to Japan, Genma informs Ranma that he's been engaged... to
a girl that he's never met... when only a few blocks away from that girls
house. At the same time, Sound Tendo tells his three daughters that one of
them is to marry Ranma (who they've never even heard of) in order that the
Tendo
dojo might be carried on. When they meet him, and find out that he
becomes a she upon application of cold water, the two older sisters push the
engagement on the youngest sister, Akane, since she "hates boys, and Ranma
is half girl"; thus begins the love/hate relationship between Ranma and
Akane that lasts for the rest of the series.
This, combined with multiple suitors for both Ranma and Akane, many
bizarre forms of martial arts, and the various curses of many of the cast
members makes this a weird, but very funny, series.
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