RANMA 1/2 (2024)

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionRanma 1/2
ANIME ActionRanma 1/2: Nettou-hen
ANIME ActionRanma 1/2
MUSIC RomanceAnta Nante.
ANIME ActionRanma 1/2 (2024) 2nd Season

REVIEWS

• 

  melamuna

  80/100
  Entering the Reboot Era with a Timeless Favorite—Spread with an Attractive Modern Flair

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  Anime has been in an interesting state lately. While there’s an abundance of new shows, many feel similar or are close replications of each other. However, anime has also expanded into Western adaptations, with shows like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off! and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners standing out as recent successes.

  On the other side of the spectrum, there’s a different kind of adaptation that’s been gradually gaining attention over the years: anime reboots, with classics like Ranma ½ following the trend. ***

  __Part 1 Reboots__

  We’re in an era where classic stories are being rebooted for modern audiences, allowing people today to rediscover and enjoy timeless tales in a fresh, new light— with titles such as Ghost in The Shell coming back in the upcoming years. However, there is a silver lining when it comes to reboots, mainly what reason would it be to garner a reboot in the first place. After all, you could just go watch the original show. But there are 3 main reasons why reboots are offered a green light.

  One notable reason is finishing a story in which the original has failed to provide. One huge example of this is the Fruits Basket Reboot (2019-2021) which was rebooted to align it's story to the original manga source, unlike the original adaptation which had an original ending. Another reason is to offer the story in a new angle which the original vaguely provides— and then focus on that new angle. An example of this is Dororo (2019) and Devilman: Crybaby (2018) which offered a slight yet significant deviation from its source material, offering a fresher take on the story. Neither of the reasons above can justify Ranma 1⁄2 's reboot, which leads to the third reason and that is it's there to offer the story to brand new audiences.

  The Original Ranma ½ was released back in 1989, with its audience already old enough to move on yet fond. But this reboot’s intention is to bring back the classic story of today, gripping old audiences with the wave of nostalgia, and targeting brand new audiences such as myself. But this kind of reboot is susceptible to its relevance and purpose for its existence. However, there is an ace up upon their sleeves to maintain their place as the anime to watch this year and that is the involvement of MAPPA. ***

  __Part 2 MAPPA__

  For Context, we have seen a couple of years ago with Urusei Yatsura Reboot within the hands of David Productions, and they managed to convince people to watch the series not just from it's nostalgic value alone, but giving it a modern-80’s feel, exploiting the wave of 80’s style of the 2020’s on top of it's bubbly vibrant animation that's screams the loudest among other anime selections that year.

  And for Ranma ½, one of it's specialties is the signature animation styles of MAPPA’s innovation within its animation. MAPPA is often synonymous with impressive animation, and this reboot proves that sentiment forward by providing creative and unique angles with more movements with the materials on screen, unlike the stale, tech-limited staticness of the original. Added with the creative manga-like elements, creative framing, and a dash of colorful yet nostalgic environment, emitting that 80s anime style with a modern flair injected with MAPPA’s forte.

  While it’s certainly not MAPPA's best animation, especially compared to Jujutsu Kaisen’s dominance last year, their relatively quiet portfolio in 2024 means this show may attract more attention than expected. The impressive animation and direction have already convinced new viewers like myself to take notice—but is animation alone enough to fully hook myself in the story? ***

  __Part 3 Keeping Up with Today__

  Old media often feels "dated" due to its themes, structures, pacing, and style, which may have resonated in their time but do not align with contemporary expectations. This can lead many viewers to overlook older content in favor of new releases. Storytelling, in particular, suffers from this, as themes may not resonate with today's audience, and the episodic format is gradually being replaced by longer, continuous impactful narratives across episodes.

  Ranma ½ unfortunately checks those boxes from above, and you would think it would suffer greatly with those qualities. While the format of longform and episodic mostly lands within the preference of the viewer, the story offered in the show manages to be uniquely original yet familiar at the same time— standing out amidst various shounen series available.

  For foremost, the themes offered by Ranma½ remained original since shounen shows today have largely revolved around protagonists wanting to do good things, misunderstood or unsung main leads fighting for what's right amids the sea of the supernatural, to which Ranma½ is not—which is revolved around the comedic elements and moments in each of its beat while not being afraid to be somber on some moments—like most of the romance or comedy shows that are out recently.

  As for the characters, they are your standard one-noted characters with a specific role given to the show that they normally wouldn't break out of, but there are moments where you feel empathy for the characters in their big moments. These characters are really easy to follow and often really fun to see on screen, which is a huge plus. The story, meanwhile, can be straightforward a lot of times since it has that episodic nature, but with its character-driven story, we can see these characters in funny situations that still hit the ground like the original—added with the MAPPA flair.

  Ranma½ manages to keep up with today's contemporaries and formulaic tendencies with its character-driven comedy that never fails to give a chuckle and keep yourself hooked all throughout. However, expect a series that's mostly introducing you to the world of Ranma½ rather than a full-blown conclusion within a 12-episode series on source material spanning 400 chapters. ***

  __Conclusion__

  Ranma ½ is a fun and irresistibly addicting series to watch weekly, despite its episodic and somewhat repetitive adventures. The reboot has successfully introduced younger audiences to the source material, myself included, encouraging us to dive further into its entertaining journey. I highly recommend this series to anyone looking for a palate cleanser from the heavy, fantasy-driven nature of modern shounen and seeking a more comedy-centered show. ***

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• 

  luxray978

  90/100
  Colorful remake of a classic romcom with punchy comedy

  Introduction

  Ranma 1/2 is an anime and manga series that follows the titular Ranma Saotome who after falling into the spring of the drowned girl is cursed to switch forms when splashed with different water. Nevertheless, he has been engaged to the tomboyish Akane Tendo in an arranged marriage intended to join their Dojos. It uses this situation to tell a punchy and light-hearted romcom with action elements that stand the test of time with this adaptation.

  Animation

  The animation style used for the remake is simple and colorful and is unique among the modern slate of shows. The closest neighbor that I could see was the Urusei Yatsura remake by David Productions which I haven’t watched but appears to use a rainbow-colored shadowing style and slightly different linework. This is probably attributable to the style being an attempt to merge the motifs of the 90s era that director Kounosuke Uda worked on with the style of the original manga.

  Color language is used well to distinguish characters with each being given an iconic color to use for themselves (Ryoga’s yellow bandanas, Shampoo’s purple hair, etc.). Backgrounds are lighter with a watercolor-esque style designed to make the characters pop out with white outlines used to accentuate breakpoints between objects. Despite this light coloring, they are vividly detailed and the world feels alive and reactive. Action words pop out visibly over the top of these colorsets with the highest saturation and look great with their fun lettering.

  Moving on to movement the style changes depending on the scene. The most notable shift is when Ranma suddenly jumps into the air during a conversation or takes a sudden slapstick hit from Akane. Watching Ranma's dynamic movement was a ton of fun and the style made the combat scenes feel great. Comedic timing for the slapstick works well and I have no complaints there but it didn’t stand out to me as something notable.

  Adaptation

  The frills on this adaptation add a lot in my opinion. I love the opening songs' cutely voiced beat and it helps me get into the feeling of the show. Similarly, for me, the intro-prerolls which introduced the store in a Simpsons couch gag style are a cool way to let animators draw the group in a bunch of styles and I like it a lot. The biggest change is that from what I’ve heard the broadcast commentators are a unique addition to this adaptation. To say the least this change is great and though I haven’t directly compared I found their narration lead to a great flow in combat.

  Characters

  Character designs here are great and the aforementioned color theming adds a lot to distinguishment. Along with the distinctive personalities and weapons I was able to immediately
  latch onto characters and recognize them even as personal dynamics get quite complex. Particular favorites among the supporting cast are Ryoga, Akane’s sisters, Shampoo, and Tatewaki. The dynamics between characters are well done and provide a ton of ground for comedy and I love that so many integrate Ranma’s switching mechanic. One example of this is Kodachi the black rose whose love (male) and hate (Female) relationship with Ranma creates great comedy with her cruel and underhanded personality.

  Treatment of women

  As expected (though not always found) considering the mangaka Rumiko Takahashi is a woman, Ranma is very normal about women and I don’t have much to say here in either direction. There are a few bits that could stray close to the line but in my opinion, manage to avoid being problematic or uncomfortable.

  Affection with consent bits are treated differently for Ranma compared to Akane and this is a very good thing. Shampoo grabbing onto Ranma is funny because there is a vastly different power dynamic there and the inverse would be extremely uncomfortable. Ryoga’s P-chan bit is similar where past some initial scenes he isn’t shown to gain sexual gratification from being close to Akane. The choice to make him pathetic and end up wanting to get close to her in the same way as an actual pet would save the audience from constant pig curled-in boobs gags which other shows such as One Piece which I otherwise love uncomfortably engage in.

  Romance

  I don’t have a lot of experience with this era of romance anime which might explain my difference in opinion but I found Ranma 1/2 to be very refreshing. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about will they/won’t they stories being grating but to me it’s very clear here they will it’s just a matter of being along for the fun (and cute) ride. Akane and Ranma’s misdirected feelings are fertile ground for the show’s comedy and I find their slapstick dynamic a lot of fun.

  Comedy

  Speaking of the show’s comedy I think this is where the show really excelled for me. I really enjoyed the character bits like Ranma’s forms, environments where the entire fighting stage is transformed for a joke and slapstick gags. For the sake of not ruining their punchy nature, I don’t want to say too many specifics but I want to call attention to two missed pitfalls that stood out to me.

  First off, There are a lot of points in the show where they will toss away information via a gag for the sake of progression and this is especially true with Rana’s identity and water origins for transformation. I think that this is something many people might find annoying as “illogical” but it saves the show. It lets them make funny jokes -- the most important thing -- while preserving the show’s continuity. As someone prone to the inverse in my writing, I appreciate how well it was executed here.

  The second bit was the amnesia plot point utilized towards the end of this season which I usually loathe. However, Ranma managed to make this extremely fun by keeping things punchy and funny without being frustrating. It’s a hard balance to strike and I like how they handled it.

  Conclusion

  In Conclusion, the Ranma remake is a great standalone piece and managed to draw me in as someone who isn’t a fan of the series at all. The poppy animation and colorings serve to accentuate a comedic style that makes great use of slapstick and character comedy. As such I’m rating it a 9/10 as a show that is consistently great but doesn’t have the massively unique never-before-seen elements in high enough quality for my personal 10 criteria. I’ll see you all in July for season 2 :3

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