My Thoughts on Ranma 1/2 (2024)
I have a love/hate relationship with Rumiko Takashi's body of work. I respect her and her manga a lot for what she did for the industry. Not only paving the way for other female manga authors to break into the industry and having more strong and interesting female characters in general in manga--without her we probably wouldn't have Hiromu Arakawa who's one of my favorite manga authors, and her incredible female characters, which includes Winry Rockbell who was one of my earliest anime crushes. But on top of that she also created so many tropes that are still used in romantic comedy anime and manga to this day, for better or for worse. Basically, if you love romantic comedy anime and manga, you owe everything to her work.
As for my opinion on her body of work itself, it's very hit or miss for me. Mostly miss. A few years ago I tried watching the original Urusei Yatsura. The original anime from the 1970s has 195 episodes and 6 movies, and I watched 52 episodes and 1 movie. That's way more episodes than most single season of anime these days, and that's far more than I'd typically tolerate an anime I don't like, but I really wanted to like it, but I eventually just had to call it quits, I just couldn't. While I respect it for the various areas that it changed anime and manga I just couldn't.
On the completely other side of things, i grew up watching InuYasha, and it still holds a special place in my heart. There are some things in it that annoy me a bit whenever I re-watch it, but t hose ticks aren't as common as in a lot of her other works, some of them are a bit more understandable considering the context of that particular story and universe, and there's a lot more tropes in the series that has nothing to do with romcoms since it combines her standard stories with the battle shonen formula. Oh, there's also Rin-ne, which was just insanely boring.
Ranma 1/2 falls somewhere in the middle with me. The original anime was 161 episodes long, and I watched 26 episodes a few years ago before dropping it. Just like Urusei Yatsura that was way more than I'd usually tolerate an anime that I hate. But this one I didn't hate. I thought it was fine. It annoyed me a bit, but it wasn't pull my hair out of my head annoying like Urusei Yatsura. But I still didn't like it enough to watch 161 episodes of it, that's for sure. But I did watch all of the first season of the remake, as it was only 12 episodes. There's also a higher likelihood that I'll watch the entire remake, if it does like 12 or 13 episodes at a time.
There were more funny and genuinely charming moments than I expected going in. It once again proves to be the most mixed one of her works for me that I've seen. But I didn't hate it, and for that I'm very happy. I thought it was okay. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
As for my opinion on her body of work itself, it's very hit or miss for me. Mostly miss. A few years ago I tried watching the original Urusei Yatsura. The original anime from the 1970s has 195 episodes and 6 movies, and I watched 52 episodes and 1 movie. That's way more episodes than most single season of anime these days, and that's far more than I'd typically tolerate an anime I don't like, but I really wanted to like it, but I eventually just had to call it quits, I just couldn't. While I respect it for the various areas that it changed anime and manga I just couldn't.
On the completely other side of things, i grew up watching InuYasha, and it still holds a special place in my heart. There are some things in it that annoy me a bit whenever I re-watch it, but t hose ticks aren't as common as in a lot of her other works, some of them are a bit more understandable considering the context of that particular story and universe, and there's a lot more tropes in the series that has nothing to do with romcoms since it combines her standard stories with the battle shonen formula. Oh, there's also Rin-ne, which was just insanely boring.
Ranma 1/2 falls somewhere in the middle with me. The original anime was 161 episodes long, and I watched 26 episodes a few years ago before dropping it. Just like Urusei Yatsura that was way more than I'd usually tolerate an anime that I hate. But this one I didn't hate. I thought it was fine. It annoyed me a bit, but it wasn't pull my hair out of my head annoying like Urusei Yatsura. But I still didn't like it enough to watch 161 episodes of it, that's for sure. But I did watch all of the first season of the remake, as it was only 12 episodes. There's also a higher likelihood that I'll watch the entire remake, if it does like 12 or 13 episodes at a time.
There were more funny and genuinely charming moments than I expected going in. It once again proves to be the most mixed one of her works for me that I've seen. But I didn't hate it, and for that I'm very happy. I thought it was okay. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
Commentaires
Get a job or something.
This junk is not using reddit as intended, it's OP using the subreddit as a personal blog for nonsense.
Its rich that dude is talking about someone needing to get a job but he is on here so much he see all the posts. Maybe he needs a break from here, too
This is a place where we are supposed to discuss anime not OP's personal likes and dislikes.
As for Ranma, I see a young man with discipline, good values, a steady mind and has much more pure of heart and is very much deserving for Akane. All the girls naturally fall for Ranma, as opposed to shit-head Ataru.
It's just annoying to see women chasing sick-minded freaks like Ataru who mind you is a nightmare recipe for disaster. Unstable, uncommitted, degenerate. And look at his family....his mother has interests for other men than her own husband and she laments having given birth to Ataru on several occasions, sometimes right in front of him., his father is just aloof, feckless, ignorant. Ataru's whole family is just dysfunctional. Compare that with Ranma and Akane's family...who are just absolutely wholesome.
All I see in Urusei Yatsura is just a chaos, it doesn't make sense. No structure. It's bubble-gum.
With Ranma 1/2 I see structure. I see a female MC with dignity (i.e Akane doesn't overly throw herself at her love interest like how Lum is doing), but also reserves herself for the right guy (i.e Ranma). Despite Shampoo trying to fiddle between the betrothed, Ranma is NOT pulling an Ataru or Happosai characteristic...which is definitely a strong man right there. Something worthy of respect. He doesn't take advantage of her when their both sleeping in the same room. Ranma has feelings for her, but he has good control. Mass respect. Literally everyone in Urusei Yatsura is dysfunctional. Everyone is chasing after materialistic gain without dignity, like hamster in a mini-wheel. Idk wtf was running through Rumiko's mind when she wrote UY but with Ranma 1/2 she did a much better job. Its a big improvement. Big leap.
I haven't watched Inuyasha btw, I heard that its good. Idk how I missed it in the 2000s when it came out, but at some point I am convinced I should watch it in the future.