Ranma ½/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • A minor example. Because the 33 chapters that originally contained color were converted to gray scale in the Japanese tankobon, and the English release of the manga was only in black and white (VIZ did do one volume in color), Ranma's female form became established in the majority of fans' minds as being a redhead. Any fanfic or fanart that portrays Ranma's female form as having black hair is more likely to receive a barrage of questions asking why the author changed the hair color than compliments from hardcore fans thanking them for going with the original depiction. Particularly annoying when people complain about the fanart since Takahashi has had Ranma with a multitude of colors such as purple, pink, green, blond and blue in noncanonical art such as on the covers and the art book.
    • Less obviously: the name of the martial arts style that Happōsai, the Saotomes and the Tendō s translates directly (more or less) as "School of Indiscriminate Grappling", and this is what the manga used to refer to it. In the anime, it was translated as the somewhat looser, but arguably catchier, "Anything Goes Martial Arts", and this is how it is most commonly referred to.

"The Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling... I like to call it Anything Goes."

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Every single character gets one, and the deliberate alternate depictions (for some subtle, for others blatant) in the anime only add fuel to the fire. For example: Is Kasumi truly sweet and naive, or does she merely act that way because it's expected of her and she subtly enjoys stirring up trouble through such methods as giving Akane a mallet and planting the idea that Ranma may attempt to rape Akane while she's weak from flu?
  • Artistic License Geography: Unless it's to show how Badass (or stupid) Genma and Ranma were even before the story began. In the backstory, Ranma and Genma swum across the Sea of Japan in order to wander around and train in China; this is how they reached Jusenkyo. For our North American readers, this is roughly the equivalent of swimming the length of Lake Ontario and the length of Lake Erie in order to be able to walk to San Francisco. At least they were said to have been away for years.
  • Base Breaker:
  • Broken Base: Fans of the English dub can't decide whether they prefer Sarah Strange or Richard Ian Cox as Boy-type Ranma. Both have their fans and haters, and the casting and re-casting caused a bit of controversy in the 90s. Sarah has the advantage of voicing Ranma during the better era of the show, though Richard is obviously much closer to the Japanese voice. Some newer fans are distracted by the fact that Richard also voiced Inuyasha, even though he was actually Ranma first.
  • Cult Classic: During The Nineties, Ranma ½ was one of the few anime/manga series to reach an audience outside the existing (and quite small, compared to today) fan community, acting as a Gateway Series for many.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: For both the manga and the anime, people could tire of the needlessly cruel slapstick violence, over-complicated family and romance situations, and so many characters who act like mean-spirited, unpleasant Jerkasses after too many chapters or episodes of it. Status Quo Is God being in effect really does not help matters.
  • Designated Villain: Hikaru Gosunkugi's a villain because Ranma and the rest of his class were bullying him.
  • Die for Our Ship: Has its own subpage. Pick a pairing, any pairing.
  • Draco in Leather Pants/Ron the Death Eater: The entire cast really: it doesn't matter which one you choose, someone somewhere in the fandom will be fashioning some nice leather pants for them, and likewise someone else will be portraying them as Satan's Little Helper.
    • Some people consider Ranma a real bastard for picking on the weak by sneaking up on and breaking a balloon near Gosunkugi's head. They forgot entirely that Gosunkugi had been stalking Akane and secretly taking photos of the school girls (Akane only, really, but from Ranma's point of view he just sees a guy crouching next to a window with a camera secretly taking pictures of school girls). They then went on to say that all the stuff Gosunkugi did (stalking Ranma, trying to find out Ranma's weakness to use it against him, joining up with Tatewaki, stalking his fiancee, etc) was Ranma's fault for picking on Gosunkugi (when said picking on him was surprising him while he was secretly taking photos of girls).
    • While Ranma is in no way perfect, a lot of his far more negative aspects such as being sexist, not apologizing, and being uncultured are completely fanon.
  • Ear Worm: Yappapa... Yappapa... All the various opening themes can be pretty catchy, but Season 1's "Jajauma ni Sasenaide" is arguably the most well-known.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Ryōga Hibiki, to the extent that Rumiko Takahashi actually ended up creating a girl from scratch solely so that Ryōga could break out of All Love Is Unrequited and be free of the Love Dodecahedron and find some measure of happiness. Nabiki also qualifies.
    • Tsubasa Kurenai is a fairly common character in older fanfiction despite only getting one manga story, a bit-part in an anime Filler episode and a cameo in the first movie.
  • Epileptic Trees: When Tofu comments he hasn't seen the Xi Fang Gao shiatsu technique "in a hundred years", a theory broke out that he's actually Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Nabiki is arguably easily the most genuinely evil female character in the manga series, yet tends to easily get the biggest share of this among the readers, due to the mischievous sarcastic wit and world-vise hedonistic sex appeal. Shampoo is also one of the most villainous girls in the original manga, isn't exactly innocent in the anime (although much nicer than in the manga), and is typically regarded (in series and out) as being pretty hot-looking.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: As the only canonically requited matches in the Love Dodecahedron are between Ranma/Akane, Genma/Nodoka and Ryōga/Akari, every other pairing, including Shampoo/Mousse and Tofu/Kasumi, belongs in this category. Just the same, almost every single matchup inside the dodecahedron (and numerous ones outside it) has fans. Ranma in particular is the Launcher of a Thousand Ships, although Ranma/Ukyo, Ranma/Ryōga, Ranma/Kasumi, etc are all individually less popular than Ranma/Akane. Ryōga and Ukyo, who weren't directly connected by any love triangles, are quite popular as a Pair the Spares matchup despite a definitive Ship Sinking story and Ryōga's later involvement with Akari: this is doubtless due to the anime's influence, as its cancellation three years prior to Akari's introduction meant she never appeared in it, and the Ship Sinking story in question was a lot more ambiguous in the animated portrayal.
  • Fan Dumb: Mostly related to the shipping wars, but a surprising amount due to people insisting on putting serious interpretations on Rule of Funny plot developments or visual gags and slapstick. On the other hand, several of the instances this is claimed for are in context parts of an entire story circling around a certain theme, and the same argument can easily be made about the fans who go to lengths to ignore anything, no matter how repeatedly and consistently a certain behaviour happens. Basically it is only true fandumb if it is an Out-of-Character Moment, rather than a pattern, alternately if somebody is willfully completely ignoring the pattern.
  • Fanon: So, so much of it, mostly stemming from the rather uncoordinated release of English dubbed material and a huge Fanfic base with more crossovers than is sane. See the main article for more.
  • Fan Wank: Ki Attacks get a lot of this. Everything which isn't explained in-universe, and which is really explainable by the Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny and Supernatural Martial Arts, tends to be attributed to Ki manipulation. Mousse having a Hyperspace Arsenal up his sleeves? He's using Ki to compress space. The Happo Fire Burst explosives? Conjured from Ki. Akane's "signature" Hyperspace Mallet (which she doesn't even use that often)? Obviously a Ki construct. Kuno's implausible use of his Bokken? Clearly, it's reinforced with his Ki! Ryōga's razor-sharp belt and bandannas, as well as Kodachi's ribbon? A Ki-based ability called Iron Cloth (this also partially solves the Plot Hole of why Ryōga knows the feminine "sport" of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics: he wanted the Iron Cloth technique).
  • Faux Symbolism: Given the cultural backdrop of Japan, when asked if Ranma was an effort to enlighten a strongly male-dominated society, Takahashi replied that she doesn't think in terms of grand social themes, but strictly in stories that are fun and "märchenhaft". Of course that doesn't stop her from poking fun at the conventions every now and then.
  • Foe Yay:
    • The fans tend to give Ryōga/Ranma a lot of this, regardless which gender Ranma is in at the time. Possibly based upon the fact that Ranma resorted to the "dress as a cute girl and flirt with Ryōga mercilessly" tactic whenever he needed a strategic advantage. Not to mention that, with the series reliance of Belligerent Sexual Tension, well...
    • Note that, canonically, Takahashi decisively punctured and made fun of this interpretation with the "Fishing Rod of Love" story. Ranma turns into a murderously obsessive stalker, and eventually pushes Ryōga into considering killing him/her in extreme disgust. Ditto for Ranma's reaction at the end, free of the influence, when Ryōga tries to hug Akane and proclaim his love... but got the wrong target. They're both completely heterosexual.
  • Gateway Series: Possibly the gateway anime, along with Sailor Moon, in the 1990's.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Akane Tendō is one of the most popular characters in France, and she is rarely a victim of hate.
    • As far as the series goes, it was quite popular in France and the USA. In the latter country, its popularity was such to the point in the early 90s, anime fandom, functionally every Western Otaku had watched Ranma at least once.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Akane Tendō, in the first volume/episode, is effortlessly tagged out by female Ranma in their first sparring match. She then states that she's just glad that she lost to another girl because she'd hate to be beaten by a boy...
  • Ho Yay: Ryōga and Ranma in the Love Rod mini-arc. It gets so convoluted that Akane honestly thinks Ryōga is gay, much to his dismay.
  • I Am Not Shazam:
    • The Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire is a training technique, not an actual attack. It is basically composed of removing several chestnuts from on open fire by hand without getting burned, success means that the trainee is now not only very fast, but accurate. The anime usually has Ranma shouting this when he uses his Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, however.
    • For some reason, a lot of the fandom refers to Shampoo's signature weapons as "bonbori" (in reality paper lanterns); this probably caused some confusion when listening to Akane's Baka Song, as she mentions bonbori. The round-headed maces are "chui".
    • Also there has been some minor confusion as to what constitutes Pantyhose Tarō's first name. For the record, it's not "Pantyhose": this is just a prefix to the "taro" component, so that in Japanese his name should be read as the single word "Pantsutotaro" (like, for instance, Kentaro, Yotaro, Kotaro, et al). It is difficult to render it as a single word in English, however, making "Pantyhose Taro" acceptable.
  • Iron Woobie: Ryu Kumon, also a Stoic Woobie.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Most if not all of the teen characters who are sympathetic. Some think that Ryōga fits best during his initial appearances, before his Heel Face Turn.
    • Mousse is an In-Universe example: Ranma thinks Mousse is an asshole, courtesy of the whole "attack him out of nowhere and pick a fight over his Accidental Marriage to Shampoo" situation, but he still feels sorry and tries to encourage Mousse after the Chinese boy makes a tearful Motive Rant about his love for Shampoo.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ranma Saotome's two forms, thanks to his canonical Love Dodecahedron, implied general attractiveness, and the fan-overstated tendency of his father to abuse Arranged Marriages that his son has no knowledge of.
  • Les Yay:
    • Fanon is all over the place, but Shampoo certainly doesn't hesitate to Glomp Ranma in either form, and many of Ranma and Akane's most comfortable and relaxed moments have occurred while Ranma was female.
    • Though not directed at anyone really noticeable, Nabiki has some really weird habits for a presumably boy-crazy girl. Like fondling female Ranma to determine that her breasts have grown. Or all the pictures of female Ranma in various states of undress she keeps around her room, but then again she does sell the prints to an awful lot of people.
  • Magnificent Bitch: Nabiki when she is motivated to make a genuine effort, as in the Kinnosuke Kasha-Oh story.
  • Mary Sue:
    • Canon Sue: Akari is regarded by some as this, on the basis that she is an official character created by Rumiko Takahashi and she displays traits of the Relationship Sue.
    • God Mode Sue:
      • Ranma is often portrayed as one in fanfic. Most evident in stories where he obtains an extreme powerup or ability that almost instantly makes everyone else he knows concede that he's the best and the only hope for the universe. Though, to be honest, the canonical version of Ranma in the manga (at least) can be seen as heavily leaning this way, for reasons outlined below, but his powers are balanced somewhat by his tendency to attract luck associated with the Butt Monkey or The Chew Toy.
      • With the comedic exception of ice skating he's pretty much instantly good at any skill he needs to use (tea ceremony, sewing, cooking) and prone to pulling the fact that he is good at them out of thin air when he turns out to need them.
      • He has superhuman abilities (Super Speed, Super Strength, Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, Made of Iron, Healing Factor, Ki Attacks) and comes off as superhuman even compared to the other superhuman fighters in the series (the only characters who can actually go toe to toe with Ranma in straight up serious battle are Ryōga Hibiki the Old Masters Cologne and Happōsai, Pantyhose Tarō's One-Winged Angel form, Ryu Kumon (who happens to wield a whole school of Dangerous Forbidden Techniques), the dragon-blooded Herb and the... well, however you'd describe Saffron).
      • Despite his canonical childhood, he is actually nowhere near as poorly off for social skills as you may think, being quite capable of being polite, charming, sincere and even seductive when he wants to be.
      • He can read, decipher and reverse engineer the attacks and skills of his opponents in lengths of time that can take anywhere from days to minutes.
    • Jerk Sue:
      • Nabiki is portrayed this way in fanon... However, the root material more portrays her as a comedic spoof of a Villain Sue.
      • Akane is also sometimes portrayed this way in fanfiction, usually by simultaneously overplaying her actual temper and willingness to use violence and portraying every single thing she does as being reasonable, no matter how unreasonably extreme she may be portrayed.
    • Relationship Sue: The blatant purpose behind Akari's creation was to give Ryōga a girlfriend and thus a happy ending, as well as a reason to stop chasing Akane. It worked in-series, but many fans preferred the Pair the Spares matchup of Ryōga and Ukyo. Specifically, Akari comes out of nowhere, with no previous ties to the characters, immediately falls head over heels for Ryōga, has no real character flaws, is absolutely perfect for Ryōga (sweet, demure, patient, understanding, kindly, loves pigs so much that she finds Ryōga's curse enchanting), Ryōga falls head over heels in love with her back, and she doesn't really do anything but stand around and talk a little. She only even shows up in four individual stories.
  • Memetic Sex God: Ranma's two forms: likely causes are his apparent attractiveness to the opposite sex and the Power Perversion Potential of being a Gender Bender with Supernatural Martial Arts-based ultra-flexibility, stamina and recuperation.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Nabiki is easily one of the most distinctive and compelling characters in the series. However, in at least the manga, she is also the one who is most uniformly shown as genuinely amoral and malicious, whereas even Tarō, Shampoo and Happōsai are given a few Pet the Dog moments. Among several other things, she let Ranma and her family take the fall for her debts during a "let's make the opponent pay for everything" duel and took no responsibility herself even as the accrued debts ruined them, blackmailed male Ranma for a staged apparent rape for the fun of it, and repeatedly swindled kindergarten kids. Yet she is recurrently greatly favored and farfetched rationalised in simultaneous contrast with ones that are generally nice, with the bad moments as an exception, and much stronger contrasts, whether due to Evil Is Sexy, Opposites Attract, lack of other cerebral or relatively sane characters, sense of style, strict familiarity with the anime and fanon, or the writer identifying very strongly with her sociopath nature. Takahashi herself continuously drew Nabiki as a devil.
  • MST3K Mantra: Invoked by the author regarding the technicalities of Ranma's shapeshifting.
  • My Real Daddy: Ranma made Rumiko Takahashi a household word amongst American Otaku, and she's still the undeniable heart and soul of the whole franchise, but when most people picture the characters or try to draw them, it's the character designs of Atsuko Nakajima (specifically those featured in the OAVs and second movie) that they're imagining. See the main page's image for a prime example.
  • Periphery Demographic: For a series aimed at teenage boys, it was surprisingly popular amongst girls (particularly in Japan where Rumiko Takahashi had stated her surprise about it being so popular to young girls).
  • Replacement Scrappy: The anime-only character Sasuke replaced Gosenkugi in many of the manga storylines, and is looked down on by some, particularly manga purists. However, others feel that Sasuke fit many of those roles just as well, if not better, and he really comes into his own when allowed his own stories. Even some diehard "manga-only" fanfic authors are only glad to use him.
  • Retroactive Recognition: The Sliders episode "Greatfellas", first broadcast 05/31/96, features Venus Terzo (girl-Ranma), Sarah Strange (boy-Ranma) and Ted Cole (Kuno).
  • The Scrappy:
    • Damsel Scrappy: Akane has moments where she could be seen this way, all the way to the end of the manga. On the other hand, she typically reacts by trying to escape on her own, and in many cases does manage to at least initially break free of them. But typically, unless her captor either isn't serious about it at all (Cologne) or too weak to hold her (Principal Kuno), her kidnapper outclasses her so badly she still needs Ranma to save her in the end.
  • Seasonal Rot: The first three seasons of the anime are generally considered the best, with the subsequent seasons getting progressively worse. This is typically because the first three seasons are almost solely manga adaptations, and even their Filler stories were directly derived from Takahashi-penned characterization; meanwhile, the latter seasons were more loaded with original stories where non-Takahashi filler Flanderized or exaggerated the characters' traits. The anime getting cancelled before some of the biggest, most famous manga storylines were written doesn't help the frequent perception of the anime as inferior to the manga.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: One of earliest shipping wars to break out on the Internet, mostly among die-hard partisans of the three "official" fiancées. The mid-90s UseNet arguments eventually coalesced into threads with the actual subject line of "Trench Wars".
  • Strangled by the Red String: The various romances attract a lot of tension and complaints. These typically boil down to the following.
    • Ranma/Akane: The two are way too hostile towards each other to work out as a couple, Belligerent Sexual Tension be damned, and they never seem to gain any trust for each other, to the point their last words spoken on-panel in the manga are blaming each other yet again.
    • Shampoo/Mousse: Shampoo has outright stated she hates Mousse from the moment he officially joined the cast, and Mousse seems oblivious to all her faults.
    • Ryōga/Akari: Akari is a Relationship Sue.
    • Ukyo/Konatsu: Konatsu is a doormat who appears out of nowhere, far too soon before the series end, and Ukyo finds him annoying but pitiful more then anything.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Azuza Shiratori, who takes Kawaiiko to teeth-knotting extremes, from her outfit to her voice to her attitude.
    • Rouge's ultra-sweet human form's manner of speaking and generally acting.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • Ranma's curse may be considered this:
      • There is no (canon) exploration of the possible Mind Screw of being able to switch sexes so easily; Ranma is unquestionably assumed to be a straight male, yet has apparently never considered actively using his Power Perversion Potential, and yet has gotten so used to seeing the female body from his cursed form that he can Ignore the Fanservice (at least, while the girl's not touching him).
      • After a while, the convenient buckets of water even stopped appearing, and Ranma typically spent the whole episode either male or female (and usually only the latter when it was a plot point). So not only did they waste the plot, they also wasted plenty of perfectly good gags and Fan Service. It got to the point in the anime where the general rule was that the hottest shot we get of female Ranma is the episode title screen, where she wears a tight but otherwise demure one-piece swimsuit. On the other hand, the manga version (which covered 38 volumes, whereas the animated version stopped at Volume 21) continued to draw upon Ranma's curse for endless gags, characterization, and the odd moment of drama involving Ranma's mother. And yes, for Fan Service as well.
      • Unlike in the manga, anime Ranma's curse isn't revealed to the school early on. This could have been used for tension or humour, but very seldom is past the first season, and ultimately results in a very unclimatic reveal. Admittedly, it isn't too dramatically revealed in the manga either, but Ranma's classmates explicitly knowing about the curse and poking fun at it opened avenues to plenty of humor, making the anime approach quite a let down.
    • Compared to his male form, Ranma's female form has no serious suitors that become reoccurring characters that she/he doesn't also share with one of his fiancees already. Ranma being constantly harassed by a lovestruck major character is never touched upon and most if not all the romantic comedy aspects revolving around Ranma focus on him being a straight male.
    • A number of the anime's filler episodes ultimately wasted things they could have done in an interesting fashion, usually because fully pursuing them would mean diverting heavily from the manga storyline.
      • "Mousse Goes Home to the Country!": we never see Mousse leave Nerima or interact with his family, as the episode promises. Instead, Mousse hangs around Nerima pulling a passive-aggressive "I Want My Beloved to Be Happy" routine until Shampoo and Cologne convince him he can stay.
      • "Ryōga, Run Into the Sunset": Ryōga finds a girl who really does love him and offers him an excuse to stop being P-chan or fighting with Ranma for Akane's "love". Instead, he abandons her and goes right back to pretending to be Akane's pet.
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • Ranma's female form is practically a Kryptonite Factor in some stories. Physically, this is justified: her arms and legs are shorter than his are, throwing off his timing and resulting in a number of embarrassing beatdowns. Where it really starts getting unfortunate is when Ranma meets fellow Gender Bender Herb, whose Ki Attacks are so much weaker in his female form that they lose visibility. In other words, a female body automatically weakens spiritual energy. Although, admittedly, a reasonable explanation could be that this is due to the difference between "Ying" and "Yang" energies. Or that it's simply because the natural differences throw them off, so mind and body simply aren't as harmonious as they are in natural form.
    • Also specifically averted in the two part OVA "The One to Carry On", an anime-only story in which Genma tells Ranma that his real problem is he's never even tried to exploit the physical advantages inherent in his female form. Once Ranma admits that the Dumbass Has a Point, he quickly concentrates his training on speed techniques.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • For a series in which characters of both sexes frequently go topless or nude, gender-bending antics abound, and a major character is an underwear fetishist, Ranma ½'s approach to sexuality is surprisingly innocent. As hormone-crazed as they are, characters rarely think about or attempt any kind of sexual act beyond dating, kissing and PG-level intimacy. The exception being Kodachi, of course, who is more than happy to poison, paralyze or blackmail Ranma in her attempts to achieve her own personal desires with him.
    • Nodoka Saotome's Honor Before Reason contract may fall under either here or Deliberate Values Dissonance, depending on whether one believes she merely comes off as insane to non-Japanese or if she was supposed to be so over-the-top as to make Japanese readers feel uncomfortable with their perception of Seppuku.
    • While not particularly egregious for their time, the series' portrayals of Chinese characters and attitudes toward LGBT sexuality would not go down well in the 21st century. Shampoo was pretty much the poster child for Anime Chinese Girl and the others weren't much better. Plus any hint of homosexuality was met with immediate disdain or disgust from most of the cast. To the extent that gays and lesbians were labelled as "perverts" and Ranma once tried to "fix" a lesbian (actually a crossdressing boy) by taking her on a date. These days, where international audiences are concerned, it's unlikely the material could get away with that kind of thing, which would called out a lot more harshly.
    • In Episode 42 of the anime, "Enter Ken and His Copycat Kerchief", a group of random girls witness a cross-dressing Ranma. They immediately tear his dress apart and start beating the crap out of him. There's no way that would fly in today's society.
  • Wangst: Ryōga Hibiki. This, Deus Angst Machina, or neither?
  • What an Idiot!:
    • Ranma's easily wounded pride means he gets a fair number of moments that make him behave very irrationally. Anytime a possible cure for his curse comes up, he gets jealous, he wants to upstage someone who beat him in something, a fiancée starts treating him coldly, someone claims that his female side isn't pretty, etc he generally does stupid stuff. Even his regular plots were stated outright as inane when trying to take revenge on Nabiki by saying "I love you" to embarrass her, and was promptly outmanouvred, and his zany Comedic Sociopathy ideas to manipulate Ryōga only work because Ryōga has a permanent Rule of Funny Idiot Ball for them. This type of thing accounts for 95% of everything he comes up with. The most complex idea he ever had was to set up a play for Happōsai that was supposed to convince him that Pantyhose Taro wanted to steal all the lingerie in the world, and Happōsai inexplicably moved backwards in time to get a chance to stop it. Somehow it sort of worked, but gave the opposite reaction. In his defence, he did at least ask Cologne for "suggestion incense", and he does have common sense when it comes to battle strategy. For example, he read up on the Chardin family to find a suitable approach, adapted strategies against Herb, Saffron and such.
    • Nabiki's attempt to auction Ranma off to the other fiancés is slightly understandable, but you'd really think she'd know better, given she knows that they're basically all Jerk Asses whom Love Makes You Even More Evil and Crazy To Boot. However, to just barely get out of that experience with her skin intact, and then let them know Ranma is about to marry Akane? After they tore down Ranma's home over what they thought was him trying to deliver an engagement ring to her?
    • When Pantyhose Tarō first came back to Nerima after acquiring the octopus tentacles, he was so thrilled at having defeated Happōsai, he forgot the whole "make him change my name" idea and he let the old master slip away.
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: Despite all the fanservice and sex jokes, the series is very much considered Shonen.
  • The Woobie: Most prominently Ryōga, Konatsu, Sasuke and Kumon Ryu, but depending on the version, any of the main cast can come off as this. The curses, Ranma's rotten family and love life, Ryōga's lonely existence and poor direction sense, the sheer onesideness of many of the character's romantic interests, Soun being a well-intentioned loyal nervous wreck, Nodoka being abandoned without her family desperately pining for her only child, the Kuno children basically being insane either raised without parents or occasionally an even crazier and completely irresponsible father.
  • Woolseyism:
    • The English manga and dub script go to great lengths to adapt painfully-obtuse wordplay and remain faithful to the source. Similarly, they took great care to replace Kuno's quotations of classical Japanese poetry with equivalent passages from Shakespeare.
    • Some chapters/episodes even add in jokes and cultural references (many episode/chapter titles allude to films, literature, etc) that weren't in the original script, in some cases making it even funnier. For instance, when Ryōga discovers that he is suddenly resistant to his curse during the waterproof soap episode, the Japanese script has him proclaiming (paraphrased) "Now we're equal... no, I'm superior!!". Ryōga's English voice actor Michael Donovan says this: "We're equals now, he and I... no, I'm even MORE EQUAL than he is!!"
    • Ukyo's translated pet name for Ranma could be considered this. With the limitations of the script system the translators were using, "Ranma-honey" was one of the better options for translating "Ran-chan".
    • The Mexican Spanish dub avoided giving Shampoo a Chinese accent and using Hulk Speak, and her (tragically late) voice actress used a more cheerful and childish way to speak instead, albeit she used some Chinese words sometimes, but without going overboard with it.
  • WTH, Casting Agency?: To some fans, Sarah Strange as the original Boy-type Ranma in the English dub. Some think the idea of casting a female in the role was an odd choice, especially since she didn't also voice Girl-type Ranma. It's also possible she just simply wasn't right for that part. Despite this, some fans do praise her actual performance, and some think she's actually convincing as a teenage male.
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