In every art form, it seems like there are chameleons and specialists. You can appreciate a particular actor for the way he or she vanishes into a role, or you can welcome the presence of a performer who has a narrower range but nails it every time. A novelist may embrace a variety of tones, subjects and styles over the course of their career, or they may choose to excel in a certain type of story told in a certain way.
I admire creative types from both categories, though I’ll admit to a slight preference for specialists, partly for the comforting familiarity they present. I know Meryl Streep is an extraordinary actress, but I feel no particular need to see everything she’s ever done. I also know that I’ll probably never mistake Eve Arden for any other performer or not be completely aware of her specific presence, but I go out of my way to watch any movie she’s ever done to bask in her brilliantly executed if more limited palette. The fun is in seeing the specialists find variations on their distinctive themes.
For my money, Rumiko Takihashi is one of our most treasured specialists. There are certain consistent elements in her work, whether it’s a nuts-and-bolts romantic comedy like Maison Ikkoku or a time-traveling fantasy epic like InuYasha. These recurring elements are always entirely welcome, in my opinion. They make reading a Takahashi title feel like catching up with an old friend whose life may have changed a bit in her absence but who is still comfortingly, reliably, charmingly herself.
To confirm this opinion, I decided to use the occasion of the Rumiko Takahashi Manga Moveable Feast to dive into a series I hadn’t yet read, Ranma 1/2. I know this is the series that not only introduced a lot of her admirers to Takahashi’s work and sometimes to manga itself, but I’d never gotten around to reading it. Part of this is due to the length of the series, which is a little daunting. But, while the selection of graphic novels at my local library isn’t comprehensive, they do have a robust supply of Takahashi’s work, including a full run of Ranma 1/2.
It’s about a highly skilled young martial artist named Ranma Saotome who has a bit of a problem. During rigorous training with his father, he fell into a cursed spring. Now, whenever he’s hit with cold water, he turns into a female version of himself. (Hot water reverses the transformation.) He and his father become guests of the Tendo family and their “School of Indiscriminate Grappling.” Fathers Tendo and Saotome have arranged a marriage between Ranma and one of the three Tendo daughters, Akane. She’s a tough cookie, and she’s not thrilled that this key component of her future has been decided for her. And she doesn’t seem to like Ranma that much.
I say “seem” because one of the most recognizable aspects of Takahashi manga is the ambivalent romantic relationship. Takahashi doesn’t waste any time twigging readers to the fact that Ranma and Akane are ideally suited to one another, but she doesn’t make Ranma and Akane seem stupid for not instantly realizing it themselves. The trick with this kind of drawn-out courtship is to create honest obstacles to the eventual union, and Takahashi is very, very good at that kind of slow burn. Novelist Charles Reade is credited with instructing storytellers to “Make ‘em laugh; make ‘em cry; make ‘em wait,” and Takahashi has successfully embraced this mantra.
In Ranma 1/2, she does this mostly by making us laugh. Few activities seem to give her as much pleasure as humiliating her protagonists, and Ranma’s boy-to-girl transformations give Takahashi plenty of opportunities. When a bucket of cold water can drastically alter the direction of a story arc, your narrative opportunities expand, and Takahashi makes excellent use of this device. It’s solid, secret-identity farce that offers quick sight gags and more complex complications.
This brings us to another Takahashi specialty, the idiot rival. In the three volumes I’ve read so far, there has been a delightful variety of this type of character, and Ranma’s dual nature makes their attentions even more potentially awkward. There’s school kendo star Kuno, who wants Akane for himself and detests male Ranma as a result. But he’s instantly smitten with scrappy, adorable female Ranma. His smug, conniving sister shows up, as does an old rival of Ranma’s with his own humiliating curse.
While all of these romantic complications force Ranma and Akane’s relationship to shift and evolve, they also result in yet another Takahashi motif, the ridiculous battle sequence. In her universe, nothing seems to say “I love you” quite as much as a completely over-the-top combat challenge. That neither Akane nor Ranma seem in the least inclined to accept the romantic terms of defeat in these tourneys matters very little; they like to kick ass. Cementing or protecting their relationship is generally just gravy, and they keep whatever savor they derive from that to themselves.
So they combine martial arts with rhythm gymnastics in one memorable sequence. As I read this, the possibilities offered by Takahashi’s shamelessness immediately sprang to mind. “They could fight people on ice skates!” A few chapters later, my theory was realized. If it sounds formulaic, it’s not, because Takahashi is a versatile specialist. As comfortable as she is with her style, she doesn’t seem inclined to repeat herself. Good comedy comes partly from the ability of the storyteller to surprise, to find new corners in a familiar, heightened universe. It’s why television sitcoms can run for a decade on the same premise and still be welcome.
This is helped by Takahashi’s ability to build sprawling, likable casts. Ranma an Akane’s fathers don’t play huge roles in the story, but they’re fun examples of the kind of parental figures that are both smarter and more experienced than the heroes but still goofy and quirky. Akane’s sisters get a few good bits, as does the family doctor whose romantic inclinations tend to overcome his professional detachment. I mentioned the rivals earlier, and I certainly look forward to meeting more of these clueless, narcissistic fools, because Takahashi tends to knock that character type out of the park.
But what about the “make ‘em cry” edict? Nobody’s ever going to mistake Ranma 1/2 for a three-hanky drama, but it is invested with genuine feeling. (Great farce always is.) This is almost entirely confined to Ranma and Akane’s underlying feelings for each other and the obstacles they face, but Takahashi does sprinkle a number of honest, moving moments here and there. The series wouldn’t work as well without them; it’s the difference between liking characters and just being amused by them.
Ranma 1/2 has all of the expected qualities of a Takahashi manga: the charm, the slapstick, the warmth, the durability. It also has that last alchemical property, Takahashi’s ability to surprise even when she’s traveling familiar territory. It’s that last quality that makes her the best kind of specialist in the world of comics.
Great review. Don’t you just love that feeling? Knowing that you can pick up any of their work and be satisfied every time.
I’d love to red Ranma 1/2 but I just can’t commit to so many volumes at the moment… Omnibus editions anyone?
It’s always refreshing to read a review of Takahashi’s work that doesn’t make me feel ashamed of being a Ranma 1/2 fan. She gets far more flack than she deserves.
You’ll definitely enjoy what’s to come, the recurring characters and side cast are definitely one of the reasons to love this series.
I’m getting the sense that Ranma 1/2 is actually controversial among fans. This seems strange to me. It’s so successful in achieving its aims, or at least that’s how it strikes me.
Almost certainly an artifact of the strange case of the Ranma 1/2 anime. The first season is beloved, atmospheric, and abortive – there’s a lot of charm in the animation, while the atmosphere is heavy on mono no aware – it feels a lot more like Maison Ikkoku than Urusei Yatsura. The rest of the seasons are middling to mediocre, formulaic, and much more faithful to the manga. Much of American fandom got its first exposure to Ranma 1/2 via the anime, which overshadows the manga. The fact that the first, aborted series was such a completely different creature than the source material looms large in the complex the fandom has about Ranma.
So your town library has a full run of the manga, too? Mine, too. I wonder what it is about the comic that appeals to northern Appalachian librarians?
The anime also sounds more like Mitsuru Adachi than Rumiko Takahashi. Fascinating as it sounds, I’m having a hard time imagining a Ranma 1/2 anime that focuses on the pity of things. I would love to hear the back story of how the people doing the adaptation came to that approach and what Takahashi thought about it.
As for the library thing, I’ve got no idea. I wonder if the series was heavily featured in the book fairs back in the day.
Actually the first “season” of ranma was almost 1:1 with the Manga, and was canceled in Japan due to low ratings. The rest of the series was basically inspired by the manga, using characters and situations, but could hardly be called following it closely.
I’m not sure how to disagree with you without going into it on a chapter-by-chapter, episode-by-episode basis. But David sums it up better than I could have – there’s a strangely elegiac atmosphere to the first series which would have been more appropriate to something like Cross Game or Touch than the sharp-elbowed satire of the Ranma manga. Lots of muted earth tones, long stretches without dialog, the “camera’ dwelling on koi ponds & the thing that goes “doink”, that sort of thing. The humor in the first series was based more on pacing and irony than the manga or the second series, which tend more towards broad satire & slapstick.
And the “ratings” thing was one explanation I’ve heard offered. Another one was that the production of the first series was terminally behind & overbudget. The third explaination offered was that Takahashi hated it. But then, you hear that about half the productions made from her books. Either she’s the most disagreeable creator on the planet, or people like to use her as a sockpuppet or stalking-horse for their own complaints.
You guys are both right, in a way. The first season does have a weird, unfaithful sort of atmosphere, very Adachi. It plays much slower than the manga, which is an unfortunate decision for a slapstick adaptation. However, the first season also adapts all of its stories directly from the manga. I guess the anime caught up with the manga pretty quickly, because the later seasons inject more and more filler, and the material isn’t up to the same level of quality. Judging by the anime episodes, it ended about midway through the manga. Even the OVA episodes don’t cover the back third.
I think the manga is far better than the anime. It’s snappier, the jokes work better, and the anime filler is omnipresent and often abominable. I’m surprised that the end of the manga was never animated, though. Inuyasha eventually got finished. Ranma is too old, I guess.
It seems really unfair to me that Takahashi’s work (and the work of others) often gets criticized based on the anime adaptations.
Speaking of sitcoms, Maison Ikkoku is like Three’s Company, and Ranma is like Archie.
Totally accurate. That is exactly why they never gonna agree u_u
First season is more like a romantic ‘much lighter comedy’ but more faithful to the storyline, when the other seasons are more faithful to the Takahashi’s gags but not to the plot.
Anyway, I like the anime because reminds me my childhood but I DO love the manga and is my favorite ever.
Well, that really has a lot to do with how the latter half of the series develops, and the ending. Not to mention, as you say, how good she is at postponing Ranma and Akane getting together. There’s only so much that fans can take until it becomes too much. I love the series, but even I think there’s a point where she starts to lose steam and probably should have ended the series much earlier than she did. That being said, the manga is entertaining till the very end, and the last storyline is one of the best, but overall the series is better earlier on than it is later.
Hope that wasn’t too spoilery.
I read all the volumes of Ranma 1/2 two years ago or so but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did at first. I have noticed that when it comes to Takahashi’s works, they are usually better as anime. I will not generalize as I haven’t read all her works but I am saying this based on my experience after reading and watching Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2.
I’m almost entirely partial to manga, but I have to say that I really enjoy the InuYasha anime.
Great write-up! I really enjoyed reading it. Ranma 1/2 was my first Takahashi work and I fell in love with it pretty quickly. As BurningLizard mentions, the recurring characters are great fun.
I haven’t read Ranma 1/2 either, but you’ve made me incredibly eager to do so. I love, too, that you compared Takahashi’s work to sitcoms, ‘cos that’s totally what they remind me of.
My evil plan proceeds apace!
Michelle, I order you to start reading Ranma 1/2!
David, I am shocked this is your first go-round with the series.
This was an excellent post. I could not agree with you more on Ranma 1/2′s merits. And if you liked the first three volumes, wait till you hit the teens. I think 13-15 is a clinic in how to do comedy in a comic book. Please do at least one more Ranma update sometime later this year, so I can see if you’re still digging it.
I’m sure I’ll write about it again. Look how much cyber ink I’ve spilled on the subject of One Piece!
I love that “WHOK!” panel that you posted — one of my all time favorites!
Ranma is the series that made me fall in love with Takahashi’s work. There are some rough patches (there’s one story arc where I probably would have lost interest if I’d been buying the series rather than reading it through the library) but overall it’s an amazing accomplishment.
I would totally plotz if Ranma got the unflipped & oversized VIZBIG treatment. I just started reading Inuyasha that way and the improved paper quality makes such a difference in the artwork!
I would have to say I was moreover seduced to the story rather than I myself commit to it. I admit I don’t watch a lot of animes, but the way the story goes, it kept me coming back for more, to reach the end for that happy moment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t how I expected, the way it ended was so strange to me as I’m not used to that kind. It actuallyed ached me for a few nights thinking of it. Even so Ranma 1/2 is………..FRIGGIN AWESOME. Truly from a guy, I’ve never fell more in love with any other romance as to Ranma 1/2. I wish that there was more…. I want to see the happy ending, the resolution of all, or most of the problems in the story. <- referring to the anime now btw. Because after watching it I was, I admit, in rage, that was until I read the manga and settled for a bit for its ending, a bit of a twist from the anime. I've read somewhere of a probable continuation of Ranma 1/2 in the future as a result of petitioning, but I don't know. I pray for it's true!!