My Introduction To Ranma ½, And Revisiting It Now
I plan for this blog to be pretty aimless. I’ll probably blog about specific episodes, or brief thoughts. This first post is not like that.
I did kinda slack on the editing and polish though.
I just really didn’t want to end off tonight without posting something.
I’ve spent like all evening writing this and I’m gonna publish it, dammit.
I found the Ranma ½ dub online when I was roughly a pre-teen in middle school, some time between 2008 and 2011. At the early onset of puberty, that was around the time I became more conscious of the weird gender thoughts in my head. As you would expect, I wasn’t equipped to sort through them myself, and there wasn’t a single person in the world I was comfortable sharing them with either. So, naturally, I did what any repressing teen/pre-teen would do; I found means of escapism. It would’ve been for another 7-10 years before I’d realize there was more to it than “not being like the other boys,” so I may as well have found some appealing fantasies to pass the time.
Admittedly, I don’t really have many lasting memories from those years. It feels like everyone on the planet collectively agreed to forget that middle school ever happened. What I do remember for sure is that in my pre-teen years I gained more freedom in browsing the internet, and eventually gained access to my own personal computer. Being able to browse the internet in private for the first time was like giving me keys to the outside world. If it existed, it was probably on the internet somewhere, and I could search for it. Naturally, after being left to my own devices for long enough, I found myself on TV Tropes, scouring the list of examples on the Gender Bender trope page. It ended up becoming a sort of guide to all the places where I could find the stories I was looking for; it was like my version of a vacation brochure. This was where I found El Goonish Shive for the first time (before falling into a cycle of forgetting and rediscovering it once every couple years or so) and it was probably where I learned about Ranma as well.
I wasn’t incredibly familiar with anime at the time. Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto; I hardly ever tuned into Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, so I consumed a very limited range of Japanese animation. But I was sold on Ranma ½ from the moment I learned the basic concept.
Almost every single trans person has said this at some point in their life, but fantasies about reversible transformations really helped ease me into accepting myself. The notion of irreversibly becoming a girl was still terrifying to me, because it would unavoidably affect every facet of my life. A flexible transformation like Ranma’s, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to freely explore another gender without any of the risk of making the wrong decision, or losing a part of your old life in the process, fears that kept me in the closet for a long time.
Because of its genderfluid nature, along with my age when I first began watching it, Ranma ½ is very emblematic of those years I spent as a confused kid in middle school and high school.
I’m only starting this media rambling blog due to a chain reaction. My dear Viridi sent me some lovely fan art of Shampoo a couple days ago, which triggered a nostalgic urge to watch Ranma ½ again, which led to me ranting incessantly about minute details and falling in love with the show all over again.
On previous attempts at revisiting Ranma, I’d always started from the first episode. This time, however, I picked a random episode in the 30s, since there really isn’t an overarching plot, and I’d watched the beginning so many times over already. It was still surprising just how quickly I was able to get invested in the show again, and also how much I felt like I was experiencing for the first time again. The major characters have been so thoroughly etched into my mind, that I picked the show back up as if I’d never put it down. And yet, most of the episodes I’ve watched have felt fresh. Which is a good thing for me, because it makes revisiting this show a lot more fun.
I’ll be posting (much less refined) blog posts about some of the episodes I’ve watched, since I love rambling about specific details and whatnot, so expect some of those in the near future.
Until next time~
Princess Aquos
