Ranma ½ - Episode 1 - A Girl Named Ranma

How do I begin to describe Ranma ½? I guess I could give it my best shot.

Ranma ½ is a story about a girl named Ranma Saotome!

Wait, no, that doesn't seem quite right…

Ranma’s a boy, right?

A girl named Ranma

Ranma ½ is a story about a panda!

No, that's not it either…

I could’ve sworn that one of these two was the main character.

Ah, well, let's just let the episode run, it'll explain for me.

Panda

Akane Tendo

Hold on, Akane had long hair in the first episode? I’m not going to have to get used to that, right? How did I not remember she had long hair?

Anyways, this is Akane Tendo, our… female lead, I guess? You’d think that’d be the girl from earlier, but don’t worry.

We’ll get to her.

Akane is this show’s resident lesbian tomboy. She hates boys, practices martial arts, and hates boys. Except for when she suddenly doesn’t hate certain boys. Sometimes.

…We’ll get to that too.

The next thing that caught my ears is just how different Soun Tendo sounds in this episode. It sounds like the same voice actor from later on in the series, he’s just so much more reserved, quiet, and level headed. This poor man. The torrential shitstorm that decimates the peaceful life he’s built with his 3 daughters is beginning to brew, and he’s totally oblivious to it all.

The central conflict of this show is an arranged marriage. Tendo and his friend (Ranma’s father) couldn’t care less about who their children want to marry. They seem far more concerned with passing on their legacies. Ranma’s father takes it a step further, to the point where I’d definitely call him an abusive parent.

When Ranma and… the panda arrive at the Tendo household, the reactions are the main attraction. Sure, the shock of seeing a panda burst into your home is one thing, but it takes an unusually long time for them to notice Ranma’s a girl.

I especially want to focus on the reactions of the 3 sisters, who were told in advance that one of them would be marrying this “boy.” Kasumi, the oldest sister, is very traditional and obedient; she’s more concerned about how her father feels than anything else. Kasumi’s portrayed as being so compliant, I’d almost think she would still marry Ranma if she were ordered to, regardless of her own sexuality. However, the middle sister Nabiki immediately goes on the offensive. Nabiki is known for being extraordinarily sassy, and even borderline malicious at times, but she’s also undoubtedly the most heterosexual of Soun Tendo’s daughters. As such, she’s extremely rude about the entire situation. She was definitely getting her hopes up for this mystery man.

Meanwhile Akane, the youngest sister, immediately jumps to Ranma’s defense. She definitely seems the least shaken by this revelation, and for good reason, she didn’t want to marry a boy anyway. I mean, she didn’t want to be forced to marry some random boy she didn’t know anyways. That’s without taking into account that she now has another girl to practice martial arts with! Akane takes to Ranma almost immediately, and it seems like they’re going to get along exceptionally well. That is, until she states outright how glad she is that Ranma’s a girl and not a boy.

This, I feel, is one of the single most interesting character moments for Ranma in the whole show, and it’s right here in the first episode. In case you haven’t watched Ranma before, or don’t already know the premise, Ranma is cursed to change into a girl when splashed with cold water, and returns to being a boy when splashed with hot water. This is worth clarifying now because, after this interaction with Akane, Ranma initially refuses Kasumi’s suggestion to take a bath. Hell, even though Ranma doesn’t take much convincing to agree to wash up anyways, she still tries using only cold water at first. Ranma is perfectly content with being a girl if it means she can continue to be Akane’s friend without any complications, and to me that speaks volumes. Akane very quickly took a liking to Ranma when she was introduced as a girl, and it would seem Ranma developed the same immediate feeling toward Akane. If not for Ranma’s curse, the show from this point would’ve probably been a slow burn yuri, with the two gradually developing a closer relationship until, to their parents shock, the two girls married anyways.

Unfortunately, Ranma isn’t so lucky, because Akane walks in on him taking a hot bath, and she gets a pretty good look at him.

Hearing how disappointed Ranma is when admitting the truth to the Tendo’s is some of the most tender and heartfelt delivery we get from this character throughout most of the series. Where did this timid Ranma go?

“What do you mean, true horror?”

Then there’s this line, which scrapes so close to Ranma admitting they don’t mind being a girl. Perhaps it was error in the dubbing. I’ll have to check a subtitled version to see how they translate this scene. Perhaps I’ll even get back into studying Japanese at some point.

I can’t help but feel sorry for Ranma at the conclusion of this first episode. Even now, I can definitely feel a feminine character in there somewhere, no matter how hard Ranma tries to sweep it under a blanket of aggression and boyish remarks about “his” female form. I could talk about Akane’s transphobia, but Ranma admittedly shelves any femininity once the cat’s out of the bag, and he doesn’t give much reason for Akane to genuinely put stock in Ranma’s womanhood.

That being said, I feel like Ranma’s hard turn into the boy identity is a defense mechanism. It may seem counter-intuitive, but acts of self-sabotage can serve as a defense mechanism among those who feel like there’s no coming back from a fall. Ranma has good reason to avoid genuinely expressing her womanhood in front of her father; Genma Saotome is very emotionally invested in his “son’s” manhood for reasons I won’t get into here, literally stating in this episode that it breaks his heart to see Ranma like this. My point is, Ranma believes his best bet at avoiding shame is to play in the direction of the fall by appearing as confident in his manhood as possible.

Some may say I’m trying too hard to read Ranma as trans, and maybe they’re right. But Ranma really is a very peculiar character, and reading Ranma as strictly cisgender seriously fails to account for just how comfortable and confident she is being a girl.

Anyways, until next time~
Princess Aquos