Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Ranma 1/2
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sainta
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I think that the same problem happens with Inuyasha and Rinne. Well, at least some of the new characters appearing in InuYasha were killed, but Rinne is not a violent series. I heard that "the true ending of the anime" according to some fans is within an OVA released withing the 90s. Still Ranma |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1461 |
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I find it funny that people thought Ranma 1/2 ran for way too long, knowing that Takahashi followed it with 56 volumes of Inuyasha. I guess the difference is that Inuyasha's story actually went somewhere and had a perfectly satisfying ending, even if it took too long to get there.
Although I know how Ranma ends, I've only read the first 24 volumes so far, and I'm still enjoying it. It's always a funny, breezy read, but I wish Takahashi had made an effort to develop the characters' relationships instead of recycling the same situations over and over as long as people were still reading. Last edited by Zhou-BR on Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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I'll certainly admit that Ranma was a gateway drug for me, I used to be all over it. Then I saw how Maison Ikkoku ended and went "oh my Arceus, now that's how you make a masterpiece!" and it was my favorite manga of all time until I read Banana Fish (but hey, MI is still my second favorite and it was one of the earliest manga I ever read into my fandom journey. Now feature Banana Fish, dammit!) and then I just couldn't look at Ranma anymore. I think Maison was better on humor, characters, and sure, not all series need a plot, but I liked that Maison did move things along albeit slowly at many times. But I also liked how Maison didn't overstay its welcome either. Some people really didn't like the cabaret arc, though I did, but then the series ends not too far after that, so for many, that was a moment of starting to become unwelcome, but the series did end conclusively, I liked that. I feel like with Ranma, it had an obvious ending from chapter 1 much like Maison did, it's why I felt so cheated by the non-ending. Sure, we didn't need anything in between like we did for Maison, but when the ending was apparent from chapter 1, I feel like we still needed an ending.
So I still think it's a great gateway drug for sure, but it's like once I experience Maison, I just couldn't go back because Ranma looked so inferior to me and sure, lots of series are inferior to Maison Ikkoku (I did say it was my second favorite manga of all time), but it's like Ranma just wasn't fun anymore once I knew that Takahashi was capable of so much better. Oh yeah, I've been wondering this for ages, if the cure was at Jusenkyo, why on earth did they leave there rather than find the spring of drowned man and fix everything then and there? That has been bothering me since the first chapter, it just seemed a poor decision to leave the one place with a cure, right? I mean, sure, they needed it for the story, but it seemed to me like jumping into the drowned man/woman (depending on the character) pool might've fixed this, did no one even try? |
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sainta
Posts: 989 |
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Good point, I guess this would be Ranma's response: 
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Saffire
 Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Ranma's a fun series, but I don't think I could ever go rewatch/reread the whole thing. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15567 |
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Zhou: Actually, I think Inu Yasha's burned enough people with its meandering length that it's actually convinced them to reminisce about Ranma in a positive way. Hell, the fact that Jason's praising the series, just because it doesn't have moe in it says it all about how standards have lowered for what was some seriously lazy writing on Takahashi's part.
I think it hurt her career in Japan a bit, too, because you see a real slowdown in her work, compared to the days when she was writing UY and MI, and a bunch of side stuff. Anyway, I probably would've stuck it out 'til the end w/ Ranma if Cologne didn't make Ranma jump through hoops for stupid reasons. |
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JohnathanEnder
 Posts: 88 |
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Incidentally, I'm a Young Adult Librarian in a rather well-to-do community, so we get a ton of donations that are in good condition. Last year, someone donated EVERY SINGLE VOLUME of Viz's post-2008 Ranma editions (they still had Borders price tags on them, so they might have been tossed out by the nearby store when it closed). I tried to find space for it in my department, but finding space for 36 volumes of...anything is kinda difficult. And due to the age, there was not guarantee that they would stay on the shelves for long -- older materials tend to get "weeded." Luckily, I happened to have enough room on MY bookshelves. It's always nice to give books a good home 
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1461 |
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I just meant Inuyasha's excessive length makes Ranma 1/2 seem short by comparison. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2321 |
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From another message board:
Ranma also has a rather infamous place in the history of online Anglosphere anime fandom and especially fan fiction, but that's a whole article in itself. |
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skaly
 Posts: 148 |
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Anxiously awaiting the Viz 3-in-1 editions of this series...
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Yorozuya
Posts: 332 |
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I came to it after Inuyasha. The lack of story threw me off of it, I think I got bored around the tea fighting episode.
I've revisited the manga since and have decided its a nice thing to read every once in a while rather than marathon. And I first starting watching it when I was 13, oh how I feared my mother would look in. I think you're right that the fan service doesn't feel 'dirty' but as soon as anyone else came in the room it made me feel it was. I was such a sensitive little girl, I'm almost totally desensitised to female nudity in anime now. But if a guy takes off his shirt 
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Gwydion
 Posts: 158 |
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Ranma 1/2 was the first anime/manga I'd ever heard of. A friend of mine told me about Ranma, and, frankly, being the young, sheltered girl I was, I was quite weirded out by the concept, lol. Then somewhere along the way, she had the first volume of Inuyasha sitting out, and I read the whole thing (despite the fact that it was a gift to someone else). After that, I was hooked, and decided to give this boy that changes gender in water thing a try. And I loved it!
It did drag on after a while, and I did always have to be cautious when reading it around my parents (they weren't really the type to buy the whole "the nudity is for comedy" line), but I still look back on it fondly. That and it's the only anime that all of my friends - save one - has actually seen, and while they didn't all love it, none of them actually disliked it. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4630 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Actually, by the end all the pieces are set for a happily ever after ending for any character you care about having one. None of their hang-ups are completely resolved but each major character had been introduced to alternate possibilities for romantic interest. Shampoo always had Mousse and was steadily becoming more accepting of him, Ukyo had Konatsu- her very own gender confused ninja, Ryoga was going on dates with a pig loving girl who made him maps to get to her.
I think it was avoided more because it could have promised to be quite tedious, pairing them off for a final time. It's not really a story that needs to be told because you know what happens anyway. |
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Maigraith
Posts: 80 |
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Not sure how far y'all have read, and this might be slightly SPOILERISH but there is a character that fell into multiple pools at jusenkyo and instead of just turning into whatever the last pool was, he turned into a combination of all of them. So I'm guessing if Ranma jumped into the man pool he would turn into some odd combo of male and female. |
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Nadare Xizos
 Posts: 115 Location: The Heero Hole |
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I just recently read through all of this series. The story is practically nonexistent, and the same old thing happens again and again. Not worth the classic title in my opinion.
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