Forum - View topicNEWS: Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 Manga Gets New Anime
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Essedess
Posts: 65 |
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You picked the ONE instance where the beating was 100% deserved, and in fact demanded by both Ranma and Ryoga? |
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Amritzer
Posts: 18 |
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Announcement currently has 245k+ likes.
Imagine when they announce InuYasha remake. |
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Fluwm
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I'd go so far as to say that Ranma-as-trans-allegory is pretty much the most famous thing about Ranma in the first place. The second-most thing being that it spawned a whole genre of gender-swapping anime shows that played around with and explored gender identity to varying extents. This isn't a new reading of Ranma by any means. |
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TsukinoSpoon
Posts: 33 |
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Yeah, I don't understand this conversation. I'm deep in the Rumic fanbase and I'd argue that Ranma 1/2 is probably the most popular of the Takahashi titles among her queer fans. Hell, as soon as the remake was announced there was a swarm of queer VA and talents running to Twitter and begging to be involved in the dub. This "incoming controversy" about gender commentary in Ranma (and any trans reading of characters) smells expired and kind of out of touch.
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Trollhiti Tour Guide
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This seems incredibly reductive to reduce one of the greatest mangaka's legacy to the claim it's most known for a subculture on the American internet back in the 90s. No, Ranma 1/2 is not most known for being a trans allegory. It's most known as one of the greatest 80s romcom manga from one of the greatest mangaka of all time. That's like saying Dragonball's "most famous thing" is Team FourStar and Dragonball Abridged. |
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funkfoot
Posts: 55 |
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She probably can when it comes to the anime production itself but as far as specific country's localizations go there comes a point where it becomes unrealistic to expect a creator to know or even care about every single country's localization of their work to a meticulous degree especially if they don't speak the native language. Movies and television are edited for TV and other countries all the time to get them on air. Maybe some creators would be super staunch about it and would refuse out of principal but most probably wouldn't care if it just means more people can see their work and they get more money. Natsuki Takaya specifically stated she wanted entirely new voice actors for the Fruits Basket remake to disassociate it from the old version she didn't like as much as possible and while they did so in the Japanese version the English version recast a lot of the old actors from the first series' dub. Could Natsuki Takaya.have stepped in and told them no? Maybe, but most likely she didn't care and only concerned herself with the original Japanese version. I don't watch dubs myself but I did think it was nice that the English version of Inuyasha and Male Ranma had the same voice like they do in Japan and have joked about it in Rumic World. So it would be nice if they reprised the role just for consistency sake to keep it in line with Japanese. |
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AmuroNT1
Posts: 107 |
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I'm gonna be real, as an Old Man who was around back in the day when Ranma was one of the few anime we had access to...it's kind of hard to get excited for a remake. Because, at least IMO, it just wasn't that good of a series.
For starters, it was the prototype for the "boy so much as sneezes the wrong way, girl beats him senseless" tsundere romance cliché that dominated anime for FAR too long. And yes I know, sometimes Ranma deserved a good smack, but most of the time Akane was jumping to vast, galloping conclusions and would actively ignore any evidence proving him innocent. And then there's the fact that, aside from Kasumi essentially being Female Ned Flanders, EVERYONE in the series is a selfish a-hole. Yesterday I saw some girls on Twitter gushing about how Ryoga is "best boi", "a sweetie", and "deserves the world"...apparently forgetting or not knowing how he deliberately uses his pig form as a way to sleep with Akane and nuzzle up to her breasts, AND he gets away with it without ever receiving any comeuppance. Honestly, I think that if they're faithful to the original manga to any degree, people are going to realize just how poorly the writing has aged. Just about every aspect of the show is going to be seen as "problematic", whether it's the Chinese characters being walking stereotypes, or the male cast all being perverts one way or another. And seriously, you think people hate Mineta from MHA? Next to Happosai, that kid's practically celebate. |
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FishLion
 Posts: 65 |
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That's one of the most hilarious parts of people being confused Ranma would be interpreted as trans. Manga and anime have a whole tradition of examining the inherent discomfort of being in a body different from your gender that Ranma rocketed into the mainstream. The way anime portrays this doesn't always translate to the trans experience, but compared to early hollywood forays into expressing as different gender, such as Mrs. Doubtfire that focused solely on the humor trying to live a man's life while hiding all of the work you are doing to present as a woman, anime does try to earnestly look at the discomfort of being in an unexpected body. Of course this doesn't mean Ranma is 100% trans or something, but the fact a lot of enduring fans are queer people who related to what Ranma goes through is completely unsurprising. If queer fans want a queer voice actor because it isn't hard at all to read Ranma as trans then that's also understandable, as long as Ranma doesn't give a speech about how they figured out their gender and they are definitely trans it doesn't seem like it would be straying from the source material at all. |
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Fluwm
Posts: 909 |
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It's really hard to take them seriously -- the queer themes in Ranma are nowhere near subtle. It's revealing of a simply staggering lack of media literacy -- it reminds me a lot of the folks who get all up-in-arms about the progressive politics of Star Trek, acting with performative outrage at the idea that, all of a sudden, Star Trek has gone woke.
Oh, for sure. That's the thing -- it's allegory. If we were to try and apply modern gender identities to Ranma, I think we'd pretty much have to settle on them being gender-fluid, right? I mean, that's very literally what Ranma is, only with an added physical component thanks to the fantasy premise. Which is why I think the idea of casting a transgender voice actor for Ranma is, potentially, a really good idea -- both Male Ranma and Female Ranma are the same person, so a single actor playing both sides makes a lot of a sense. Last edited by Fluwm on Thu Jun 27, 2024 4:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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FishLion
Posts: 65 |
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That, I hadn't even considered, altering your voice as a trans woman is generally completely training as opposed to medical, which means that an accomplished voice actor very well could portray "two sides of the same coin" gender wise with the voice. That said I do worry for any actress that is on the receiving end of the hate would come with voicing a beloved and classic anime character as a queer person. If they go that route I hope they prepare her for the inevitable rage that "she doesn't sound feminine enough" no matter her performance while people weave a conspiracy that they are "trying to make anime queer!" even though the story is literally about what someone would do if they had to be a different sex suddenly. |
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Gamen
Posts: 240 |
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I'd say applicability, not allegory, since I don't think Takahashi was actually trying to write an allegory but instead just used Ranma's discomfort for comedy and his desire to cure himself of the curse as a recurring plot hook. It does not help the case for allegory that he can easily switch between sexes, though I can understand why people would be envious of him for that. Genderfluid is one interpretation, and I've seen arguments that she's outright a transwoman, but... My interpretation is that he's just guy playing a role. Ranma is always looking for a way to get rid of the curse. He does not see his girl form as part of him. By analogy, girl Ranma is like an MMO avatar. Ranma can control girl Ranma however he likes, and anything that he does with her, or is done to her, it's all just an act; he's a Guy In Real Life. Eventually he's going to get rid of her. He's just taking advantage of her while he's got her. |
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FishLion
Posts: 65 |
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I think that's a pretty fair interpretation, but if that the case it is easy to read into the trans men part of the experience. A guy just trying to be a guy however the boobs keep getting in the way and they are definitely a curse but he does sometimes enjoy them along the way while not seeing it as part of himself? That's pretty hard to view as strictly not queer, even though it definitely doesn't match every trans man's experience. I don't think magical transformation is ever a perfect trans allegory because the experience of gender discomfort is magically prompted and usually solved by fixing the transformation's cause or growing comfortable with the new body and not figuring out how to move through the world as someone society views as queer. That is why people that aren't trans can relate to the idea of Ranma enjoying the body like an MMO character and trans people that are can relate to Ranma's experience with gender discomfort at the same time. I don't think any one needs to view any character as trans, but if someone else thinks a trans interpretation is outright wrong and calling for a trans VA is "forcing the character to be trans" because leaning into that interpretation is factually incorrect (while the show does not change it's content at all), that's a little silly. |
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Fluwm
Posts: 909 |
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That may be a fair point: TBH I tend to use "allegory" pretty interchangeably with "applicability," because -- in many cases -- it's often a distinction without a difference. And perhaps more critically: what's the appropriate noun for applicability, anyways? I will push back a bit against the idea that allegories need to be deliberately written as such -- they absolutely don't, and in practice are very frequently accidental. That's just how themes tend to work. As for Ranma's identity... well, it's a common enough refrain that "gender is performance" -- so framing Ranma as "playing a role" doesn't really seem to change change anything from my perspective. I, too, have occasionally seen the "Ranma is a transwoman" thing, but I agree with out, I don't think that's supported by the text -- Ranma clearly identifies as male, even in their "female" form.
I think now we're veering beyond the domain of allegory and into the realm of analogy: I'm not sure such a thing as a "perfect allegory" really exists -- for anything. By their nature, allegories tend to be a bit messy -- and even when carefully and deliberately crafted, often tend to have unintended implications (to say the least). Just coming at this from the perspective of a Star Trek fan -- a series, or rather a media franchise, that's built entirely around science fiction allegories of contemporary social and political issues -- I can think of dozens of allegorical stories for racism, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, etc., etc. that fall into the classic sci-fi trap of biological determinism (or racial essentialism). That's the thing with allegories, and why they'll only ever be partially applicable: nothing ever correlates 1:1. EDIT: And maybe this is stating the obvious, but I think it warrants saying regardless -- that lack of a 1:1 correlation is why actual representation matters. A character-as-allegory-for-X will never match a character-as-X. This is why, to go back to Star Trek, it's important to have openly and explicitly LGBTQ characters in the modern series, despite those identities being allegorically present for decades: it's just not the same thing. |
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Gamen
Posts: 240 |
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Applicability is a noun  (I think I know what you mean, but I don't think there's a word for something "made to be applicable") Yeah, I use them to actually make a distinction; an allegory is what the author intended e.g. an episode of Star Trek reframing a contemporary issue in its sci-fi universe. But said allegories are still applicable to other issues new and old, since history repeats. ...I don't know if it's worth pushing back against you though, because who really uses language that precisely anyway? but I do think of allegory as requiring intent, while that which arises from themes to be applicable.
The distinction for me is whether it's a temporary or disposable role/mask/persona/character, and whether it's meant to hide your true self, to protect your identity so you can be your true self, or just to have fun and experiment, etc. So yeah, I suppose just "playing a role" doesn't really tell much.
No argument here, I can see it's applicability. But I can't see it encompassing the entire experience because all he needs is a pot of hot water to make it go away until he's next splashed or dunked... It's something to point to and say "this is what X can be like/is often like" not "this is X". ...unless of course it's actually X. No coding or subtext, just X. "silly" ...I think there's a stronger word for that than silly. I think it starts with T and ends with -phobic? ...though I suppose if we're talking about the dub it wouldn't matter to me much anyway because I am a sub purist and know basically nothing about who's who in the dub world. They are all equally beneath my notice. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 643 Location: North America |
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My main complaint is that basically the same jokes are reused with only slight modification, which makes at least me lose interest after 100+ episodes.
Except for the case where the VA is a bad person who we do not want to support financially, I could not care less about the VA's gender, appearance, clothing, or anything else other than how they sound in the recording studio when voicing a character.
No, not at all. Ranma considers his birth male form as the "correct" one, and transforming into a girl to be the curse that it is, and one he wants to be free of. Otherwise, why would he put in the effort to find a way to undo the curse?
Yes, that is the same interpretation I had when watching the show.
Has someone made that "silly" argument? Not in this discussion at least. And yes it is silly, since acting is by definition pretending to be someone you are not, so the gender identity of the VA voicing a character is irrelevant. We do not see anything unusual or objectionable in adult women voicing boys in anime even though most or all of them do not identify as a male child, nor do we interpret it as the boy wanting to be an adult woman. Similarly, if a transgender VA voices a character, we should not automatically consider the character to be transgender (it would be discrimination against transgender VAs if they were only allowed to voice transgender characters). Edit: Removed use of a word that a moderator informed me is now considered offensive (but used to be a normal medical term). Last edited by Piglet the Grate on Sat Jun 29, 2024 7:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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