Ranma 1/2 (1988)

[らんま1/2]

Volume 5

Author/Artist: Rumiko Takahashi
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
The vindictive Hikaru Gosunkugi uncovers Ranma's greatest weakness and Shampoo returns to Japan.

Story/Characters:
We introduce two major and one minor recurring character this volume. For those of you who've seen the anime, most of Gosunkugi's parts in the story were taken by the anime-only character Sasuke (I guess so Studio Deen could reward Shigeru Chiba for doing such a bang-up job as Yotsuya-san in Maison Ikkoku; though ironically it was Godai's seiyuu Issei Futamata who played Gosunkugi when he showed up for the OAVs). I won't get into a debate on the relative merits of Gosunkugi versus Sasuke, but I do find Gosunkugi to be fairly amusing.

Well, the whole Nekoken thing is one of the strongest examples of what a terrible father Genma is. (I think Gendou Ikari beats him only because Gendou's terrible parenting isn't played for laughs.) There will be more evidence to demonstrate how Japan's equivalent to CPS really dropped the ball. It makes a nice segue to Shampoo's return in her cursed form. The Chinese invasion doesn't stop there as we've also got Cologne and Mousse. As a rival character, I prefer Ryouga to Mousse, but he has his qualities. They actually make him almost seem to be formidable for a bit during his big fight with Ranma. (Though he's still one of the more competent fighters, he becomes more of a joke character after this.) I rather like Cologne as Ranma's somewhat covert mentor. She's a vastly better character than Happousai. (Who's coming soon... ugh...) With the Amaguri-ken we get the first of several training sequences that take up sizable chunks of the story when we're not doing the normal "martial arts X" stories.

One thing worth noting is that after the Mousse fight, Ranma's secret has been pretty well blown for everyone but the most obtuse and stupid (Kunou). The anime, however, tries to preserve the secret. It's a little funny that once everyone finds out, no one really cares.

Art:
Now that Shampoo's back with a Jusenkyou curse, there's even more fanservice than before. Ranma being mode-locked in girl form also adds to this. We get a nice little matsuri scene for the last chapter of the volume, which is nice if you have a thing for girls in yukata.

Conclusion:
The introduction of Cologne and Shampoo brings a different type of story to the relatively short list of templates for the series. Not all stories in the series flow as well from one to the next as the ones in these chapters. While one-shot stories aren't too bad, I actually prefer more continuity. It's pretty good and worth a read.

Rating:
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