Ranma 1/2 (1993)

[らんま1/2]

Volume 23

Author/Artist: Rumiko Takahashi
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
Pantyhose Tarou comes back to Japan to get his revenge. Ranma is trapped on a private island with no hot water. Ranma and Akane take cooking lessons from Nodoka. Ryouga has a magic fishing rod that makes the person you catch fall in love with you. Gosunkugi gets a suit of powered armor to fight Ranma.

Story/Characters:
I'm not much of a fan of Pantyhose Tarou and I really don't like Happousai. Since you can't get the former without the latter (with an exception coming up later in the series), a Pantyhose Tarou story isn't going to do much for me. At least the first time it was a big battle epic with all the gang teaming up. We don't get that here, and while the action scenes aren't bad, they're not enough to cover the cost of admission. The island story plays around a bit with elements of Cinderella and Japanese fables. It's okay bit not great. It's the one-shot with Nodoka that makes the entire volume worthwhile. I've said before that I like how Nodoka acts as something of a surrogate mother for Akane and it's amusing to see how Ranma interacts with his mother as "Ranko". It's little surprise that with a little expansion, this chapter was made into an OAV episode. The koi fishing rod story is fairly amusing and if you like Gosunkugi, his one-shot isn't bad.

Art:
Some of Takahashi's horror chops get used in the Cinderella story for comedic purposes. If you want to see this sort of thing played straight, check out her Mermaid series.

Conclusion:
There are a range of stories here, but by virtue of the Nodoka one-shot alone, this one's worth a read. Toss in the fishing rod story and you're not doing too shabbily.

Rating:
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