Ranma 1/2 04
らんま1/2

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis

A boy named HIBIKI Ryouga stops a charging, giant boar in a remote, rural village, impressing the villagers. He’s looking for Furinkan High School, so the villagers point him toward Tokyo. A week later, Ryouga finally arrives to challenge Ranma. Ranma and Akane just arrive at school when Ryouga attacks. Unfortunately, Ranma doesn’t initially remember Ryouga. Eventually, he recalls Ryouga challenged him to a fight, but didn’t show up for three days.

Ryouga delivers a new but battered challenge letter. Sometime later, Kasumi finds the challenge letter. When asked, Ranma figures it must have been all of the times he scored the last breads or sandwiches over Ryouga. Meanwhile, Ryouga again gets lost and is out in the country. By the time he gets to the field to challenge Ranma, all of the bread and sandwich products Ranma bought him have expired.

Ryouga attacks, eventually ditching his Japanese umbrella. He uses a bandana to try to nullify Ranma’s elusion abilities. Some of the guys try to pick up the umbrella and discover it weighs a ton. Even Akane cannot lift it. As such, she calls out a warning to Ranma. The fight continues with Ranma eventually ripping the bandana. Ryouga slashes him with the umbrella, ripping his shirt. Ranma flees, so Ryouga follows, destroying the outdoor water spigots.

Ranma turns into a girl and continues to fight. Ryouga’s recklessness gets Akane in danger, forcing Ranma to get her to safety. However, the two start arguing about that. Ryouga again returns to attack, causing female Ranma to kick his black bandana away. Akane slaps Ranma for his harsh words. However, Ryouga’s bandana returns and slices off her long hair.

Thoughts/Review

Netflix’s absolutely fetid garbage subtitles aside, we get another fun episode with Ranma 1/2 04. However, while Ryouga’s introduction is fine, it does mark the start of Takahashi-sensei’s “introduce new characters rather than allow any character growth.”

Terminally Lost

When Ranma 1/2 04 started in some remote, Japanese village, my first thought was, “Where’s the traditional music from Inuyasha that marks the start of something bad?” 😂 Still, we get shown how Ryouga easily gets lost as well as his enormous strength. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ryouga was the basis for the wolf youkai Kouga in Inuyasha.

That aside, while Ryouga’s fight with both versions of Ranma was fun, I didn’t find anything humorous about him. Further, since they had their big fight at school, I’m thinking, “Were was Kuno during all this?” In reality, he should have shown up thanks to the commotion. I get that Kuno would interfere with Ryouga’s introduction, but considering how Kuno is, he would have been there, even if only to observe.

Regardless, the end of the episode did what was so unexpected for the time. Akane’s long hair got cut off from Ranma thwarting Ryouga’s attack. It is a shame ’cause Akane is cute with long hair. And while it is natural for her hair to be short for a while, I always lamented that it stays short until the end of the series.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Ranma 1/2 04 was a lot of fun. However, I’m going to miss Akane with her long hair as she’s cuter that way.