Ranma 1/2 05
らんま1/2

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis

After Akane’s hair gets sliced, Ryouga and female Ranma offer themselves for a punch. Eventually, Akane accepts. Ranma quietly follows Akane home, observing her depression. At home, she rejects his efforts to reach out to her, recalling how she grew her hair out because of the teenaged Kasumi-oneechan and Tofu-sensei’s attraction to her. While making dinner, Akane’s shortened hair shocks her. However, she does trim it up for Akane.

Ranma escorts the injured Akane to Tofu-sensei’s clinic. While there, she does get Tofu-sensei to say her returning to her former hair style is cute. However, Akane cries a lot as she accepts Tofu-sensei will never like her the way he does Kasumi. As Ranma and Akane walk back home, Ranma says her new hair style is cute. Feeling playful, Akane gets Ranma to fall into the river canal to turn female.

That night, Ryouga shows up to challenge Ranma. Ryouga causes such a fuss, it wakes Kasumi and Akane. They don’t recognize Ryouga, so Kasumi gets Akane to throw a large dumbbell at him. Ryouga attempts to flee, but when female Ranma “catches” him, all he finds are his clothes and backpack. Ranma sees a nearby dog and assumes it is Ryouga’s cursed form.

Meanwhile, back at the Touda residence, Akane finds an injured piglet wearing a bandana. Ranma returns with the dog and discovers it isn’t Ryouga. Akane forces Ranma to bathe the pig, causing it to turn into Ryouga. A new fight breaks out, so female Ranma forces Ryouga back to pig form. Akane takes the pig to sleep with him. When Ranma tries to force the pig out, Akane thinks he’s trying to assault her.

Thoughts/Review

With Ranma 1/2 05, we get to see Ryouga’s cursed piglet form. Thus starts a tiresome gag that goes on until the series ends. Ryouga will show up, demand a fight, get turned into a pig, Akane takes the pig to her bed (’cause that’s what folks in Japan would do), Ranma gets jealous, his attempts to expose Ryouga fail, Ranma gets punished, and Ryouga’s secret remains safe. Ugh. I am NOT looking forward to the countless variations of this that are to come.

Seriously, to solve the problem, all Ranma has to do is let Akane know and then prove it, which is easy enough. But ’cause “gags”, the stories will never be written that way. The status quo must be maintained. And while I won’t quit watching the series because of this, I am already weary of it, thanks to watching the OG anime adaptation.

One thing I’d forgotten is how young Kasumi was when Tofu-sensei fell in love with her. I wonder how many people this will trigger. That aside, I did like that Akane gets to resolve her feelings for Tofu-sensei and have a good cry.

On the comedy side, I got a laugh from Kasumi easily holding the heavy dumb bell that she had Akane throw at the intruder.

Finally (since I’m busy), I will again state that the official subtitles are just absolute garbage. Adapters who fancy themselves better writers than the actual authors are unqualified to translate/adapt said author’s work.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, I was fine with the story in Ranma 1/2 05 as presented. And my negative feelings about the subtitles aside, I am bracing myself for what’s to come in the future.