Anime Ranma 1/2 Remake Coming to TV on October 5, and October 6 on Netflix

[Keyser_Soze]

 

完全新作的アニメ「らんま1/2」公式サイト

RANMA-PR.COM

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高橋留美子による格闘ラブコメディーの名作「らんま1/2」が完全新作的アニメ化！詳細は2024年7月17日(水)18:00〜、ライブ配信で発表！

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

What’s the over/under on anti-trans weirdos acting like this is new and not based on a 35+ year old property?

[LazyPiranha]

No you don’t understand, Ranma is anti-trans because he’s always trying to get rid of his lady half and be with a woman like god intended. 

[Spork3245]

1 hour ago, LazyPiranha said:

No you don’t understand, Ranma is anti-trans because he’s always trying to get rid of his lady half and be with a woman like god intended. 

 

His dad seems cool with turning into a panda, though

[Keyser_Soze]

39 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

His dad seems cool with turning into a panda, though

 

His dad is actually @stepee

[Kal-El814]

Ranma is the first attempted detransitioner, Republicans were right.

[Ghost_MH]

This fall season is going to be stacked. I'm assuming they'll be more manga-accurate and maybe...maybe...maybe give us a more conclusive ending?

[Keyser_Soze]

30 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

This fall season is going to be stacked. I'm assuming they'll be more manga-accurate and maybe...maybe...maybe give us a more conclusive ending?

 

My only experience with this show is watching an episode or two in Japanese class in High School. So really that means I basically haven't seen it at all.

[Ghost_MH]

43 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

My only experience with this show is watching an episode or two in Japanese class in High School. So really that means I basically haven't seen it at all.

 

Series author and artist, Rumiko Takahashi, is easily the most successful mangaka alive. Ranma 1/2 is probably her second most successful series right behind InuYasha. Even the best mangaka usually only get a single major success to their names. Meanwhile, Takahashi is going to have three different anime based on three completely different franchises in three completely different genre over the last three years with YashaHime, Urusei Yatsura, and now Ranma 1/2. Things is, with the success of the Urusei Yatsura reboot, I'd be willing to bet Maison Ikkoku also gets a reboot and that would be another different series is another different genre.

 

Her only series that hasn't been adapted as an anime is Mao and that one feels inevitable now that is up around 200 chapters since 2019.

 

Ranma 1/2 is a martial arts romcom about a guy that changes between male and female genders depending on the water that he's splashed with. Dude just wants to have his curse removed and marry his fiancee. The series previously had an anime from the late-80s early-90s. It's should be a pretty fun and irreverent time.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

Ranma 1/2 is a martial arts romcom about a guy that changes between male and female genders depending on the water that he's splashed with. Dude just wants to have his curse removed and marry his fiancee. The series previously had an anime from the late-80s early-90s. It's should be a pretty fun and irreverent time.

 

Well yeah I know this much.

[Ghost_MH]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Well yeah I know this much.

 

Can't give me an excuse to gush over Takahashi. I'll take it every single time, especially when it's like 2am and old man me tends to ramble the later into the night it gets.

 

I don't think she gets enough love these days, but that might be because Mao kind of flies under the radar compared to her other works.

[Fizzzzle]

5 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

My only experience with this show is watching an episode or two in Japanese class in High School. So really that means I basically haven't seen it at all.

Wait you watched in IN Japanese class? As in your teacher was like "here's this anime about a dude who changes into a girl and half the plot revolves around how people hide their genitalia from each other"?

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Fizzzzle said:

Wait you watched in IN Japanese class? As in your teacher was like "here's this anime about a dude who changes into a girl and half the plot revolves around how people hide their genitalia from each other"?

 

Yeah. We watched some Nausicaa too!

[Kal-El814]

I hope they keep Sasuke.

 

Also Nabiki the GOAT

[TheShader]

On 7/19/2024 at 6:27 AM, LazyPiranha said:

No you don’t understand, Ranma is anti-trans because he’s always trying to get rid of his lady half and be with a woman like god intended. 

 

On 7/23/2024 at 11:15 PM, Ghost_MH said:

This fall season is going to be stacked. I'm assuming they'll be more manga-accurate and maybe...maybe...maybe give us a more conclusive ending?

Funny enough, this is probably where the show will get called 'woke' because it 'changed the original ending'. Takahashi has talked about how if she could change one thing about the story it is the ending because, in her mind, Ranma eventually comes to find peace with his girl side and chooses to continue living without getting the curse removed. My guess is we'll get an ending that reflects that and reflects Ranma coming to terms with who he is and finding comfort in it. Which, as we all know, is woke deep state BS.

[Fizzzzle]

The fact that we're even debating the cultural fucking high art that is ranma 1/2 is wild. It's a deliberately stupid show. The main characters are 2 dudebros that get transformed into a woman and a panda respectively and the entire plot revolves around those hijinks. It's not exactly Shakespeare.

[TheShader]

12 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

 It's not exactly Shakespeare.

[Keyser_Soze]

It's interesting to see some trans people's take on the show. Some are fine with it while others find it problematic.

 

Someone posted this article written by someone who was against it but I suppose it shouldn't be used as evidence that all trans people dislike the show

 

Ranma 1/2 and the Anything-Goes School of Accidental Trans Narrative - Anime Feminist

WWW.ANIMEFEMINIST.COM

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While Ranma 1/2 is officially the story of a cis boy dealing with a body-morphing curse, the series also accidentally provides a resonant allegory for transmasculine identity.

 

[TheShader]

9 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

It's interesting to see some trans people's take on the show. Some are fine with it while others find it problematic.

 

Someone posted this article written by someone who was against it but I suppose it shouldn't be used as evidence that all trans people dislike the show

 

Ranma 1/2 and the Anything-Goes School of Accidental Trans Narrative - Anime Feminist

WWW.ANIMEFEMINIST.COM

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While Ranma 1/2 is officially the story of a cis boy dealing with a body-morphing curse, the series also accidentally provides a resonant allegory for transmasculine identity.

 

I would say that article is a pretty good representation of the general vibe trans people have toward Ranma 1/2 as well as other similar works of art from the 80s/90s. Which often hold special places in our hearts despite their flaws. The answer, more often than not, is much more nuanced than just hate or love. As the author of that article states by the end he still very much appreciates Ranma in spite of its flaws for what the anime was to him as a youth.

 

Which is what it kind of breaks down to. Something like Ranma is terrible trans representation but at the same time was top tier representation for its time. If you were 12 and trans in the 80s/90s/00s then your options were either a show like Ranma that was flawed but otherwise showed something that resonated with you (Getting to live in a world where gender swapping was possible) or you watched something where the trans person got murdered, beaten up, and otherwise was not allowed to live a happy life and was considered an abnormality.

 

The sentiment of 'It's complicated' in relation to how trans people feel about older media extends to a lot of other things. A large example for some older trans folk is The Rocky Horror Picture Show which, much like Ranma, is absolute terrible trans rep but was great trans representation for its time period and gave us an outlet to express ourselves.

 

If anyone has any further interest in the history of trans representation as well as the often complicated nature with how a lot of trans folk had to interact with media over the decades then I can't recommend enough the Netflix Documentary Disclosure which discusses a lot of this.

[Greatoneshere]

18 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

The fact that we're even debating the cultural fucking high art that is ranma 1/2 is wild. It's a deliberately stupid show. The main characters are 2 dudebros that get transformed into a woman and a panda respectively and the entire plot revolves around those hijinks. It's not exactly Shakespeare.

 

I'm not a big fan of Takahashi's lighter fare (her darker stuff is pretty good though, like Mermaid Forest), so this tracks for me. 

[LazyPiranha]

20 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

The fact that we're even debating the cultural fucking high art that is ranma 1/2 is wild. It's a deliberately stupid show. The main characters are 2 dudebros that get transformed into a woman and a panda respectively and the entire plot revolves around those hijinks. It's not exactly Shakespeare.

No one is debating it’s merits as high art, we’re more talking about how weird it is that half a century past its heyday it would be received completely differently by a culture that didn’t give a single fuck about it at the time.  It has little to nothing to do with Ranma as a work to itself and everything to do with what the fuck is wrong with us.

[Kal-El814]

Ranma is problematic in a bunch of ways that have been articulated very well in the article that @Keyser_Soze linked to. I’d been curious about its reception within the trans community and while one voice isn’t a consensus, that was an informative read. As it pointed out, it’s not just the gender swapping of it all, but it’s got very dated ideas about sexuality and gender roles in general. Happosai in general is always a hard watch.

 

That said it’s one of the first anime I liked and because of that and the affinity for its hijinks, I just can’t help but really like it.

[Keyser_Soze]

Thank you @TheShader for linking to that article.

[Kal-El814]

3 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Thank you @TheShader for linking to that article.

 

YIKES

[Kal-El814]

@Keyser_Soze feel free to bash me over the head with a giant okonomiyaki spatula

[TheShader]

5 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I’d been curious about its reception within the trans community and while one voice isn’t a consensus

Well, technically, you have at least two voices so far. The article someone linked and my own comment on the topic . As a trans person and someone who grew up with Ranma it's a conversation I've been a part of many times and the answer really is as mixed as if you asked any other group about an older show or movie. Some flat out do not wish to engage with it while others, like myself, recognize it as a relic of its time and appreciate it as a seminal work in our trans childhoods. Again, I highly recommend the Netflix documentary Disclosure. I don't believe Ranma specifically gets brought up but it brings up other similarly aged works with discussions by prominent trans individuals about their feelings on the topic. 

 

Also wanted to add in, because I stated it in another thread about Ranma, but I wanted to actually revisit Ranma this year and have been going through it all since earlier this year. I'm probably somewhere around 3/4 of the series. And, honestly, going through it all there's more good than bad. There's definitely a lot that's aged like a milk lemonade but once the show gets going you can go long stretches without anything really bad getting brought up or if it is then it's only once or twice within an episode. 

 

A lot of it I'd say is also less offensive and more falls flat in modern context. Like a joke that randomly pops up from time to time is 'haha, Ranma is a pervert because he has girl underwear in his guy form!' which just feels llke, to me... OK? Because it was perfectly fine and dandy when Ranma was holding panties just 5 seconds ago but was in girl form. I get where the humor is coming from but just feels outdated and flat, at least to me. 

 

That said I'm curious to see how the remake handles all the various outdated and flat jokes. If it turns out to be just a straight remake with little change then I'll honestly probably be just happy with the original. Which has less to do with the trans stuff and/or jokes and more to do with the expectation that if you're going to remake a comedy then I expect you to update the humor. I don't care if it's Ranma or The Three Stooges. Comedy is an ever evolving thing and I'm not really jazzed about someone's humor being them shaking their fists at clouds screaming 'why can't I use my jokes from the 90s anymore!?' 

 

That all said, I'm tentatively excited about the new show. It probably won't be everything I'd want out of more Ranma but I want a story with a lot more structural changes. The jokes and language aren't the only thing that's aged poorly. The original is EXTREMELY episodic. So not only is every episode fairly self contained but there's also a lot of 'the characters act and behave how we need them to for this one episode' instead of having a consistent character and relationships. It's very sitcom-y. And, gosh darn it, the premise of a martial artist falling into a magic pool that turns him magically into a girl is such a great premise for more overarching stories! 

[Kal-El814]

6 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

@Keyser_Soze feel free to bash me over the head with a giant okonomiyaki spatula

 

@Keyser_Soze do it

 

[TheShader]

8 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

@Keyser_Soze do it

 

@Keyser_Sozedo DO IT