Ranma 1/2

Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma ½ is delightful, lighthearted gender-bending text. The text neatly fits into the genre of shojo, manga targeted at young girls, with it’s themes of romance and school drama. Akane and her sisters’ lives revolve around karate as they live and train in a dojo with their father. At school they literally fight off boys who show romantic interest in them. Ranma arrives at the dojo with his father after training in China. The two fathers intend to arrange a marriage between Ranma and one of the sisters. During their training in China, Ranma and his father fall into enchanted pools that lead to shape-shifting, with Ranma’s body changing to a girl’s and his father changing to a panda. The shape-shifting leads to comic transformations at embarrassing moments for Ranma. His father seems to embrace his own transformations, even getting a receptionist position at a doctor’s office while in his panda form. 

Ranma initially rejects his transforming body, insisting he is a boy regardless of his physical features. Through the novel, Ranma develops a more complex view of his transforming body. In the first two books, he never comes to a place of seeing himself as gender-fluid, but he does accept and embrace that while he is always male, his body can take different forms and the outer expression can be beautiful. Akane’s and her sisters’ storyline also has moments confronting gender expectations.

Visually, the text feels like a straightforward manga. The panels are action packed and move the story along quickly. Those who’ve read more manga than I have could probably speak with more expertise to how it compares to other manga. The visuals do open up conversations about the representation of bodies, especially given the intended audience of young girls. The text doesn’t shy away from naked bodies showering and even relies on nakedness for some of the comedy.