Ranma ½ (2024) 2nd Season

The second season picked up right where the first season ended and gave us five sequential episodes focused on Shampoo, with a fun and engaging pacing of events.
The second half, however, consisted of mostly stand-alone episodes with no continuous plot, up until the last two episodes.

The comedic tone dominated almost all of the episodes. But whenever there was a key romantic moment or any real development in the relationships, it would end in comedy that erased all the emotional buildup.

This season introduced two new characters:

Mousse – a foolish fighter who has a crush on Shampoo. His character is charming comedy-wise, but the downside is repetition.

Ukyo ... – another fiancée who was introduced in a rather shallow way and only appeared in two episodes. I think that was for the best, since I didn’t find anything particularly special about her aside from the comedic concept. She doesn’t really add much to the story, unlike Mousse. Ukyo isn’t really a rival for Akane, or even Shampoo.

The theater play episode is basically the cover of the entire season. It should have been the final episode, so the season could end with some romantic development or progress in their relationship. That would have been better than the actual last episode, Mousse’s fight, which reverted everything back to pure comedy with no real character development. It would have been a better way to conclude the season.

A standout positive point is the studio’s adaptation of the manga chapters. I appreciate that they skipped the repetitive chapters, like the constant fights between Ryoga and Ranma, and instead focused on chapters with story progression and new characters.

The negative side is that some characters were overly simplified, especially the grandfather. They cut the chapters that properly introduced him and settled for a single episode as his introduction.

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بدأ الموسم الثاني من حيث انتهى الموسم الأول، وقدم لنا خمس حلقات متتالية تركز على شامبو، بوتيرة أحداث ممتعة وجذابة.

مع ذلك، تألف النصف الثاني في معظمه من حلقات منفصلة دون حبكة متصلة، حتى آخر حلقتين.

سيطر الطابع الكوميدي على معظم الحلقات. ولكن كلما ظهرت لحظة رومانسية مهمة أو أي تطور حقيقي في العلاقات، كانت تنتهي بمشاهد كوميدية تُبدد كل المشاعر المتصاعدة.

قدم هذا الموسم شخصيتين جديدتين:

موس - مقاتل أحمق معجب بشامبو. شخصيته جذابة من الناحية الكوميدية، لكن يعيبها التكرار.

أوكيو - خطيبة أخرى تم تقديمها بشكل سطحي، وظهرت في حلقتين فقط. أعتقد أن هذا كان أفضل، إذ لم أجد فيها شيئًا مميزًا سوى الفكرة الكوميدية. فهي لا تضيف الكثير للقصة، على عكس موس. أوكيو ليست منافسة حقيقية لأكاني، أو حتى لشامبو.

حلقة المسرحية هي في الأساس غلاف الموسم بأكمله. كان من الأجدر أن تكون الحلقة الأخيرة، لينتهي الموسم بتطور رومانسي أو تقدم في علاقتهما. كان ذلك أفضل من الحلقة الأخيرة الفعلية، وهي معركة موس، التي أعادت كل شيء إلى الكوميديا ​​البحتة دون أي تطور حقيقي للشخصيات. كانت ستكون خاتمة أفضل للموسم.

من أبرز الإيجابيات اقتباس الاستوديو لفصول المانغا. أُقدّر أنهم تخطوا الفصول المتكررة، مثل المعارك المستمرة بين ريوغا ورانما، وركزوا بدلاً من ذلك على الفصول التي تُسهم في تطور القصة وتُقدم شخصيات جديدة.

أما الجانب السلبي، فهو تبسيط بعض الشخصيات بشكل مفرط، وخاصة الجد. فقد حذفوا الفصول التي تُعرّف به بشكل كافٍ واكتفوا بحلقة واحدة لتقديمه.

In short, if you want a well-written anime that is old-school but still has a "fun slice of life" vibe, involving martial arts, an arranged marriage, and a lot of funny moments, this is for you. If you prefer something fast-paced with meaningful stories where the plot is the main course, you should skip it.

Intro:
Ranma 1/2 was a manga created by Rumiko Takahashi in 1987. Without giving any meaningful spoilers, it is a story about a boy that turns into a girl when he gets sprayed with cold water, and turns back into a man when it is hot water. He goes to live ... in Akane's house to inherit their family Dojo, and by doing so, their parents arranged for him and Akane to get engaged. The story goes on as a "slice of life" about them getting to know each other, with a lot of fun characters appearing along the way.

Art: 8/10
The art is good. Not life-changing by any means, but you can see that the studio (MAPPA) made an effort to put the animation in good shape without losing the core style. Here, I need to compare it to the older anime (Ranma 1989): this version has A LOT of censored content (for example, breasts are not exposed anymore). So, it is a downside, but by no means makes the anime bad.

Story: 9/10
To be honest, this will be biased. I really enjoy the story and I have a lot of good memories with it. So, yes, it is a little bit corny, a little bit slow-paced, and has some plots that don't add anything to the story, but it is fun to watch. This anime is not about "thinking too deep"; it is about a couple getting to know each other and it is cute.

Sound: 6/10
It is average. In the first season of the anime, the opening was really good, and I really enjoyed the song. This one is just "ok", nothing that surprising.

Characters: 7/10
The variety and the main characters are good! Maybe one or two side characters are boring, but they have their contributions. It is an old anime, so sometimes it looks a little too plain, but I don't think that spoils it; for me, it makes it even better. The development of both Ranma and Akane is surprisingly good. Nothing phenomenal, but you get the idea.

Enjoyment: 9/10
This is the anime's strong suit. It is very, very enjoyable. Of course, it will not change your life, but it is fun to watch. The pace is very good (better than the older anime that was 90% filler), and it really makes you laugh and feel good.

Overall: 8/10
It is a good anime, light-hearted, and really fun to watch. If you are bored or tired of the "high power" animes where every fight needs to break barriers and destroy planets, this is for you. It is a good romantic comedy between two teenagers, nothing too harmful or heavy. Just nice.

The second season is good, but compared to the first, it loses quite a bit of its freshness.

I never watched the original Ranma or read the manga, so my first contact with Ranma is this remake. The second season starts off quite well, giving us just the right dose of absurdist comedy. Throughout its episodes, you can see Rumiko Takahashi's great creativity in creating super random events that are nonetheless entertaining to watch. This season also expands the supporting cast, adding more love rivals for both Ranma and Akane. Up to this point, everything seems to be going well and keeping us on the edge ... of our seats... That's where the problem begins. The story seems to lack a clear direction. The absence of a narrative thread that tells us we're heading towards a certain important event in the protagonists' relationship results in low emotional investment. If Ranma were a pure comedy, everything presented would be fantastic, and I'd be applauding it. The comedy is undoubtedly the strongest and most solid aspect of this work. The problem is that it's not pure comedy; it's also a romance. And the romance stagnates throughout the entire season. There's barely any real development, and from the beginning to the end of the series, the relationship only progresses one step. It's not necessarily bad that the romantic storyline doesn't advance, but it does make you disconnect from the story. You watch it, you laugh, you enjoy it, but it's very rare that you do anything beyond simply watching the episodes. There's no connection between the work and the viewer because the work doesn't try to show you anything solid in the romantic aspect.

Another problem with the work is the wasted potential of its great supporting cast. One of Ranma's strengths is having a large number of supporting character options for storytelling. The permutations and interactions you can create between all the characters are so numerous that it's very difficult to repeat the same segment. The issue is that the story seems unaware of this. The secondary character with the most screen time was Shampoo. I know the character has a solid fanbase and is very beloved. However, the constant exposure of the character makes her presence tiresome. It starts to feel heavy, and affection gradually turns into weariness. I understand her role as Akane's antagonist, but if you don't have a story to tell, don't try to cram the character into everything. There are characters from the first season who didn't even have a cameo in the second and who could have been used more effectively.

The ending felt a bit strange. The promotional materials and trailers sold the Romeo and Juliet arc as the central focus of the season. This seems to make sense because it's a moment where Akane and Ranma can solidify their romantic bond. It's a great episode that ends with a beautiful interaction between the protagonists—a worthy story to close the season. However, it didn't. They preferred to end with the battle between Moose and Ranma, which wasn't bad; it was a good episode. However, if the story had been slightly altered so that this mini-arc was the penultimate one, I think it would have felt better. You end with Romeo and Juliet, with a romantic interaction, letting us know that the relationship grew a bit. Since that wasn't the case, the momentum is lost, and the ending feels a little weaker compared to the season's high point.

It might seem like I hate the season, which isn't the case. I liked Ranma, I enjoyed it, and I laughed every Saturday I watched it. The problem is what I mention in the review: I simply didn't connect with it on an emotional level to make the story meaningfully important to me.