March 29, 2008

Ranma 1/2: Shampoo

Ep 6, and Shampoo finally makes her appearance. She certainly knows how to make a memorable entrance, I must say:

I was beginning to wonder if Ranma-chan would be the only one.

UPDATE: Well, I've seen this technique before!

/images/01497.jpg

Margery Daw likes to use it, of course, but it also shows up in DBZ in the Afterlife Martial Arts Tournament.

UPDATE: Ep 6 has more nudity than all of the first five eps combined. I can't believe this. I thought this was supposed to be a mainline series; what's with all the ecchi? Not that I'm complaining, of course, but it's completely unexpected.

The cold-water-hot-water aspect to the curse; I originally thought that it applied to the whole body. Now I'm beginning to wonder if it requires dousing the head. Which is to say, could Ranma-chan take a hot bath without converting if she kept her head dry? Could Ranma-kun swim across a river as long as he kept his head out of the water?

Am I thinking about this too much? Of course I am!

UPDATE: Hayashibara Megumi is really outstanding in this, even though she has the minority of the time as Ranma. It really is understandable how she pretty much dominated the field for about ten years in there. This voice is sort of like Lina Inverse except without the serious parts.

I have a feeling that the dubbing sessions were probably a lot of fun. But they must have gone pretty well; ANN's trivia page for the series says that Hayashibara herself said that the dubbing sessions were only 4.5 hours once per week, every Thursday evening. That seems awfully aggressive to me, but what do I know? I guess if the cast is professional, you wouldn't have to do a lot of retakes.

UPDATE: The "Secret cat-tongue point" sequence is turning out to be even more fun than the "ice skating martial arts" sequence, and not just because there's more ecchi in it. Or because there's more of Hayashibara. The granny is neat, for one thing. But so it this:

/images/01498.jpg

By the way, Mousse is a moron.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:34 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 356 words, total size 2 kb.

1 ...could Ranma-chan take a hot bath without converting if she kept her head dry?

 

Hilarity ensues.

I just realized that that might have been the first time I've ever used "hilarity ensues" non-ironically.

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 29, 2008 09:33 PM (AW3EJ)

2

Since I'm watching the second season, I didn't see that. Seems like everyone's pretty comfortable with walking into Ranma's bathing now, no matter which mode he's in, and him, too.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 29, 2008 09:43 PM (+rSRq)

3

Wonderduck, are you sure about that? Every time I've seen anyone transform, no matter who or which direction, their head got wet. Several times that was all that got wet. That's been the case for Ranma, for Ryoga, for Ranma's dad, and for Shampoo.

Are you sure Ranma didn't get fully immersed in that scene?

 

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 29, 2008 09:51 PM (+rSRq)

4 Fanon and fanfic have, of course, speculated endlessly on the exact mechanics of triggering the curses, including the question of how to define "hot" or "cold" water, and what room temperature water counts as.  There's no real consensus on the various matters, and as I recall the manga and anime themselves neither establish nor follow any consistent rules as to what does and doesn't trigger the curse.

Posted by: Aaron Nowack at March 29, 2008 09:53 PM (AFfUz)

5

In "Who Frame Roger Rabbit?" there was a point where Roger and the detective were handcuffed together. Eventually they got to a place where there was a hacksaw, and as the detective was cutting away on the handcuff, Roger slips his hand out of the other cuff, for just a moment. The detective does a take, Roger puts his hand back in, and the detective says, "You mean to tell me you could have gotten your hand out of it at any time?"

And Roger responds, "No, not at any time. Only when it was funny."

For Toons, humor is a part of the laws of physics. The rules change when the situation would be funnier with the rule change. Gravity only affects the coyote when he becomes aware of the possibility of him falling, for instance, and when him falling would be funny.

I think that there's something of that going on here. Us'n are too mechanistically inclined, looking for some kind of consistent rule on the curse. The reality is this: water will cause a state transition if doing so is funny or if it furthers the plot.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 29, 2008 11:27 PM (+rSRq)

6 Are you sure Ranma didn't get fully immersed in that scene?

I can't say for sure, if only because the scene starts with -kun already in the bath.  However, his head is above-water, and not dripping wet, so one can infer that it wasn't immersed.  Take that for what it's worth.

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 29, 2008 11:34 PM (AW3EJ)

7 Someone once asked Takahashi what would happen if Ranma-chan got pregnant. Don't recall the exact answer, but it was basically "don't think about that stuff."

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 29, 2008 11:34 PM (LMDdY)

8 Simulpost!

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 29, 2008 11:35 PM (AW3EJ)

9 Despite this article and commentary , Jason's readers are still more broken.

Wait...if I read that article, does that make me one of his readers, and therefore more broken than readers here?  But if I'm a reader here, how can I be more broken than myself?

Takahashi's right.  Don't think about that stuff.

Posted by: ubu at March 30, 2008 06:29 AM (GeU+Z)

10 There have been quite a few questions about sexuality that have occurred to me, to which I said to myself, "Let's not go there."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 30, 2008 07:08 AM (+rSRq)

11 I'd get a screenshot of the scene in episode 1 for you, Steven, but I can't... I have the first two episodes on subbed videocassette.

Ah, the good old days, huh?

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 30, 2008 08:04 AM (AW3EJ)

12 I'm looking at the scene in question right now, his hair looks dry but then again it did just after Ranma-chan had dumped a bucket of cold water on her head.  Inconclusive, really.

Oh, and one artifice that you will see a lot; as it can be hard to tell what the temperature of water is in a drawn image, oftentimes Ranma helps out the artist by exclaiming "HOT!" or "COLD!" while being splashed.

Posted by: pflorian at March 30, 2008 08:46 AM (lI2L7)

13 I think Takahashi's quote was: "I don't think about that stuff, and neither should you."

Posted by: Toren at March 30, 2008 09:43 AM (zgaQi)

14

I uploaded a few shots from season 1 ep 1 where Ranma-chan switches to Ranma-kun in the bath. Plus the shot where Akane realizes just what her Dad has gotten her into...

Ranma 1/2

Posted by: mparker762 at March 30, 2008 10:06 AM (ho7BN)

15

I used to draw webcomics semi-regularly a long time ago, and one of the most amusing flaming melt-downs I ever saw happened after I drew a humorous picture of a male character, pregnant. (It was funnier in context.) It got leaked through the usual suspects, and one of the fans started contacting me, begging me to make that silly one-off cartoon into an entire story, because the entire concept of a pregnant man was REALLY REALLY REALLY important to him. I told him no, and the reaction was the sort of freakout that made Chris Crocker's "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE" video look tame in comparison.

Come to think of it, Chris Crocker's YouTube homepage has a pic of himself morphed to look pregnant. Maybe he was the fan; there can't be that damned many emo tards with that fetish. Anyhow, good on Takahashi for realizing that she doesn't have to cater to the freaks.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at March 30, 2008 11:34 PM (j8zCH)

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