I think I've been a bit careless about revealing spoilers so far about the series, and for that I apologize. I'm going to be more careful about using the spoiler tag from now on. Of course, there are a lot of things that won't need it.

In the first series, Ryoga is something of a one-joke pony. The basic idea of him not being able to walk to the corner store without taking a detour to Fuji-san is getting a bit old. It's nice that they deemphasized that in the second series. He still gets lost, but nothing like as badly nor as often.

It's a hazard in this kind of series: trying to overuse a joke. Seems like they realized it.

I took a look at the credits, and it seems there was a pretty serious overhaul of the project team between the first and second series, including a replacement of the director. That certainly is consistent with the change in tone between the two.

I just finished the first half of episode 9, and I do have to say that the change in Akane's hairstyle was handled nicely. But it did get a bit drippy in there. There isn't anything like that in the part of the second series that I saw, which is just as well.

The translator is taking some liberties with the subtitles. In one scene, Ranma is in a battle and gets knocked into water -- and is taken enough with the battle that she doesn't notice her transformation. She also doesn't notice that her shirt has been slashed, and her breasts are exposed. (Gee, you don't suppose that "getting a girl fighter's clothes slashed in a fight" is some kind of trope, do you? I wonder if this was the first example of that, too; bet it was.)

Akane shouts something that they translated as "Your blouse!" Actually, the key word in Japanese was mune, which variously means "chest" or "breasts", but more the latter. At which point Ranma-chan does a take, and then covers up.

Ranma-chan actually seems a lot less concerned with exposing herself than you normally expect girls to be. She likes to hang around the house wearing pants, with a towel hanging around her neck, but nothing else above the waist. That is... rather indiscreet, you know? But of course, that wouldn't be particularly scandalous for a guy, and deep down Ranma is a guy even when in the girl's body.

I noticed that Ranma doesn't use honorifics. I have to go back and check to see if he/she even uses honorifics to Akane's dad; that may be the only case of it. To everyone else, he just uses their names. That's the kind of thing I'd expect from an anti-hero who also rolls his r's and uses -ze and -zo a lot, but Ranma in either form doesn't effect those affectations.

Akane returns the favor when it comes to Ranma, though she uses honorifics for everyone else. Is that sarcasm, or a secret hint of feelings of intimacy? I wonder how the Japanese would interpret it?

UPDATE: I haven't been listening closely enough. I just heard Ranma-chan use -ze.

Also: Ranma and Ryoga find out about each other's dread secret:

In the bath, of course.

UPDATE: Speaking of Vista, I wish there were a way for me to tell Vista, "Yes, I really do understand that publisher of SmartRipper cannot be verified, and I am quite certain I want to run this program without you asking every time. So shut up about it!" Ordinarily I'd use RTVReco for this, but Vista has added a new kind of popup which RTVReco won't see, and this particular popup is one of them.

Is there any kind of flag or something I can set that will tell Vista, "Yes, I'm sure about this one even though you think it's questionable"?

UPDATE: Below the fold, sad girl in snow pissed-off transformed boy in rain. It's SFW.

UPDATE: One of the tropes is "cursed with awesome". Ranma is the iconic example they use in the definition. Certainly compared to what happens to others who screw around with the hundred cursed springs, Ranma came off well.

Some things occur to me. 1. The spring that Ranma fell into is the cure for Shampoo, if she wants it. 2. There has got to be one spring in there where a man drowned, don't you think? That would be the cure for Ranma, Genma, Ryoga, and Mousse. 3. If there is such a spring, that guard will know where it is. He knows about all of them.

4. Which leads to this conclusion: if any of them had any brains, they'd have been out from under their curses long since.

It's hard to say whose curse (amongst the five I know of so far) is worst. I think Ryoga, probably, but Mousse is a close second.

For all of Ranma's concern about it, the point of the trope is that Ranma's condition isn't really intolerable. For all his bitching, he seems to be quite comfortable operating as she for long periods of time. And Ranma-chan really is pretty awesome, and it's obvious that Ranma-kun knows it. (Considering some of his less-well-considered taunting of Akane in the first couple of episodes.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:22 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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