Manga Adaptation by MAPPA
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Akane learns she is betrothed to a boy named Ranma, the son of her father’s friend. While waiting for Ranma and his father to arrive, a girl and giant panda appear instead. Turns out Ranma and his dad can transform when splashed with water, and hilarity ensues.

Jel’s verdict: Ranma 1/2 (City Pop Ver.)

Full disclosure: I have never read or watched Ranma 1/2 (at least not at the time of watching, more on that in a bit). It is a hugely popular and influential series so of course I know things about it, but I mostly went into this without any previous baggage. What I found was a series that feels very much of its time. Certain things aged well, like the character designs, art direction, and animation which the this new series lovingly recreates. It looks fantastic, although I have a similar complaint to something that also popped up in the recent Urusei Yatsura remake. Everything is covered in what I would call a “city pop filter”, with a layer of pastel colors and stylized typography splashed over the place. I thought this became a little overwhelming over time, but that might be a matter of personal taste.

Other things did not age so well. The most obvious is the gender of it all, and there are indeed some outdated ideas on gender roles being thrown around. Your mileage may vary, but I personally found these within tolerable acceptance levels. In fact, I even appreciated that Akane seems to hate Ranma regardless of what his body looks like. I had a harder time accepting the humor, which felt even more outdated. Something about the setup and timing of the jokes felt older than when they were originally written in 1987. Probably 30% of the episode is Ranma or Akane walking in on each other bathing. There were some funny moments and I think I broadly had a good time, but by the end of the episode I felt like I had survived an onslaught of dad jokes.

I wanted to give the new adaptation a fair chance and judge it on it’s own merit, so I made sure to watch that first. But to follow up, I decided to also check out the first episode of the original anime. This still might not have been fair because man, something about anime back then is just going to appeal to my biases. Content wise, the episodes are identical. I would even say the new version is more consistent in its quality throughout. But when the original turns up the animation during the sparring match between Akane and Ranma, it’s beautiful. We may never see that kind of quality again. I also really felt the difference removing the “city pop filter” and seeing everything in it’s originally intended colors. Between that and the lack of digital polish, it just feels so warm and fuzzy. I loved the look of it.

And so I’m left with the question of do I want to watch a slick, stylish, city pop version of Ranma 1/2? If the content is going to be identical, would I be happier just watching the original? I think both of these questions lead to the bigger of question of do I want to watch ANY version of Ranma 1/2 in 2024? I really enjoyed the look and the vibes of both versions and had a good time watching the episodes, but I don’t know if I can take a long series with this kind of outdated humor and plot lines. I mean no shade to Rumiko Takahashi, I know she invented a lot this, but watching it as I am now in 2024 with decades of anime under my belt, it’s just not doing it for me. Unless I end up with nothing else to watch this season, I’ll probably pass.