This episode highlighted some elements of Ranma ½ that are not my favorites. And which are going to be more prominent going forward, to be honest. I like Shampoo – she’s funny, and Sakuma Rei was an is a very good comic actress. But I don’t love her as much as most fans seem to, because she tends to usher in a lot of the Ranma as punching bag humor that gets old pretty quickly. She also brings out the worst in Akane – and again if we’re honest, she’s kind of a violent and scary person even when she’s not being triggered by a romantic rival.
It’s not like we needed the “Sutra of the Chinese Amazons” to figure it out, but Shampoo’s kiss to boy-Ranma last week was obviously not “of death”. Turns out that if a male outsider kicks her butt she marries them instead of kills them. It’s self-apparent that Ranma has done nothing wrong here but it’s Ranma ½, beating up on him for nothing is just part of the routine. If nothing else I think we can say from Akane’s reaction that she has feelings for him (wouldn’t need a “Sutra of Irascible Dojo Daughters” to figure that out either).
Meanwhile Ryouga has decided to sneak off into the sunset (though he’d probably get lost and sneak into the sunrise instead). Watching girls fight over Ranma is a major blow to his pride, but he’s going to have bigger problems to worry about when Shampoo gets hold of him in pork mode. Ryouga’s angel and devil on the shoulder routine was pretty amusing, with the angel turning out to be nastier than the devil. He ends up sticking around after all, though he winds up as a plate of Chinese BBQ pork (I’m still not sure how he walked away from that one).
The running gag here of Shampoo trying to kill girl-Ranma and schtup boy-Ranma and never managing to connect the dots (despite seeing both of them in the same clothes) is pretty good. But then, somehow Akane has never put to and two together with P-chan despite anvil-sized clues dropping all around her. Eventually Shampoo gets tired of her obvious possessiveness towards boy-Ranma and plants the kiss of death on her, setting the stage for a final (for now) showdown.
As with Akane’s jealous reaction to Shampoo, Ranma’s true feelings are betrayed by his actions when this goes down. He’s not worried about Shampoo, that’s for sure, and it’s more than just a belief that she’s going to win. We don’t get to see what goes down between Shampoo and Akane but in the aftermath she seems to have lost her memory, which adds another wrinkle to this already cattywampus conflagration of craziness.
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