Ranma ½ is an all-time classic action-comedy that just also happened to be loaded with beautiful girls and top rate fanservice. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Dubbed version streamed here.
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Download Links
Torrent: Nyaa
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Series Information
Production Company: Studio DEEN
Vintage: Spring 1989 – Summer 1992
Nipple sightings from other Studio DEEN produced anime:
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the Dead OVA , Maison Ikkoku , Mouse , Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan , R.O.D -The TV- (with JC Staff) , Amaenaideyo!! , Sankarea , Urusei Yatsura , You’re Under Arrest
Other noteworthy anime from Studio DEEN:
Fate/stay night , Fruits Basket , Hetalia Axis Powers , The Irresponsible Captain Tylor , Knight Hunters , Maria Watches Over Us , Patlabor , Rurouni Kenshin , Sakura Trick , Shadow Skill , Umineko – When They Cry , Vampire Knight
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Notable Seiyuu:
Megumi Hayashibara as Ranma (female) aka The Pigtailed Girl
Megumi Hayashibara is also well known for her roles as:
Noriko Hidaka as Akane Tendo
Noriko Hidaka is also known for her roles as:
Rei Sakuma as Shampoo
Rei Sakuma is also known for her roles as:
Takehito Koyasu (!) as Happosai
Takehito Koyasu is also well known for his roles as:
Also featuring
Kappei Yamaguchi as Ranma (male)
Kouichi Yamadera as Ryoga Hibiki
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Thoughts on the anime
For about a decade, this was my #1 all time favorite anime. It’s been over-taken a few since then, but there will always be a special place for this show. I guess for that reason, I can’t say my review is bias free.
It’s over 20 years old now and certainly dated. Life before the internet was so cheesy and upbeat, and this anime reflects that. I’m not sure how people would receive this anime today. But back in the day, this series was almost universally loved and for a long time was considered the gold standard of romantic comedy anime. And along with Neon Genesis Evangelion , it was maybe the sexiest anime of the 90s that happened to reach an iconic status.
If you like 80s / 90s nostalgia, you will like this show a lot. Even when it first came out, there was a very strong nostalgic feeling to this show, a feature common to many of Rumiko Takahashi’s works.
If you think anime now is better than anime from 20-30 years ago, you might not enjoy it quite as much.
The first two and a half seasons were classic. Fun, sexy, emotionally involving, creative, laugh out loud funny, nostalgic… all with maybe the best collection of characters in anime history.
And then it all comes to screeching halt around the time Principal Kuno shows up, and seemingly every new character from that point on is criminally annoying. The episodes become filler like… I still haven’t finished this anime with subs on. Occasionally there would be flashes of the old magic, but this anime lasted about four seasons longer than it should have.
Though the anime goes out with a whimper, it’s the good times fans remember and there were certainly a lot of them in the first 60 episodes or so. Not just the fun and the fanservice, but the characters we’ll always remember fondly.
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Thoughts on the fanservice video
This anime went on a long time, but by the end nudity had nearly disappeared. If I recall correctly, there was only one nude scene in the final ~fifty episodes of the TV series. You’d think that as the episodes got less and less interesting that they would compensate with more and more boobs, but it was actually the opposite, unfortunately.
Almost all the nudity comes from female Ranma. We see just enough of Akane and Shampoo to feel like a sense of curiosity has been satisfied. The way female Ranma dominates the nude scenes kind of reminds me of how Lisara dominated the nudity in Boku H . While diversity is generally preferred, it always helps when the one girl hogging all the nude scenes also happens to be super hot.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to acquire any HD video for the original 90’s OVA and movie releases, and in some cases the quality is pretty bad. I also wasn’t able to get dubbed audio for the 2008 OVA. I could have used a fandub, but… no thanks.
About two-thirds of the video is in 1080p remastered HD though. The final filesize ended up huge, probably because the remastered 1080p has a lot of intentional graininess. Grainy video = less efficient encoding.
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Favorite Character
Wow, this brutal. My ‘favorite’ character is Ryoga, hands down. But Happosai’s appearance starting in season two is what vaulted this anime from good to great. Ero-sensei characters like Master Roshi or Jiraiya are always fun, but there was just a kind of pure insanity to Happosai that made him so special. Completely unhinged, always faintly terrifying for his immense fighting spirit, and yet, he both looked and acted like a very old baby. There is nothing Happosai wouldn’t do to satisfy his urges no matter how silly it could be, and pretty much everything he did was funny.
Until today I had no idea Happosai was voiced by the sternly hilarious Takehito Koyasu. I knew Koyasu had range but I didn’t know he had THAT much range.
Hottest girl:
There are few wrong answers here, but for me it’s probably Shampoo, followed closely by late season Ukyo and long-haired Akane from the earliest episodes. Female Ranma is plenty cute herself and has probably the best rack, so it’s hard to complain about her dominance of the nude scenes.
