Rumiko Takahashi
Ranma ½

“The worst vulgarity is the lack of a sense of humor, madam”.

If I remember correctly, this is what Gianni Clerici recounted saying to a lady who had called a banter between him and Rino Tommasi vulgar, not quite the kind of exchange from an Ursuline convent graduate.

On the relationship between women and humor, I have something to say too. I discovered that the "creator" of Lum was actually a woman when the comic was published in a magazine, I believe, by Granata Press. Years ago, I was able to appreciate the humor of the anime, free from prejudice thanks to my ignorance, and upon making that discovery, I had to acknowledge that this humor was the work of a woman. Thus, there existed women with a sense of humor. I confess it was a small revelation. Until then, I had lived with the belief that humor was not a feminine quality, that women were able to appreciate it but not dispense it.

Caveman chauvinism and stone-age prejudices, those called into question would probably proclaim. Yes, it might be that there was a bit of all that in having implanted that belief in my adolescent mind, after all, I am a brutish male, easily influenced by cultural clichés and who, moreover, doesn't wash much. However, if I look back honestly, I cannot recall having encountered, until that moment, females who had ever made me laugh. Discovering that Lum was the creation of a woman helped shift my perspective on this matter.

Those called into question might always point out that I could have realized this much earlier with elementary logic. The mere fact that so many women spend a large portion of their lives together with a man should have implied to me that this is possible only by accepting that they possess a heightened sense of humor.

But I'm as slow as a trailer's license plate and needed a bit more.

But right here beside me is the cover of Ranma ½, I forgot that this is what I wanted to talk about.

From what I've read, it seems to be the work with which Rumiko Takahashi concludes a first phase of her career. A period where humor was one of the most defining elements of her style. With Inuyasha, in my opinion, she ventured into slightly different paths, where humor is still present but seems a bit predictable to me, constructed with already exploited schemes, and thus loses some strength compared to other ingredients of the proposal.

Considering the first period of her career, and leaving aside collections of stories, I personally consider Ranma ½ a certainly entertaining work but perhaps less successful than the previous ones. There is no well-organized plot intended for a relatively "mature" audience as in Maison Ikkoku, and there are no levels of madness and spontaneity like in Urusei Yatsura. However, it can be considered a good summary of the stylistic elements developed up to that point. Humor continues to be an important element, indicated by the fact that the transformations the characters undergo in contact with hot or cold water, the core idea of the work, serve more to create ridiculous/comical situations than significant narrative points. For instance, if Ranma's transformation into a woman had been kept secret from Akane, it could have served to create a long-term narrative tension in their romantic story, but it is made known almost immediately to everyone and at that point serves more than anything else to create embarrassing situations for him.

Regarding the basic framework, there is a step back compared to Maison Ikkoku, and a return to the formula of Lum. The fantastic is again used; the main target audience returns to being high school kids; and the narrative structure is once again made up of a series of single situation stories inserted into a general plot which, for several chapters, is put on standby and occasionally moved forward piecemeal. Personally, however, I feel the effort to maintain a certain compactness, not to lose too much of the thread of the discourse.

The characterization of the characters is as usual achieved with a few well-defined distinctive elements, both in terms of personality and graphics. The idea I have is that the author, like many manga authors of her generation, develops most of her characters starting from a handful of basic characterizations, (e.g.: the small-sized elderly man or woman like Sakurambo, Happosai, Obaba), and adds only a few well-thought-out details. And she is very proficient at this technique, so much so that she almost never appears repetitive.

Her graphic style is among the most recognizable and emblematic of Japanese comics. I appreciate it for this aspect as well. She belongs to that group of artists who manage to give precise shapes, define expressions, and express her style with a few precise and confident lines. In Ranma ½, the style is refined compared to previous works, and this is one of its added values.

In the realm of humor in this work, one finds amusing ideas scattered throughout the story. But in my opinion, Rumiko Takahashi had already given her best in the two previous works.

The commas are somewhat randomly placed, but I don't have time to correct them, and there are no plot references, I don't believe there's anyone who needs to be informed about it.

Regards.