Ranma ½ (2024) Episode 2 Discussion

You do know there are people other than you and me, right? I prefer old version because it tries to elevate the source material while this removes the elevation parts, while being faithful but not entirely as it still removes parts and censors funny parts for people who are too sensitive to even be watching anything in first place. I just don’t see anything here special tbh.

All I was telling you is what I see as a whole picture, I maybe wrong in the end but right now at this moment? I am right with my assumptions so far

Scores are higher than old one because it is still airing, it is obvious to know that scores go down after airing, so I don’t know what you are doing. We can agree to disagree on some stuff here and there. But the reception for this anime in Japan speaks volumes on how it isn’t wining anyone over.

Censorship is bad objectively, and don’t say it was only “nips” when it wasn’t only that. You painted a narrative and focused on it, which is very disingenuous and weird to do. They censored it to appeal to an audience who wouldn’t even watch anime in the first place without being sensitive about every little thing. Censorship disrespects what the author and artist’s intents and content, so I don’t know how you can spin it to “it isn’t bad”. But well you did focus on the thing that would paint your narrative in a good light, so I amnot surprised.

I am sorry but I can’t take you seriously after you said bleach and re zero current seasons are overrated… Bleach has the author elevating and fixing the final arc as well as having movie and new additions that perfectly come with new arc. Re zero that has phenomenal storytelling and characters with new arc being shounen heavy? Those 2 are overrated? Like that’s bait 100%

Okay, bleach does go down in rating but not by alot except second part which truly is lacklustre and weakest part of tybw arc. For Re zero, eventhough I somewhat agree that censorship there didn’t make any sense for one character in particular but redesign isn’t that bad and very similar to the og, just less skin. I do hope a director’s cut fixes it but be aware that technically speaking for this season it may take a long time to do as they possibly could release the next arc at the end of next year, which would delay the director’s cut. Why it is high? I won’t spoil it but Re zero’s story now starts moving to serious mode from this arc forward. The last arc, season 2, is the information which moves it forward, hence why it is regarded best arc, however this current arc is where everything you know comes to fruition, every character development comes full circle and still continues in a great way of writing. So I do agree the censorship is stupid there but there’s still blood btw. For this anime, I don’t know, like I said I could be wrong by end of it because it still has a chance to prove me wrong but the leaks and Japanese reaction to it are proof to me that it won’t get better. Japanese hate censorship like us btw, only ones who like it technically are people from us most likely LOL.

Will this anime’s ratings go up? I truly doubt it but like I said maybe I am wrong in the end.

This is unbearable to watch… Everything seems rushed, absolutely everything. And it looks like they want to save money on every scene.

The scene with Dr Tofu, Ranma normally waits a long time to analyse Akane and notice that she has a thing for the Doctor. On the other side, he watches him carefully, but to try to understand how he was able to sneak up on him. This is the point where Ranma understands Akane like strong men. She “hates men” because they all look like weaklings compared to her, and losing to one means falling for him, which she won’t allow.
So the whole scene of the gaze between them is cut. The whole part with Betty’s hand slowly reaching Ranma is fast forwarded and the hot water feels like “OK, NEXT SCENE PLEASE”.

The discussion that follows between Akane and Ranma is horrible, because there is no “The Doctor is a ninja or a master in disguise” vibe. The scene with the hand was a screamer, not a suspenseful moment!

The scene at school when Akane fights is the scene problem. Bam bam she fought during 5 frames, next scene please.
Ranma hitting the wooden wall (that was very detailed for the time) is cut, the scene with Ranma throwing the bag to Akane is hidden by because the camera is on her back. The whole joke with “My is name is… I’m 17… I come from the best masters of the world, I am a god. I am the blue thunder” is brushed off. He doesn’t even say his age. To compensate that, so the viewers would understand that the Black Rose is his sister, they gave him a red rose. The whole focus was on that.

Then the scene in the classroom when they both arrive late. Normally then would stay in the hallway in an awkward silence. Both being embarrassed about what happened, and unsure of their feelings.
This has been replaced by a fade in with a colourful background and “HAAAA I HATE YOU” / “YES I HATE YOU TOO”.

We get it.. you did not understand the relationship of Ranma and Akane. You decided to go for a very childish and woke behavior to set something in the viewers’ eyes and called it a day.

Every single scene feels bad. Honestly, there isn’t a single thing that is done correctly in the new version of the anime. They are doing exactly the same thing as Lamu.

Woke characters
Cheap censorship
Rushed story
Cartoony and way too colourful background

This, is a massacre

I think a lot of my viewing experience is affected by having watched the original. It's basically the same thing as episode 2 of the 1989 series, except with updated animation (positive), some manga-style animation (unnecessary), younger looking characters (this is something I don't like), and of course the original cast (something I love, but they certainly don't sound the same as they did when they were younger). I'm still on the fence about whether I really like this updated series or not. It doesn't have the same feeling as the original, so that's kind of affecting me. If I watched this first, maybe I'd feel different about it. But really, it feels like a remake of the exact same episodes. We'll see where this goes.

I really didn't like this episode. It's not that the comedy was particularly off but that the subtle changes really have a devastating impact on the events. I don't know Japanese well enough to know if this is just a translation thing but in the original my subtitles have Akane say she hates boys. Ranma even says "don't you hate guys" and she pauses and says "boys, boys, boys, I really hate boys." I took this to be more an issue of immaturity rather than just full on hatred of all males. I noticed it in the first episode but it stood out more here to me. I don't fully hold this against the episode because I'm not able to listen to the Japanese and determine on my own if it's in the original language.

That said what really made me dislike the episode is the scene where Ranma goes to talk to Akane in her room. The scene is much more powerful in the original. It provides a lot more character development than what we got here. In the original the scene has Genma talking about how disappointed he is that Ranma can't even thank someone for help. When you consider how important honor is in Japan that's a huge statement. Ranma takes time to reflect and find he does appreciate Akane's help and starts to realize he does kind of like her. Upon going to her room before knocking he overhears her saying he's her worst nightmare, and leaves with a pretty good wound from that. None of that was present in the remake. It makes for much more shallow writing.

The remake with the shallow writing becomes a cheap imitation of the original. It looks like the original but doesn't have the impact, emotion, or talent put into the original. It's as though it's being done by someone who thinks Ranma is nothing more than a bunch of hijinks and who missed all the deeper meaning in the original story. It kind of encapsulates modern day storytelling, they can imitate the greats but they're ultimately souless.

More than anything this episode made me fear that at best all we can hope for is a soulless remake of the original without any of the impact, emotion, or character development that was in the original Ranma.

@Limily This is a new manga adaptation, not a remake of the old one. In the manga the events are the same so, if you don't like this episode, you should blame the manga in first place. Anyway, note that the Author intention was not to write a deep love story but a funny and dumb one

@Fork95 it doesn’t really matter the source these are direct scene for scene comparisons to the original. The end result is when compared to the original this one is shallower, less well written, and less meaningful. This one is telling the exact same story as the original but in every way except maybe screen resolution it has come up as a worse version of what came before.

That’s why I didn’t like this episode at all. Everything it’s trying to do has been done before and better.

@Limily Well i respect your opinion even if i disagree because I think the old was slower and dramatic for no reason, for example there is Kasumi saying Akane to stop beating the boys with a serious and angry tone and this is out of her character even in the old anime. After episode 22 anime became more fast paced and the serious tone of it was removed and it became incoherent with itself

@Fork95 if their goal is to remove anything not pure comedy, all the character development, the meaning, commentary and all that then it begs the question why include the scene at all? In the original the scene served an important purpose, in this it serves none. All it does is remind people that the original had not only comedy but strong character development and impactful scenes. It makes it seem like those doing the remake are just including scenes from the original with no real understanding of why those scenes existed.

Also the original in the final episodes was beginning a story about Ranma’s mother before it had to be rushed due to cancellation. Throughout the entire run it mixed serious character development with comedy. Ironically last week people were arguing it was good the fights were drawn out and more like shonen fights instead of existing the service the comedy. Now I’m told we don’t need character development and just need comedy all the time. I know I’m talking about different people but it does make me wonder how many people are truly willing to take a critical eye to this.

@Limily You're still saying "removing"... but this is a new ADAPTATION from the manga, not a remake of the old one

@Fork95 I’ve already said that’s entirely irrelevant. We can compare it to the original because the original exists and is available. Even if we entirely ignore the original we can still say the scene is bad. It serves no purpose. Ranma doesn’t learn anything, doesn’t do any reflection, there’s nothing funny about it, his dad’s delivery is completely emotionless, and there’s no character development.

We can say all day long to ignore the original but the original exists. If all we’re getting is a shallower, less meaningful, and less well written new adaptation why make it?

@Limily Because every """character development""" of the old anime is thrown away in the nettohen part (episode 22+), when the anime became a pure comedy but less funny, with a lot of useless filler and dangerous mistakes of continuity. So if you consider a good thing build up a serious tone and became pretty fast incoherent with itself, good for you. I prefer this tone, because is funnier, smarter, coherent and a good adaptation of the original source, the masterpiece of one of the most important mangaka of all time

@Fork95 I think it’s a little disingenuous to argue to ignore the original when doing a direct scene comparison but then use later season of the original far beyond where we are now are some mark in favor of this one. Also considering how few anime have ever made it past about 26 episodes without filler I’m sure when this gets there it will too. However, we can’t compare what might happen all we can look at is what is happening.

What we have now is two episodes with direct comparison to something that came before and they come off as much shallower and much more poorly written. Also while the original did suffer from filler there was still a lot of good stuff throughout. I don’t hold the original as perfect or beyond criticism but so far when directly compared this one falls short.

@natsukashiianime Actually it is episode 2+3 of the old one, with the removal of the anime original parts

This is unbearable to watch… Everything seems rushed, absolutely everything. And it looks like they want to save money on every scene.

The scene with Dr Tofu, Ranma normally waits a long time to analyse Akane and notice that she has a thing for the Doctor. On the other side, he watches him carefully, but to try to understand how he was able to sneak up on him. This is the point where Ranma understands Akane like strong men. She “hates men” because they all look like weaklings compared to her, and losing to one means falling for him, which she won’t allow.
So the whole scene of the gaze between them is cut. The whole part with Betty’s hand slowly reaching Ranma is fast forwarded and the hot water feels like “OK, NEXT SCENE PLEASE”.

The discussion that follows between Akane and Ranma is horrible, because there is no “The Doctor is a ninja or a master in disguise” vibe. The scene with the hand was a screamer, not a suspenseful moment!

The scene at school when Akane fights is the scene problem. Bam bam she fought during 5 frames, next scene please.
Ranma hitting the wooden wall (that was very detailed for the time) is cut, the scene with Ranma throwing the bag to Akane is hidden by because the camera is on her back. The whole joke with “My is name is… I’m 17… I come from the best masters of the world, I am a god. I am the blue thunder” is brushed off. He doesn’t even say his age. To compensate that, so the viewers would understand that the Black Rose is his sister, they gave him a red rose. The whole focus was on that.

Then the scene in the classroom when they both arrive late. Normally then would stay in the hallway in an awkward silence. Both being embarrassed about what happened, and unsure of their feelings.
This has been replaced by a fade in with a colourful background and “HAAAA I HATE YOU” / “YES I HATE YOU TOO”.

We get it.. you did not understand the relationship of Ranma and Akane. You decided to go for a very childish and woke behavior to set something in the viewers’ eyes and called it a day.

Every single scene feels bad. Honestly, there isn’t a single thing that is done correctly in the new version of the anime. They are doing exactly the same thing as Lamu.

Woke characters
Cheap censorship
Rushed story
Cartoony and way too colourful background

This, is a massacre

@Limily I understand, but even if I consider just this episode I disagree. I try to explain my point of view with an example. In the old anime - episode 3, before the final scene, Ranma is deeply conflicted with himself, if he should go or should not to fight Kuno. And I honestly think that is kinda dumb because Ranma thought it was a challenge and he would never decline a fight, even if he should transform. Maybe I have a different vision today because I watched the whole show and I know how he behave in several situation and I think that the "real" Ranma would never step back in that situation

@Douwobewow I'm confused by what you mean by "woke" behavior. There's absolutely nothing related to recognizing inequality due to race, sex, gender, or orientation. People use this word so incorrectly these days. It's not what you think it means.

@natsukashiianime I use "woke" as a broad term to describe "Modern mentality". The best example I can give to define my statement would be the scene on EP1 where the father tells the 3 sisters that Ranma is coming to marry one of them:

Old Ranma: "I hope he can fight" / "I wonder if he's cute"
New Ranma: "You can't tell me who to marry" / "I don't need a man"

@natsukashiianime I use "woke" as a broad term to describe "Modern mentality". The best example I can give to define my statement would be the scene on EP1 where the father tells the 3 sisters that Ranma is coming to marry one of them:

Old Ranma: "I hope he can fight" / "I wonder if he's cute"
New Ranma: "You can't tell me who to marry" / "I don't need a man"