English Dub Review: Ranma ½ “You I Love”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After Ranma accidentally defeats Shampoo as a man, she suddenly becomes smitten with him, to which Akane becomes very jealous, despite Ranma’s protests.

OUR TAKE

We continue the Shampoo introductory arc from last week with the purple haired girl now becoming a major presence in everyone’s lives, making her a nuisance for everyone she interacts with. Incidentally, this is the episode the everyone loses their goddamn minds in some way or another, meaning Shampoo’s crazy is apparently contagious. See, as mentioned last time, she has arrived to challenge girl Ranma because in her culture, losing to a woman means that woman must die, but losing to a man means that man must marry her. So, when Shampoo trips and falls, this apparently fulfills the latter requirements and now she does a total personality shift now that she has a man to potentially marry. Though this shift seems to also be in flux, as whenever Ranma is a girl in her presence, even if he becomes one while she’s around, she turns the kill mode back on in full force. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, she is not the only one who loses all of their marbles this episode, as Akane is now furious with jealousy despite the fact that, and I cannot stress this enough, NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING BY RANMA’S CHOICE. He did not beat Shampoo in a fight by choice, he didn’t ask her to be here, none of them knew this weird rule, and he is constantly and consistently rejecting her advances.

But hey, Ranma isn’t free from the crazy either, as he still refuses to tell Akane that Ryoga has actually been that cute little big she snuggles up to every night, despite it being a pretty weird thing for him to keep letting happen if he’s jealous and him really having no discernable reason to not tell her. So really, these two deserve each other, if for no other reason than because they are completely irrational assholes to each other. And yeah, I understand what kind of show this is, especially with this being the author of Inuyasha of all things, but even that story tended to have jealous characters understand the complex circumstances happening to those they are angry at. I mean it wasn’t ALL the time, but I don’t remember it getting as bad as THIS. Anyway, this episode ends with Akane confronting Shampoo to a fight, to which she loses and then gets amnesia, so we truly are in full soap opera territory, which I guess is fitting when there’s a character named Shampoo. Let’s just hope this wraps up quick next time.