English Dub Review: Ranma ½ “The Evil Wakes”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ranma and Akane face their fathers’ old teacher, Happosai, who proves to be a lecherous menace.

OUR TAKE

It seems the anime has finally graduated from summarizing the premise of Ranma turning into a girl under cold water, as we finally have an episode that doesn’t have it! Instead we have a proper cold opening where we introduce yet another old character, Happosai, the mentor of both Ranma and Akane’s fathers who taught them in the Anything Goes martial arts style that both Ranma and Akane have learned. And if you know Master Roshi from Dragon Ball, you know Happosai’s character quite well, as he is basically just a more voracious perverted old master character. Considering that the manga this anime is adapting was written in the eighties, you can most certainly tell that this type of character was pretty popular back then. Unfortunately, anime and manga have evolved in terms of storytelling in the past few decades, making the reintroduction of a character like this look rather dated compared to other things also coming out around now. I guess it goes to show that, as much as parts of Ranma have aged quite well and continued to land well over the years, others are rather solidly meant to be left in the past, among them being a tiny old man sexually harassing teenagers and acting like that’s meant to be a good joke that they can lay on us at least a dozen times within the same twenty minutes.

So, the question then is what is Happosai doing here? Like, in-story, we know what he is here for, namely to harass his students and their children, but what is his purpose as a character? What is he there for Ranma and Akane to learn or use to grow and change? Well, it seems like, at least for the moment, his purpose is just dated and cringe inducing comedy. He’s meant to be the one who taught their fathers their martial arts, but it seems there’s nothing he can actually supply Ranma with in terms of actual meaningful lessons. Even worse, it seems that harassing women is something Happosei needs to live, so Ranma feels sympathy for him. I mean, if I were in his position, I would simply let the old man die, but unfortunately this is not that kind of story. Ah well, maybe next week’s episode will be less awful. We’ve still got another half a dozen episodes or so in this season, so it’s totally possible that this is just an odd low point and that things will end on a better note.