Ranma ½ 2024

“Once upon a time” was the saying used to be when telling old fairy tales, but in the current state of affairs we should add “and it still exists”. A phenomenon of recent years, which shows no signs of diminishing, the issue of remakes is always a thorny one since we remain between the eternal division of those who think they are useless given the existing version, and those who think that dusting off and refurbishing historical masterpieces is useful for new generations. Who is right? Probably both. And I think an example is this new version of Ranma ½ by Rumiko Takahashi, as always commissioned by Netflix, which in fact brings reasons on both sides.
You may already know the story in any case Ranma Saotome is a young martial artist who is the victim of a curse that transforms him into a girl every time he comes into contact with cold water, returning to his original form with hot water. The story begins when Ranma and his father, who is also struck by a curse that transforms him into a panda, arrive at the Tendo family home, where Ranma is destined to marry Akane Tendo, the youngest daughter. Between fights, impossible loves and surreal transformations, the series explores with humor and creativity the challenges of everyday life and martial arts.
Produced by Studio Mappa under the direction of Kōnosuke Uda, director of historical series such as Galaxy Express 999, One Piece and Sailor Moon with Kimiko Ueno as character designer and Kaoru Wada of Inuyasha composing the music, the series has all the appearance of wanting to be a re-proposal with a capital R.
The first thing that catches the eye compared to the animated version of the 80s is obviously the graphics: clean drawing, fluid lines, greater emphasis on colors despite the atmospheres maintaining those typical of the 80s. The direction, the backgrounds and the color palette chosen recall very carefully the manga version rather than the previous animated version. Ranma girl for example no longer has the colors fire red but a pink shade that very much resembles the covers of the Takahashi manga.
On the chara design you can also notice a certain "censorship" regarding the nude scenes where the nipples have been removed from the drawing and other details removed. A predictable move regarding the positioning on Netflix, but I expected that certain clichés had been overcome at least in international productions.
The scenes have maintained the same shots of the paper counterpart in detail, sometimes almost an "animated" version of the manga pages rather than a storyboard in itself. And this also affects the dialogues where you can see a lot of attention along with the use of onomatopoeia in the scenes, a stylistic choice from another era but which in certain situations increases the level of irony enormously.
So is this new Ranma series promoted?
Who is right, who wanted it or not?
As I said at the beginning, a bit of both. It's nice to see a product of this type re-proposed, although every time I see a remake I can't help but think that we should go and recover the old one because there is little new to offer. If it has the ability to capture new generations (who could also enjoy the 80s series very well by allowing themselves to let the least graphic detail pass) then so be it, if it is deliberately a re-proposal that wants to be faithful to the original then so be it. But those who have seen the 80s series can very well do without seeing this one because it brings little new compared to the previous manga and anime. Furthermore, given Netflix's policies, a similar series will hardly reach hundreds of episodes as would be necessary to re-propose the entire manga. It is easier for it to stop after a handful of seasons, and this too would be a real shame, but on the other hand we know well that the current producers only look at the share. We can only hope that the numbers are really good and that the production times are not biblical, another big handicap that could reduce attention on what remains a product of excellent workmanship.