Ranma, the only son of Genma and Nodoka Saotome, was taken from his home by his father when approximately 2 years old, to begin a 13-14-year training trip to perfect his skills in the martial arts.

While he was still a child, he befriended Ukyo Kuonji, the daughter of a travelling okonomiyaki chef and martial artist, although he was unaware that she was a girl. Genma engaged Ranma to Ukyo in exchange for her father's food cart, but he abandoned Ukyo and ran off with the cart without ever telling Ranma about the engagement or correcting him about Ukyo's real gender.

Later, near the end of the trip, Genma took Ranma to a training ground in China named Jusenkyo that few people used, due to the springs being cursed. Falling into them would transform a person into whatever first fell in. Not knowing this, and not having the patience to listen to a warning from the local guide, Genma attempted to train with Ranma atop the bamboo poles which jutted up out of the pools. When Ranma knocked Genma into Shonmaoniichuan/"Spring of 'Drowned' Panda", he was surprised to watch a panda emerge from the pond and leap onto one of the poles. Genma, now cursed, was able to hit a surprised Ranma into Nyannichuan (Niángníquán 娘溺泉), or the "Spring of 'Drowned' Girl". Thus he turns into a female version of his original form when splashed with cold water, which is only (temporarily) reversible through contact with hot water.

Before this incident, Genma had made an arrangement with his best friend Soun Tendo that Ranma would marry one of Soun's daughters and carry on the Tendo Dojo. After learning of Ranma's condition, Soun's daughters Kasumi and Nabiki began to insist that Ranma choose their younger sister Akane, and rationalised that a tomboy would be a more appropriate fiancee for a man who transforms into a woman. Although Akane and Ranma were initially unwilling to be engaged, they develop feelings for each other, while generally struggling to deny or otherwise avoid openly expressing throughout the entire series.

Ranma and Genma moved in as houseguests of the Tendo dojo. Since then, Ranma has endured, among other things, Amazons, old rivals, Dojo destroyers, and even evil demons. Female Ranma has also received a few male suitors, such as Tatewaki Kuno and Mikado Sanzenin.

After receiving a letter from his wife, Genma revealed that he had promised that Ranma would return "a man among men", and that if he failed, they would commit seppuku, a suicidal ritual. Therefore, in order to meet his mother without dying, Ranma changed into a girl during her visit, and presented himself as "Akane's cousin Ranko," accompanied by her pet, "Mr. Panda."

Ranma made several attempts to talk to his mother without revealing his curse, to prove his manliness, but was generally stopped by Genma, and after being caught cross-dressing, he had to pretend to peek on Akane taking a shower to show his manliness. Eventually, after he saved her life, Nodoka accepted Ranma as a boy despite the curse.

Rumiko Takahashi herself has described Ranma's personality as a mixture of nice, clean-cut, frank, energetic, indecisive, stubborn, picky, stingy and sly, and has stated that she finds flawless characters rather boring.

She addressed the origins of the character as: "With Ranma ½, I had thought a lot of doing a series with a male/female like protagonist, and since in the greater part of my previous stories the main character had been a woman, I planned to use a man this time. I was worried about writing a male main character because of the hundreds and hundreds of male readers, therefore I decided on the character being half man and half woman."

Under normal circumstances, Ranma is fairly carefree and generally friendly to those around him. He has stated on various occasions that he sees it as a martial artists' duty to protect normal people from monsters, the supernatural and similar threats, and has saved bystanders in danger of getting hurt. A perspective he apparently shares with several other Japanese martial artist cast members. However, he also lacks experience in social situations and frequently speaks and acts without considering the consequences, or the feelings of others.

He sometimes insults people by bluntly gloating about inflated perceptions of his prowess, or taunting them about their perceived flaws. For instance, he once boasted that his female form had a larger bust than Akane, despite that she was happy about her own growing bosom. Early in the manga, he borrowed Akane's overalls while his own clothes were in the laundry and casually mentioned that the waist area had plenty of room and was tight at the bust. He frequently insults the areas his fiancée has complexes about, by calling her an over-muscled, overweight, un-cute, clumsy, macho jock tomboy with poisonous cooking skills. Ranma has also given other people insulting nicknames, with shifting degrees of justification, for example calling Cologne "old hag" or "old ghoul", Happosai "old freak" or "old letch", Ryoga "clueless moron" or "sucker", Nabiki "heartless bitch", or Taro "pantyhose guy", but this is also a rather frequent trait among other characters.

Ranma apparently has little respect for authority figures, such as his father, his teacher Hinako Ninomiya, or Principal Kuno. His willingness to fight back against the latter seems to have gained him some respect from his schoolmates, but they have also stated a certain contempt due to his shamelessness and weird condition. He is quite irresponsible and almost completely uninterested in academics. Ranma often skips school, flaunts its regulations, and otherwise dodges situations that don't involve martial arts or his personal interests. Other examples include juggling his various paramours and fighting tooth and nail against Hinako's attempts to give him private tutoring in English, though the two of them mutually respect each other's determination in their respective, albeit contradicting, endeavors. He also has a habit of interfering with certain situations that are generally none of his business (this happens twice as much in the anime then it does in the Manga).

It is relatively easy to embarrass him. When faced with such a situation, he can freeze up or verbally lash out when found in highly incriminating 'amorous' positions. Nabiki has sometimes taken advantage of Ranma's lack of finesse and weak defenses against crying or emotional girls, manipulating him and various situations to her own advantage.

He takes great pride in his prowess as a martial artist and occasionally brags about it. Although he frequently has the skills to back it up, his overconfidence can also lead to trouble. Ranma tends to rely on blunt tactics and planning, but he is adept at learning from his mistakes in a fight and generally takes advantage of an opponent's weaknesses during a later encounter. He will not back down from a challenge during very serious situations, or when his pride has been wounded, even if he is completely outmatched and unsure of how to overcome an opponent. Despite this, he will apparently refuse a match if he considers the opponent to be too ridiculous, given that female Ranma tried to withdraw when set up to fight the monkey Sanae in "martial arts tea ceremony".

His pride recurrently results in him being unable to accept defeat, and becoming preoccupied with trying to win the next skirmish against his foe. He also has a prominent petty side to his character which manifests itself in these situations. If he's repeatedly defeated, humbled or otherwise feels humiliated, he takes it personally, howling statements of revenge at the moon or even crying on the floor. He will frequently stoop to trickery or cheating in the rematch. Among many examples, he couldn't stand seeing Akane become more powerful through the use of super-strength soba. Nabiki and Kasumi both observed that he held a big grudge after she turned back to normal, which he satisfied through gloating while repeatedly defeating her in arm-wrestling. He was also willing to 'feign' love for her strictly to get rid of a similarly enhancing sentient battle-dougi, since he couldn't stand the thought of her being more skilled than him, but apparently also partially because it was a severe nuisance and kept coming between them.

Ranma is quick to use insults and / or violence when dealing with those who upset him, typically worsening the problem instead of solving it. Using diplomacy, money, or blackmail seems too complicated, or in the last case, dishonourable for his tastes. Although he sometimes uses his sexy female form, in conjunction with a fabricated innocent persona, to convince hormonal boys to treat him / her to food, or buy something he is attempting to sell, alternately to frequently set up simple schemes to fool, make fun of, or play with Ryoga's feelings. Ranma says he doesn't like fighting women, but he has fought them (and a few he's mistaken for women such as Tsubasa and Konatsu) on numerous occasions in both his male and female forms, but has stated that he's held back in a few of them, though he seemed to have no problem holding back trying to harm (or even kill) Kiima during the Phionex Mountain Saga.

While he occasionally blames others for his problems, Ranma has sporadically taken responsibility for matters not mainly his fault, such as when Akane's hair was accidentally chopped off during his first fight with Ryoga, or trying to soothe Ukyo's rage at being left behind.

He has protected all of his fiancees at different times, with one of the best examples being when he saved Akane from the hungry Yamata no Orochi, although she returned the favour, and has saved or helped him a comparable number of times. He's even rescued enemies, such as Herb, who was trying to kill him. Ranma has a low tolerance for people who try to steal from him, manipulate him, or otherwise treat him very badly, such as Nabiki or Happosai. He generally considers Tatewaki, Shampoo and Kodachi to be annoying pests.

He can also be very forgiving and usually doesn't seem to stay mad for very long. For instance, despite that Herb severely tormented him out of sheer malevolence, he still opted to save the latter's life. Ranma has also made efforts to help out Tatewaki or Mousse, and refrained from seeking revenge against the Phoenix people after his conflict with Saffron. While his father frequently stole his food when he was small, and subjected him to the Cat-Fist technique, he usually just seems mildly irritated. Although he has also been vengeful at times, repeatedly beating up Genma upon learning that he had become superior to his father in general hand-to-hand sparring. He has reacted in a similarly harsh manner whenever the latter interfered with the reunion of Ranma and his mother.

Another exception to this rule would be Happosai, whom Ranma has been stated to truly hate, and apparently considers a personal archenemy according to The art of Ranma½ relationship chart. He never misses an opportunity to trick or torment the ancient pervert, and once explicitly attempted to kill the grandmaster by punting him and a 5 m diameter Happo Fire Burst over a cliff (though it was shown later in both versions of the story that Happosai survived and later in the anime version blew the gender-bender up with a another Happo-Fire Burst), even before he almost turned Ranma powerless for life thanks to a weakness moxibustion point, although that may simply have been for comic relief. Even Happosai, however, has been a recipient of Ranma's compassion. Most notably, Ranma permitted him to come back to stay at the Tendo Dojo after finding him marauding a tourist resort disguised as an octopus jar (for thievery and peeping in the manga, and to help a starving young girl named Tsukasa in the anime), when the latter became very sad from loneliness. He also helped to save the sprightly senior's life by eventually deciding to assist in creating a rejuvenation potion, and together with Akane freed him from a death curse cast by a matronly ghost.

One of Ranma's worst habits is that when preoccupied with his own thoughts or training with his father, he is generally oblivious and unmindful about his surroundings. The most notable consequence of this is when female Ranma accidentally kicked Ryoga into the "Spring of the Drowned Piglet" while pursuing his father at the cursed springs of Jusenkyo, effectively ruining the latter's life even further than previously. He's accidentally mowed down child Hinako when late for school, but Tatewaki's head is his most frequent "stepping stone," which appears to be intentional since the two despise each other. Another victim of his carelessness is the Frog Hermit, who was knocked into the "Spring of the Drowned Frog" when Ranma accidentally kicked out his bamboo pole from under him (this only occured in the anime).

Ranma has often professed his wish to become all male again. However this has not stopped him from using his girl identity to his advantage. He has often used his female form to conceal his true identity from others, most notably Ryoga, and his mother, Nodoka. Other times he has used it to obtain favours from Tatewaki, or other situations when being female would benefit him. Sometimes, he's even taken pride in that his girl form is more attractive than Akane. In the anime, he enjoys ice cream Parfait, although he is always female when she eats them because he considers it somewhat embarrassing for men to consume.

Ranma's speech is casual and unrefined, using a coarse form of Japanese (English in the case of the American-translated anime and manga). He rarely uses -san, -kun, -chan or any other traditional Japanese honorifics. He does use -sempai (elder student) for Kuno, but that is more for sarcasm. Others he uses honorifics for include his benefactor Soun (Ojisan or "Uncle"), his childhood friend Ukyo (Ucchan), the considerate Kasumi (usually -san), and even Ojiisan and Obaasan for Happosai and Cologne when he's not mad at them. And while Akane usually uses honorifics for other people, she rarely addresses him with one. This is amusing since it would denote that the two are particularly intimate with each other.

Sexuality

Although Ranma turns into an attractive girl, he has a very strong heterosexual male gender identity, such that even while female himself, he still feels uncomfortable in the presence of naked women. His masculinity is so strong that he prefers to wear boxer shorts under his clothes even when he dons feminine garments such as dresses. During the moxibustion story arc, however, he learned how to use the emotion dampening aspect of his Soul of Ice training to suppress his pride and posed for pictures in lingerie as part an effort to defeat Happosai, and later did the same to appease Nabiki when accidentally destroying her concert tickets. Men who try to get grabby (even accidentally), such as Tatewaki or Happosai--who especially disgusts him--generally get pummelled.

But since Ranma is a man, he has little feminine modesty. He sometimes removes his shirt in public, as he is generally unaware of the effect that the sight of his unclothed female body has on others. The guys at school appreciate this side of Ranma as it offers them a free glimpse of his exposed chest, and they openly wish there were more girls like him. His worst nightmare is being kissed by a man, and he even has two hideous dreams: one in which he was a girl and married Tatewaki, spawning several children and in the first season when he had a dream about Tatewaki asking him to marry him in both forms. Ranma does however receive his first kiss, excluding Shampoo's kiss of death, while a female from Mikado Sanzenin of the Golden Pair of Martial Arts Skating, an occurrence that, by Ranma's own admission, made him truly angry for the first time.

A running gag through the series is that Ranma is sometimes accused of doing perverted things but rarely actually committed the accused act. During P-Chan's (Ryoga's cursed form) first appearance, Ranma tried to threaten him to get out of Akane's room, but was manoevred into falling on top of Akane's sleeping body. In an attempt to find the Japanese 'Spring of drowned man' he also disguised himself to gain entrance to the girls' locker room while they were still changing clothes, and accidentally tipped Happosai's stash of stolen underwear over himself in front of his classmates. Other examples include when Shampoo has turned up naked and hugged him in the Tendo bath, crept into his bed without his knowledge or when they both ended up in the Kuno bathtub. Usually right before Akane sees him through the open doorway. Another double misunderstanding happened when Kodachi once doctored a photograph to show them kissing, and Ranma tried to get the negative from Tatewaki by offerring to bathe with him.

In reality, however, he's a bit prudish, though not close to Ryoga's level. The concept of kissing Akane, even as part of a school play, is enough to fluster him. So was simply receiving a heartfelt hug from her because he survived the battle against Herb. His defences have occasionally been shaken, for example, when Kiima or a spirit doll assumed Akane's form and made sexual advances toward him, or when Akane hid with him in a closet, and he mistakenly believed that she wanted sex. Also notable is when Nabiki assumed a cute face and declared her deep love for him (actually just sadistic play-acting), and Shampoo's soothing and cuddling him during her first appearance. But beyond these few exceptions, Ranma's reaction to such situations is generally one of fear and confusion, possibly because any admission of love on his part will force him into a wedding for which he is not yet emotionally prepared.

Physical Abilities

Fighting Style: Trained from the time he was very young by his father in the ways of the Saotome family's style of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū kenpo ("School of Indiscriminate Grappling," more commonly known in the West as "Anything Goes Martial Arts"), Ranma is a master of several styles of martial arts, utilizing a blend of Chinese and Japanese techniques. The other branch of Anything Goes, the Tendo School, is practiced by Sōun and Akane. Ranma is seen as the school's primary heir.

A practitioner of the Anything Goes Martial Arts is expected to be prepared to do almost anything to triumph, regardless of the challenges, humiliations, or cheating involved. This versatile combat style can produce a warrior who is strong in virtually every aspect of battle, both mentally and physically, with limited weaknesses. In most fights, neither form has a discernible advantage, as they both perform equally well. Ranma is, however, stronger with a longer reach in his male form, and faster and more agile as a female. His training has made him a very balanced fighter, though he can still be surprised by opponents whom he has never fought before.

His impressive physical abilities include incredible strength, and outstanding speed. He also has superhuman endurance, enabling him to continue fighting even after he has taken many powerful blows or fallen from a great height.

Swiftness: As a gauge of the extent of Ranma's speed, he has been able to land 518 blows during a very brief ice-skating skirmish with Mikado Sanzenin, even before undergoing Cologne's speed training. Afterwards, he was referred as able to land "a few hundred punches" on Ryoga so swiftly that it looked like a single strike, or shown to catch over a hundred pebbles from the latter's Bakusai Tenketsu rock explosion within at most a few seconds. If the above gauges are accurate this would make him able to move at supersonic speeds, but apparently only uses it in combat situations, and was stated as greatly exerted from intensive prolonged usage.

Stamina: He's durable enough to withstand the full power of Ryu Kumon's, large, stone Buddha-statue splitting, "demon god assault bomb" vacuum blade-barrage, and immediately continue to fight afterwards, (which, at the very least, would qualify him as bulletproof), managed to withstand exposure to Rouge's and Saffron's firestorms, and has fallen hundreds of meters into solid stone with only minor bruisings. Regarding his limits, when in a state of surprise, a single strike from Taro in his cursed form almost rendered female Ranma unconscious after crashing into a stone palisade. Although later, during their aerial battle against Rouge, he was only momentarily stunned.

Ryoga's regular Shi-shi Hokodan (a technique used to clear out cave-ins, or to help blow tunnels through the earth) has knocked him out in one blow, or required a few to several shots, depending on the latter's focus. This version even managed to stun Ranma for a few seconds when Ryoga was turned into a small child.

Even being partially hit by the outermost limit of the perfect version was enough to instantly knock him out, despite attempting to lessen the impact with his weakened Moko Takabisha. Although a later, attempt, during the their fight, only stunned him for a minute at most (note: no change was noticeable in the size of the crater at this point), and he was able to handle them much better by distracting Ryoga into absorbing most of the impact. At the end of the fight he synchronised his movement with a falling, even more powerful, "ultimate" version, defeated Ryoga by merging the impact with a surprise blow to his head, and remained conscious long enough to declare victory.

Happosai's smaller Happo-daikarin are also shown as capable of downing him in one strike, which is understandable, given that they have proved able to repeatedly do the same to Taro's considerably more durable cursed 'monster' form, but he's withstood them on other occasions, so it apparently depends on the force his grandmaster puts into them.

Strength: Ranma's physical power seems to be portrayed somewhat inconsistently depending on story convenience. He broke his legs from the impact of a 50-100 metre fall while carrying four girls, but was likely still severely weakened from poison at the time, so his peak effort should be multiplied. Male Ranma proved unable to get out when stuck under an 90-100 tonne large iron bell, but wasn't significantly motivated and had no grip. Female Ranma almost effortlessly pushed a roughly 40-tonne boulder into the mouth of the Yamata-Orochi while swimming underwater, when supremely determined to save Akane from being eaten, and also managed to support the pressure Ryoga exerted on two enormous floating slabs of ice, one of which had an approximate weight of roughly 206 to 642 metric tons, when the latter was standing on her head. Thus, he would presumably have succeeded with better leverage and motivation.

Given his ability to contend with Ryoga, who by all appearances could exert force equivalent to lifting at least several thousand tonnes under optimal circumstances, he must be at least a tenth as strong himself, and very likely considerably higher. Although comparatively weaker, Ranma seems to have superior conscious control of his abilities, and can more easily dial it back during basic social interactions, while Ryoga occasionally breaks anything he touches. That said, he has stated outright that he generally honours his opponents' pride by fighting full force, and refuses to give up both for himself and because he thinks a hollow victory would never be satisfying in a battle between honourable men. More notedly in battles with Mousse and Gosunkugi, but he has also occasionally restrained himself, as in battles with Akane, Shampoo, or (initially) Ukyo and Konatsu.

Striking Force: As a gauge of female Ranma's hitting power, a few moments of focusing her energies proved sufficient to split a 3m-3.5m diameter boulder with a single strike, while male Ranma managed to immediately shatter a 2m-2.5m version.

Attitude to combat: As noted previously Ranma has stated that he tends to fight upfront at full force against male opponents, as he considers any less as an insult to his opponent's pride as a fighter, but also that he "always takes advantage of an opponent's weak spots", and recurrently uses trickery, severe distractions or sucker-punch combinations if he cannot win through other means, or if it is most expedient for handling situation as quickly as possible. He generally seems to trust in his own power, but under extreme circumstances he is willing to use multiple crutches if he thinks the opponent does as well.

However, he has also stated that he hates fighting women, and initially greatly held back against Konatsu because of this reason. He has likevise explicitly tried to strictly tie up, or othervise incapacitate without harming Akane, and Shampoo, but has apparently at least been willing to render Rouge, and Kiima, unconscious. His overconfidence has been taken advantage of by Cologne by holding back her true power, allowing Ranma to believe that he had the edge, and tricking him into accepting a bet to marry Shampoo if he lost. He has also been manoeuvred into inefficient fighting by an opponent even more prone to cheating than himself, as Taro managed to goad him into repeated sucker-punch attacks, in an area filled with water-traps.

Ranma has repeatedly been unable or unwilling to accept defeat, regardless of how outmatched he is, or how irrational this may turn his behaviour, although his confidence can be shaken enough to not be able to use the Moko Takabisha. He recurrently brags about his inflated sense of prowess, arrogant in the face of hurt feelings or possible payback. However, with the possible exceptions of Happosai, or Ryoga and Akane (while not remotely himself due to magical brainwashing), he has apparently avoided consciously attempting to kill his opponents, and even saved the vicious Herb from being crushed under a crumbling mountain. Although, when given no apparent alternate solution he did deliberately take this step against Saffron in the final storyline.

Ranma has proported himself as able to win any competition in which martial arts are involved, and as the story progresses, he learns to use several outrageous or virtually useless styles, such as Martial Arts Figure Skating, even though he initially couldn't skate, Martial Arts Tea Ceremony, Martial Arts Dining, and Martial Arts Cheerleading, although he's never been seen to use them outside of the original environment.

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Akane's mother died when she was very young. Perhaps because of this, she appears not to have learned many traditionally feminine skills, and her terrible cooking is a running joke during the series. Akane may see her sister Kasumi as a surrogate mother figure, since she helps her with more traditionally feminine chores.

Akane grows up as a tomboy, getting into fights, acting tough, and improving her martial arts. In elementary school, her classmates thought she was so much like a boy that she was cast to play Romeo in their production of Romeo and Juliet; Akane accepts the role and plays a very cute Romeo, though deep down she always wanted to be cast as Juliet, a wish that she'll have fulfilled only years later (though she would have four different Romeos fighting for her).

At the beginning of the series Akane had a crush on Dr. Tofu Ono, who patched her up many times when she got into fights. Unfortunately for Akane, Dr. Tofu is besotted with her older sister Kasumi. In an attempt to get his attention, Akane grew out her hair longer like Kasumi's. However during one of the first fights between Ranma and Ryoga, her hair is cut, a look she retains for the rest of the series.

Despite her crush on Dr. Tofu, she initially claims to hate boys. It turned out that because her original 'suitor', Tatewaki Kuno, declared that only someone who defeated her in battle would be allowed to date her, many of the strongest male athletes at Furinkan High School began to violently attack her en masse every morning. Akane always beat them all without being late for class.

When the series begins, Akane is engaged against her will to her father's friend's son, Ranma Saotome, so that the Tendo dojo and the school of the Anything Goes Martial Arts will be assured a future. At first, Ranma could've been engaged to any of the Tendo girls, but Akane's older sisters palm Ranma off on Akane. Akane's first meeting with Ranma does not go smoothly: when Akane first meets Ranma, he is in his girl form, and they have a short sparring match. But as she goes to wash off the sweat from their workout, Akane unknowingly walks in on him in the bathroom just after he's transformed back into his boy form.

Akane and Ranma often fight and insult each other. Usually, Ranma insults Akane for being a tomboy and calls her "uncute," while Akane insults Ranma for being a pervert. Despite their bickering, Ranma is always there to protect her, and Akane often helps him through his fights, or saves his life. The two are also usually seen hanging out with each other outside of school and the dojo. Ranma's arrival heralds the end of her daily morning fights shortly after he defeats Kuno, the school's best warrior, in combat. Because of this and due to learning of her engagement, her daily attackers tearfully declare that they give up on her.

After Akane's hair, which she had worked hard to grow out for Dr. Tofu, was suddenly and accidentally shorn off during Ranma's battle with his rival, Ryoga, she became extremely angry and sad. Realizing this, Ranma comforted her by telling her she looked cute with short hair. After that, Akane was able to get over her feelings for Dr. Tofu (later making several attempts to help bring Kasumi and Dr. Tofu closer) and began to develop affection for Ranma, although his abrasiveness sometimes jeopardized these emotions.

The two are often seen in each other's presence when they're not fighting, and often work together when trying to accomplish something. At the end of the series, Ranma admits his love for Akane. He opens his mouth wide, and thinks the words, but it is unclear if anything comes out, save her name. Regardless, Akane states that she heard him somehow, finally knows for sure that he loves her, and is very happy about this. In the final panel it is stated that the two will eventually marry.

While Akane is generally shown as compassionate and helpful towards anyone in trouble, she's also a vulnerable, stubborn and very short-tempered girl. She frequently becomes angry and jealous, and is apt to hit Ranma when this happens, often a reaction to Ranma's own bad traits like his smart mouth and insensitivity, but also due to rampant paranoia and willingness to generally believe the worst of the situations she finds him in. Despite her temper, Akane has a more prominent gentle side. She has come to the aid of her rivals, even consistently feeling compassion towards or helping people who try to make her life miserable (or in the first case even kill her), like Shampoo, Happosai or Kuno. She's repeatedly expressed extreme disapproval in attacking or hurting anyone unable to defend himself/herself, and refrained from striking Ranma when he was turned into a small child despite being insulted. She has also apologized for her behavior, once she has had time to cool down or learn the facts, and consistently risked her own life trying to help Ranma without a second thought, showing extreme courage in this regard given her own comparatively limited skills/increased danger. For example, she choose to use a magic paper doll to take the damage for Ranma rather than herself, when both were bitten by lethally poisonous snake-herbs/wines, effectively consciously trading her life for his, and entered the Orochi's mouth in an effort to save him/her from being eaten.

Most of her flaws can be attributed to insecurities about her own attractiveness, skill, or lack of traditionally feminine talents. Despite this, she seems to have an appeal to the opposite gender. Ryoga, Shinnosuke, Kuno and Gosunkugi have all been in love with her and she's considered attractive by her schoolmates, but given that she seems generally, but not consistently, oblivious to the first case and the others have largely been of a highly negative nature (constant assaults from Kuno and sports club members, general stalking from Gosunkugi) this hasn't served to build up her self-esteem.

Her insecurity often leads her to overreact upon finding Ranma in compromising positions and to punt, repeatedly whack, stomp, or attack him with bokken, shinai, mallets, arrows, stones, tables or any other available blunt object. Ranma seldom seems injured in the following panels, but in the Reversal Jewel story, she punched him so hard into the horizon that he was in a full body cast. Although in the anime this was also due to sustaining a follow-up beating from Kuno and Ryoga.

She's also once stated a remarkable double-standard in this regard as she was burning with outrage and vowed to never forgive him if he deigned to strike her even once during her relentless assault while wearing a 'battle dougi' that brought out her full fighting power. During the 'Nabiki's fiancé' arc she got upset just from overhearing an affirmation that a dejected Ranma found this treatment very taxing (though she only clobbered him after he derisively insulted her as well), so while she's remorseful about specific instances, and has gradually strengthened her restraint as the series progresses, she doesn't stop the pattern as a whole.

That said, according to Cologne, Akane confessed her true feelings under the influence of the reversal jewel. That she loves Ranma with all her heart more than anyone in the world, and is sorry for being so angry.

Akane has difficulty trying to sort out her feelings for Ranma. There are times when she is on the verge of telling him how she really feels, but this is almost always interrupted by comedic circumstances, and they return to their usual barbs and antics, but she's consistently worried when he's endangered and overjoyed when he turns up safe.

Akane does have a need for being comforted when sad or scared, but they're both usually too uncomfortable to interact in this manner. Unlike most other main female characters, she's expressed great, traditionally 'feminine', fears of ghosts or reptiles and can be extremely frightened simply from a scary story, being in a casino, or imagining Kuno raping Ranma-chan.

Despite not being as technically skilled as several other characters in martial arts, she takes pride in her legacy and position as the scion of her father's Tendo-Ryu, and never backs off from a fight or rejects a challenge.

Akane seems to get along well with people who are technically her rivals, like Ukyo and Cologne. She tends to be naive in often wishing to believe the best of everyone even when repeatedly proven to the contrary, as with Nabiki or Shampoo. The two most notable exceptions are Ranma and Kuno. In the former case attributed to her own insecurities being fueled by regular insults and the very awkward and chaotic semi-relationship, and in the latter due to intense harassment. Ranma easily owes Akane his life several times over (though the opposite holds true as well). She is kind, helpful, self-sacrificing, forgiving and somewhat naive towards people in general, even technical enemies, being the only character in the series who can almost match Kasumi in her ordinary mood. She's also very appreciative if Ranma treats her with consideration, and is consistently worrying about, cheering him on, or going to extremes to assist him. When severely upset however, she undergoes a bipolar shift into a state of arrogant derogatory insults, unreasonable paranoia and self-righteous violence, on average treating Ranma worse than his arrogant and extremely insensitive behavior justifies, but she can just as swiftly switch back to being very kind again and make a shamefaced apology whenever she realises a mistake. Kasumi’s initial assessment that "She's really a very sweet girl. She's just a violent maniac." has consistently held true, if usually only in Ranma's case. That said, Ranma has also been beaten up several times by his other paramours, Akane is simply around him more often. It is also more evident in the anime than in the manga.

Physical Abilities

Fighting Style: As one of the heirs of the Anything Goes Martial Arts School, Akane is in good fighting form, and has excellent physical strength and agility, although she doesn't know enough to use her style as efficiently as Ranma. She is also proficient in the use of several samurai weaponry, including bokken, shinai, staffs and archaic bows. Among other feats, she has managed to hold her own against Tatewaki Kuno in an official Kendo match, while disguised as a boy, deflected Mariko Konjo's "Airborne Cutter" 'razor-batons', and used a staff to block arrows from Phoenix tribe warriors. She seemingly possesses greater skill in armed than unarmed combat.

Skill, Speed, and Agility: While sometimes considered weak, the manga clearly depicts Akane as a strong and very gifted martial artist in her own right. During Nabiki's stint as Ranma's fiancée, she was able to instantly defeat nine of her school's strongest fighters. She has repeatedly successfully defended herself against ambushes from Kodachi Kuno, even stopping her attacks singlehanded or without significant effort.

She fought, while previously injured, against the Dojo Destroyer and managed to stand her ground for an extended time, but was eventually overcome. She has held her own against Kiima, avoiding the latter's "Thousand wings of a Seabird" signature attack, and immediately barraged her foe with several sharp bamboo projectiles, despite waking up disoriented and in hostile (Jusenkyo) terrain.

She has also shown great agility when avoiding throngs of projectile attacks, for example from the Dojo Destroyer, Kodachi, Kiima and Mousse, and effortlessly manoeuvred between the heads of a giant multi-headed dragon/hydra, and managed to snatch the rejuvenating moss growing from its body, while simultaneously caught in its tongue.

Her most prominent achievement in the anime continuity is likely in the OVA "The One To Carry On". Here Nabiki stated that Akane had begun to mostly use martial arts as a mere exercise. However, after being defeated by Kurumi, she trains with Ryoga's help, and later gains an advantage in their 1-on-1 fight, before it is interrupted by Kurumi's sister Natsume. By collaborating, she and Ranma manage to defeat both sisters.

Potential: In the 'battle-dougi' arc her potential was shown as immense, greatly eclipsing Ranma's prowess at the time. While she has most likely received consistent, by normal standards intense, training by her ever-present dojo-master father - Who would like her to become a very powerful martial artist, as he expressed great pride when her full power was brought out by the dougi - several other characters have seemingly practised more extensively, and she is currently only explicitly seen training alone. Ukyo, Ryoga, and possibly Taro, are apparently almost completely self-taught while wandering the country, but the former apparently used to be, and the second is currently shown as, extremely dedicated. Ranma has mixed regular school and intense training journeys with his extraordinarily proficient father since he was at most 2 years old, and Shampoo has been immersed in a warrior-culture, while being tutored by the greatest martial arts teacher in the series, since she was small. Mousse lacks that instruction, but is a fellow product of this environment, and has apparently managed to vastly exceed Shampoo in spite of this. Thus, Akane's displayed, by normal standards incredible, skills are quite remarkable given the circumstances.

Physical Power: Like most other regular cast members Akane possesses considerable superhuman physical strength, enabling her to, even early in the series, barely completely shatter thick stone-walls with one blow, or punt Ranma at least a few kilometres. Her regular level was shown as somewhat less than that of Shampoo during the "Super-Soba" story, and far less than that of Ranma in the same story, but she seems to occasionally undergo a great boost when enormously maddened. During the two times he's angered her most, at the end of the "Reversal Jewel" story, and during the "Battle Dougi" arc (here without the dougi), she even managed to knock out, and in the first case seriously injure Ranma by single barehanded attacks, but partially by taking him unprepared. Thus the only regular cast members eclipsing her potential for raw power seem to be Ryoga Hibiki and Happosai. In the anime continuity she was once seen effortlessly kicking a 14-tonne steel globe at least 15 metres.

Sports: Beyond her fighting prowess, she is athletic, albeit slightly clumsy. She practices and excels in regular aerobics, and appears to be the captain of her school’s volleyball team. She is also moderately adept at tennis and ice skating. She had trouble learning rhythmic gymnastics as preparation for a duel with Kodachi, but this may be more due to the complexity of the sport rather than any real deficiency on her part, and she developed a reasonable amount of skill after a week of training. However, she has no aptitude whatsoever for swimming due to a number of factors; outrageously unsuitable instructors, ill-conceived alternate methods, and primarily an erroneous preconceptions of the skill: a stated misconception that the skill entailed breathing water. This results in her possessing absolutely zero buoyancy; she sinks like a stone, earning her the title of "hammer-girl". Her potent musculature may also contribute.

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Genma Saotome is Ranma Saotome's father and the sensei of the Saotome Dojo of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū karate ("School of Indiscriminate Grappling", more commonly known in the West as "Anything Goes Martial Arts"). During the time when Genma took Ranma on a decade-long training voyage to improve their martial arts skills, he insisted on going to Jusenkyo in China - a place which he believed to be a training ground. However, because of Genma's ignorance of the Chinese language, he did not realize that the ground was unfrequented because it was cursed. Genma realized all too late the mistake he made, after his son knocked him into a cursed spring during this fateful training session.

Genma was knocked into Shonmaoniichuan (熊猫溺泉 Xióngmāoníquán), the Spring of Drowned Panda. Due to the nature of the Jusenkyo curse, a victim who falls into the spring is cursed to turn into who or whatever drowned there when doused with cold water. Thus, whenever Genma is splashed with cold water, he becomes a giant panda. Hot water, as with the rest of the Jusenkyo-cursed characters, can change him back into human form.

Despite the fact that he and his son were cursed, Genma still brought Ranma back to Japan to fulfill a marriage engagement with his longtime friend and fellow martial artist Soun Tendo, the terms of which were as follows: Ranma would marry one of Soun's daughters and carry on the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts.

Genma and Soun decided that Soun's youngest daughter Akane would one day marry Ranma after Akane's sisters made the ruling on their own — against their will, at least at first. Genma currently resides in the Tendo Dojo along with Ranma, in the hopes that one day Ranma and Akane will get married and fulfill the agreement made by the two families. He spends most of his time playing Go or Shogi with Soun, although he briefly had a job at Dr. Tofu's clinic.

Unlike Ryoga, Mousse and Shampoo, Genma automatically regains his clothing when shifting back to normal, despite being too large to keep them in cursed form. The only other characters who shares a similar trait is Pantyhose Taro. Occasionally, primarily in the earliest stories, the top half of Genma's gi and his glasses will also remain on him when he turns into a panda.

Genma follows his own interpretation of the Anything Goes Martial Arts code, which isn't exactly all that virtuous itself to begin with. Though he himself claims to be a model martial artist, and makes a point of telling Ranma about the right thing to do, it is evident that he does not practice what he preaches. He mostly concerns himself with food, generally looks out for himself, and is an occasional coward when it comes to confrontations with Happosai. While he has his bad moments, such as tying up his wife, stealing Ukyo's dowry or Ranma's dragons-whisker, despite that his son would go bald without it, he is not consistently dishonorable and not remotely evil, but he has attempted to justify mistakes through pleading or ridiculous logic, and tried to flee from or ignore the problems he has wrought. However, he did dedicate 14 years of his life for his son's progress into a martial arts prodigy. In short, he does have a sense of honor, but is definitely willing to bend the rules more than the average martial artist.

Despite being cursed, Genma actually seems to like his panda form and freely goes about in public in it. He regularly uses it in attempts to circumvent attention when in danger of being taken to task by others. If he cannot avoid the problem, he often foists the obligation onto Ranma, which usually creates even more chaos. Although pandas cannot talk, Genma is able to communicate his thoughts while in this form by writing on wooden signs (more constantly in the manga), which he sometimes uses as weapons when he is annoyed with his son. In the anime he was once shown as able to produce enough of them to construct an entire boat.

When his wife Nodoka visits, he turns into a panda in an effort to hide his and Ranma's curses from her. In this situation, he is known as Mr. Panda and is Ranko's (Ranma's female form's alias to Nodoka) pet. Nodoka has seemed far more fond of Ranko than of Mr. Panda. When both of them were sick, she fussed over Ranko, while merely commenting that Mr. Panda had warm fur. Another time, when she was helping Ranko cook dinner, she fed the inedible foods cooked to Mr. Panda. Nodoka has also consistently been shown as completely unconcerned about whether her husband is alive, dead or present, in contrast to her extreme worry about her son. All of this has rendered Genma extremely jealous, once to the point of briefly being willing to take petty revenge by risking to expose Ranma's curse. His panda form was also briefly given the nickname Kumahachi, when a young boy named Yotaro discovered him and took him in as an incredibly pampered pet.

Genma consistently enjoyed being stronger than Ranma during their training trips, since it allowed him to claim most of the food, but was disturbed when Ranma recently passed his prowess in regular fighting (without special techniques), and the latter used the opportunity to repeatedly severely beat him up. However, beyond dedicating one and a half decade of his life to teaching Ranma, there have been a few occasions when Genma has been shown to care about his son. A story in the later part of both the manga and the anime shows Ranma training for a fight against Genma. While he is sleeping, Genma comes and covers Ranma with a blanket much like a father tucking in a small child, which his son found touching, although he referred to it as part of psychological combat. And while helping to teach him the Body of Ice necessary to perform the Hiryu Shoten Ha, he wept genuine tears of regret for having to show very embarrassing photographs.

Genma's tendency to think both only in the short-term and in regards to himself alone is perhaps the primary sticking point in their relationship, with Ranma begruding all of the trouble he is forced to endure because of Genma's mistakes.

Physical Abilities

As a former student of the grandmaster martial artist Happosai and the founder of the Saotome-Style Anything Goes Martial Arts, Genma is an extremely proficient martial artist. He regularly trains with his son Ranma, who is even superior to Genma in regular combat, but he managed to spar on a roughly equal footing until the "Dragon's Whisker" and "Cradle of Hell" storylines. (In the second mention Genma officially admitted that Ranma had surpassed him) While Genma is usually too lazy or cowardly to show it, his full arsenal of special techniques would make him one of the most powerful fighters in the series if he ever used them in combination.

Though he looks unhealthily hefty, especially in his cursed form, Genma is actually in extremely good shape. Like his son, he has great physical strength, enabling him to punch others a great distance or easily shatter boulders. He possesses enough speed to have kept up with Ranma for some time even after the latter's supersonic Amaguriken training. Genma is also surprisingly agile, capable of powerful leaps. Despite his girth and age, he can withstand great impacts without damage, like falling hundreds of meters into solid stone. His panda form is stronger still, and even seemed to make Ryoga Hibiki exert a certain degree of effort to restrain him during the final storyline.

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Ryoga is introduced in chapter 10 of the manga, titled "The Hunter" and in episode 7 of the anime entitled "Enter Ryoga, The Eternal Lost Boy", in which he casually stops a giant boar from attacking rural villagers. He politely asked for directions to Furinkan High School, but overshot the distance by 500 miles (800 km) south, and again shortly thereafter by 500 miles (800 km) north. A week later, he finally managed to reach his destination and promptly attacked Ranma. The latter had to think hard to remember him, but was glad to see him when he remembered Ryoga as a friend from his old boys' school. At first, it seemed like he simply has a grudge because the latter "ran away" from their scheduled fight, at a vacant lot located 500 yards (460 m) from his own house. His bad sense of direction forced him to wander all over Japan for four days looking for his destination, while Ranma only waited three days before leaving with his father for their training trip to China. Ranma recalls the motivation as consistently beating Ryoga to the last bread at lunchtime, slowly building up the latter's resentment towards him.

Ryoga ends up a week late travelling to their next duel. During their confrontation, he discovers Ranma's curse, and the latter accidentally cuts off part of Akane's hair, by kicking away Ryoga's belt-slash, leading both boys to profusely apologise.

After another fight takes place in a rainstorm, female Ranma finds out that Ryoga tracked her to China, and concludes that the reason for his anger lies in being cursed by the springs of Jusenkyo. Ranma finds a dog on the scene which she assumes to be Ryoga and allows it into the house, while Akane finds a suspicious small black piglet in her room and tends to it. Akane tells Ranma to bathe the pig, but when he puts it the hot bath Ryoga appears. Female Ranma almost manages to convince him that he should be mad at the girl who pushed him into the spring, leading him to almost be cooked and eaten, but it turns out to have been herself, during a chase for Genma-panda, aggravating Ryoga once again. Akane decides to adopt the pig, naming him P-chan ("cute pig"; the "P" is actually derived from the English word "pig"), completely unaware of his dual identity and that he has become utterly enamoured with her.

Afterwards, Ryoga frequently finds himself back in Nerima, whether to challenge Ranma, search for a cure for his Jusenkyo curse, bring pastries and gifts to Akane as awkward shows of affection, or simply become entangled in the schemes and chaos that seem to follow his rival. His antagonism towards Ranma gradually lessens with time. It starts out as a fierce rivalry, then shifts back and forth between tense competition, uneasy alliances or non-serious conflicts and, after a brief lapse, progresses to friendly enough terms to repeatedly risk his life to help Ranma. However, they remain highly competitive. Ranma himself considers Ryoga as "generally a friend" and as his only true rival/equal.

Ryoga has collaborated with Mousse on a few sparse occasions, to get a cure for themselves during the Musk arc, and considered competing together during an onsen race. He and Kuno also made two very brief accidental team-ups against Ranma, when independently simultaneously entering after seeing a photograph where he kissed Akane, and for 1 second during a 3-way food fight. In the anime continuity, they both attacked Ranma in the episode "Ukyo's Skirt! The Great Girly-Girl Gambit!". They also allied in the episode "Pick-a-Peck o' Happosai" and to stop Ranma and Akane from getting together in the episode "Let's Go to the Mushroom Temple". They also both beat up Ranma in the OVA "Curse of the Contrary Jewel". Regardless, Ryoga is not remotely friends with either in the manga storyline, and is here on better terms with Ranma himself.

Ryoga stands out in the crowd due to his regularly rough appearance. He spends much of his time wandering, often depressed over having to spend so much of his time alone in the wilderness, with the slightest rain turning him into a defenceless pig at the mercy of hungry humans or animals. His most notable characteristic is that, like his parents, and even his entire family, he has no sense of direction whatsoever. He is unable to go the right way, often sticking to the letter of any directions given to him, regardless of whether the path eventually turns. He has an inability to understand even the simplest of directions or draw any legible maps, once running the wrong way at the start of a three-legged race.

This is not due to lack of motivation, however. For instance, on the way to a date, he was supposed to follow the edge of a lake, to reach a statue in plain sight directly in front of him. Instead, Ryoga follows a brook and gets lost again. In the anime, Maomolin the bakeneko possesses Ryoga and tries to lead him towards the girl he loves. However, Maomolin had as much trouble navigating as Ryoga himself even though the former was doing the thinking.

In real world terms, he would be classified as suffering from autistic limitation or brain damage in this area. It is also possible that his lack of direction might be some form of family curse. Another theorethical possibility is that the Hibiki family suffers from an inflamed or infected hippocampus gland, this gland being the human biologic compass, handling orientation and directional accuity along with short-term memory.

In the anime this condition is worsened by Ryoga's ability to traverse obscene distances in surprisingly little time on foot, although how he does this is unknown. When the two problems are combined, it results in Ryoga having essentially no idea where he is at any given time, which allows him to miss his destinations by insane margins. In one case, he attempted to reach Hokkaido and instead ended up in Hong Kong. Luckily, he carries a backpack, which evidently contains essentials for survival in the wild.

In the manga this is not as heavily implied to be a supernatural talent, at least not beyond his comical tendency to pop up at odd moments. He seems to need much longer travel times, and has not explicitly been seen to swiftly and randomly traverse continents under his own power. However, in his first appearance he quickly overshot Tokyo by 500 miles (800 km) twice in a row, apparently within the span of one or two days, though no explicit reference was given. Through the aid of the Kinjakan, he also quickly made it all the way from Jusenkyo to Moscow and back while out to get some dumplings in Peking. His map was also once shown to contain a forest, a café, a road with a red car, the Tendo dojo, some African tribesmen, China, and France.

Ryoga's family house is within sight of Mount Fuji, where his dog Shirokuro (Checkers in the English translation) and her puppies live. However, given the Hibiki family's condition, it is usually empty. Ryoga generally leads a nomadic lifestyle, and only occasionally manages to find it. His dog, however, has no such trouble finding her way and recognises him in both human and pig forms. It has been mentioned that Ranma helped to lead Ryoga home when they went to high school together.

The combination of his poor sense of direction and his curse have regularly subjected Ryoga to imminent misery, constantly placing him lonely and lost in the wilderness, with tight food rations, or at the mercy of hungry predators. When first introduced, he is a very angry and seemingly unapproachable individual. Ryoga is emotional, more often than not following his heart rather than his head, though he has shown capability of using strategy when he is focused or lacking distractions. He is emotionally fragile, straightforward and naive. He regularly feels depressed, which thus far has served as the source for his chi projection. He is generally shy, humble and polite, especially around women. He is often easily tricked and used by some of the more manipulative characters and turns extremely grateful, loyal and self-sacrificing for any kindness offered to him.

A running joke is that whenever female Ranma dons a disguise, no matter how transparent, Ryoga will nonetheless be fooled. Ranma has used this to his advantage to find out about any training Ryoga has been doing, to tease him, or to torment Ryoga during any dates with Akane to destroy the latter's prospects.

Physical Abilities

Fighting-skill: Ryoga is an exceptionally proficient martial artist, roughly comparable to Ranma, whom he has defeated or fought to a draw on many occasions, especially during shorter or off-screen battles, having triumphed roughly twice as many times as the opposite if these are included (times of outside enhancements or enfeeblements discluded), occasionally in seconds when sufficiently upset or similarly motivated, but also had a great disadvantage when the latter was far more focused while Ryoga was extremely flustered. Sometimes even Ranma has to distract or trick him to triumph in climax situations. Unlike most cast members, Ryoga seems to be mostly self-taught, with immense natural talent, and relentless hard training as his only mentors. Takahashi has mentioned in an interview that the reason for his great power lies in his constant harsh hiking life.

Physical Power: Under regular circumstances he appears to be a few times physically stronger than or, at the very least, as strong as Ranma. They have never outright competed in this area, since Ryoga tends to rely on skill and special techniques.

Ryoga's greatest explicit feat happened during their ice skating competition. When supremely motivated, Ryoga here moved two enormous buoying blocks of ice (to catch/stop Mikado Sanzenin) and far more impressively was shown to hurl at least one of them, with an approximated weight of roughly 206 to 642 metric tons, at least 30 metres, by using the arm he previously gripped it in. He here used Ranma's head as a brace not to fall into the water, but the latter nonetheless supported the pressure from the floating slabs. Although, to throw the weight such a great distance would take some dozen times the effort from simply lifting it. Like with his chi-generation, it seems to undergo a boost depending on his emotional state, beyond his general conscious level, and (much like most 'Ranmaverse' fighters) the force of this seems to be his general power-source, but he has seemingly never used his full capacity to directly empower his physical traits, indirect and dispersed usage of which has been shown to eclipse even Lime in terms of raw power.

Further comparative references include that Ranma broke his legs from the effort of supporting a 50-100-metre fall, while carrying four girls. Then again, the latter likely remained severely weakened from poison at the time, so his peak effort should be greatly multiplied. Ranma also proved unable to get out when trapped under a 90-100 tonne large iron bell, without handicaps, but he wasn’t significantly motivated, and had no hold for his hands to grip.

Female Ranma seemingly effortlessly pushed a roughly 40-tonne boulder into the mouth of the Yamata-Orochi while swimming underwater, when supremely determined to save Akane from being eaten. Also, when under the influence of a magic incense a simple hug from Ryoga almost crushed male Ranma's ribs. Other hints in this vein include that even a casual Ryoga seemed overwhelmingly stronger when Ranma pretended to be his "sister", (almost knocking her out with a playful finger jab to her forehead) but Ranma was in female form at the time. Akane was terrified of his casual power, while she has not reacted this way towards Ranma, though Ranma may simply have better conscious muscle control. He was also the chosen counterpart for Lime, but that may simply have been a case of their most pronounced ability.

Striking Force: Other displays of strength include completely shattering a roughly 7 m-diameter, solid rock platform simply by prostrating on it, and punching Ranma so hard that the latter made a 4 m diameter, at least 0.5 m deep, indentation in a mountain.

Stamina: Ryoga also appears to have greater durability, honed through years of training in the mountains and through Cologne's Breaking Point Training. Though the possibility exists that it is simply a more overstated trait than for his counterpart. He has been repeatedly struck with dense heavy objects, fallen hundreds of meters into solid rock, been covered in a rockslide, and even been caught in a closing chasm, without any damage whatsoever, and emerged ready to fight on. He was unfazed by a full force blow from Taro's monster form, while a similar effort rendered female Ranma unable to continue fighting. But she was also struck through a wall and in a state of confusion about the latter's transformation. Male Ranma was only briefly stunned on another occasion, when not restrained by these limitations. Ryoga was only slightly discomforted from hundreds of Ranma's punches landed in less than a second, but repeated efforts, and putting both of them in freefall, presumably giving the latter an opportunity to instead land thousands of punches, all instances directed at the same spot, together managed to knock him out. He apparently even stayed unharmed after he and Ranma were hit dead-centre by Happosai's smaller Happo-Daikarin, which are capable of knocking out Taro-monster in a single strike, while his rival was rendered unconscious, although the force greatly varies from occasion to occasion.

Limitations: Ryoga seems far more vulnerable if he is distracted and his guard is completely down, so it is not impossible that his durability is bolstered by active chi-infusion. Lime was able to almost beat him in one full-force blow by taking advantage of such an opportunity, after Mint tumbled at Ryoga’s back from behind, and the latter became angered at Mousse for not keeping his fight contained. He has also been knocked out by an unexpected staff blow to the larynx from Mousse, while completely focused on Ranma, who has likevise managed this feat. For example by showing Ryoga Ukyo's breasts, paralysing him from embarrassment, and then kicking him through the school wall, or by hitting the embarrassed Ryoga's head with a stone pillar from behind, when the latter's eyes were closed, since he was tricked by Shampoo into believing he would get a kiss from Akane.

Speed: While initially an even match, Ranma briefly gained a severe advantage in swiftness and skill after undergoing a power-up at Cologne's hands, but Ryoga quickly catches up in these areas as the manga progresses. By the time of the 'weakness moxibustion' arc, he is able to simultaneously parry, disarm and beat up Mousse, Tatewaki, Principal Kuno and Gosunkugi in under a second. He likewise proved to be swifter than Mousse some volumes later, during an onsen race battle, where he avoided all the latter's attacks. Additionally, when Ranma is turned murderously jealous by a magic koi mark, Ryoga manages to narrowly avoid and parry the latter’s 'Amaguriken'-training enhanced supersonic barrage, and later eventually best his rival. In battle with the physically stronger and extremely durable Lime, he easily managed to stay out of his opponent's grasp until Mint's interruption. In the final story, he managed to effortlessly parry all of Genma-panda's strikes, while looking in another direction.

Development: While he has occasionally thrown roughly 10-tonne boulders a considerable distance, Ryoga has not shown explicit feats of greater physical power later in the series. However he did improve his strength enough to stand up to Lime, who seemingly has an upper maximum of around 100.000 tonnes. More noticeably Ryoga seems to turn into a more balanced fighter, greatly increasing his shown speed, skill, versatility and durability. Near the end of the manga the author spoofs their relationship by portraying Ranma and Ryoga as two constantly feuding and completely evenly matched children, not counting Ryoga's more powerful and dependable force-blasts, which gave him a certain edge.

Possible Potential: In both the manga and anime series Ryoga once helped a starving martial arts calligraphist by sharing his food. As thanks the latter bestowed the "mark of the battling god" on his belly, bringing forth a fighter's full power. Under this influence Ryoga temporarily became the, by far, most formidable character ever shown in the series, and was literally capable of casually defeating Ranma with his pinkie finger, or without noticing when tied up, blindfolded and shackled to the floor. Even his piglet form was overwhelmingly superior, capable of effortlessly beating Ranma with a single strike. However, it is uncertain whether or not this was intended as an indication of his full potential or whether it was a simple source of power.

In the anime continuity Ryoga was recurrently not treated as nearly as dangerous until near the end of the series (among other things the ice-boulder throwing, and casual stone-platform shattering were both edited out, and Ryoga was occasionally used as swift 'demonstration-prey' for comparatively lacking adversaries), after receiving training from Genma, and was shown as dead even with Ranma in terms of fighting skill directly afterwards. At the end of this episode, after finding out that he had been lied to and manipulated, Ryoga struck Genma so hard that the shockwave caused an earthquake across the neighbourhood. However, in an earlier episode, when Ranma attempted a direct grapple attack, Ryoga effortlessly overcame his strength and threw him to the ground, so he apparently remained physically stronger.

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Nodoka is Ranma Saotome's mother and Genma's wife. She is a gentle, attractive woman, who very closely resembles Ranma's female form, noticeable after Nabiki comments on how similar they look during Nodoka's first visit to the Tendos. She always carries around a fairly large bundle, which contains the family katana.

Before departing on their training journey, the only way Nodoka agreed to let Genma take Ranma from her was for her husband to promise her that he would train Ranma to be "a man among men." If Genma were to fail in this regard, both he and Ranma would commit seppuku. Nodoka agreed to this and also that she would be the kaishakunin for her husband and son - hence the need to always carry the katana. She is not particularly skilled with the sword, though. She has, upon drawing it, accidentally thrown it into the air, nearly impaling Ranma, who was off-screen.

Because of this promise, Genma and Ranma are terrified of showing their true forms to Nodoka and for her to find out about their curses, although Genma is more afraid than Ranma. To prevent her from finding out, they hide in their cursed forms, with Ranma taking the alias of "Ranko" and pretending to be Akane's cousin from the countryside, and Genma assuming the identity of "Mr. Panda" and pretending to be Ranko's pet. Late in the manga, Nodoka learns the truth and she decides she won't force them to commit seppuku so long as Ranma stays interested in girls and continues to fight like a "man amongst men."

After this, Genma and Ranma live for some time in her house, until it is destroyed (in an unshown scene) by Shampoo, Ukyo and Kodachi, who are fighting over what they think is an engagement ring. She and her family then move back in with the Tendos.

Nodoka wants nothing more than to see her son, to whom she has not spoken since he was six years old. She is not the only one who has been affected by the deal, though. Ranma has tried on numerous occasions to talk to her as a man, but Genma repeatedly foiled his efforts. For Nodoka, her glimpses of Ranma as a male have been fleeting at best, usually because he was pursuing some other objective at the time, or attempting to escape her.

When she met Akane, she quickly approved of her and offered to help with her cooking skills so that she could make a better wife for her son. She also dotes on "Ranko" and has aided her to similar ends. In her most notable incident of the sort, she took Ranko shopping to find her more suitable feminine clothing, including a bra, something Ranma would never normally wear. But the existence of Ranko's identity created a strange situation for Ranma when Ryu Kumon arrived. Posing as Ranma, the rival martial artist had sought out Nodoka for his own ends. She was initially convinced as to the imposter's identity as her son, but became suspicious after seeing him with Akane and was eventually told the truth.

Nodoka, while kind and slightly old fashioned, has a very strange set of principles. She seems to despise perverts, but is willing to allow and even encourage Ranma to perform perverted acts such as peeping on girls, play with women's underwear and even have him spy on Akane while she takes a bath. It is explained, however, that she sees this as the way her son can "prove" his manliness. Her actual view of a true epitome of masculinity seems to lie much closer to the savage, imposing, independent and semi-militaristic Ryu Kumon than to Happosai.

In contrast to her enthusiasm to see Ranma, she has shown an often comical lack of concern for her husband. Going as far as to not notice him right next to her, and making almost no response at all when Ryu Kumon said he was dead.

Nodoka is dedicated to the seppuku contract Genma signed before he and Ranma left, and is more than willing to follow it if she believes she has to. One encounter with Ranma, which had Ranma dressed in girl's clothing thanks to Happosai, had her immediately get ready to perform the ceremony, though she was knocked out and apparently dismissed her memories of it as a dream after waking. She still retains the seppuku contract, and considers it valid, even after being reunited with Ranma and Genma. When the Saotomes moved back to Nodoka's house and Ranma was depressed at having left Akane, she declared that Ranma's behavior wasn't manly and would have drawn her sword had not Genma intervened.

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