This page was originally a part of Warm Up?! We Need No Stinking Warm Up!!
 

The only other family to carry the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts is the Saotome Family. Saotome Genma, a close friend of Soun, has a 16 year old son, Ranma, who is heir to the School.

As Saotome's offspring is heir to the School of AGMA, and Tendo owns the Training Hall, it was decided at Ranma's birth that Ranma was to marry one of Soun's daughters. Genma and Soun then parted ways, and were not to meet again until Ranma reached the age of 16. One other thing. Ranma also looks like a girl.

Confused? Here's the explanation:

Before arriving at the Tendo Training Hall, Genma took Ranma on a journey to China in order to train. Ranma's life revolves around kenpo, which is what AGMA is formed around. In China, they visited an ancient training ground, the Cursed Springs of Jusenkyo. Over a hundred springs exist upon training ground, and each had a person or animal drown there long ago. The legends say that if anyone should fall in one of these springs today, their body would take the form of whatever drowned there . . . The Saotomes trained, fell, and met their fate . . . Genma's fate was the Spring of Drowned Panda. When splashed with cold water, Ranma's patriarch growls and eats bamboo . . . while Ranma was not so lucky. Ranma fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl . . . a splash of cold water will turn Ranma from a guy into a girl.

Hot water will transform him back to his true self, until it rains, or someone dumps water out the window, or someone douses him deliberately . . . You get the idea . . .

When the sisters Tendo discover this, Kasumi and Nabiki immediately state that Akane has the privledge of being Ranma's betrothed. She hates Ranma as it is, and when she wants to know why, her sisters say, "Because you hate boys, don't you, Akane?" "Aren't you lucky? Ranma's half girl."

This is the basic premise of Ranma 1/2: A guy with the body of a girl (not really) who's engaged to a tomboy (not always), and they hate each other (not really).

There's more.

Ukyo Kuonji, was also betrothed to Ranma when he was five. This was a result of Genma's selfishness, and has now caught up with him. Unfortunately, it affects Ranma far more than Genma, because it ups Ranma's fiancee count to two. Also, Ukyo likes Ranma very much, in fact, she loves him and is still willing to marry him, but Ranma sees her only as a friend. Next is Shampoo, from the tribe of Amazon Women in China, which Ranma visited after the Jusenkyo accident. The laws of Shampoo's tribe state that if she is defeated in combat by a male outsider, she must marry him. Ranma, without knowing these laws, defeated her quite easily, and gains another fiancee. So Ranma, while not only dealing with his gender problem, must figure out how to handle all these chicks!

There are more women who like Ranma, but none who are 'betrothed' to him. Despite his popularity with the opposite sex, Ranma really does grow to like Akane, but is too proud to admit it. Akane is also too proud to admit her change in feeling towards Ranma, but she is far more likely to actually say it than Ranma.

And there's still more.

Ranma has an old rivalry with a former school chum named Ryoga Hibiki, and when Ryoga finds him, he continues to hold a grudge. Ryoga also falls in love with Akane, and if an opportunity appears where he can separate Ranma and Akane, he jumps at it. As the series starts, Ryoga is Ranma's enemy, but later that just drifts into a rivalry instead of hatred. Ryoga is also called The Eternally Lost Boy (a self-explanitory title). Then there is Tatewaki Kuno, an upperclassman at Ranma's high school. He and Ranma are relatively new to each other, but Kuno also loves Akane, and becomes Ranma's enemy for the same reason. This, like Ryoga, later changes from hatred to rivalry. Also, Kuno is in love with Ranma's girl half . . . and no matter what, he can't seem to figure out that Ranma-kun (male) and Ranma-chan (female) are one and the same. Finally, there's Mousse. Mousse has been in love with Shampoo since he was three, and wishes to defeat Ranma so that, by tribal law, he proves himself a stronger man, making him Shampoo's betrothed. Mousse, while disliking Ranma for capturing Shampoo's heart, doesn't bear pure hatred for Ranma as a person. When Shampoo is not involved, he and Ranma get along just fine, as Mousse would rather try to be everyone's friend, instead of conniving to hurt people and destroy engagements.

One last thing. Ranma and Genma were not the only ones to have been cursed at Jusenkyo.

Ryoga becomes P-Chan, a little black piglet.
Shampoo becomes a little pink and purple cat.
Mousse becomes Mu-Mu Chan, a duck.

And that's it. Now you can watch Ranma without getting confused.