Friday, July 13, 2007

Year the Ranma manga takes place

Going by evidence found in the manga the year where everything happens is 1994. A calender at Ryoga's house has the date printed and clearly says 1994 (pictured above). The reason the calender is shown is because Ryoga is using a means of divination somewhat similar to numerology called rokuyo (more on this can be found at this site: ROKUYO – Lucky and Unlucky Days in Japan). There is other evidence of it being mid 90's for example: the Aloha virus was said to have contaminated the island according to a diary Ranma finds on July 23rd, 1990 and a ten yen coin dated Heisei year 6 shows up enlarged several times - Heisei year 6 = 1994.

There is on other major thing that points to it being 1994, in 1995 the legal marriage age changed, under the new laws Ranma would have to be at least 18 to marry Akane.

3 comments:

antimatterenergy said...

The Ranma manga exists in Comic Book Time. The seasons/holidays shown in the manga were the same as they were in the real world when it was published. There are two New Years, but Ranma and Akane are still in the same grade at the beginning and at the end of the manga. It can be assumed that only around a year passed, similar to Inuyashi where Kagome just turned 15 in the first volume and not quite 16 in the second to last chapter (then there is a three year time skip).

Zwzn said...

Why would more then one new years celebration mean more then one year has gone by? Off the top of my head I can think of two new years celebrations held on different days.

antimatterenergy said...

That in and of itself doesn't really but is the most common way people would view it. Sure it could be standard New Year (January 1st which is when the majority of Japanese do so), Chinese New Year (based on a different calendar), Tibetan Buddhist new year (which is about a month from Chinese New Year), etc. It is possible to explain them via those ways but most people would just view it as separate years.