Kappa Mikey Reference to Ranma

In the episode "Saving Face" Shampoo appears in 'chibi' form. (She also can be seen very briefly in the opening sequence.)

Kidnappings in Ranma ½ Manga

I'm writing this because I saw a factually wrong and very incomplete list of kidnappings that occurred in the manga (this one is probably incomplete as well but not as much). The person was trying to point out how Akane does not get kidnapped as often as fan fiction would make us believe and that she wasn't kidnapped to be someone's bride all the time. That person is sort of correct, in that Akane doesn't get kidnapped to be someones bride in the manga (Ranma and Shampoo do), she does in the anime though. As for amount of times fan fiction has gotten that part right, she does get kidnapped often (usually as a means of getting at Ranma).

The definition of kidnapping I am using is: the taking away of a person against the person's will

Akane Tendo

• Mousse abducted Akane to lure Ranma into a trap involving spring of the drown duck water.
• Pantyhose Taro flew off with Akane and held her hostage in order to get Happosai to come to him.
• Lime kidnapped Akane because he wanted to drink tea with a girl.
• Kiima had crows bring Akane to Jusenkyo to use Akane to get at Ranma.
• A cursed doll switched places with Akane to use Akane's body to get at Ranma.
  
• Cologne kidnapped Akane to make her a prize for the winner when Ryoga and Ranma were fighting.
• Gonsunki tried to kidnap her during the Romeo and Juliet arc (used chloroform) but she was too heavy.
• Principal Kuno kidnapped her during the time where they were trying to find the coconut that the map on Kuno's head lead to (Used Rope and brooms to tie her up near the ceiling Akane freed herself).
• Cologne knocked out and tied up Akane during the reversal jewel story arc to keep her out of the way.
  
• Evil kunoichi women kidnapped Akane (put her in a bunny suit and hung her from a tree).
• Shampoo took control of Akane through the use of pressure points to try and get the water proof soap from Ryoga.
  

Ranma

• Daimonji Sentaro wanted Ranma to be his bride kidnapped Ranma-chan to marry her instead of a monkey.
• Ryoga stuffed Ranma-chan into a backpack and carried her off into the woods with the plan of killing her and burying her in the woods.
• Happosai wrapped Ranma in chains, covered him with cement and buried him in the yard.
• When Ranma was temporarily made into a child by the mushrooms of aging Kuno took Ranma to the amusement park against Ranma's will.
• Genma knocked Ranma out with a sign and took him to the Tendo's in the very first volume.
• When Happosai took away Ranma's strength, Akane tied up and put Ranma in the schools storage room for his own safety.
  

Shampoo

• Mao Mo Lin (the Ghost Cat) wanted Shampoo as his bride.
  
• Pink and Link kidnapped Shampoo to lure Ranma as part of a plan to get revenge on Shampoo (back-fired big time).
• Kiima enslaved Shampoo to steal the map to Jusenkyo.
  

Ukyo

• Evil kunoichi women Ukyo was carried off by Konatsu's step-family to force him to fight with Ranma.

Ryoga Hibiki (as P-chan)

• Azusa Shiratori stole P-chan because he's cute.
• Shampoo sort of abducted P-chan to make him into a meal but Shampoo just thought him as a regular pig.
  
• Genma grabbed up P-chan to make him into lunch at the Jusenkyo guides house. Like Shampoo he just thought it was a regular pig.
• Kodachi kidnapped and chained p-chan to Ranma.
  

Jusenkyo Guide

• Phoenix people kidnap him to get the map of Jusendo.

Happosai

• Soun and Genma got him drunk put him in a cave with explosives and then sealed the cave using spirit wards.

Age of the characters in Ranma ½

On the surface it seems that it would be a fairly easy to say their ages with the answers being:

• Akane, Ryoga, Ranma, Kodachi, Ukyo, Shampoo, and Mousse are 16
  
• Gosunkugi is 15
  
• Nabiki, Tatewaki are 17
  
• Kasumi is 19
  
• Tofu, Hinako are in there mid to late 20's
  
• Soun, Genma, Ranma's mom, Principal Kuno mid 40's
  
• Happosai, Cologne - something over 100

I've just told you their ages right? How do I know that is correct? Ok we know Akane's, Nabiki's and Kasumi's age because Soun told us. What about the rest of the cast? Frankly we have no real idea as to how old they are. Though those are the most commonly accepted ages in the Ranma fandom.

Let's start with the Kuno's.First we know that Kodachi is younger than her brother Tatewaki and in high school so a good guess would be 16. Is that her age though? I don't know it is possible for Kodachi to be 15 and have just skipped a grade at some point or just is in the age bracket where she will turn 16 sometime during the school year. Tatewaki's age of 17 is not given in the manga until the second half of the manga during the mushrooms of aging arc (in the anime I believe it is given during his intro).

Shampoo and Mousse are 16 or are they? Simple put we are not given any clues as to their age. Shampoo and Mousse can easily be 18 or 20 there simple is nothing that says they are the same age as Akane.

Ranma's mom, Genma, and Soun again who knows. Ranma's mom could be in her 30's (marriage age when she could have had Ranma was 13 after all - before 1995 the marriage age for girls was 13), Genma could be in his fifties since martial arts could slow down the aging process some, etc. All we know for sure is that they are at least 30 years old.

Let's do Ryoga know. Like most of the characters we have no absolute way of knowing though 16 is a good guess. Judging by Ranma and Ryoga having attended the same school together (we do not know if they were in the same grade) it is likely that Ryoga is within 2 years of Ranma's age, though during the mushrooms of aging arc Ryoga thinks himself to be 16 at that point in time (but Ryoga may not be the most reliable person to know his age since he commonly gets lost for weeks at a time).

Happosai and Cologne's age can not even be guessed at. We know that they are really old but how old can't tell. It is entirely possible that Happosai is 120, 300, or even older. Why is it possible for Happosai to be hundreds of years old? For these reasons, Martial arts may slow down the aging process some, Happosai has access to age altering magics (Jusenkyo, rejuvenation potion - others exist like the mushrooms of aging) and age altering techniques (whatever Happosai did to Hinako). Not counting the use of magic or age altering techniques Happosai can still be positively ancient when you consider that Happosai can somehow survive for years without food, water, air, and female undergarments. It is entirely possible that Happosai did like some mythical dragons and slept for a century or two. That is for the manga. For the anime we know that Happosai and Cologne are at least 300 since that is the amount of time traveled back into the past via the Nabian mirror but it is entirely possible that they are even older than that. According to wikipedia: In the anime episode "Case of the Missing Takoyaki!", Happosai's age is given as being estimated at four-hundred and fifty (450) years old. While most consider that to be a mistake on the part of the anime writers it's not impossible for him to be that old since he could have used something that made him younger prior to the time he met Cologne.

Alright I've basically stated that we know for sure only a few characters ages. Think Ranma is one of them. Think again. Anime Ranma is 16, we know that for sure since the Anime straight out says it. What about Manga Ranma? He's 16 too right. Maybe, Maybe not. Ranma thinks at least by the time of the magic mushrooms that he is 16. It is possible, even likely, that Ranma was 15 at the beginning of the manga and turned 16 sometime before the magic mushroom story arc (this is somewhat supported by his saying he will lose a year if he eats a 17cm mushroom instead of a few months). Another possibility is that Genma and Ranma's mom being pretty traditional could use the old way of counting a child's age where at birth you were one and counted up at new years and not on the birthday meaning Ranma could be 14 or 15 by the modern way of counting age (though this is really unlikely but considering how Ranma's mom and Genma are; it is not as unlikely as it should be). For information on the old way of counting age see: Old Japan tips.

Superman Reference to Ranma

In one of the Superman comic books a Ranma ½ poster is in Superman's (Clark Kent) room. I don't remember which book since there are so many of them but I believe it was in the year 2000.

Few free ways to support causes via the internet

The largest list of Click to Donate websites I have found is at The Nonprofits website. The point of these websites is to donate money to various causes by clicking on a banner. The websites donate some money obtained by their sponsors to charities. I like the idea of helping people with very little effort needed (after all, you only have to load the page and click on a banner). So if you have a fast Internet connection, if your on a slow dial-up it probably is not worth your time, click on some of these. Of course it is much better for you to just donate some money yourself or do volunteer work but every little bit helps. While these do help a very little bit, the actual donating is not the best things about them. The spreading of knowledge is the best things about the sites.

Sites I encountered not on the Nonprofits website's list (at the time I wrote this):
* Cause clicks - multiple causes
* Free Kibble - donates to animal shelters to feed dogs also has a link to feed cats as well.
* Semi-Arid Campaign - Donates water (has an English version as well but that was not working when I tried it.

Additional ways to support causes:
Websearch for charity:
* Charity Cafe used to use Lycos and Ask.com search engine and the money they got from referring you to the search engine went to a charity. They no longer do so but Charity Cafe is trying to get a different search provider.

Web based learning games that also donate to charities as you play (some listed on The Nonprofits are not listed here). These are better than the click to donate sites in that their purpose is as much to teach as it is to donate.
* Free Rice - learn English vocabulary and basic grammar, basic mathematics, a foreign language, pediatric table of elements, countries of the world and their capitals, and Famous paintings. For every answer you get correct some rice goes to feed some one, some where.
* Give Vaccines - learn English vocabulary, Medical Terminology or about Business. Every correct answer donates to giving vaccinations.
* Aid to Children - learning vocabulary that donates to children (the vocabulary game is inferior to the above two sites).
* Free Poverty - learn geography different from free rice in that it has a map of the world and you have to point out where the country and city (or land mark) is.

Care2 has a toolbar add-on for your Internet browser that helps reduce the carbon released into the atmosphere. It also will tell you the weather around the world, give links to several click to donate things (makes it faster to click on them), and will check your care2 email, Yahoo email, Hotmail email, and Google email (logs onto the various emails by just clicking on the bar).

The Ecology Fund will give a much larger donation if you subscribe to newsletters about the environment from their site (you can always subscribe with an email address you rarely check or a temporary email address).

Windows Live™ Messenger (instant messaging software), Microsoft will donate a portion of its advertising revenue to the National MS Society. So if your going to use an IM might as well use one that helps someone.

Various petition sites to get the government or various people/industries to do something/stop doing something: Care2, Petition Spot, Petitions.org, and Petition Online are some sites with petitions.

There are several sites that will give a portion of a purchase to charity. For instance if you are planning to buy something from amazon.com click on a link to amazon.com from one of the charity sites instead of going there directly so that some portion of it goes to the charity.

Nerima, Tokyo Fanfiction writers pictures

Joseph Palmer has written a few good Ranma ½ fan fics. His color series is actually some of my favorite Ranma fan fiction. He has on his website some pictures of Nerima (the place that the Ranma manga mostly took place in).

The map displayed in this post is shows where Nerima is located in Tokyo.

Ranma's Memory

Some people think Ranma does not have a very good memory. I disagree; Ranma has a very good memory. Ranma has demonstrated the ability to recall things that happened many years earlier such as remembering losing the Tendo Dojo to the Gambling King over 10 years earlier (which even though I dislike that story arc; I find to be pretty impressive after all how many specific events can you remember that happened 10 years ago not counting major life changing things like a death or wedding). Ranma remembered other things that have happened 10 years ago as well such things as messing with Ukyo's sauce. He was also able to effortlessly recall many instances of Genma stealing food from him, events that happened years apart. He also remembered where Ryoga's house was.

How can I say Ranma has a good memory when there are two instances in which he did not remember things? The instances of him not remembering are; not remembering his mother and who Ryoga was. Not remembering his mother is very easy to explain. In the manga; Genma took Ranma away when Ranma was a baby not even able to walk yet. In the manga; Ranma's earliest memories are training in a foreign country.

Not remembering Ryoga is a bit harder to explain but not that hard. Ranma was able to remember Ryoga after thinking about it for a few moments so while he did not remember him instantaneously he did remember Ryoga. There are many possible reasons as to why he did not remember him instantly. Things like Ranma may not be good at remembering people's faces. Ranma had absolutely no reason to remember who Ryoga was nor did he expect to see Ryoga again. Ranma and Ryoga were not friends, at least not close friends, in middle school; Ranma bounced off of Ryoga's head grabbing the last piece of bread that the lunch lady would throw into the crowd. It is likely that Ranma was not in the same class as Ryoga. Ranma probably was only at that school for a few months and Ryoga, almost positively, missed several days by getting lost. My question to you, dear reader, is: How well would you remember someone you interacted with for a few times a day for a few months over a year ago after many stressful and important things have happened (in Ranma's case trip to China, hunted by Shampoo, started going to a new school, obtained a curse)? Lets say you bumped into a teacher who subbed for a few months in one of your classes, over a year ago, how quickly would you remember them? Before someone say's but Ranma acted like Ryoga was his friend. Remember this is Ranma a person who considers just about everyone to be his friend and in my opinion, and the Memorial book's chart, even sees Kuno to be a friend (or at least a sparring partner).