Out of a joke

Well, a few days ago my friend Hannah posted an interesting article about Bugs Bunny’s crossdressing habits (So it’s come to this) and the impact it had on a generation of young Trans that grew up watching him, like she and I.

It’s kind of absurd to discuss a cartoon character’s gender identity, but actually neither her blog or this one are really about that but rather on how we connected with those types of characters.

So as a joke I suggested her to talk about another interesting character named Ranma. Well the Joke backfired because she suggested I should write about it since she wasn’t familiar with it. So that’s how we ended up here.

In case you are also not familiar with Ranma ½ he is a Japanese manga character first introduced in comic books back in 1987 and later adapted into a cartoon series in 1989. I think there are also a couple of movies and currently Netflix owns the rights to the series since 2024.

So Ranma Saotome is a young teenage boy trained in martial arts and one day during a training session, he and his father Genma accidentally fall inside the enchanted ponds at a training place in China. When someone falls into one of these ponds, they take the physical form of whatever or whoever has drowned in it for the first time. Ranma’s father, fell in "The Drowned Panda Pond" while Ranma fell in the "Drowned Redhead Girl Pond"

Now every time either one of them comes in contact with cold water, they transform, Genma into a giant Panda and Ranma into a beautiful redheaded Girl. They can easily revert this though by coming in contact with hot water. Remember those Hotwheels cars that changed colors with hot or cold water? Well, same principle, hot water for boy, cold water for girl.

That’s the basic premise of the series, watching Ranma get into all kinds of situations while dealing with his "curse" (for me it would've been a blessing though), and he also must deal with his marriage engagement with Akane Tendo, which was agreed by the parents of both.

Despite the subject and the main character’s plot, the series was very popular, both between boys and girls, although a little more between girls. Boys I remember preferred watching other Japanese series like Captain Tsubasa instead (a football series, augh!). I of course enjoyed Ranma. I had to hide it though and change the channel if any of my parents came into the Livingroom. I wanted to avoid any questions as to why was I watching a cartoon about a boy who transforms into a girl.

Usually they didn't pay too much attention to what I was watching, but this felt, well, kinda something I had to hide as I did with everything else related to my gender identity. Maybe they wouldn't have paid any attention to it, or made any questions about it, but I didn't want to take that chance. The series didn’t make direct fun at the character although it’s a humorous show. And of course it made my imagination run wild. I dreamt of being able to transform that easily like Ranma, although I would have had to get used to cold showers (which I hate) because there was no way I would want to revert back that frequently lol!

The show became my guilty pleasure just as I enjoyed the Bugs Bunny episodes where he dressed as a female rabbit more than the others where he was just making Elmer Fudd regret going after him. I think there’s really not much else I could say about the Ranma series other than if you come across it, give it try, you might find it entertaining as well. Or maybe it’s one of those projects that don’t age well, honestly I haven’t seen it again since high school so it would be interesting to watch it again and see if it was in fact a fun show or if it was only my obsession with the character’s transformation abilities that made me like it and dream.