Ranma ½/Characters/Other Recurring Characters: Difference between revisions

The last of Ranma's fiancées to appear, Ukyo is the victim of a childhood crush gone horribly wrong. First, she made a [[Childhood Marriage Promise]] to Ranma that he would end up forgetting about (not that he knew what he was promising at the time... and then he ended up accidentally sabotaging the promise in the first place), and then, when her father and Genma apparently made an [[Arranged Marriage]]... but then Genma stole her dowry and ran off with it, leaving her behind. Believing Ranma had been in on it, Ukyo swore revenge and began crossdressing as part of an elaborate vow, tracking Ranma down with the intent of making him pay for deceiving her... only to discover it had all been Genma's fault, and Ranma was never even told about the engagement. Between this, the fact she was still in love with him, the fact Ranma evidently found her attractive despite the crossdressing, Ukyo believes she has a legitimate chance at winning Ranma's heart, and calls off her revenge to instead try and woo him to her. Generally the nicest of Ranma's fiancées, but she has her ugly side too and can use threats, destructive ambush-beatings or manipulation when she feels it's called for. It's worth noting that she is the only fiancée who always regrets manipulating the others.

 

* [[Acceptable Feminine Goals]]: As much of an independent businesslady, restaurant owner, powerful martial artist and successful chef as she is, every last one of her daydreams about the future involve being a devoted homemaker to Ranma, even those where she's the sole breadwinner in the house.

* [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy|Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl]]: In the anime, she is the latest of several generations of Kuonjis to practice Martial Arts Okonomiyaki, and she is very proud of this fact and her skills. A [[Filler]] episode has her get beaten by a master of Martial Arts Crepes and being utterly devastated, even angrily asking if Ranma is insinuating that she shouldn't care so much about martial arts because she's a girl before declaring that she doesn't even deserve to be Ranma's wife if she's that inept a fighter. She then spends the rest of the episode in training for a rematch.

A creepy, reclusive, unpopular, nerdy sort of boy who has a deep crush on Akane, which she is unaware of, evidently because she was nice to him. Fixated on black magic, but totally inept at it; far more likely to hit his thumb when trying to perform Ushi no Koku Mairi (a Japanese cursing ritual) then make it actually work. He even got himself struck by lightning once in the anime after apparently managing to call a storm to school successfully. In the manga, he's a pathetic member of Akane's class, ignored by just about everyone, while in the anime, he's an equally pathetic transfer student introduced in the sixth season.

 

* [[Black Magic]]: He wants to master this and use it to get rid of his rivals for Akane's hand, most notably Ranma, but it basically never works. On the other hand, the one time that he actually got his hand on real magic (the control paper dolls), he only used it to mildly embarrass Ranma through a pratfall, so it is very questionable if he is really ruthless, or just doing harmless venting, in the same way many others use fighting games.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Unlucky in basically all his appearances.

A minor character introduced as the local chiropractor and acupuncturist, who has tended to Akane's injuries since she was a little girl, which caused her to develop a [[Precocious Crush]] on him. Fixated on Kasumi, turning into a bumbling idiot whenever he hears her voice or even sees a photo of her, never mind actually seeing her. Dropped from the manga by the end of the [[Mode Lock|Full Body Cat's Tongue]] [[Pressure Point]]s story, but remains a minor fixture of the anime.

 

* [[Big Brother Mentor]]: To Akane, which is the basis of her crush on him.

* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]: He vanishes without a word once Cologne takes his place as official font of obscure wisdom. He shows up from time to time in [[Filler]] episodes late in the anime, but his plot importance was gone by the end of Season 2. In the manga, after Volume 12, he's gone for good.

A sweet, gentle girl who shows up very late into the manga. Heir to the Unryu farm of Sumo Wrestling Pigs, she rides around on her hand-reared Yokozuna Pig, Katsunishiki, seeking a man strong enough to defeat him, the only man she will be allowed to marry. When Ryōga succeeds, she instantly falls in love with him, and he quickly becomes attracted to her in return. A ''very'' minor character, her subsequent appearances pretty much amount to cameos, as she says and does almost nothing that has any major impact on the plot.

 

* [[Best Her to Bed Her]]: An odd example: it's not her that would-be suitors have to defeat, but her pet pig.

* [[Beta Couple]]: With Ryōga: [[Word of God]] is that, out of the entire [[Love Dodecahedron]], only they are a couple.

The last main cast member to be introduced to the series, and the only one to appear less then Akari, he's a distinctive character who still managed to become quite well-liked by some fans.

 

* [[Attractive Bent Gender]]: Attractive to those who don't know [[Wholesome Crossdresser|the dark truth]].

* [[Bishonen]]: Very, and sort of a spoof of it.

Ranma's long-absent mother is a late-comer to the series. Back when Ranma was just a little boy, his father took him away from home, assuaging Nodoka's complaints by vowing he and Ranma would commit [[Seppuku]] if he failed to make Ranma a "man among men". After Ranma's little accident at Jusenkyo, Genma decided it would be best to avoid Nodoka, though she eventually did find out—fortunately for her son and husband, the precise event had Ranma at some of his best behavior, and she decided that the curse wasn't grounds to make Ranma kill himself. Generally a very sweet and motherly sort, but she is just as fixated on honor as her son and husband are (perhaps more so), and she's ''still'' carrying that sword around by the series' end, watching and judging Ranma's behavior...

 

* [[Abusive Parents]]: While played for laughs almost as much as her husband is, she's just as bad, if not worse. Despite the fact that the contract consists of a verbal vow ("I will make Ranma a man among men") and a written seal ("I will commit [[Seppuku]]: Genma, Ranma"), both of which are incredibly vague, she is totally willing to call it in if she ever judges Ranma to somehow be unmanly. She is so fixated on the idea that whenever she visits looking for Ranma, she keeps a sword in constant reach, in preparation for the decapitating strike she will be called on to use in the ceremony. In fact, she seems to have the swordswoman's equivalent of an itchy trigger finger, being quite willing to draw it at the slightest hint that her son is being unmanly (both before and after finally meeting him), and going all the way to donning the requisite regalia if he does something ''very'' unmanly. She doesn't get many appearances in the series once she moves into the Tendō Dojo though.

* [[Dojikko]]: Don't stand near her if she draws her sword. Or if she sits on a "DO NOT SIT" water valve.

Early in the anime, the animators either couldn't find a voice actor for Gosunkugi, wanted a role for [[Shigeru Chiba]], or decided that the spooky boy was a rather shallow character and/or didn't make much sense as the Kunos' lapdog and servant. Instead, they decided to create a new character to take that role, and thus was born Sasuke Sarugakure, whose name means something like "Ninja from the Hidden Monkey Village". This ugly midget [[Ninja]] is most frequently seen at Tatewaki Kuno's side, but he will also serve "Mistress Kodachi" if she needs his assistance as well. Sasuke serves as something of the Jack-of-all-trades manservant to his masters, doing everything from spying on their enemies/love interests, to cooking their food, to cleaning their house, to making shadow puppets to help them sleep, to helping them train or fighting at their side: it's implied he may have actually been their primary caretaker when they were children. In return, he is [[Sarcasm Mode|rewarded]] with horrific mistreatment. He is forced to sleep outside in all weathers like an animal, fed only leftover scraps (and that infrequently: he once had to live for ten days on a single bowl of brine, and he's forgotten what milk and watermelons taste like), forced to drink the water from the storm gutters, and frequently beaten and berated by his charges.

 

* [[Badass Normal]]: He's rather fast but sucks at combat.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Even more so than Kuno, as he generally doesn't mean any more harm than needing to serve his master and is fairly amiable if not being compelled by that.

The last of the major characters to be introduced (in the manga; the anime was cancelled before she was created, so in that canon she was merely the subject of an OAV and appears in a second one, "Nightmare! Incense of Deep Sleep"), Hinako was hired by Principal Kuno ostensibly as a new Homeroom/English teacher for Ranma's classroom, but more likely as yet another of the principal's "attacks" on Ranma for his own amusement. Hinako's story begins many years before the series, when she was a little girl in the hospital for an unidentified ailment. Happōsai, wandering by, dropped in and either took pity on her, saw someone he could use to help him steal underwear from the nurses, or both. He subjected her to a regime of [[Pressure Point]] manipulation that would endow her with the ability to drain the [[Battle Aura]] from other people, which he insisted would help her get better. Flash forward to the present day, and she's all better... but now she's [[Dual Age Modes|stuck looking like a kid]] unless she [[Energy Absorption|drains]] somebody's [[Battle Aura]], and she'll only remain in her adult form until she uses up the [[Life Energy|ki]] she stole. Obsessed with stomping out "delinquency", she frequently clashes with Ranma, particularly after she falls in love with Soun Tendō.

 

* [[Adult Child]]: She's somewhere in her twenties, yet looks (and acts!) maybe ten or twelve years old, tops, most of the time.

* [[All Love Is Unrequited]]: Though she falls head-over-heels for Soun Tendō, his daughters and future son-in-law object to the idea, and he himself doesn't seem to reciprocate, partially because he's still mourning his first wife.

A giant ghostly cat that Shampoo accidentally brought back to Nerima from a visit to China, Maomolin wants to claim a human wife and will do anything to get one.

 

* [[Grand Theft Me]]: Possessing people is his primary spiritual power. It never does any good.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Despite the fact he's a cat, he's fixated on taking a human wife.