The Modern Remake of the Classic Anime “Ranma ½” Is Coming to Netflix in October

I’ve noticed lately that the line separating “old-school” and modern anime has moved up far enough to make me feel my age. At a recent convention I was complaining good-naturedly about how Naruto isn’t old, dammit! And someone I was with replied, “Naruto … isn’t he Boruto’s dad?”

Old-school anime, for me, is anime of the 1980s. That means Space Battleship Yamato (Starblazers in the US), The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (which became the first part of Robotech), and, of course, Ranma ½.

Shogakukan

Ranma ½ was the third of legendary manga artist Rumiko Takahashi’s major manga titles, coming after science-fiction comedy Urusei Yatsura and romantic comedy Maison Ikkoku. Both of these titles wrapped up in 1987, the same year Takahashi created Ranma ½. She wrote her new manga as a martial arts story, tying in many aspects of everyday life to that theme—from martial arts cooking to combat figure skating and even a martial arts combat tea ceremony.

Ranma Saotome is a young martial artist who goes on a training trip to China with his father, Genma Saotome. While there, they come upon the legendary training grounds of Jusenkyo, where they train in aerial combat by perching on bamboo poles growing out of the numerous hot springs in the area. Unfortunately, the hot springs are cursed, each one causing anyone unlucky enough to fall in to transform into whatever creature once drowned in them whenever they are splashed with cold water. (Hot water changes them back.) While fighting, Genma falls into the Spring of Drowned Panda and is cursed to turn into a panda. Ranma falls into the Spring of Drowned Girl. This causes problems when Ranma and his father return to Japan and meet up with Genma’s old friend Soun Tendō and his three daughters, one of whom has been promised in marriage to Ranma.

Ranma ½ became a long-running hit series in Japan, published from August 1987 to March 1996. It spawned two TV anime series that aired from 1989 to 1992, three theatrical anime films, and 11 original straight-to-video animations, with the last of these released in 1996. Both the anime adaptations and the original manga were licensed in 1993 by Viz Media for release in the United States. The anime and Takahashi’s Mermaid Scar were the first two Viz released, and Ranma ½ was the company’s flagship title until Inuyasha, another Takahashi work, was released in the early 2000s.

Now, 35 years after the show first premiered on Japanese television, it’s getting a modern remake. The all-new Ranma ½ will debut on Nippon Television on October 5, 2024, with Netflix streaming it worldwide from October 6. The trailer, which dropped at the end of August, shows several scenes very familiar to fans like me (read: old) but drawn up in a new style that is still quite reminiscent of Takahashi’s art.

The producers have brought back many of the original Japanese voice actors for the main cast, including Kappei Yamaguchi as boy-type Ranma and Megumi Hayashibara as girl-type Ranma. Ranma was Yamaguchi’s first-ever voice acting role and Hayashibara’s first lead character role. They, along with fellow returning cast member Noriko Hidaka as Akane, still sound very much as they did when the original anime first debuted in 1989.

The original Ranma ½ is a classic in both manga and anime. With the returning voice talent and the visual style, this new version looks to be quite faithful to the original, but I am very interested to see how the creators will update the story for modern audiences.