Intro:
At long last, we’ve reached the final episode of the Ranma ½ remake’s first season. In it, we see Ranma take on the task of finding a cure for Akane upon discovering that the attack she faced from Shampoo during their duel caused her to only forget about him. This episode was never meant to stand as a culmination of awesome events and characters built up over the course of the season. Rather, it’s an episode that primarily focuses on the romance between Ranma and Akane by making apparent how strong their bond has become as a result of the character development they’ve had because of all the wacky situations that’s happened so far. With the challenges that Shampoo has presented and everyone’s resulting desperation to make Akane remember Ranma again, this finale takes every chance to show how much Ranma and Akane now mean to each other. Alongside this storyline, the episode also cements Shampoo as a more prominent character with more likable traits. In the midst of so many creative differences made throughout the entire remake in comparison to the original, I’d say it did a pretty nice job executing this episode considering the emotional delivery of some of its most poignant scenes and cute liveliness to many of the characters. Let’s go ahead and explore them all in more detail.
Episode 12: Shampoo Cleans Up
We open up first with one last variation of the situational intro. To my surprise, it was actually fairly simple with Ranma and Akane standing facing each other before a few simple backgrounds while arguing according to the narration. Although, towards the end Ranma is engulfed in a giant wave before we see him in his female form swimming as a mermaid in the sea – a change I found both surprising and creative. After this, we also get a well-paced recap of last episode’s events that lead us right to the present where Ranma sits in disbelief over Akane not knowing who he is.
Just within this first scene, this episode shows us just how many cute instances we’re going to get as a result of Ranma and Akane’s situation. With much of her hostility towards Ranma gone, we see Akane look up at him with the most adorable expression of curiosity as he remains insistent that she remembers who he is. Soon though, when Akane stares at him while her classmates try explaining everything to her, we get to see Ranma give her a sweetly serious look in return while blushing slightly. As we bask in Ranma’s adorable display of feelings, the sentimental moment is interrupted with Akane’s lighthearted attempts to nail down what everyone is talking about by listing words that sound similar to his name.
The cute atmosphere comes back to compliment this moment when Akane attempts to kick Ranma after taking P-Chan from her only for him to easily dodge it with a seemingly caring desire for her to calm down – more used to her temper than defensive about it at all. While a subtle instance, it’s one that defines his attitude towards her as momentarily gentle by highlighting his deep understanding of who she is and what’s going on. What follows is Akane appreciating Ranma’s advanced martial arts skill set when watching him jump away, but the scene still manages to end on a funny note when she asks who he is again even though everyone already told her it’s Ranma.
In the next scene, Ranma transforms P-Chan back into Ryoga so that he may interrogate him to find answers on what kind of attack Shampoo used on Akane to make her forget him. Much like the rest of their scenes, the entirety of it matches their foolish dynamic. Right from the beginning, Ryoga refuses to take part in helping Akane remember Ranma as he wants to take advantage of her lack of feelings for Ranma by making her fall in love with him instead. That is, of course, until Ranma hilariously blackmails Ryoga into telling him what happened by calling over a bunch of girls to see him naked. This is where we cut to him explaining what he saw Shampoo do during the duel – absolutely nothing. Shampoo landed on his face right before attacking Akane so he wasn’t able to see what happened. This rightfully earns him a hit from Ranma for being completely useless after all that convincing. Again, while the scene was rather foolish, the dramatic build-up that turned out to be for nothing made it a riot to watch as it held the same level of fun humor their scenes always do.
Naturally, the next scene shows Ranma and Akane going to Dr. Tofu for answers. Thankfully, this is something that he has as he explains that she used a Chinese fighting move called the Xi Fa Shiang Gao Shiatsu. Accompanied by Genma’s retelling of how the the duel between Akane and Shampoo went, we get a flashback that builds up our expectations to see Shampoo carry out an inevitably powerful strike – only to discover that it was actually a meticulous washing of Akane’s hair complete with special Shampoo and applied pressure points to manipulate her memories. While the big build up and pay off of this scene was quite funny, it also succeeds in giving Shampoo’s name a double meaning. After hearing that they’ll need the Shampoo used on Akane to cure her selective amnesia, the comedy continues as Ranma suddenly grabs Akane and starts jumping from roof to roof looking for Shampoo while Akane panics and screams the entire time. Here, we see how his intense martial arts skills can sometimes clash with Akane’s more grounded skills and make for a funny display of such a drastic contrast. To make matters worse, we then cut back to Dr. Tofu’s place to see Shampoo enter as his new assistant nurse – of course, rendering Ranma’s current search redundant.
The two arrive home next to see the rest of Akane’s family ask about her selective amnesia before Shampoo plays a little trick on Ranma to reveal that she’s in the room. While a small and short-lived moment, I truly loved how much more personality Shampoo has in this remake so far as I found her teasing so adorable. Quickly after she hugs Ranma though, Akane attacks him out of jealousy over the situation despite the fact that she still doesn’t know who he is. The quality execution of this moment made for an exciting watch as it confirmed that her affections for Ranma go so much deeper than the amnesia inflicted upon her that it has basically become instinct for her to act on them whenever necessary.
Even Shampoo acknowledges how strong her feelings for Ranma are as she whips out the shampoo to use the same attack on her again. This time though, Ranma grabs it from her and runs off to the bathroom with Akane to violently scrub her hair with it. The frantic energy of this scene made for a ridiculously intense moment that had me feeling so bad for Akane the entire time. Thankfully, Dr. Tofu interrupts them to announce that he’s using the wrong Shampoo and that he’ll need the bottle marked 119 – the formula booklet of which he has in his hand. However, just when all seems well, we all know it’s over when we cut to a romanticized shot of Kasumi. Inevitably, Dr. Tofu turns to her and starts ripping up the booklet due to the lack of sense his crush on her gives him. I will say, the way Ranma reacts by yelling “why are you ripping it up if we need that?!” did make for a rather hilarious ending to the scene. Despite the dialogue itself sounding quite unnatural, the delivery pretty much carried the comedy of it.
What comes next is probably one of the sweetest sequences of the episode as it shows Ranma packing his things determined to head to China to get the 119 shampoo that will make Akane remember him again. Looking past all of her family members’ pleas for Chinese souvenirs, Akane holds P-Chan while wondering why Ranma is going through this much trouble for her. Everything then stops when Ranma tells her to stay there and that she will remember him by the time he comes back. After this, he retracts a bit while blushing even harder than before, but without any regret for what he’s said. The praise he gets from both his father and Akane’s here is well deserved as this is the season’s ultimate display of Ranma’s need to have Akane in his life even if he won’t ever directly admit it. After all, why would anyone go through that amount of trouble for someone they did not love – especially when he could have left Akane for China to cure his curse this entire time instead?
Without any of her sour memories with Ranma to filter her reaction, we then get a shot of her watching him leave with a sort of far away fondness. Here, it’s made clear in every way that his efforts are so meaningful to her that she wants to remember him. This is impactful considering she spent the whole day prior either detesting or not caring about him at all. Combined, the way both Ranma and Akane handle the current situation at this point in the episode marks a more complex confirmation of their deeper feelings for each other. It also shows us the remake’s various ways of subtly making this clear, which includes the brand of soft music that plays whenever a moment like this happens – something that’s also been revamped from the original anime.
Ranma’s love for her bleeds through his determined attitude when he starts thinking that he’ll probably have to swim to China again in order to travel there for free. He doesn’t complain about this at all and takes it as something he’s willing to do in order to get Akane back, which speaks volumes about his devotion to her. Suddenly, Shampoo appears with the shampoo he’s looking for and from the minute she takes off, we’re already rooting for a battle that ends with Ranma besting her. While this isn’t exactly what happens, Ranma does continue to show that he’s willing to do anything to get his hands on that shampoo. It ends with him resorting to making a deal with Shampoo where she can ask him to do anything in exchange for the bottle with the exception that he doesn’t marry her or kill Akane. When she requests that he kills female Ranma for her instead, we get to see his shocked expression right before we cut to an image of female Ranma. While logically the worry here comes from how he’ll fake his own death, the tone of this shot also felt like subtle foreshadowing towards his eventual liking towards the cure – which felt big as a longtime fan of the anime.
We get another Ranma and Ryoga scene in response to this situation. Here, Ranma asks Ryoga to beat him up so that he looks almost dead to Shampoo in his female form. I will say, the short flashback we get of Shampoo agreeing to Ranma’s proposal for a half kill despite not knowing what that means was rather cute. However, what we get in present time is pretty chaotic as Ryoga refuses to beat Ranma up even though that’s basically all he ever wants to do to him. Considering how much this fact has been cemented into his character, while it makes sense for this moment, his refusal is quite an entertaining display of pettiness that makes us love and hate him even more.
While Ranma tricking Ryoga into doing so by taunting him is so on brand for the show, the events that follow show us Ranma’s foolishness as well. When we are shown an outside shot of the dojo, we assume that Ryoga is carrying out the task by wreaking havoc on him off camera. However, what we see next is an injured Ryoga along with the discovery that Ranma has been fighting back the whole time – completely defeating the purpose of the task. Quite chaotically, Genma and Soun then show up to beat him up successfully which leads to Akane intervening in a way that upsets Ranma – causing another quarrel between them.
Suddenly, something clicks within Akane when Ranma says she’s uncute. Soun sees this and picks up on the fact that Ranma’s familiar taunting is making her memory come back, which encourages him to keep saying more mean things to her. The two most prominent ones proceed to ring in her head over and over until we zoom in on an image of Ranma in her head – triggering the return of her memory. All of it builds up to her delivering one amazing smack to Ranma’s face that sends his entire body spinning. Although, such a moment of annoyance is brief as she then soon looks down at him with a soft smile as her father rejoices in the fact that she remembers Ranma.
However, the sweet moment is taken away once again with Shampoo breaking through the wall just to calmly enter the dojo, which personally had me internally screaming for her to use a door. She comes in to embrace Ranma again, only for Akane to showcase her restored memory by grabbing him by the braid and moving him away from her – an iconic move they kept from the original source material and anime. With Akane brashly expressing her anger towards Shampoo for what she did and Ranma protecting Akane from her attack, he decides to reveal his curse to Shampoo by pouring cold water on himself. In a tense moment of anticipation, I noticed how much more detail they gave Shampoo’s facial expression and overall character design as she stood there conflicted over what she just witnessed.
While it came as a bit of a funny shock to hear female Ranma casually lie by saying that the male form is only temporary, what comes next is rather intense yet somber. It’s clear that Shampoo is very conflicted and doesn’t really know how to respond until she decides to simply go to strike her. However, she then stops and Ranma opens her eyes to see Shampoo crying. As she walks away quietly saying goodbye in Chinese, everyone watches with concern and sympathy. I thought her reaction was so well adapted in this remake. Even after all she’s done, this sequence takes a moment to portray her as more than just another fiancee that Akane competes with. As a character, she comes off as very nuanced as we see all the conflicting emotions his curse causes her to feel as a woman from her particular culture.
When she leaves, we’re left actually caring about her and wondering what she is going to do now. The excellent amount of detail to her character design, personality, and emotions contribute to such a great execution of the expansion of her character in this particular episode. As for the final shot of the season, I thought it was rather odd for Ranma to say that it’s “a waste” to just let her go as it sounded pretty on the nose. It failed to tie together the entire season the way that I hoped it would, but it at least the notion that Shampoo would return as a more likeable character in the future.
Conclusion
Overall, I’d say the Ranma ½ remake succeeded in revamping the final episode of the season by letting the best parts of the series shine. Just the same as the original, heightening the subtle moments of vulnerability where they show how much they care about each other is what makes the romance between Ranma and Akane so exciting to watch. In addition, the increased amount of detail they gave Shampoo’s character design and personality set her up to be yet another likable character in the story of Ranma ½. Same goes for Ryoga as, while this episode definitely does not mark the first time we see this, they have developed his character well enough to make his interactions with Ranma almost as iconic as it was in the original anime. I also loved the amount of screentime that Akane’s friends and family received for this last episode as it seemed a fitting way to bring the most heartfelt elements of the show together. While it still had its flaws, such as awkward lines of dialogue and repetitive jokes, what we see in this last episode is the remake showing us the entirety of its style and solidifying it. Despite the ending line we’re left with, the atmospheric silence and more habitual musical cues made it strong enough as a bittersweet ending. More important than that, it tells us just how far Ranma has come while the episode itself hints at all that’s in store for him in the near future.
