It’s not easy being teenage martial artist
Ranma Saotome, but it’s even worse when your martial-artist father
Genma takes you from home at an early age to go on a decade-long training mission. He doesn’t speak a word of Chinese, and yet he insists upon bringing you to the cursed training ground known as Jusenkyo, where falling into one of the many springs there instantly turns you into whoever-or whatever-drowned there last. And then, the two of you have this little accident…
From now on, a splash of cold water will turn your father into a giant panda, while you…well, you turn into a red-haired (and problematically well-built) female version of yourself. Hot water will reverse the effect, but only until the next time. What’s a half-guy, half-girl to do?
Ranma Saotome and his father, Genma, both practitioners of the Saotome school of anything-goes martial arts, fall into the cursed springs of the legendary training ground of Jusenkyo in mainland China during a training mission. Each spring holds a different curse for any who come in contact with its water, all of which involve who or what has drowned in the spring in the past – Ranma emerges from the spring a girl and Genma a panda, both now cursed to change forms each time they come in contact with hot and cold water.
At the end of their training mission, Genma decides to Take up residence with his old training partner, Soun Tendo, owner of the Tendo dojo and head of the Tendo school of anything-goes martial arts, dragging a reluctant Ranma along with him. Soun and Genma discuss the arrangements they had made in the past involving Ranma becoming engaged to one of Soun’s three daughters in order to combine the two schools and allow Ranma to inherit the Tendo dojo. It’s informally decided that he is to be engaged to Akane Tendo, Soun’s youngest daughter, and the two must put up with one another – and their engagement – as Ranma and his father settle into domestic life at the Tendo household.
Ranma, raised to be a man among men, has a bit of a problem: he is half woman! While training in China he fell into a strange magic spring at Jusenkyo. Now, he is eternally cursed to change into a beautiful woman whenever he is hit by cold water, but that may be the least of his problems; his father has betrothed him to marry! There’s never a dull day for Ranma as he attempts to find a cure for his curse, train to become stronger, and grapple with the fact that half of himself may be more feminine than his fiancée!