Customer Ratings & Reviews

This collects the OVAs (Original Video Animation) made as a follow-up to the long-running TV series Ranma 1/2. Ranma 1/2 is one of the funniest anime ever made and is truly an essential series to own. The main character, Ranma Saotome, is a young martial artist who suffers from an unusual Chinese curse. When doused with cold water, he turns into a girl! (Hot water changes him back into a guy). His father, Genma, suffers from a similar curse but he changes into a panda! This sets up one of the most enjoyable anime comedies ever made. Lots of sight gags and some more ironic humor plus some crazy Jacky Chan style martial arts antics makes for one of the best anime series around. Ranma 1/2 is always a delight to watch. Each episode in this collection is self-contained and tells a fun story. All are based on comedy except for one surprisingly dramatic episode. Each episode is very well animated and packs a lot of action into each half-hour. The series also has a nice, bouncy musical score that fits the light-hearted feel of the series nicely. There are also some excellent opening and closing songs. The only extras are title free versions of the opening and closing sequences from the Japanese releases. These are like anime music videos with the characters from Ranma 1/2. Fun to watch, but these are the only extras. The Ranma 1/2 OVAs assume you are familiar with the seies and the characters, but even if you aren't, you won't have much trouble catching up. Make certain you watch this in Japanese rather than English. The English voice cast is OK, but nowhere near as good as the Japanese cast. Ranma's English voice's aren't so good, his male voice sounds like a girl and his female voice sounds like she swallowed sandpaper, the voices for Ranma in the Japanese version are much better suited to the character. Some of the English cast also sound age inappropriate. This is not a problem with the Japanese cast, they all sound perfect for each character. The Japanese cast also includes Kikuko Inoue, one of anime's finest actresses, in a prominent supporting role.