~Ranma �~

Ran-Chan
Ranma Nibunnoichi or Ranma Saotome is really in fact a male turned into a red head female which on occasion he's called Ran-chan when drenched with cold water. Where as the direct opposite is when he's drenched in hot/boiling water she turns back into a he, really confusing at first why this particular individual does this bizarre transformation of genders. But as the series moves on we actually do find out why he becomes a she as almost everyone else in the series of Ranma � changes into something or someone just as much as Ranma turns into Ran-chan. It always involves a haunting past of some sort of heinous experiment or tragic event. In the case for Ranma quite tragic not so willingly and sort of forced into going along with his father Genma Saotome. Father and son decide to one day to swim to China and train to be manly men by training in the cursed springs of Jusenkyo a place famous for it's many visits for training. Guess what happens? They didn't exactly call this place the cursed springs for no reason so unfortunately after one or two matches in the springs of Jusenkyo we find that they soon fall into them cursed springs and out comes something not of themselves. These so called cursed springs seemingly keep tragic histories of past people drowning in them and whomever falls into the springs takes form of the thing/person who drowned in it last. So for Genma Saotome he became a panda while our lucky hero not exactly so lucky in this case but lucky enough to not become an animal became a female and thus begins the life of Ranma now not quite a man... and not quite a woman. Funny how later that we find out that Genma's goal in life is to train Ranma into a manly man to his wife and Ranma's mom Nodoka that he's succeeded in doing so... but now harder to explain how Ranma is a woman as well. Irony is funny that way don't you agree?

~Akane Tendo~
Akane Tendo, the infamous "kawaikune" fianc�e and horrible cook of Ranma �. The supposed couples that were meant to be never really took off, though I got to admit Akane Tendo is definitely among the normal side of Ranma's so many fianc�es. Just that she has a lot of disabilities and acts way too tomboyish even beyond the normal Ukyou Kuonji and we thought she went to an all boy school remember that well. We meet Akane Tendo really early in the series as the youngest daughter of 3 to the Tendo Family where quite suddenly she was appointed the one to care on the Anything Goes Martial Arts Tendo Hall which then brings us to Ranma the fianc� which at first Akane meets as a female oddly enough but then that's where the chaos and fun begins.

~Nabiki Tendo~
Nabiki Tendo, the second daughter of the Tendo family is the cunning underhanded scheming sister of the family. She finds in any way possible to earn a yen, though her goals are always of money she still has a lot more compassion than oh say Kodachi of the Kuno family. Nabiki Tendo thankfully is the more attentive sister of the household next to Akane Tendo who is usually at the scene of the mess/chaos involved around the Ranma cast. But suddenly she disappears from the scene for awhile and only pops in every so often to pick on Tatewake Kuno or randomly at home in the background snickering as usual trying to understand her family.

~Ukyou Kuonji~
Ukyou Kuonji for those who don't know her too well, she is the normal fianc�e for Ranma. In knowledge to her fighting skills (a huge spatula and mini spatulas that she throws as ninja stars) cooking skills(cooking food that's edible!), owns an Okonomiyaki restaurant, swimming and over all cute looking, she best fits the perfect wife to be. Although Ukyou and Ranma were declared to be engaged over an exchange of an Okonomiyaki carriage by Ranma's father, (Genma Saotome) he ended up taking the carriage and left Ukyou behind was rather sad to see and since Ranma was small he never knew that his father did this to him. (in fact Ranma sort of knew, just that he was young and when Genma asked him what he wanted... Ukyou or Okonomikyai and Ranma chose Okonomiyaki over Ukyou) Of course later on in the series, Ukyou finds out that she wasn't the ONLY one to be engaged and meets up with Akane Tendo. When Ukyou finds out Ranma and Akane don't EXACTLY get along, she takes that into account and discusses it over a briefly for a truce in the battle with Akane for Ranma and Ukyou officially became Ranma's cute fianc�e where Akane became Ranma's uncute fianc�e. As you've also noticed Ukyou doesn't change into anything when splashed or drenched with cold water, which is due to the fact that she never drowned in the curse springs of Jusenkyo. All but what keeps her truly normal is that Ukyou had a weird past attending to an all boy school (she did this to punish herself never to love anyone but Ranma again because she was left behind) and she did look like a boy until she grew taller, matured, grew curves, puberty basically and pretty much later finds Ranma. He then finds out that he (Ukyou) is in fact a she on his own when Ukyou comes a searching for a person named Ranma for a challenge and to much his surprise after cutting poor Ukyou's school uniform open during that match.

~Shampoo~
Shampoo the Amazon lady whom Ranma meets early in the series while going to train with his father once again causes more trouble. Of course this time he's not so lucky for one can say as Ran-chan while traveling bypasses a village full of powerful ladies from the amazon in China. One day as Ran-chan was hungry and knowing the way she loves to eat whenever she gets the chance (man look at him, he has Akane AS a cook) and comes upon a cart full of food. Knowing Genma he quickly dashes ahead of Ran-chan to try to snatch the food and eat it all for himself. Not knowing of the situation they were getting themselves into they munched down all of the food, when suddenly a purple haired lovely female walks up and taps Ran-chan's shoulder. Luckily enough (since Genma and Ran-chan hardly understand a single word of Chinese) the Jusenkyo guide was with them while traveling and he translates for Ran-chan that this female's name is Shampoo. He continues to explain that the food that Genma and Ran-chan finishes off is the grand prize to the winner who wins the fight. Shampoo wasn't too happy and was quite upset so she challenges Ran-chan to a fight for eating the food. In the amazon where Shampoo lives every so often a fight is held to see who amongst the village is the strongest and this time Shampoo won victoriously and overwhelmingly over all the other ladies easily. Yes funny as it as Ran-chan with one high kick, sends Shampoo flying off to the side and was declared winner of the fight (stunned all the audience with gasps) and Ran-chan stood silently while waiting for the translation of the gasps and words that the other ladies were yelling. The Jusenkyo guide then explains that in this village if winner be female loser will apply the kiss of death and will be hunted, chased and stalked until she is dead. If the winner is male, the champion is to warmly embrace him and get married since in her village tradition is that they have strong offspring to lead for the next generation. Ran-chan after realizing her BIG mistake dashes off in hopes of losing Shampoo, but of course as the series continues things clear up and things get better. Shampoo is one of several Jusenkyo victims who just happen to drop into one while training with her grandmother (Cologne) after she lost to Ran-chan. Shampoo takes the curse of a small white kitten or neko in Japanese meaning cat. Thus without furthering explaining how Shampoo became the other fianc�e to Ranma, since he kind of brought this upon himself that and with the help of the amazon laws he now has 3 fianc�es with Shampoo being the third. Unlike Akane as well, Shampoo owns a restaurant and can cook, (Ramen and all sorts of oriental food!) knows martial arts with or without weapons, cunning, awfully cute and can be sweet when needed to be. Meow...

Hinako
Miss Hinako known to many in the Ranma � series is Ranma and to other students of Furikan High's teacher. Although she appears near the end of the series in only a few episodes, Miss Hinako placed quite a memorable place within the Ranma � universe. Miss Hinako is quite the fighter using an old method from the ever infamous Happosai who taught her this technique when she was young in the hospital to cure her, but as she recovered she learns to use this technique in more ways than just that. Miss Hinako technique is called Happo-five yen satsu, the way she does this is by using her chi powers and focus on anything that is within a circular form (usually a five yen coin) and absorbs the fighter's battle energy to herself which enables her to grow to a seductive, sexy, and mature adult lady. After the absorption of the battle energy besides making her grow, it also leaves the fighter quite exhausted and causes the fight usually to end rather quickly. Miss Hinako after growing and if the fighter is surprisingly is able to fight, she'll release the energy absorbed from the circular form calling forth a blast of energy towards the fighter. The only drawback of this technique is that she has to absorb battle energy and grow before doing the energy blast and whenever it is released or not released within a certain amount of time, for Miss Hinako shrinks back to a small kawaii girl. The thing that can counter her energy blast is after she has grown and someone is to hit her pressure points to force her back to a small girl, it sounds rather easy but for any male it is hard due to the location of the pressure points. The 5 pressure points are spread out, 3 on her right breast and 2 on the back of her right shoulder and it must be pressed all at once. Not only that, the pressure points must be done everyday for 30 days and last of all it's often quite embarrassing to go for a woman's breast in public don't you think? The best of this technique is it can be repeatable as often as she absorbs battle energy and depending on the size of the object the blast she releases can vary. Besides being powerful Miss Hinako is usually/prefers to be the gentle, childish, playful little girl teacher and only uses her powers on so called "delinquents". Miss Hinako even when she appears as an adult, loves to play around and not does what she's supposedly to do usually teaching her class. Such as when she was to attend the Tendo's place where Ranma lives and do a parent's report. When she reached the Tendo's place she ended up catching Genma as a panda and thinking the panda was cute ( since she didn't know Genma is the father to Ranma ) she plays with it awhile and so it was delayed until the next day. Of course the next day she finds lots of video games and plays with that the whole day thus delaying it again, and so eventually she forgets it totally and the parent's report is never done.