Ranma ½
Ranma 1/2

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My first manga that I've read so I am really biased. The overall story and plot was decent so my review is completely based off of nostalgia.
The characters themselves are iconic and the comedy was quite something.

It was a shame that the anime didn't adapt the best arcs in the story (in my opinion) but that was all the more reason to read the manga. Although, I do remember some of the jokes being a bit iffy but nowhere near as bad as other animes during the time this was released and they are far and inbetween so I didn't notice as much.

I would recommend ... this and I'm thinking of reading it again so I'm hoping that it is as good as I remember

:)

Story: (3)
We have a male protagonist, who is forced into a arranged marriage. Further the protagonist is cursed, when splashed with cold water, he will turn into a woman. So, the story is a romance, plus the search for a cure for the curse, somewhat.
The romance part was a huge let down, while there were some short romantic moment, those moments were never satisfying to read since all of those moments where destroyed by trying to hard to to be funny. (using characters go to jokes) The peak of the let down was the "on the brink of death, I love you, oh I survived ... and heard everything"-part. And on top of that, again ruined by trying to be funny.
Search for the cure:
There were sections where there was a potential cure, which turned out to not work... Until the end of the story. Period.
Rest of the Story: just random slapstick comedy.

Art: (9)
There is nothing to rant about the art and drawings. Everything was looking good and was drawn well.

Characters: (1)
No mental character development. The characters did not change a bit from beginning to end of this manga. And so did the comedy. Always same behavior patterns. Was just annoying at some point for some characters ...

Enjoyment: (5)
Well, I did read it till the end, so I did enjoy it to some degree. The Comedy was at first funny, but the jokes got repetitive and cracking the same joke over and over and over until the end, just got annoying. Same chapter's where so annoying, that I just skipped them.
There where some cute moments, but they always got ruined by the comedy.

I don't care how "iconic" Ranma 1/2 is...I got seriously disappointed at this series.

At the end of 38 rather lengthy volumes only one of all the plot lines is ever resolved, leaving a very anti-climatic open ending. Regarding the humor, is completely repetitive. Yes, during the whole 38 volumes Rumiko Takashi basically repeats the same formula and gags over and over and over varying only the characters and the circumstances. Not to mention that with every new characters that is added, a new plot lines is added also ( and as I said before, only one of all those plot lines is ever resolved ). ...

There is also very little to non-existent character development throughout the series. Ranma and Akane are basically the same characters from beginning to end with the only difference of them becoming honest with their feelings, but nothing more, their behavior is essentially the same through and through.

My recommendation, if you like old school martial arts gender bender mangas is to pick "Futaba-kun Change!" instead if you haven't read it already