Grand Comic Reading Project #4: Ranma 1/2

[feihong]

Welcome to the fourth installment of the Grand Comic Reading Project!

Chinese Title: 乱马１／２

Japanese Title: らんま½

English Title: Ranma 1/2

Character Set: Simplified and Traditional

Genre: Comedic Martial Arts Action Romance

Country of Origin: Japan

Year of First Publication: 1987

Series Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma

Read Online (Simplified):

http://www.dm5.com/Type.aspx?id=852

Jump to first page: http://www.dm5.com/C...e88e_page-3.htm

Read Online (Traditional):

http://www.89890.com/Comic/1308/

Jump to first page: http://www.89890.com/Comic/1308/1/?3

Buy Online:

Simplified: http://product.dangd...3&ref=book-02-L

Traditional: http://www.books.com...item=0010326218

Difficulty:

Medium. Starts out easy, but gets harder. Contains some martial arts and anatomy vocabulary.

Legibility: Very good

Summary: Martial arts hijinks and instantaneous sex changes go hand-in-hand in this classic, long-running manga series.

Page Counts:

Volume 1: 180

Volume 2: 184

Volume 3: 184

... (total of 38 volumes)

CBZ Files: Download from wiki page

Word List: http://grandcomic.wi...a_1/2_Word_List

[renzhe]

Keep in mind that the traditional and simplified translations have different names for many of the characters. The simplified ones stick much more closely to the Japanese original, while the traditional version adapted them to be more Chinese.

My first guess was that the Taiwanese version appeared much earlier, and later comics tend to stick to Japanese names more closely (see for example the changes in Doraemon), but apparently the Mainland translations used Japanese names more than 15 years ago already.

I'll give a short list of the differences once I get home.

[feihong]

@renzhe:

Could you add the character names directly to the Ranma Word List?

[renzhe]

Will do (when I'm back home).

Incidentally, it seems that there are even more variations than I thought. For example, the anime dub I saw changed the Tendo family name to 錢 (but the dojo is still called Tendo Dojo).

EDIT: I've tried editing the names directly into the wiki, but the interface is killing me, and it's too much hassle, keeps changing fonts randomly, etc. I gave up after about 15 minutes and I'll post them here instead. I'll list some of the later characters but without any spoilers, since the names might be confusing later.

Traditional - Simplified - Japanese - Early Taiwanese - Romanised Japanese

--------

早乙女 亂馬 - 早乙女 乱马 - 早乙女 乱馬 - 姬 亂馬 - Saotome Ranma - Male protagonist

早乙女 玄馬 - 早乙女 玄马 - 早乙女 玄馬 - 姬 玄毛 - Saotome Genma

天道 早雲 - 天道 早云 - 天道 早雲 - 錢 天道 - Tendo Soun - Head of the Tendo Dojo

天道 茜 - 天道 茜 - 天道 あかね - 錢 小茜 - Tendo Akane - Ranma's fiancée

天道 靡 - 天道 美 - 天道 なびき - 錢 小靡 - Tendo Nabiki

天道 霞 - 天道 霞 - 天道 かすみ - 錢 小霞 - Tendo Kasumi

九能 帯刀 - 九能 带刀 - 九能 帯刀 - 游帶刀 - Kuno Tatewaki

九能 小太刀 - 九能 小太刀 - 九能 小太刀 - 游小刀 - Kuno Kodachi

久遠寺 右京 - 久远寺 右京 - 久遠寺 右京 - 燕 右京 - Kuonji Ukyo

響 良牙 - 响 良牙 - 響 良牙 - 向良牙 - Hibiki Ryoga

小乃東風 - 小乃东风 - 小乃東风 - 許醫師 - Dr. Ono Tofu

珊璞 - 珊璞 - 珊璞 - 珊璞 - Shampoo

沐絲 - 沐丝 - 沐絲 - 賀 沐志 - Mousse

That should cover the important and tricky ones. I used the Chinese wiki page for this, mostly.

The traditional-character scan looks like the Taiwanese version.

EDIT: LOL, my simplified version switches to calling Genma "早云" in later volumes. That's quite a mess.

[feihong]

Ah, that explains Tendo Soun's "slip" on this page:

http://www.89890.com/Comic/1308/1/?6

"我們錢家的前途會更好."

I guess the translator saw the anime dub first!

UPDATE: As explained in renzhe's post above, this is not a slip, but the actual name of Akane's family in the traditional version. However the name of the dojo is still 天道, which is confusing.

[renzhe]

jbradfor asked if someone could recommend some good storylines, for the people who do not want to read the whole 7500+ pages. Here are some of my favourite storylines:

Vol 1 & 2 are a must-read. They introduce the Saotome and Tendo families and the backstory. Also, important characters like Ryoga, Kodachi, Tatewaki and Dr. Ono are introduced.

Vol 4, Part 5 - Part 10 (p42): Shampoo shows up. Shampoo is the funniest character in the comic.

Vol 9, Part 5 - Part 11 (p35): Ukyo shows up and tries to put Akane and Ryoga together. Ranma interferes by pretending to be Ryoga's fiancee.

Vol 10, Part 1 - Part 3: Akane drinks a pill that will make her fall in love with the first boy she sees. Then a few average parts follow, but they introduce Mousse, who is a major character.

Vol 11, Part 1 - Part 3: Akane visits Ryoga alone at home. Ranma interferes by pretending to be Ryoga's sister. This is one of my favourites.

Vol 11, Part 7 - Part 11 (p51): Akane drinks two potions. The first one makes her hug everyone who sneezes, the second makes her the strongest person in the world

Vol 16, Part 1 - Part 7: Ranma, Akane, Ukyo, Ryoga, Shampoo and Mousse all join a three-legged race. This is also one of my favourites.

Vol. 17, Part 5 - Part 10 (p33): Akane calls off the engagement, and gives Ranma over to Nabiki. Also one of my favourites.

Vol 22, Part 2 - Part 10 (p9): Ranma's mother shows up, Ranma and Genma run for their lives. Shampoo finds a medallion which makes her hate Ranma, which doesn't sit well with his ego. Also a really good one.

Vol 25, Part 3 - Part 9 (p17): Teacher Ninomiya Hinako shows up to sort out juvenile delinquents in the school. Apparently, Ranma is high on the list. Due to a very unorthodox technique, she is the most powerful character in the comic, and utterly undefeatable.

That covers about 2/3 of the comic. Shampoo and Ukyo are among my favourite supporting characters, and I love the storylines involving many characters competing for something. I don't like the storylines involving strange competitions (card games, ice-skating, fighting gymnastics, excessive eating, etc.) or the wannabe Hawaiian principal. But most of the stories are good fun.

[feihong]

This is an awesome list, renzhe! Thank you!

[jbradfor]

Awesome! Thanks, renzhe.

I've tried editing the names directly into the wiki, but the interface is killing me, and it's too much hassle, keeps changing fonts randomly, etc

I usually drop into editing things at the source level, for just these reasons.

LATER EDIT: added it. Formatting needs work, but at least it's there....

[renzhe]

I've added the page numbers to the storylines, so they are easier to find. The page numbers refer to the online scans, linked to in the first post. Pick the volume, then go to the page. It should work for both the simplified and traditional scans, but it may be off by a page or so.

Keep in mind that the simplified scan switches to traditional about half-way through. I don't know if there is a complete simplified scan available somewhere.

This comic is so much fun to read, I really recommend everyone to give it a quick go. The more you read, the funnier it gets.

[feihong]

@renzhe: At what volume does it switch from Simplifed to Traditional?

[renzhe]

The first 15 are simplified, from vol 16 on it seems to switch to traditional. I'm talking about the one on the web, not the .cbz files.

I didn't check each and every one.

[Gleaves]

Thanks for all this info, especially for the list of names. That postcard had me all confused for a minute, but the list helped clear it up. (FYI - I have a hard copy from Taiwan, and the names follow the "Traditional" column).

Only a few pages in, but I am already enjoying it. I watched an episode or two of the anime in Chinese a while back, so it is all familiar, but I think I will enjoy the manga more.

[feihong]

Just finished reading volume 3, in traditional. Pretty good so far.

[jbradfor]

I just download vol 1 last night I'll get there eventually...

[jbradfor]

Read vol 1 over the weekend. Easy to get done in a weekend if you ignore other house tasks :o

So far, much better than I expected.

Couple of questions.

People say of 小茜 that she 討厭男生 (e.g. on page T52), would it be clear to the reader to assume she is lesbian, or just that "she's not interested in boys yet"?

On page T74 (and many others), many people use the term "交往". MDBG defines this as "to associate / to contact / association / contact". But the context seems much closer to "to date" -- or something even more intimate. How should this be translated here?

Page T127 -- when 小茜 was selling the photos to 游帶刀 for 三張一千元, what currency is that? I assume it's not USD :-) I assume it's not JPY either, as that would be pretty cheap. Since this translation is for for Taiwan market (right?), I assume NTD? [i thought that scene was very funny.]

[renzhe]

People say of 小茜 that she 討厭男生 (e.g. on page T52), would it be clear to the reader to assume she is lesbian, or just that "she's not interested in boys yet"?

She's not lesbian, she just hates boys, which is understandable once you see how much they are pestering her.

交往 is like "date", have a romantic involvement, at least in this context.

As for yuan, I don't know. Don't forget that this comic is pretty old. I don't know what the exchange rate was in the 80s, and these are teenagers, after all. N.B. that was 小美/小靡, 小茜's evil sister.

[feihong]

I've somehow managed to read all the way through Volume 11 (straight through, I didn't just skip to the good parts). This series is like crack.

[jbradfor]

N.B. that was 小美/小靡, 小茜's evil sister.

AH! I did miss that, thanks for the correction. That does change things.

[bande]

This series was a great choice. It was a real favorite of mine, well I won't say how long ago, but still great choice. It's a little weird to go back and see how much more normal the names seem than they way their romanized form. Also, one of my favorite lines from the first volume is: "只是脾气太暴躁”. Also, for US readers, I did manage to purchase the simplified version of the manga, atleast the first two volumes, in the US, so it is floating around out there.

[jbradfor]

Volume 2, page T139, 小茜 is concerned that 良牙 got a "腫瘤". Both MDBG and nciku defines this as a "tumor". I'm pretty sure she's not really concerned about getting a tumor from being wet. What does she mean here?

[renzhe, in some post somewhere, but not in this thread, I think you made a reference to "the famous bathroom scene." In what volume is this? Even through vol 2, there's already been a couple that might count....]