Ranma 1/2 (らんま1/2) season 2 of the remake is continuing with the manga by Takahashi Rumiko. Season 2 initially aired during the Fall of 2025.
The second season kicks off with the introduction of a character who barely made an appearance in the original anime adaptation, Gosunkugi Hikaru. Gosunkugi is a loner occult otaku who is obsessed with Akane. He decides to use his dark arts knowledge to remove Ranma from the picture. In the process he discovers Ranma's one weakness, cats, and attempts to use that to destroy him. Instead he unleashes a secret power that is the result of Ranma's cat trauma, the cat fist technique. Unfortunately for Ranma he struggles to stay away from the felines, especially one in particular that is revealed to be Shampoo. The amazon has returned, with her grandmother, and reveals that she was forced to endure training at Jusenkyo. She was unlucky enough to fall into the spring of drowned cat.
In addition to the two women, a man from their village, Mousse, has come to Japan as well. He believes he is the true suitor for Shampoo and decides to use Akane as a foil in his efforts to defeat Ranma, hoping to use that victory to win Shampoos hand. Too compound matters more, a friend from childhood shows up as another fiance, the feisty okinomiyaki chef, Ukyo. She realizes how much Ryoga likes Akane and uses this as a way to get her out of the way so she can take Ranma for her self. With all this insanity and scheming how will Ranma ever get the training in to return to being a full boy...especially when the master of anything goes martial arts begins to cause a problem in the city.
The second season of the remake is a welcome continuation of MAPPA's fantastic vision for Ranma. This season is packed with introducing all of the characters that will become permanent players for the rest of the story...however long they decide to keep it going. But...from here on out things can tend to take on a repetitive position. From the knowledge of the original anime adaptation, there is really no more important characters introduced and it becomes a series of similar plot lines revolving around martial arts competitions and schemes. This season however, we are eating good!
MAPPA continues to do fantastic work in breathing new life into this story, with high quality animation and well placed comedy. Its great that almost all of the original cast has returned to do this series, some of who got their start with the original. The third season was announced after season two ended and they chose an interesting way of promoting it. It looks like we will be kicking off with the breaking point technique. The trailer goes hard to present Ranma as a serious and dramatic story...but we all know its slap stick comedy, so it will be fun to see how they actually translate this story and how far the next season brings us into the manga.
This season and the first are available on Netflix.
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