Ranma ½
Ranma Forever:
Kiss Me, Cat
Reviewed by:
Alex Barry (November 4, 2002)
Cover: The cover for this volume sports a fairly up-close
shot of Ranma and Shampoo playing a bit of tonsil-hockey, with part
of the cat temple in the background. It's a nice picture and all,
but it's not one of my favorites. Besides looking a touch more prissy
than Ranma ½ covers normally are, it's also a bit misleading to the
conclusion of the episode it's from. The back cover features the standard
three screenshots with a brief summery of each episode. Nothing new,
here.
Audio: The sound for this volume is, on a whole, quite
good. The opening and closing themes for Season 7 are some of the
best in the series (in my opinion, anyway), and the BGM is top-notch.
In fact, I noticed a few BGM tracks in this volume that I don't recall
hearing in Ranma ½, before. All of the new and old tracks fit the
on-screen action quite well, and were a joy to listen to. The voice
work was quite well done, also. For some reason, some of the voices
in the English track seemed a bit inconsistent in volume, towards
the beginning of the first episode, but that was the only flaw I picked
up on.
Video: Sharp, bright, and clear as a crystal! Even in
spite of the somewhat dull color palette often seen in Ranma ½, the
colors seemed very vibrate, especially in the 2nd episode. Throughout
the entire DVD, I didn't notice any cross-coloring or anything like
that (although I wasn't looking for it, admittedly). The animation
and character artwork, while not as good as some newer series, were
smooth and detailed. As a whole, Season 7 has been very easy on the
eyes, and this volume is no exception.
Extras: Not much, here. It would be nice if we actually
got some decent extras for this series every now and then, but I'm
not holding my breath. At least the music for the menus works, which
is a step up from volume #2.
Content: One thing I noticed about Season 7 of Ranma ½,
is that the episodes have felt very satisfying to watch. By that,
I mean that there haven't really been any that I've watched and then
gone, "Well, that was pointless." Since the episodes stopped being
continuing after the 2nd Season, we're probably not going to see much
advancement of the plot. Still, there were just too many times during
Season 6 that the episodes would just bore me, and didn't really add
anything to the Ranma ½ anime, as a whole. In Season 7, however, the
episodes have been much more interesting, evenly-paced, and have made
good use of the characters that appear in each story.
The first episode on this disk deals with Shampoo being captured by
the Ghost Cat, and Ranma and the gang having to save her. Too bad
it's never that simple... While being "captured", Shampoo makes a
deal with the Ghost Cat that if her prince (a.k.a. Ranma) kisses her,
he must release her from the spell she's under and allow her to leave.
However, if Ranma doesn't kiss Shampoo by a certain time, then she'll
turn permanently into a cat and have to marry the Ghost Cat. To make
matters worse, the temple where Shampoo is being held is chock-a-block
full of cats! Zany antics ensure. Having skipped over Season 4 and
5, this was my first real introduction to the Ghost Cat, and I have
to say that I enjoyed him. This episode also gets thumbs up for having
plenty of laugh-out-loud hilarious scenes involving Ranma and the
hoard of cats. The second episode is a bit less madcap, but still
had its hilarious moments. In a nutshell, there's this old guy on
his deathbed who dreams of his lost childhood love (who, coincidently,
looks just like female Ranma), and haunts Ranma's dreams. In an effort
to rid his dreams of the old man, as well as grant his final wish,
Ranma takes his spirit on a date. There's some great BG art in this
episode, especially the scenes with the cherry blossoms, which are
simply beautiful. The story itself seemed a little formulaic of Takahashi's
ghost stories, but had enough touching/humorous moments to make it
worth watching. The conclusion is also very unexpected, and equally
funny.
The third and final episode on the disk (and probably my favorite)
has to do with Ranma, Genma, the Tendo's, Ryoga, Mousse, and Kuno
going to a "mushroom temple" for a vacation. It was weird seeing Mousse
without Shampoo, but beyond that, this episode had some great character
interactions. It also took some time to let the characters interact
before jumping into the main storyline, which I thought was nice.
Eventually, everyone is having a feast of mushrooms, and everyone
except for Ranma and Akane get poisoned. The two of them run off to
a shrine at the top of a nearby mountain to get some pieces of a magic
mushroom (It's always a magic mushroom, isn't it?) and cure everyone,
when the mushroom expert-guy pulls out a cure of his own. Everyone
is rid of the poison, but Ranma and Akane accidentally ate some love
mushrooms before they left, and have to eat some of the magic mushroom
themselves, otherwise they'll be in love forever. Naturally, Kuno
and Ryoga go after them to make sure they eat some of the magic 'shroom,
while Mousse tries to stop them so that they can fall in love and
he will have Shampoo all to himself. As Ranma says at one point during
the episode, "This is getting a bit complicated..." I liked this episode
because the dialogue between everyone was great, and it was a nice
change of pace to see Ranma and Akane acting all lovey-dovey, for
once. On top of that, watching this episode gave me a craving for
mushrooms, and I don't usually even like them!
"Kiss Me, Cat" was another great volume of one my favorite anime
series, and I'd recommend that any Ranma ½ fan pick it up. Although
a bit disjointed in continuity, the episodes on this disk were a lot
of fun, and ones that I certainly plan of re-watching. Plus, there's
not a single shot of Happosai to be seen!
Season 7 has shown a lot of promise, and is shaping up to be one of
the best since the really early episodes. So far, at least, it looks
like Ranma ½ is one anime that's going out in style. Let's just hope
the other five disks in this Season keep up the good work!
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