Ranma ½ Season 3 ‒ Episode 4
My main problem with it is probably cultural. As a Scottish man, my idea of a tea ceremony is boiling the kettle, pouring the steaming water into a chunky mug, then dumping a Tetley's Tea Bag into it to steep for a minute or two before fishing out the resulting soggy lump, then adding a generous splash of milk. Sugar is for the weak. However, the Japanese have a mind-bogglingly complex ritual around tea-drinking that leaves me both baffled and confused, and I suspect the vast majority of other Western fans are similarly uneducated in tea ceremony intricacies. This is one of the unfortunate examples of Japanese culture-specific comedy just not translating to other audiences. I'm unfamiliar with the underlying concept, so when it and its very specific terminology are lampooned, I'm lost. It's not funny, merely… odd.
The main reason I'm giving the episode a rating just into the positive side of the scale is for the series' steadfast commitment to excellently-staged slapstick. I'm not going to be amused by Ranma and Akane's exaggerated expressions in reaction to comedic violence, or such absurd situations as Ranma fighting a trained monkey in a martial arts tea ceremony battle so that a random dude he just met doesn't have to marry said monkey. Once again Ranma ends up fighting in a battle that has nothing to do with him, for an outcome he doesn't want, though this time the setup is more ridiculously contrived than usual.
New male character Sentaro hardly endears himself with his use of paralysis-inducing tea on female Ranma. Date rape drugs weren't ok even back in the 1980s, my dude. He's voiced in Japanese by Lelouch Lamperouge himself, Jun Fukuyama, so that's fun at least. His elderly mother (or is it grandmother?) is voiced by living legend Masako Nozawa, best known as the 90-year-old voice of Dragon Ball's Goku, remarkably still hard at work!
MAPPA continues to impress with some excellent animated sequences, especially the early scene where Akane launches an umbrella at the fleeing Sentaro, in an attempt to rescue Ranma. For once, the central couple barely bicker in this episode, and Akane only involves herself in the madness to save Ranma, who, due to his overdeveloped ego, keeps getting himself further embroiled in completely avoidable scenarios. Hopefully future episodes will adapt better parts of the manga.
Rating:
Ranma ½ Season 3 is currently streaming on
Netflix.
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