Season
overview:
More information began to appear about the second season of Ranma 1/2 on May 23rd when artwork for Mousse debuted, however it was not until June 22nd that the new casting annoucements concerning Mousse, Ukyo, Happosai, Cologne and Gosunkugi were made. This was just a few weeks ahead of the annoucement that Takahashi's then on-going series, MAO would also be receiving an anime from Sunrise.
Episode 13: らんまの弱点
Ranma no jakuten (Ranma's Weakness)
Hikaru Gosunkugi, a strange student at Furinkan High is photographing Ranma and complaining. It seems that he too is in love with Akane and has developed an enmity for Ranma due to his engagement to Akane. As Gosunkugi continues to watch and photograph both Ranma and Akane, Ranma confronts him, and Gosunkugi swipes a hair from Ranma's head in an attempt to curse him with an occult ceremony. Kuno launches his usual attack on Ranma and is easily defeated, when Gosunkugi offers to discover Ranma's weakness in order to humiliate him. Kuno uses the opportunity to make Ranma promise that if Kuno defeats Ranma, Ranma will arrange a date for Kuno and the Pig-tailed Girl. Ranma feels confident no one will ever discover his weakness and so he readily accepts.
Gosunkugi begins to openly question everyone in the Tendo Household about Ranma's supposed weakness, which makes Akane curious about what it could be. Ranma assures her that he does not have a weakness, but when Hanachiyo, the neighbor's cat that Kasumi is watching goes missing, Ranma ends up finding it in a bush and screaming in horror. As it turns out, Genma reveals that due to a malicious and ill-conceived training regimen when Ranma was ten years old, involving dumping Ranma into a pit of cats while he was wrapped in sardines, Ranma has developed an overwhelming fear of cats. The rest of the family is in disbelief but take the opportunity to cover Ranma in felines just to see if it's true. While attempting to recover that night, Akane and Ranma discuss his fear, while Kasumi places Hanachiyo in a cat carrier so it does not bother Ranma any further. Using that opportunity, Gosunkugi sneaks up and opens the box, discovering Ranma's secret fear. The next day at school, Ranma and Akane receive a letter from "Akane" saying that she needs help and is being held captive in the gym. Ranma and Akane go to investigate only to find Gosunkugi cross dressing as Akane. Gosunkugi springs a trap for Ranma, but ends up dropping Akane into the basement of the gym. Ranma follows and quickly finds that Gosunkugi has filled it with cats. Ranma resists as best he can, but then Gosunkugi reveals he also placed a tiger in in with them. Akane points out that a tiger would scare anyone, and Ranma's feat reaches its pinnacle, causing him to begin to yowl like a cat.
In the gym, Kuno comes running to see if Gosunkugi's handiwork has paid off, only for Ranma to leap from the basement hole and attack Kuno, shredding his boken like it was paper. Ranma himself has transformed into a cat, as he has mastered the dreaded Cat Fist that Genma attempted to teach him so long ago. With his personality transformed into that of a cat, Ranma goes on a rampage, shredding things and jumping into around the school. Genma arrives in an attempt to calm him down, but fails, leaving Akane with a bag of catnip to use. The catnip works and Ranma leaps into Akane's lap where he shares a brief kiss with her, which embarrasses Akane enough that she punches him into the sky. Ranma lands in the swimming pool with no memory of what has occurred and Akane marches home in embarrassment.
Rumiko Takahashi spoke with Yui Aragaki ahead of the debut of season 2 in Shonen Sunday which can be read here. Additionally Noriko Hidaka and Megumi Hayashibara spoke about their performances in season 2.
This episode was touched on in an interview with the producers Koya Okamura and Kozo Sato in Animage 2025 vol. 11 when the two talked about the potential difficulty in showing Gosunkugi's behavior in the Reiwa era compared to when he originally appeared in the manga.
The opening, Wo Ai Ni has visual and lyrical references to previous Ranma 1/2 opening themes. The lyric "Iishanten" (ーシャンテン) is the state of a hand in mahjong. When you are in iishanten you are one tile away from tenpai (テンパイ), which is itself one tile away from a winning hand. This references the iconic "Yapapa, yapapa, iishanten..." from Jajauma ni Sasenaide. The colorful paint splotch background is a callback to the background of Zettai! Part 2 while the characters falling and skating along calls to mind Love Seeker (Can't Stop It).
The candles Gosunkugi wears on his head while nailing the straw doll to a tree are part of a ritual known as "ushi no koku mairi" (丑の刻参り).
The boards seen in the cemetery where Gosunkugi is nailing up the effigy of Ranma after being scratched by Hanachiyo are "toba" (塔婆), also known as "sotoba" (卒塔婆), they often feature a mixture of Chinese and Sanskrit characters. You can learn more about Japanese cemeteries and their appearance through various works of Rumiko Takahahsi via our video on the subject.
The tanuki statue outside Gosunkugi tries to drop on Ranma has the traditional iconography of Shigaraki made tanuki statues- a sake bottle and a wad of unpaid bills labeled "御通" (otoshi) which are meant to demonstrate trust (that his bills can be repaid). The sake bottle he is holding often says "eight" (八/hachi) as a reference to the eight special traits a tanuki is said to possess (his big belly that he can drumb on, his big eyes, and his big scrotum are some of the others). The tanuki shown here has a different message written on his promisorry notes, which says "account book" (大福帳/daifukucho).
When Ranma begins to yowl and practice the Cat Fist, the pose he initially assumes is that of the "beckoning cat" (招き猫/maneki neko).
Akane's swaying, side to side dance from the ending theme is a direct reference to her dance in the original series' opening theme Jajauma ni Sasenaide. The animation for the ending is handled by Minami Kitamura who also animated the ending of season one, Anta Nante. An interview with her can be found here.
The guest voices in this episode include Hikaru Gosunkugi (石田彰/Akira Ishida), the Narrator (緒方賢一/Kenichi Ogata), Noriko (富岡美沙子/Misako Tomioka), Tomoyo (神本綾華/Ayaka Kamimoto), Hiroko (大下菜摘/Natsumi Oshita), Shingo (奥村翔/Sho Okumura), Kiichi (浜田洋平/Yohei Hamada), male student (/Yuki Tamai), Basketball Club Members (広瀬裕也/Yuya Hirose, 藤原聖侑/Seiyu Fujiwara and 吉田丈一郎/Joichiro Yoshida).
Episode 14: ムース襲来
Muusu shurai (Attack of the Wild Mousse)
Gosunkugi hammers his straw doll into a tree as he loudly curses Ranma for kissing Akane. As he does, Ryoga overhears him and delivers the final blow to the nail Gosunkugi is hammering, completely destroying the tree. At the Tendo household, Ranma is sulking, as he does not remember what happened to him after he blacked out due to his fear of cats. Suddenly Gosunkugi and Ryoga erupt from the floor and confront Ranma with a photo of him kissing Akane. Ryoga punches him in the face, but Ranma is too embarassed over the photo to care. Suddenly Kuno arrives as well and the trio beat Ranma up for taking advantage of Akane.
Later that night Ranma is limping injured down the streets of the neighborhood while two shadowy figures watch him. Akane is visiting Dr. Tofu, who notices how quiet she's being. As she remembers being kissed by Ranma, she feels embarassed but decides to go back home and punch Ranma to make herself feel better. As she opens the door to leave, she comes face to face with Ranma. Dr. Tofu notices how quiet they're both being, but once he's called away the couple begin to talk to one another. Ranma apologizes, and admits he does not remember what happened once his fear overwhelmed him. This answer only enrages Akane further as she thinks he would have kissed anyone. She punches Ranma through the wall and into the air as she storms off.
Back home, Ranma tries to relax and take a bath, but is followed into the bathroom by one of the shadowy figures from earlier, a cat. As Ranma gets in the tub, the cat jumps in with him, scaring him, only for Shampoo to emerge from the hot water. Akane walks past just in time to see a naked Shampoo embracing a naked Ranma. Shampoo is relieved to hear that Ranma is not really a girl as she was told at the end of their last encounter. She tells everyone of her journey back to China, where her great-grandmother Cologne, the other shadowy figure from earlier, re-trained her at Jusenkyo, and knocked her into the Spring of Drowned Cat.
Cologne has returned to Japan with Shampoo with the intent of ensuring that she and Ranma get married. Ranma flatly refuses and an encounter with Cologne finds him poked in the chest with her cane, as she ominously runs away. At school the next day, Ranma is playing sports with the other students when Cologne appears, taunting Ranma. He says he feels better than ever, as another mysterious figure emerges from the shadows. This is Mousse, another martial-artist from China, who grew up with Shampoo. Mousse is almost blind when he is not wearing his thick glasses, and mistakes both Ranma and Akane for Shampoo, embracing them. Eventually he challenges Ranma for Shampoo and reveals his hidden fist technique as he smashes Ranma with a child's training potty. Embarassed Ranma accepts Mousse's challenge and wagers Akane as part of his victory when Shampoo refuses to be a part of Mousse's gamble. The match will take place the next day, but that night, as Ranma goes to take a bath, his body cannot tolerate even the slightest amount of hot water. It seems that the pressure point Cologne hit was the Full Body Cat's Tongue, as she emerges to say he will be unable to tolerate any hot water and is now stuck in his female form, just in time for his man on man battle with Mousse.
Episode Staff:
Director: Ryota Kitsunai (橘内諒太)
Animation Director: Mari Tominaga (とみながまり), Riko Kaneda (金田莉子), Erina Ano (小野玲奈), Miya Takaku (髙久美弥)
Chief Animation Director: Takeshi Yoshioka (吉岡毅)
Script: Erika Ando (安藤えりか)
Storyboards: Hiroyuki Oshima (大嶋博之)
Originally Aired:
October 12, 2025
12:55 am - 1:25 am on Nihon Terebi, shortly thereafter on Netflix
Rei Sakuma (Shampoo) and Toshihiko Seki (Mousse) spoke to Mantan Web about their work on the series ahead of season 2.
Cologne, Shampoo's father and Mousse debut in this episode. Cologne is voiced by Ako Mayama. Mayama's original stage name in the 1990s was "Rin Mizuhara" (水原リン), the name she was billed under when she appeared in the original Ranma 1/2 anime as various unnamed background voices.
In the quiz game opening summary of the story, it shows Ranma being asked if the image Genma is holding is a drawing Akane made of a rabbit or a jellyfish. This is likely a reference to chapter 81 when Ranma was unable to correctly decipher what animals Akane was depicting in the animal cookies she baked for him.
When Kuno becomes furious and attacks Ranma after seeing the photograph of Ranma kissing Akane, lighting strikes around his bokken and spells out "divine punishment" (天誅/tenchu).
When Ranma and Akane are being awkwardly quiet at Dr. Tofu's office the onomatopoeia that appears is "shiiiiin", (し-ん) which is the sound of silence.
When Akane punches female Ranma through Dr. Tofu's roof, female Ranma says "dogashan" which is the onomatopoeia that appears on screen. It means "bang" or "pow".
The large roller that Ranma kicks at Cologne when she shows up at Furinkan High is a land roller used for leveling fields. These are called by various names, "kondara" (コンダラ) or "leveling roller" (整地ローラー/seichi rooraa). Using them in training became popularized in the baseball manga and anime Star of the Giants (巨人の星/Kyojin no Hoshi).
Mousse's swirling glasses - The reason glasses are shown to have spirals in them in Japan is because of the term "bottle bottom glasses" (瓶底眼鏡). The glasses are said to look like the "bottom of a cow milk bottle" (牛乳瓶の底).
Mousse's techniques, "Fist of the White Swan" (秘技白鳥拳/Michi Bainiou Chuan), "Hen's Egg Attack" (Michi Chitan Chuan/秘技鶏卵拳), and "Hawks Talons Attack" (秘技鷹爪拳/Michi Inchua Chuan) are reproduced in some of his video game appearances such as Ranma 1/2 Chougi Ranbuhen.
The item Mousse hits Ranma with when he uses his "Fist of the White Swan" (秘技白鳥拳/Michi Bainiou Chuan) is a children's training potty in the shape of a swan.
In Japanese people that cannot handle eating hot food are said to have a "cat's tongue" (猫舌/nekojita). This is why the curse that makes Ranma particularly sensitive to hot water is called the "full body cat's tongue".
The guest voices in this episode include Mousse (関俊彦/Toshihiko Seki), Dr. Tofu (森川智之/Toshiyuki Morikawa), Cologne (真山亜子/Ako Mayama), Hikaru Gosunkugi (石田彰/Akira Ishida), the Narrator (緒方賢一/Kenichi Ogata), Shampoo's father (中野泰佑/Taisuke Nakano), Shingo (奥村翔/Sho Okumura), Kiichi (浜田洋平/Yohei Hamada), male student (玉井勇輝/Yuki Tamai), female student (Seira Ryu/劉セイラ) and granny (神本綾華/Ayaka Kamimoto) (with granny likely being the character that calls out in Dr. Tofu's office but is unseen.
Episode 15: 火中天津甘栗拳
Katchu Tenshin Amaguriken (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
Though he's still unable to transform back into a boy due to Cologne hitting the Full Body Cat's Tongue pressure point, Ranma's man-to-man battle against Mousse is coming up. Ranma tells Akane not to worry as he has a secret plan. On the day of the duel, all of the students of Furinkan High gather, and the school takes on a festival like atmosphere as a ring is erected for the fight. Mousse waits patiently, and when Ranma suddenly arrives, still stuck as a girl, he is wearing layers of clothing and a dark black wig to hide his form. Akane thinks this is not much of a plan, but the fight quickly gets underway.
Immediately Ranma realizes what Cologne already knew, that he is at a significant reach advantage with his smaller female body against Mousse's powerful kicks and strikes. Mousse scores numerous hits while Ranma reverts to taunting Mousse with magic tricks, by pulling items out of the layers of clothing, saying that Mousse does the same thing. Finally, Ranma blows himself up and reveals his female form wearing a bunny suit, much to the delight of the male students in the audience. Mousse is outraged at this insult, and thinks Ranma is just wearing a female disguise to mock him, but accepts the challenge and removes his robes to fight with just their bodies alone. Throughout the fight, Mousse continues to land blows on Ranma and in the process rips his bunny suit away, leaving him practically naked. Only when Akane steps in to cover him does the match slow down a bit. In the audience, Dr. Tofu asks why Ranma doesn't transform back into a boy, and Akane explains the Full Body Cat's Tongue. Without wasting a second, Dr. Tofu immediately cancels it out with the Old Eddoko Pressure Point. Ranma is splashed with hot water, transforms into his male body and immediately makes sure Mousse sees he is a man before swiftly defeating him. However, as Ranma celebrates it begins to rain and Dr. Tofu says taht the Old Eddoko Pressure Point only works once before it is cancelled out. Ranma is back to being stuck as a girl.
As Ranma pouts days later, Shampoo reveals that there is a way to cancel out the Full Body Cat's Tongue permanently, the Phoenix Pill, which is in Cologne's possession. Ranma immediately goes in search of Cologne and finds her at the newly opened Cat Cafe, the ramen restaurant that Shampoo's family have opened in the neighborhood. Cologne wears the Phoenix Pill in a necklace and Ranma tries to immediately grab it but is not fast enough. Seeing a flyer for a waitress position at the restaurant, Ranma applies, using the job as a chance to stay close to Cologne and find an opening to nab the Phoenix Pill. But no matter how hard Ranma tries, he fails over and over. Finally, Cologne takes pity on him and shows him a technique she knows, called Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, in which she literally tosses chestnuts into a fire and pulls them out quickly with her bare hands. If Ranma's fists can become this fast, he has every chance of getting the Phoenix Pill. Unfortuantely, the flame is too much for Ranma due to the Full Body Cat's Tongue and he continues to fail day after day. Soun encourages him to try and relax and visit a night festival with the rest of the family. At the festival, Ranma plays a goldfish scooping game and realizes that it works the same way as the chestnuts in a fire. With this knowledge he faces off against Cologne in the haunted house at the fair. Ranma is able to grab the Phoenix Pill, but after eating it, Cologne reveals she swapped it out for candy, and is not ready to make it that easy for him just yet.
Episode Staff:
Director: Nobuyushi Arai (新井宣圭)
Animation Director: Akari Minagawa (皆川愛香利), Miyuki Honda (本多みゆき), Kana Iwasaki (岩﨑夏奈), Weiqing Wang (王維慶), Sukuna (すくな)
Chief Animation Director: Keiko Saito (齊藤佳子)
Script: Erika Ando (安藤えりか)
Storyboards: Nobuyushi Arai (新井宣圭)
Originally Aired:
October 19, 2025
12:55 am - 1:25 am on Nihon Terebi, shortly thereafter on Netflix
In the newest issue of DaVinci this month features an interview with Rumiko Takahashi where she answered questions from the voice actors around the time that this episode aired.
In Japanese people that cannot handle eating hot food are said to have a "cat's tongue" (猫舌/nekojita). This is why the curse that makes Ranma particularly sensitive to hot water is called the "full body cat's tongue".
"The Old Edokko Man. I pressed that pressure point." - The Old Edokko Man Pressure Point (江戸っ子じいさんのツボ/Edokko Jiisan no Tsubo) refers to "Edokko" (江戸っ子) literally meaning "child of Edo", which is the old name for the city of Tokyo prior to 1868. In modern parlance the term would refer to anyone who was born in Tokyo to parents that were also both born in Tokyo and with a strict lineage of Tokyo-born family going back three or four generations.
Mousse's techniques, "Fist of the White Swan" (秘技白鳥拳/Michi Bainiou Chuan), "Hen's Egg Attack" (Michi Chitan Chuan/秘技鶏卵拳), and "Hawks Talons Attack" (秘技鷹爪拳/Michi Inchua Chuan) are reproduced in some of his video game appearances such as Ranma 1/2 Chougi Ranbuhen.
Swirling glasses - The reason glasses are shown to have spirals in them in Japan is because of the term "bottle bottom glasses" (瓶底眼鏡). The glasses are said to look like the "bottom of a cow milk bottle" (牛乳瓶の底).
Shampoo mentions that the Phoenix Pill (不死鳥丸/Fushichougan) can cure Ranma. The pill gets its name from the legendary bird's ability to be reborn from its own flames. When she is first explaining the pill a definition appears on screen briefly that states, "A sacred bird in Egyptian mythology. It is aid to be burned to death in the fire of an altar every 500 years and resurrected from the ashes. - Newly Selected Japanese Dictionary, 6th edition, Shogakukan". The dictionary publisher, Shogakukan, is also the company that owns Shonen Sunday, the magazine in which Ranma 1/2 was published.
The Cat Cafe (猫飯店/Neko Hanten) appears for the first time in this episode. In Japanese, "hanten" (飯店) means "Chinese restaurant".
The "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" technique is called "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken" (火中天津甘栗拳) in Japanese. A literal translation would be "Heavenly Roasting Chestnut Fist" due to the training method needed to master the skill. The English translation comes from the famous Nat King Cole holiday tune, The Christmas Song.
The kanji on Soun's fan when he tells Ranma to go to the night fair says "offer prayers" or "celebrate" (祭/sai).
The reason Soun is particularly encouraging of Ranma to go to the night fair is because these fairs are held on days known as "ennichi" (縁日/related day). These are days associated with the birth or manifestation of a god (/kami) or Buddha and are known for being auspicious days if one visits a temple on that particular day. Fairs with games and food stalls are often set up on these days to help draw people to the the temple grounds.
Many popular festival games are shown such as a shooting gallery and mask shops. Ranma has a mask depicting "Hyottoko" (ひょっとこ), a man with pursed lips.
The game that Ranma and Akane play at the night fair is "goldfish scooping" (金魚すくい/kingyo sukui). When playing the game the player uses a tool called a "poi" (ポイ) that is a plastic handle with a circle covered in thin washi paper. Because the paper becomes brittle when wet, it will eventually break preventing any scooping of goldfish. Thus, the object of the game is to see how many goldfish can be caught before the paper on the poi breaks.
The man running the goldfish scooping booth is wearing a belly wrap is known as a harumaki (腹巻) and an amulet (お守り/omamori) around his neck. By the 1970s and 1980s it was considered an out of date style of fashion worn by middle-aged men, such as Bakabon's Father in Tensai Bakabon (天才バカボン) and Tora-san from Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's Tough Being a Man") and Mr. Fujinami from Urusei Yatsura.
The characters that Ranma fights in the haunted house at the fair are from the Journey to the West (孫悟空) which includes Son Wukong (孫悟空) the monkey, Sha Wujing (沙悟淨) who is referred to as "water buffalo" due to his low intelligence and Zhu Bajie (豬八戒) the pig.
The guest voices in this episode include Dr. Tofu (森川智之/Toshiyuki Morikawa), Ichiro (関智一/Tomokazu Seki), Noriko (富岡美沙子/Misako Tomioka), Tomoyo (神本綾華/Ayaka Kamimoto), Shingo (奥村翔/Sho Okumura) and Kiichi (浜田洋平/Yohei Hamada), male students (玉井勇輝/Yuki Tamai, 藤原聖侑/Seiyu Fujiwara, 中村源太/Genta Nakamura), Edokko Grandpa (越後屋コースケ/Kosuke Echigoya) and Cat Cafe Clerk (中野泰佑/Taisuke Nakano).
