Ranma, You Are Such a Jerk! (Ranma 1/2)

"Ranma, You Are Such a Jerk!"
Behold, the episode where Akane being a jerk to poor Ranma reached it's absolute worst.
Series: Ranma 1/2 Part of Season: 4 Episode Number: 87 Air Date: March 29, 1991 Writer: Michiko Yokote Previous episode: Kuno Becomes a Marianne! Next episode: Ling-Ling & Lung-Lung Strike Back!

"If this is what the engagement has come to, I think Ranma really needs to find some other girl that perhaps would treat him better."

— Ataru Reviews on DeviantArt

Ranma, You Are Such a Jerk! (乱馬なんか大キライ!, Ranma Nanka Daikirai!?) is the 69th episode of Ranma ½ Nettohen. And the 87th episode of Ranma 1/2 overall.

Summary

Akane Tendo cooks up a surprise meal for the Saotomes' anniversary at their household. However, Ranma wrecks the meal, and Akane is so mad, that she begins to call him a jerk and run away. The rest of the gang (sans Kasumi) starts looking for her for the rest of the night. But when they found her, she was actually up on the roof.

Why This Episode is Indeed, a Jerk

1. For starters, Akane is at her absolute worst here as she gets into a major Fight with Ranma to the point where the cast thinks she ran away due to not wanting the engagement to go on any further. And while she does forgive him at the very end, she still gets mad at Ranma even after that whole debacle.
   • And the whole reason she got into a fight with Ranma is incredibly dumb. It was Happosai who kicked Ranma into the cake. But Akane in her endless rage against Ranma, blames Ranma for the incident. And if it weren’t for Genma giving him a beating later on he would have gotten away scot-free.
2. This is a torture episode for Ranma as he gets blatantly mistreated by Akane in this episode to the point where he can’t even eat in one scene. And the later scene doesn’t make it look better.
3. Plot Hole: At the beginning of the series, Ranma and Akane are 16. Whereas in this episode, Akane’s food was meant to celebrate 2 years of knowing each other. Given that fact, they should be chronologically 18. But strangely, in the episode "Case of the Missing Takoyaki!" (Episode 111), Sasuke informs that Ranma and Akane are 16. But this can be excused as it was meant to be the 2nd-anniversary episode.
   • But even that doesn’t make sense since the original anime aired on April 15th, 1989, and this aired on March 29th, 1991. So, shouldn’t the episode aired 16 days later on the actual anniversary of the episode?
4. The pacing is shockingly terrible. Which in an action show like Ranma ½, is a major sin. There aren’t even any fight scenes in this episode other than Ryoga’s and Ranma’s minor fight. The reason is that the episode tends to show scenes that hardly progress the plot.
5. The entire scene before the eye-catch where Akane refuses to apologize to Ranma and instead calls him a jerk is extremely hard to watch and is arguably the worst in the entire show.
   • "You know what you are? A JERK!"
6. Ryoga is also unlikable here as, like Akane, Ryoga tends to throw everything and all problems as Ranma's regardless of who or why it happened. But here he again takes it too far as he attempts to kill Ranma just because of what Ranma did.
   • Adding on to that, Ryoga (as P-Chan) proceeds to bite Ranma’s (who by now was a Female) butt for very little reason. Which is just mean-spirited. And to add salt to the wound, Akane blames Ranma for "hurting P-Chan" despite the fact it was P-Chan who started the incident.
7. Eventually, when Ranma does apologize to Akane, Akane treats it like it was nothing although she gets the whole family to believe she had gotten into some kind of accident. Even Ranma points this out to her.
8. Misleading Title: The title of the episode teases that Ranma is going to be a total jerk to someone or a lot of people in the episode but it features Akane being a jerk to him. The title is instead just referring to an insult Akane hurls at Ranma.
9. Bad Ending: Despite apologizing to Ranma, Akane still get’s mad at Ranma for both hurting P-chan (Which as stated in WTEIIAJ 6.1, was P-Chan's Fault by the way) and for still not wanting anything to do with her cooking. This get’s Akane all mad and she starts to attempt to hit him with a broom and still calls him a Jerk, showing that Akane has learned nothing from this experience.
   • And if you add on to the fact that her cooking is terrible, that just adds evidence that Akane can’t stand criticism.
10. Overall, this was an extremely terrible way to celebrate the show's two-year anniversary and a more awful way of ending the show's fourth season (At least in Japan as America got one more episode). To the point where it could be considered one of the show's worst episodes.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Ranma is likable in this episode as he does attempt to apologize to Akane the second the incident happened and even after the incident. Along with most of the other characters.
   • Even Happosai (besides avoiding all the blame), was arguably at his best this episode as He apparently helped Soun and Genma stage a "play" and was searching along with Soun all night long.
2. This also shows us that Ranma does indeed get worried about her when she might be in trouble.
3. The animation and voice acting is still good as always.

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