Ranma 1/2: One Page Per Volume, Part 22

[rainsometimes]

Art runs from left to right.

Ranma's mother Nodoka Saotome first turns up in volume 22, and that meant I needed to pick a page with her rather than the otherwise very entertaining (if highly unflattering to Ranma) "Reversal Jewel" story. I found it a little hard to select a good page with Nodoka, though.

The stories with Nodoka feel like they have this uneasy balance between normal farce and something more serious - oddly, the truly serious part to me comes across as being less about the manliness promise and the seppuku threat to father and son if Nodoka judges they fall short, and more about Nodoka's loneliness and longing for her son, which is echoed in how Ranma wants to connect to her, the mother he didn't even know he had before this arc, and longs to face her as himself. A yearning that's tempered by his fear that she will never accept him as he currently is, body-wise.

However, that being said, Nodoka herself often feels a bit unconvincing to me as a reader, maybe because she's so fixated on Ranma. Because of that, the serious parts of the story often land in the sentimental for me rather than something more genuinely moving. But not always.

Anyway! I ended up picking this page in the end because I love the comedic pacing on show, especially Akane's expressions.