Ranma 1/2: One Page Per Volume, Part 35

[rainsometimes]

Art is flipped and reads left to right.

Volume 35 sees the introduction of the last reoccurring character in the regular cast, only three volumes from the end, in the shape of the skilled kunoichi Konatsu with the Ninja Cinderella backstory. Konatsu's awful stepmother and stepsisters can be seen here as well, with the stepmother at the bottom (she's not honest about suddenly looking wise and noble, by the way: in the next panel, she'll throw an explosive at Konatsu as a vengeful parting gift*).

I think it makes the most sense to view Konatsu as a trans woman and to use feminine pronouns for her. Admittedly it's not entirely clear-cut, given that her upbringing in general is cartoonishly abusive... but even so, she seems to fully identify as a woman in canon, in spite of her birth sex being male. (This in contrast to another Takahashi character who was raised as the opposite sex by an abusive parent, Ryunosuke Fujinami in Urusei Yatsura - Ryunosuke sees herself as a girl and wants others to see her that way, too.)

Konatsu is naive and gullible and ridiculously grateful for small favours, but also a skilled ninja. And she falls head over heels in love with Ukyo - who's uncomfortable to learn this, but as we see on this very page, still willing to stand by her and offer her a place away from her terrible family. I don't outright ship them, myself (though I don't dislike it either: it's one of those "I could be sold on it perhaps" ships for me). But I do like Konatsu and if the series had lasted a little longer, I'd have liked to read more stories about her.

(It cracks me up how, in spite of her general obedient, long-suffering behaviour as a tragic Cinderella (punctuated by whipping out a microphone at intervals and singing sad songs), Konatsu will still blithely try to assassinate her step-family when the opportunity so arises. She's naive, but not that naive...)

*Now that I've found Gintama, I see similarities in the way both series often ruthlessly deflate/overturn apparently emotional moments, flipping them right back into sardonic hilarity. But the tones of the respective series are still fairly different. Gintama flip-flops a lot more, often dipping right back again into emotion (heartwarming-sarcasm-heartwarming), arguably creating a closer intimacy with the reader precisely because of that bounce back and forth. But it also tends to go farther in comedic cruelty and pure absurdity than Ranma 1/2 does. In retrospect I think that back-and-forth bounce to and away from earnestness might have been part of what I found hard to get used to back when I first tried to get into Gintama the manga and failed - I got the impression it was trying to have its cake and eat it, too. Perhaps I was subconsciously expecting it to be more Ranma-like?

Ranma 1/2, on the other hand, tends to save its earnest emotional moments for the main characters and to be sparing with them. And it never doles out ringing truths about life and the world, or moving words of life wisdom. That's just not the Rumic way.