Characters / Ranma ½: Other Recurring Characters

Ranma ½ Character Index
Ranma Saotome | Akane Tendō | Ryōga Hibiki/P-Chan | Tendō Household Residents | The Chinese | The Kunōs | Other Recurring Characters | Major Story Arc Characters

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Ukyō Kuonji

Ukyō Kuonji (久遠寺 右京, Kuonji Ukyō)

Voiced by: Hiromi Tsuru (Japanese), Kelly Sheridan (English), Gaby Willer (Latin American Spanish)

The last of Ranma's fiancées to appear, Ukyō is the victim of a childhood crush gone horribly wrong. She and Ranma met when they were both children, with Ranma regularly dueling Ukyō in exchange for okonomiyaki. She developed a crush on him, and for his help in swiping the family's special okonomiyaki sauce recipe and mixing it, she made him a Childhood Marriage Promise... which he didn't understand what he was promising, ended up accidentally sabotaging, and ultimately would forget about. Then, her father saw how fond his daughter was of Ranma and made a betrothal pact with Ranma's father... except that Genma betrayed them by stealing Ukyō's dowry (her dad's okonomiyaki cart) and running off with it.

Believing Ranma had been in on this humiliation, Ukyō swore revenge and began crossdressing as part of an elaborate vow, tracking Ranma down with the intent of making him pay for deceiving her... only to discover it had all been Genma's fault, and Ranma was never even told about the engagement. Between this, the fact she was still in love with him, and the fact Ranma evidently found her attractive despite the crossdressing, Ukyō believes she has a legitimate chance at winning Ranma's heart, and calls off her revenge to instead try and woo him to her. Generally the nicest of Ranma's fiancées, but she has her ugly side too and can use threats, destructive ambush-beatings, or manipulation when she feels it's called for. It's worth noting that she is the only fiancée who always regrets manipulating the others and is in generally good terms with both Ranma and Akane.

Ukyō came to reside at Fūrinkan and enrolled in Ranma's school, becoming his and Akane's classmate. In order to sustain herself, she opened a successful okonomiyaki restaurant in which Ranma works from time to time. Despite the fact that her crossdessing ruse is made known, Ukyō still crossdresses at school, as she seems to enjoy wearing gakuran and doesn't seem to own a girl's uniform. She is noted for being a skilled and unusual martial artist who wields an oversized okonomiyaki spatula which she uses as a weapon, also using the okonomiyaki she cooks as projectiles.

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• Action Girl: She's one of the most formidable females, and a late manga arc has her fighting a battle that isn't much less intense than one of Ranma's customary brawls, while in the anime she's the only fiancée to have a special attack (Batter Dragon, which creates a giant dragon of raw batter that engulfs a foe and then explodes, cooking them into the center of a giant okonomiyaki).
• Adaptational Curves: She was given a bigger bustline in the anime, comparable to Shampoo's and Nabiki's bosoms, whereas the manga made her seem semi-flatchested even without her sarashi. There are times in the manga where she seems both shorter and daintier than how she looks in the anime.
• Adaptational Nice Girl: The anime notably toned down her nastier aspects from the manga and left out some of her most antagonistic moments. Whilst she does get involve in some more "typical romantic rival" hijinks, like trying to abuse Ranma being under the effects of a Love Potion-laced bandaid, she doesn't go to any of the same extents of viciousness that her manga counterpart reached.
• Adaptational Skimpiness: Ukyō's legs were never shown in the manga because of the baggy ninja-to leggings she wore with her chef's attire. In the anime, she wears form-fitting stockings with her chef's uniform and the shapeliness of her bare legs is emphasized several times (notably during the "Battle for Ms. Beachside" episode and Nihao My Concubine).
• Affectionate Nickname: Ranma calls her "Ucchan", and she returns the sentiment by calling him "Ranchan", or "Ranma-honey" in the English dub.
• Arranged Marriage: When they were kids playing together, her dad brought up the idea of Ukyō marrying Ranma to Genma Saotome, seeing as how the two were so fond of him. In Genma's favor, he did initially decline the suggestion, telling Mr. Kuonji that Ranma was already engaged. In Genma's condemnation, he immediately changed his tune when Mr. Kuonji mentioned that the family yattai (food-vendor's cart) was Ukyō's dowry, agreeing to break off the Tendō engagement for the Kuonji engagement... and then stole the dowry and ran away with it.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl: In the anime, at the least, she is the latest of several generations of Kuonjis to practice Martial Arts Okonomiyaki, and she is very proud of this fact and her skills. A filler episode has her get beaten by a master of Martial Arts Crepes and being utterly devastated, even angrily asking if Ranma is insinuating that she shouldn't care so much about martial arts because she's a girl before declaring that she doesn't even deserve to be Ranma's wife if she's that inept a fighter. She then spends the rest of the episode in training for a rematch.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Done twice with Ryōga. They're seen posing back-to-back with each other in the main page image, and near the end of the "Tunnel of Lost Love" episode, when they're defending each other from the ghosts.
• Beauty Inversion: Despite having a more noticeable figure and several fanservice scenes in the anime, Ukyō's face is "plain" to convey she's a tomboy. The manga differed by making her face feminine from the start, which made it hard for readers to believe that anyone could mistake her for a boy.
• Bifauxnen: At first, and debatably later on in the manga, where she continues to wear her more masculine school uniform and this coupled with the art makes her look more like a boy than the anime does.
• Brainy Brunette: She's enterprising enough (at 16) to successfully run an okonomiyaki-ya on her own, with one episode having her go out of town to attend business seminar.
• Breach of Promise of Marriage: Played with. Ukyō's claim for Ranma's hand in marriage technically hinges from the fact that a dowry was paid to Genma in the form of her father's okonomiyaki cart. However, since Genma had already promised Ranma to one of the Tendō sisters, he chose not to honor the betrothal, fleeing, abandoning Ukyō and stealing the cart. Hence, her prospective marriage to Ranma is effectively owed to her. However, knowing that Akane's betrothal with Ranma came before her own, she approaches Ranma vying to make him see her as a better prospect than Akane, with rather mixed results.
• Character Catchphrase: "Jackass" in the English dub.
• Character Development: In the manga, she ends up with a negative example of character growth in that she becomes more malicious, destructive, abusive and scheming as the manga progresses. She goes from being the "sane" extra fiancée who would rather try to non-violently pair up Ryōga and Akane so she can peacefully have Ranma for herself to engaging in the same crazy stunts as Shampoo and Kodachi.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She's Ranma's childhood friend and after forgiving him, she becomes his active suitor. Ranma likes her as his boyhood friend, but due to his bond with Akane he can't think of her as more than that.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: When they were children, she and Ranma stole the recipe for the Kuonji family's secret okonomiyaki sauce and made a batch, promising to let Ranma have the first taste (which is Serious Business even in real life) if he promised that, if it was good, he would "take care of her for the rest of her life", a promise to which Ranma agreed. Unfortunately for her, Ranma still thought she was a boy at the time, and had no idea what she was asking of him to boot.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: In the manga, she is perfectly willing to attack those without martial arts skills if they get too close to Ranma, most notably Nabiki during her stint as Ranma's fiancée and masterminding the attack against Miss Hinako for "using her position as a teacher to seduce Ranma".
• Combat Pragmatist: Regularly uses weapons, has a penchant for throwing flour for use as a smoke curtain...
• Covert Pervert: Like Akane, she tends to freak out when Ranma, intentionally or otherwise, makes what can be seen as a direct romantic gesture towards her, typically blushing, smacking him and then running off. On the other hand, given the chance to take the initiative, she's clearly not all the "blushing maiden". One particularly prominent example is during the manga version of the Hiryu Shoten Ha arc; she pleads with Genma to move his thumb and expose the full-frontal nudity in a photo of Ranma he's showing off, in comparison to the blushing Akane, who can't stand to look at it ^note in the anime, perhaps due to censorship, the pose is changed and she just laughs with Akane at how silly Ranma is acting in it. In both continuities, when she thinks Ranma is trying to take her engagement seriously in the Spoiled Sauce story, she eagerly tries to initiate "wifely duties" like joining him in the bath or the bed. During Hinako's introductory arc, Ukyo doesn't just mistake Ranma's attempts to hit Pressure Points as him copping a feel, but a tawdry Student/Teacher Romance. Ukyo's reaction to the idea is less disgusted than impressed—made even more perverse by an Imagine Spot (whether Ukyo's or Akane's is unclear) of them hugging while Hinako is in child form.
• Distaff Counterpart: She's essentially the feminine equivalent of Ryōga:
  • Both are childhood pals of Ranma who were also his martial arts rivals.
  • Both came to Nerima seeking revenge on Ranma for a childhood offense, holding him responsible for the loss their dignity (Ryōga, due to being knocked into the Spring of Drowned Piglet) and femininity (Ukyō, after being ditched by Genma). And, when each finally caught up to him, their exact words were: "Because of you, I've seen hell!".
  • Ryōga wanders around with a weighted bamboo parasol strapped to his back, while Ukyō does the same with her spatula, which is the size of a baker's peel. Likewise, both are capable of spamming projectiles: Ryōga with his seemingly never-ending supply of bandannas^note even though it appears to be a single bandanna, regardless how many he pulls from it, whereas Ukyō's bandoleer never runs out of mini-spatula.
  • Her hair ribbon is also analogous to Ryōga's bandanna, as both are rarely seen without them.
  • Both live on their own (though Ryōga stays with the Tendōs whenever he's in town) and are primarily self-taught martial artists. As opposed to the rest of the main cast, who come from distinguished schools and family owned dojos.
  • Each is also the only one of the competing suitors/fiancees that Akane and Ranma like enough to actually get along with. Akane fails to realize Ryōga is in love with her, because she only thinks of him as a good friend, unlike Kunō and her other would-be suitors, who annoy her. Just as Ranma doesn't mind Ukyō hanging around, since they're childhood friends, but tries to avoid Shampoo and Kodachi like the plague.
  • And they have a mutual interest in wanting to absolve Ranma and Akane's engagement... -beat- like that's gonna happen. Meaning, all their plans doomed from the start, 'cuz they're both stuck in Ranma and Akane's respective 'friend-zones'.
  • One more important thing is that both she and Ryōga are the only suitors to get along with their main love-rivals. Akane and Ukyō can actually have peaceful times together even without Ranma around, while Ranma and Ryōga are both the closest thing to a best friend the other has, so much that sometimes they actually borderline on Ho Yay.
• Dogged Nice Girl: While she doesn't hide her crush on Ranma, she never gets pushy enough to drive him away from her, unlike those like Shampoo and Kodachi. She's the only one of Ranma's suitors who can hang out with him as friends and he does enjoy her company often, but he just doesn't like her in a romantic way. However, unlike Akane, Ukyō's not above conspiring against both Ranma and Akane if the need comes.
• Dowry Dilemma: Her main claim for Ranma's hand. Her father had arranged for her to marry Ranma in exchange for his okonomiyaki cart, but Genma ended up stealing the cart and abandoning Ukyō, as Ranma had already been promised to one of the Tendō sisters. As such, the dowry was appropriated and eventually spent, but the wedding never took place. Ukyō grew up thinking that this was Ranma's fault, and gave up her femininity to exact revenge from him, eventually finding out that it wasn't Ranma who wronged her.
• Enemy Mine: Ukyō is very given to ally herself with other people to foil Ranma and Akane, particularly Ryōga and Shampoo.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Spatulas and okonomiyaki ingredients are pretty deadly in her hands.
• Expy: Like Ranma, she's based off of the character Ryuunosuke Fujinami from Urusei Yatsura, Takahashi's previous work, but they split the character's elements between them. Ukyō got Ryuunosuke's aesthetic as a bifauxnen martial artist who, nonetheless, is very attractive-looking when she stops dressing so boyishly, but Ranma is the one who got the gender-related insecurities, desperate drive to prove himself as the proper gender, and horrifically insane father.
• First Girl Wins: Subverted. Ukyō is the first girl Ranma met that would become one of his fiancées, as they're Childhood Friends. However, she became technically the second fiancée, since Ranma was already set to marry one of the Tendō sisters, but their betrothal wouldn't be brought up in the story until the previous three were introduced (Akane, Kodachi and Shampoo). As such, she's the last fiancée introduced in the story.
• Flanderization: When Ukyō is introduced, she's depicted as "the nice girl with a temper"; she can fly off the handle when she feels pushed, but overall she's the reasonable one out of Ranma's extraneous fiancees. In the manga, she ends up becoming vastly more negative and abusive as the series progresses, joining in on Kodachi and Shampoo's more extreme actions and shamelessly exploiting Konatsu.
• Foil:
  • Shampoo is Ukyō's polar opposite in some very meaningful ways. Ukyō is Ranma's old friend, whereas Shampoo was a random crazy girl that he bumped into in China. Ukyō has an Arranged Marriage with Ranma, meaning his father technically supports her engagement to him and it has legal support^note ignoring the whole stealing the dowry and bigamy problems, whilst Shampoo has an Accidental Marriage based on laws that Ranma doesn't respect or acknowledge at all. Ukyō is quite shy about expressing intimacy with Ranma, even though she has strong amorous desires for him, but Shampoo is utterly shameless in that department. Both are involved in the restaurant business, but Ukyō is a chef whilst Shampoo, despite being a capable cook, is officially a delivery girl. Finally, Ukyō dresses in a very masculine fashion, complete with binding her breasts, making her look very androgynous, whilst Shampoo aggressively flaunts her womanhood, between very form-flattering clothing and a complete indifference to being nude.^note It's unclear in canon how much of a difference there is in their figures, if any, but their "presentation" of their womanhood is still very much the opposite.
  • In terms of their relationship to Ranma, Ukyō is Akane's opposite. Ukyō and Ranma met as kids, and she's the first of Ranma's three bridal candidates that he met — in contrast, Akane didn't meet Ranma until they were both sixteen, and she was the last bridal candidate that Ranma met.^note Whilst Ranma didn't officially get his Accidental Marriage to Shampoo until after they met in Japan, Ranma still met Shampoo before he met Akane, and he would have gotten engaged instead of the Kiss of Death if she'd known he was a boy in that first meeting. Ranma and Genma uphold the former's betrothal to Akane while denying Ukyō's, even though both engagements are technically valid. Akane is a mess in the kitchen, while Ukyō is a master cook. Ukyō is friendly and kind to Ranma, while Akane is confrontational and stubborn. Ukyō knows how to appeal to her feminine wiles despite being a tomboy, while Akane can't quite get there while also being a tomboy (notwithstanding that both of them are pretty shy about expressing intimacy with Ranma); this is also ironic, as Ukyō has manly tastes and behaviors, while Akane is considerably more girly. Finally, Ranma refers to Ukyō as "the cute fiancée" for her openly affectionate nature and willingness to talk to him, whilst calling Akane "the uncute fiancée" for her tsundere nature and default reaction of just trying to hit Ranma whenever he teases her or otherwise makes her mad.
  • Interestingly, in terms of personality, Ukyō can be very duplicitous and cunning, which makes her identical to Shampoo but the polar opposite of Akane, who is straightforward, blunt, and honest.
• Forgotten Friend, New Foe: When she's introduced, Ranma is at first happy to see his childhood friend again until Ukyō makes clear she's there to fight him as revenge for his father Genma stealing her family's okonomiyaki cart. After Ranma calls her cute, she instantly changes her mind and comes to like Ranma again.
• Freaky Is Cool: When Ukyō found out about Ranma's curse, her reaction was to literally keep switching him/her back and forth with hot and cold water, remarking, "This is so fun/cool!"
• Friendly Rivalry: Despite being rivals for Ranma's hand, Ukyō and Akane do often act quite friendly, a stark contrast to Akane's relationships with Shampoo or Kodachi. In the anime, during the love-potion bandaid episode, Ukyō even stops from chasing after Shampoo and the abducted Ranma to tell Akane that "she has a shot in this too" (meaning a chance to get Ranma to be hers at last), if she has the courage to pursue it.
• Girl Next Door: Leaving aside the conflict in her introduction, she's the closest the series comes to having a "normal" character. She's known Ranma since childhood, usually doesn't wear fanservicey clothes, and, unlike Ranma's other suitors, he enjoys her company because she's a good cook and a good listener.
• Girliness Upgrade: When she was a kid, Ukyō was such a tomboy that Ranma never realized she was a girl. In her first appearance, she was dressed as a guy because she renounced living as a woman after Genma had shamed her by reneging on her engagement to Ranma, by abandoning her. After Ranma finally discovers Ukyō is actually a woman and calls her cute, Ukyō fully embraces her femininity once more. Though she continues to dress in a rather masculine fashion after joining the regular cast, she does enjoy wearing feminine clothes when she has the opportunity.
• Good Is Not Nice: Downplayed, as she is a nice person overall. Ukyō is initially introduced as the "good girl" of Akane's three romantic rivals, which mostly manifests as her taking the most sane and sensible ways to earn Ranma's affection (until she Took a Level in Jerkass, at least). Despite this, she's also plain-spoken and strongly opinionated, which means she does not hold back from criticizing others on their stupidity (most commonly Ryōga, when they team up). Of course, given this is a comedy series, her criticisms can often fall into Hypocritical Humor.
• Hidden Buxom:
  • She was initially mistaken for a male transfer student, until she and Ranma fought. During which, he got a surprise handful of her melons, followed by a slap. Ukyō then explained that she began binding her breasts as her way of renouncing her womanhood. It isn't noticeable because of the sarashi she usually wears underneath her clothes, but when she takes it off, she's as stacked as any of her rivals. Best seen in "The Tunnel of Lost Love" OVA and "Nihao My Concubine".
  • Subverted. Ukyō is considerably less buxom in the manga, as her femininity doesn't quite rely on fanservice as it does in the anime.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Albeit Ukyō is friendly with Akane on occasion, she may antagonize her because unlike Shampoo and Kodachi, Ukyō knows that Ranma and Akane like each other more than they care to admit.
  • She's the only fiancee who may come to the Tendō household uninvited without much fuss. Shampoo and Kodachi usually have to barge in.
• Honor Before Reason: Subverted. A late manga arc has her fighting a Martial Arts Takoyaki fighter she beat as a kid, and who has been wearing a goofy mask ever since. Not only does she admit outright that she never expected him to take the terms (whoever lost would wear a goofy mask forever after) seriously, because they were just kids having a squabble and the terms were stupid, she is quite happy to lose the fight because it means that he will now take the mask off and leave her alone.
• Hopeless Suitor: Unfortunately for Ukyō, Ranma will likely never see her as more than his boyhood friend.
• The Idiot from Osaka: Although she's no more of an idiot than the rest of the cast, she does fit numerous Osaka associations. For one thing she loves the chance to make a quick buck.
• I Am Not Pretty: Her initial reaction to Ranma saying she's cute. She turns red as a tomato and stutters like mad while denying she grew into a cute girl.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Despite being as much of a signature potential suitor to Ranma as Akane and Shampoo are, she's not introduced until the ninth volume of the manga and the third season of the anime.
• Improbable Weapon User: Like many other cast members, she uses an over-the-top weapon: a cooking spatula the size of a baker's peel. She has also attacked people with noodles. Then there's the tempura flakes mixed with gunpowder, and the Okonomiyaki batter mixed with glue... or the flour, which is just flour, but good for blinding opponents. Her crowning achievement consisted of heating up a large section of steel flooring in a construction using a blowtorch, and using THAT as a giant-size grill for an okonomiyaki the size of a parachute.
• Irony: In spite of having a legitimate claim as one of Ranma's engagements, due to her unambitious nature and Ranma not seeing her as girlfriend material, Ukyō is one of the least likely candidates to ultimately marry Ranma. Adding insult to injury, Ukyō is on friendlier terms with Ranma than Akane herself, and all the other girls, for that matter.
• It's Personal: Ukyō considers it a personal affront to see Akane get close to Ranma, and she'll attack Akane if there's even a hint of that happening. She'll behave as if Akane is actively trying to offend her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's not above hurting Akane's feelings sometimes because she wants Ranma. However she's still rather nice and a good person, and not at all amoral as Shampoo or Kodachi.
• Just Friends: She's possibly the only one of Ranma's forced fiancées who he sincerely considers his friend and he normally can get along with Ukyō better than even Akane. Despite this, he never even considers Ukyō as girlfriend material, which depresses Ukyō, knowing she's stuck just being friends with him.
• Love Makes You Evil: Mainly in the manga. For example, in one chapter, she joins Kodachi and Shampoo in assaulting Nabiki Tendō after she tries to auction Ranma off to them.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: In the last parts of the manga, Ukyō takes in the feminine crossdressing ninja Konatsu. While Ukyō has become more open about her femininity compared to her introduction, Konatsu is much more ladylike than she could ever be. Both parties continue to crossdress, but Ukyō is considerably more aggressive, assertive, and domineering than Konatsu.
• Mean Boss: Konatsu idealizes her as a Benevolent Boss, but the reality is he's so screwed up that being paid 10 yen an hour and given free room and board without regular beatings is heaven to him, not having any idea that Ukyō is exploiting him.
• Miko: Shown to be a part-time miko in one of the late manga stories; she was presumably only there a short time or is a very casually employed miko, as she never displayed any of the associated spiritual powers.
• Minor Living Alone: Ukyō not only lives by herself, she also runs her own business, all while still being in high school.
• Never Bareheaded: She's rarely seen without her white hair ribbon, which she fashions into a large bow.
• New Transfer Student: She transferred into Fūrinkan explicitly to track down Ranma.
• Nice Girl: She's ultimately kind, friendly and helpful, for all her flaws and possessive attitude towards Ranma.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Crossdressing highschool ninja cook (businesswoman miko).
• Only Sane Woman: She has few character quirks, which are relatively minor, and is one of (if not the) most levelheaded member of the cast. She's almost normal.
• Pet the Dog: Despite her own romantic entanglements and gender issues, she steadfastly stands by Konatsu and was willing to accept "her" back in her home when everyone still thought Konatsu was a woman in love with her.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Though she would really like to be more than that, she's one of the few people Ranma genuinely trusts and is arguably his best friend.
• The Rival: Mainly seen in the anime, where she's fiercely competitive with Shampoo for Ranma's affections and as a chef. They don't interact as much in the manga, but when do, war will break out between the girls.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Ranma actually likes Ukyō, whereas he either actively dislikes his other paramours or finds them annoying (he will still help them out though)... but he only likes her in the same non-romantic way as he likes Kasumi, of course.
• Samaritan Relationship Starter: She very quickly forgives Ranma and puts herself in the running for him after he says she's cute.
• Sarashi: Is shown wearing one when her gender is first revealed. The manga implies she keeps on doing so afterwards, though perhaps somewhat looser now that she isn't trying to hide her gender, while the anime implies she starts wearing bras again.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: In the anime, she once dressed up in girly dresses and the like to try and make Ranma start seeing she was serious about the engagement. Everyone was entranced by her beauty (even Tatewaki) — except him.
• Shipper with an Agenda: Actively tries to get Ryōga and Akane together, though more for ulterior motives than actually finding them a cute couple; she's in love with Ranma and wants him for herself, but because she's also friends with Akane, she doesn't want her ending up alone.
• Ship Sinking: The "Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love" story was effectively written to try and sink the Ukyō/Ryōga ship. In it, Ukyō tricks Ranma and Akane into visiting a cursed cave haunted by jealous ghosts that will try to break up a couple. When it turns out that she needs a male partner to follow them and make sure her plan works, she conscripts Ryōga, who happens to show up just at that moment. However, Ryōga keeps forgetting the plan and instead trying to comfort Akane, which leaves Ukyō seething in fury. She repeatedly calls him a idiot and hits him several times for his failures, and is shown absolutely incensed when Akane badmouths Ranma to singe Ryōga's praises. The story ends with the relationship-destroying ghosts attacking the two of them, declaring that they look like a happy couple when compared to Ranma and Akane. The very last panel is the two of them fighting bitterly over who is to blame for the plan being screwed up.
• Ship Tease: This was the main reason behind the popularity of the Ryōga/Ukyō pairing, as they were given many more scenes together and seemed to be shaping up to be a couple in the anime. The "Tunnel of Lost Love" story was intended to sink the pairing, but the anime version appeared to be promoting it instead. They defend each other from the spirits (which didn't happen in the manga), complete with a Back-to-Back Badasses moment, and the OAV version ends with them collapsing in exhaustion while being teased as "lovebirds" by Ranma and the others, in contrast to the manga ending on them arguing over who was the bigger mess up. "Nihao My Concubine", added fuel to the fire by having Ryōga rescue her and, during the end credits, he's seen manning the grill for her.
• Situational Sociability: Ukyō is okay with Akane, just as long as Akane doesn't get close to Ranma. This is as close to friendship as it can get from any of Ranma's pursuers, though the moment she sees Akane getting too touchy, she'll try to put a stop to that nonsense.
• The Smart Guy: Ukyō makes some of the most complex, well-thought-out schemes of canon, and is very good at making and then sticking to a plan. She's also hard to fool and tends to observe what's going on before flying off of the hilt, which can make her harder to manipulate or fool compared to others in the series. Shonen Sunday reflects this trait in her "ability scores" chart, in which she has a whopping Intelligence score of 4 — the highest level in that stat of all the girls, and actually equal to Ranma's own score!
• Stocking Filler: In the manga, her chef's uniform includes a baggy pair of ninja-to style leggings. But in the anime, she wears form-fitting stockings instead, which emphasize the shapeliness of her legs.
• Supreme Chef: While okonomiyaki is her specialty, it's been shown that her culinary skills encompass a broad range of dishes; including French cuisine.
• Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Ukyō is considerably more tomboyish than Akane while having more "wife-material" qualities than her, being more affectionate, a better cook and being a better house-rearing girl than Akane.
• Third-Option Love Interest: Third of the official fiancées to appear, has some good qualities from both the Betty and Veronica, a valid "third choice"... yep, she's got this written all over her.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The Wife (sensible, homey, and a good cook) of Ranma's official fiancées.
• Through His Stomach: Like any one of Ranma's fiancées who isn't Akane, she's established to be a very skilled cook. What makes her stand out compared to both Shampoo and Kodachi is that a) she avoids doctoring her foods like Kodachi does, b) she explicitly serves as the chef in her restaurant whilst Shampoo is more the waitress, and c) she is the fiancée who is most frequently shown feeding Ranma.
• Token Good Teammate: While they're not really a "team", Ukyō is easily the nicest of the three main "runner-up fiancees" compared to Shampoo and Kodachi. She can be nasty when she needs to, but she's really a rather sweet girl at heart.
• Token Wholesome: She's the girl in Ranma's Unwanted Harem who gets the least Fanservice scenes and dresses the most modestly.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Played for Laughs and inverted. When it's first revealed that she's a girl, Ranma deflates her anger by calling her "cute". Henceforth, she considers herself Ranma's "cute fiancee" as opposed to Akane, who is Ranma's "un-cute fiancee"; this, completely ignoring the fact that Ukyō at that point is a massive tomboy, considerably more than Akane.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: She likes to wear her hair in a ponytail when she's crossdressing.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Despite her tomboyish behaviour, she still has a definite femininity about her. She's every bit as good as Kasumi in the kitchen, and unlike Akane, is very secure in her femininity.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Ukyō is, initially, the nice one of the three girls trying to displace Akane from Ranma's heart, mostly trying to push Akane aside with Ryōga rather than through violence. By the later parts of the manga, though, she has devolved to becoming as violent and crazy as Shampoo and Kodachi, where she does things like join them in trying to bump off Nabiki when she takes up the Tendō engagement, levels the Saotome house alongside them, and joins Shampoo in slinging bombs around at Ranma and Akane's abortive wedding. Her business acumen also twists into greed, shamelessly exploiting Konatsu's ignorance and feelings for her to use him as cheap labor.
• Transfer Student Uniforms: Ukyō's winter male uniform is decidedly different from the typical Fūrinkan winter uniform, probably belonging to her previous (boys-only) school (sky/navy blue against Fūrinkan's midnight blue in the anime; in the manga the latter are solid black with buttons and loose collars while hers is screentoned, tightly-collared, and has no visible buttons.) She does wear the same shirt and slacks as everyone else during spring and summer, though.
• Turn the Other Cheek: She quickly forgives Ranma and forgets her desires of revenge after he calls her cute.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: She dressed up in male clothing as a symbol of the fact Ranma had "ruined her womanhood". After her introduction, she continues wearing a male school uniform out of habit.
• You Didn't Ask: She knew Wholesome Crossdresser Tsubasa Kurenai was a guy from the beginning, but since nobody asked she assumed Ranma and Akane knew.

Hikaru Gosunkugi

Hikaru Gosunkugi (五寸釘 光, Gosunkugi Hikaru)

Voiced by: Issei Futamata (Japanese), Michael Benyaer (English), Carlos Íñigo (Latin American Spanish), Rafat Bazoo (Arabic)

A creepy, reclusive, unpopular, nerdy sort of boy who has a deep crush on Akane, which she is unaware of, evidently because she was nice to him. Fixated on black magic, but totally inept at it; far more likely to hit his thumb when trying to perform Ushi no Koku Mairi (a Japanese cursing ritual) than make it actually work. He even got himself struck by lightning once in the anime, after apparently managing to call a storm to school successfully. In the manga, he's a pathetic member of Akane's class, ignored by just about everyone, while in the anime he's an equally pathetic transfer student introduced in the sixth season.

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• Always Someone Better: In a world where Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting, Gosunkugi knows all too well he’s out of his league competing against Ranma. So instead of directly confronting the master martial artist like most of Ranma’s rivals, Gosunkugi tends to go for underhanded tactics that avoid facing him head-on. These include instances such as waiting for all Ranma’s other rivals to attack a weakened Ranma before he has a turn himself, or during the school play he first disguises himself as the scenery and then drugs Akane to avoid the conflict directly.
• Beady-Eyed Loser: Small, squinty eyes are just another part of his unfortunate appearance, and help to visually cue that he's a pathetic loser.
• Black Magic: He wants to master this and use it to get rid of his rivals for Akane's hand, most notably Ranma, but it basically never works. On the other hand, the one time that he actually got his hand on real magic (the control paper dolls), he only used it to mildly embarrass Ranma through a pratfall, so it is very questionable if he is really ruthless, or just doing harmless venting, in the same way many others use fighting games.
• Butt-Monkey: Unlucky in basically all his appearances. So unlucky, in fact, that most of his appearances in the anime are gone. (Often replaced with the anime-only character Sasuke.) He does get to make an appearance in the SNES Ranma ½: Hard Battle game, though.
• Camera Fiend: Takes pictures of Akane whenever he can, in the manga took pictures of Ranma while trying to learn something to use against Ranma (failed since Ranma could sense where he was at all times), and also took one of the photos Kodachi altered in that canon.
• Demoted to Extra: He appears very late in the anime series and most of his roles in the earlier part of the manga were taken over by Sasuke or other one-shot filler characters.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He desperately wants to become Akane's boyfriend, even though Akane is engaged to Ranma and pursued by Tatewaki Kunō and Ryōga. Having no martial arts training or Super-Strength, he instead tries to win her affections by being polite, well-spoken and romantic with her. Zigzagged in that he also does a lot of really creepy things that a real Nice Guy wouldn't consider doing, like lurking in shadowy places to spy on Akane, taking pictures of her when she isn't looking, drugging her in hopes of kissing her whilst she's unconscious, or trying to push Ranma out of the way with magic or dirty tricks. Even when he does try to do something romantic, he's so shy and wishy-washy he usually can't actually talk to her.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In the anime, due to being a transfer student who arrives late in the series, he completely misunderstands Ranma and Akane's relationship and thinks that Ranma is a cruel and abusive bully who is constantly picking on Akane and even himself. His refusal to accept reality is part of what makes him and his pathetic attempts at revenge funny.
• Hopeless Suitor: One of the many boys who wants to win over Akane’s heart, but unlike all the others he knows he doesn’t have even the remotest chance, so he’s content with merely getting a chance to talk to Akane. Though there are a few instances he tries something a little more shady such as the paper dolls of love that can make people do something, or the time he attempted to ruin Ranma's reputation.
• Last-Name Basis:His given name, Hikaru, is very rarely used. Everybody calls him Gosunkugi.
• Loners Are Freaks: A chicken and egg trope here; is he left alone because he's such a freaky little guy, or is he such a freaky little guy because nobody wants to be his friend?
• Looks Like Cesare: The pallor, tightly drawn skin and circles under his eyes are part of what defines him as "the class creep", adding to his spooky mine. Amazingly, they're hereditary; both of his parents look the same.
• Meaningful Name: His surname translates to “Five Inch Nail”, a reference to the fact he nails cursing dolls to trees all the time.
• Mutually Unequal Relationship: He thinks of himself as a rival to Ranma. Not only does Gosunkugi lack even the slightest chance of physically competing with Ranma, Ranma barely acknowledges that Gosunkugi exists. The anime plays with this by making Gosunkugi have more of a dislike for Ranma personally, thinking of Ranma as a bully who wants to hurt him — Ranma has no ill will towards Gosunkugi at all and instead Gosunkugi misinterprets things like Ranma trying to protect Gosunkugi from eating Akane's legendarily awful food.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Perhaps more so in the anime than in the manga; even beyond his cursing ritual obsession, he's a fanatic for gathering grimoires of black magic (especially those focuses on cursing), thinks that taking a girl to a purportedly haunted graveyard and telling her about various methods of inflicting curses on people you don't like are romantic dates, and his only problem when he realised his girlfriend was a ghost was the fact that if he got serious with her, he'd have to give up on Akane.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In one story, Gosunkugi dressed himself up as Ranma and began committing lame crimes against schoolgirls at night in order to ruin his reputation. Somehow, he managed to fool the entire school. Obviously, he didn't fool the REAL Ranma, who encountered him in his girl form.
• Pathetically Weak: He's portrayed as a weakling, and not just in comparison with the super-strong martial artists that populate the setting. He's explicitly less athletic than the average Fūrinkan student, unable to maintain a brisk jog for long. This bites him in the ass with some of his ill-thought schemes, like during the Romeo & Juliet play where he manages to chloroform Akane... but proves unable to follow up by kidnapping her because he's not strong enough to drag her anywhere.
• Powered Armor: In the manga, buys a "Warsuit" that latches onto Ranma's wrist to power up. However, this Ranma-level suit was designed with three major limits to prevent misuse: once assembled and worn, it can't even move unless latched onto the primary target; once engaged, the user MUST land a punch on the target within a time limit, or the suit will self-destruct; if the user successfully lands a punch, the suit will deactivate and fall apart. Since it's advertised as a weapon against bullies, it's an intelligent method of self-control.
• Stalker with a Crush: Takes photographs of Akane working out during gym class, but in both canons she doesn't really notice him given he's so low-key and subtle compared to the flamboyant and much more vivid Kunō and (somewhat) Ryōga. Sneaking around in her backyard taking photos of her or staking out her jogging route kind of fall into second place compared to attacking her with a sword in front of school every morning while bellowing declarations of love.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Gosunkugi is so banal and socially invisible that other characters (even martial artists) fail to notice him until he makes his presence known. It's exaggerated in the anime, where it looks like he's materializing out of the shadows to startle people.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: He tends to daydream along the lines of Romance Sitcoms whenever he thinks about Akane.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Gosunkugi gets cornered and beaten up by delinquents, and Ranma jumps in to save him. How does Gosunkugi thank him? By ordering a special mechsuit to use to beat Ranma. How justified you find this depends on whether you read the original manga (more accurately, the fan translation thereof) or the officially translated version by Viz. In the former, Ranma says something along the lines of "it's the duty of a martial artist to help the weak and downtrodden!", and it's the second part that sets off Gosunkugi's pride. The Viz translation has Ranma go "As if there could be a thing like you without embarrassment, Gosunkugi!" — he says it with the same blithe, well-meaning look on his face, but worded like that, it's really hard to see Ranma as not deliberately adding insult to (near) injury.
• Unknown Rival: He sees himself as a rival to Ranma for Akane’s affection. Ranma barely acknowledges his existence.

Dr. Tōfū Ono

Tōfū Ono (小乃 東風, Ono Tōfū)

Voiced by: Yūji Mitsuya (Japanese), Ian James Corlett (English, Seasons 1-6's first half), Kirby Morrow (English, Season 6's second half-7), Jorge Ornelas (Latin American Spanish), Daniel Abundis (Latin American Spanish, episode 14), Rafat Bazoo (Arabic)

A minor character introduced as the local chiropractor and acupuncturist, who has tended to Akane's injuries since she was a little girl, which caused her to develop a Precocious Crush on him. Fixated on Kasumi, turning into a bumbling idiot whenever he hears her voice or even sees a photo of her, never mind actually seeing her. Dropped from the manga by the end of the Full Body Cat's Tongue Pressure Points story, making one final appearance at the very beginning of the Moxibustion arc, but remains a minor fixture of the anime.

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• Age-Gap Romance: Invoked. Dr. Tōfū is deeply infatuated with Kasumi, despite the age gap between them — she's only 19, whilst his age is never specified, but reasonably he's somewhere in his late 20s to early 30s.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In the anime version exclusively. Tōfū's mother is his only living parent, but she's crazy enough to make up for his deceased father. She never goes anywhere without a family shrine strapped to her back to honor Tōfū's deceased father, and that's the least weird thing about her. She's absolutely obsessed with grandchildren, and because of that she's obsessed with big-hipped women, as she believes big hips on a woman will naturally result in lots of healthy children — she even announces her wish for her son to marry a huge-hipped, incredibly gonky female wrestler because of the woman's mighty hips (that the woman had released a country music song called "The Big Hips Blues" didn't hurt), and will spontaneously grab women's hips and fondle them in order to see if they might be a good match for her son. And if he says something that disagrees with her even the slightest, no matter how gently he puts it, she will attempt to guilt him into compliance by dramatically threatening to commit suicide.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Akane, which is the basis of her crush on him.
• Butt-Monkey: Downplayed, but the anime's version of the character is often used for comedy in how things tend to go wrong for him. The anime's very first filler episode revolves around him being visited and humiliated by his crazy mother, including being robbed of a good amount of money by Nabiki Tendō. Then there's the episode where he tries to take Kasumi on a date at an amusement park... only for the rest of the Tendō Household and all of Ranma's fiancées and rivals to tag along with them, so he never gets the chance to do anything romantic with her.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He vanishes without a word once Cologne takes his place as official font of obscure wisdom. He shows up from time to time in filler episodes late in the anime, but his plot importance was gone by the end of Season 2. In the manga, after volume 12 he's gone for good.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Tōfū is never anything other but sweet and chastely affectionate for Kasumi, but she never returns his feelings. In fact, it's subtly implied by canon that she's not even aware that he is in love with her!
• Informed Ability: We're told he's a strong and skilled martial artist, but we never see him do anything other than manipulate pressure points, and then for health purposes. Downplayed in the anime, where a seventh season episode seems him subdue a good number of the Frog Hermit's knife-wielding attack frogs with a flurry of rapid-fire paralytic pressure point touches... only to then be reduced to a catatonic, mumbling imbecile when presented with a picture of Kasumi.
• In the Blood: In the anime's first season, a filler episode states that Dr. Tōfū's father, Mr. Ono, used to get just as love-drunk around Mrs. Ono as Dr. Tōfū gets around Kasumi.
• Irony: We don't know why Kasumi wants an older man, but given her characterization as the "traditionalist" of the Tendō siblings, she likely wants an older man because she believes such a spouse would be more level-headed, thoughtful and mature than a man around her own age. Tōfū, on the other hand, turns into a blithering, bumbling buffoon when he so much as talks to Kasumi on the phone, making him the very opposite of what Kasumi would want.
• Lethal Klutz: Becomes this whenever he is smitten with his love craze. People who are not as Made of Iron as the cast actually know better than try to get ministrations from him whenever Kasumi is anywhere nearby.
• Love Makes You Crazy: When Dr. Tōfū goes into love-crazed mode, he's a legitimate danger to himself and everyone around him, to the point that his clients all know to reschedule appointments if Kasumi's been nearby, as he could seriously hurt them. (His Establishing Character Moment with this is him getting in this mode while he is helping Ranma with a problem with his neck thanks to Akane… and he snaps Ranma's head to be ninety degrees to a side, twice). And the there's the infamous moment during the Memory-Sapping Shampoo story where he insists on dropping by with the vital notebook needed to cure Akane's amnesia... and then promptly starts shredding it into pieces when Kasumi speaks to him.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Dr. Tōfū's most famous trait is that whenever he sees or hears Kasumi, he's so overwhelmed by his romantic feelings for her that he turns into a bumbling imbecile, prone to babbling like a fool, losing track of where he is or who people are, and doing strange, nonsensical things. Just how bad it is depends on how they interacted; just hearing her on the phone can leave him a little mixed up for a few moments, whilst in face-to-face meetings, he gets extremely mixed up. A compliment or a touch from her can result in him doing things like running through the streets and dancing with his model skeleton.
• No Romantic Resolution: Since he effectively disappears from the manga, his crush on Kasumi goes nowhere. The anime was cancelled without resolution on this as well.
• Not So Above It All: Normally, he's one of the most normal characters in the series. When Kasumi's around, on the other hand, he transforms into a raving goofball who can be a legitimate danger to the wellbeing of himself and those around him. There's also the fact he's named his model skeleton "Betty", and likes to play little pranks on people with her.
• Oblivious to Love: He's seemingly unaware of Akane's crush on him, which is ironic, given the implications that Kasumi is likewise completely oblivious to his crush on her.
• Only Sane Man: Putting his issues with Kasumi aside (well, well aside), he's the most down-to-earth, intelligent, well-adjusted, and observant character in the series. In stories where Kasumi doesn't figure, he's a major asset and invaluable support to Ranma and Akane, and the community loves him.
• Quirky Doctor: He is good at his job; the "quirky" part comes out whenever Kasumi is around. Tōfū goes so crazy over her, that he does crazy things like dance around with his model skeleton "Betty." In this state, he can even hurt his patient, like when he broke Ranma's neck or shredded a notebook needed to cure Akane's amnesia.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: In both the manga and anime, his glasses, usually clear, flash and instantly fog up whenever he spots Kasumi, and they stay that way until his love madness recedes (which might be long after Kasumi has gone).
• Shipper on Deck: Works very subtly to get Ranma and Akane together, even if it means inflicting a temporary disability on the former to make the latter's caring side come out.
• Strong Family Resemblance: According to the anime, Dr. Tōfū's deceased father looked exactly like him when he was younger, and his portrait in the family shrine that his wife still carts around from place to place is literally "Dr. Tōfū with a triangular mustache".
• Will They or Won't They?: Although Tōfū is clearly infatuated with Kasumi, their relationship never goes anywhere, in no small part because Tōfū Cannot Spit It Out and Kasumi remains Oblivious to Love. Indeed, it's unclear if Kasumi has even the slightest clue that he's interested in her.

Nodoka Saotome

Nodoka Saotome (早乙女 のどか, Saotome Nodoka)

Voiced by: Masako Ikeda (Japanese), Lisa Bunting (English), Rebeca Manríquez (Latin American Spanish), Majd Zaza (Arabic)

Ranma's long-absent mother is a late-comer to the series. Back when Ranma was just an infant that had yet to learn how to walk, his father took him away from home, assuaging Nodoka's complaints by vowing he and Ranma would commit Seppuku if he failed to make Ranma a "man among men". After Ranma's little accident at Jusenkyo, Genma decided it would be best to avoid Nodoka, though she eventually did find out — fortunately for her son and husband, the precise event had Ranma at some of his best behavior and she decided that the curse wasn't grounds to make Ranma kill himself. Generally a very sweet and motherly sort, but she is just as fixated on honor as her son and husband are (perhaps more so), and she's still carrying that sword around by the series' end, watching and judging Ranma's behavior...

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• Abusive Mom: While Played for Laughs almost as much as her husband is, she's just as bad, if not worse. Despite the fact that the contract consists of a verbal vow ("I will make Ranma a man among men") and a written seal ("I will commit Seppuku: Genma, Ranma"), both of which are incredibly vague, she is totally willing to call it in if she ever judges Ranma to somehow be unmanly. Nodoka is so fixated on the idea that whenever she visits looking for Ranma, she keeps a sword in constant reach, in preparation for the decapitating strike she will be called on to use in the ceremony. In fact, she seems to have the swordswoman's equivalent of an itchy trigger finger, being quite willing to draw it at the slightest hint that her son is being unmanly (both before and after finally meeting him,) and going all the way to donning the requisite regalia if he does something very unmanly. She doesn't get many appearances in the series once she moves into the Tendō Dojo, though, so this aspect is somewhat glossed over.
• Best Friends-in-Law: Akane loves Nodoka because she's the person most aware and appreciative of Akane's attempts at femininity, regardless of the results.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Don't stand near her if she draws her sword. Or if she sits on a "DO NOT SIT" water valve.
• The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. Among the few non-villainous examples in media, she invokes fear in Genma and Ranma like nobody's business, before and even after they finally reveal themselves.
• The Fettered: She holds fast to, and takes pride in, her honor as "a warrior's wife". Thus, she's frequently believed to cling so tightly to the contract in order to draw the emotional strength from it she needs to survive being separated from her son and husband for so many years. And then there's the secondary task she's meant to perform if forced to fulfill the seppuku promise. Additionally, the infamous "seppuku promise" doesn't involve just her honor, but Genma and Ranma's honor too. While they themselves may have little use for it at present time, and in fact stomp all over it more often than not, Nodoka is bound to uphold her husband and son's honor, and hold them up to it, whether she likes it or not. So her insistence on carrying a sword "just in case" is less a case of her being abusive and more being put on the spot by Genma's ill-conceived conditions.
• Honor-Related Abuse: She will hold Ranma to the contract Genma wrote up come hell or high water, despite the fact it is so vague it is impossible to truly determine what would actually fulfill it successfully. Furthermore, she will commit ritual suicide herself after fulfilling that task, according to family honor. She does declares that Ranma's Nyanniichuan curse does not merit an automatic failure to live up to the contract, due to the sheer heroism of the way he saved her despite exposing it to her in the process. But after that, Nodoka starts actively threatening to invoke the contract whenever Ranma comes off as even slightly unmanly to her.
• Iconic Item: The Saotome Family Sword. Wrapped in a bundle, sheathed, or live, it's pretty much glued to her hand.
• Kimono Is Traditional: Nodoka the Yamato Nadeshiko wears one at any given time.
• Mama Bear: Tries to protect Akane and Ranma with everything she has, if she thinks they're being threatened.
• Missing Mom: Ranma never even mentions having a mother before she makes her debut, having forgotten she ever existed.
• Only Sane by Comparison: Whilst Nodoka seems to be the saner of Ranma's parents, given Genma's laundry list of insane stunts, stupid schemes and selfish actions, that doesn't make her a bastion of sanity herself. Genma makes it very clear that he is genuinely afraid that Nodoka would make Ranma commit seppuku for his Gender Bender curse, and for much of her position in the story she's a legitimate threat to Ranma's life. Even though she does ultimately learn about the curse and dub Ranma manly, her behavior up until that point makes it clear that she's really not that much saner than Ranma.
• Parental Substitute: Overlapping with Best Friends-in-Law; upon first meeting each other, Nodoka becomes a motherly figure to Akane, who lost her own mother when she was a little girl.
• Parents as People: What saves her from being a downright abuser is that the poor woman does love Ranma as much as her seriously warped nature allows, as seen in Mama Bear. She also spent some time sewing a customized winter coat for Ranma when he was still a baby in expectation that he'd wear it some day. Before she found out the truth, she doted on, cared for, and worried about "Ranko" just as much as a mother would, becoming seriously distressed when she thought the girl was in trouble. And as stated in Mama Bear above, she's absolutely devoted to Akane as well — when under the impression that a "molester" was stalking Ranko and Akane, Nodoka hid herself in the Tendō home without telling anyone, just so she could keep an eye on them and spring on the stalker at a moment's notice. (The fact that even she couldn't pull so many all-nighters without falling asleep from exhaustion, but ''still' appeared immediately when needed, only humanizes her further.)
• Perpetual Poverty: Her prior, "poor" house was demolished and she had to move to another one, and has to recycle martial arts scrolls just to have paper to make envelopes. Ranma says she's the model wife of a poor martial artist. Even more so after the Fiancée Brigade (Shampoo, Kodachi, and Ukyō) destroy her house due to a misunderstanding.
• The Pollyanna: Even though her situation would give anyone soul-crushing despair, she's always cheerful and optimistic during her visits, and is more than happy to help around the house or completely spoil "Ranko".
• Principles Zealot: She is so fixated on the concept of a "Man among Men" that she lets Genma take a toddler Ranma away, despite literally fighting against it tooth and nail just moments before, all because Genma provided a two-part promise. Verbal: "I will make Ranma a man among men." Written: "I will commmit seppuku." While it's all fine and dandy, both ethically and legally, for Genma to sign such a contract, making an infant who can't read or write "sign" by inking his hand and slapping it on the paper goes beyond the pale, even in the most "conservative" of Japanese homes. Thus, by Nodoka's understanding, if Genma was so utterly dedicated to this goal as to go that far, she had no choice but follow both sides of the contract to the letter. Fortunately, she decided that, curse or no curse, Ranma was a man through and through no matter what body he's in —it's "only" if his personal behavior proves otherwise that she starts pulling out her sword.
• Shipper on Deck: Not as bad as her husband Genma, but she takes it as granted that Akane and Ranma are engaged and is excited to hear what Akane thinks of her son, and is all too happy to help move the relationship along.
• Stepford Smiler: As cheerful as she is whenever she visits the Tendō home, especially when she gets to spend time with "Ranko", she turns sad and lonely as soon as she's out of sight from them, and she tends to be disappointed to find out she "just missed" Ranma and Genma yet again. In a particularly heartbreaking scene, she confesses to Ryū Kumon that she had already figured out he wasn't her real son, but that she enjoyed the deception for a while. However, it's made clear to the reader that, despite her words, losing her son a second time hit her very hard.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Allowing for age and height, [[the only difference between female Ranma and Nodoka in the anime is hair and eye color. In the manga, there's not even that.
• Supreme Chef: Genma says as much, to which Ranma gets pissed since it reminds him that he's never had his mother's cooking his entire life.
• This Is Unforgivable!: She effectively denies Genma all semblance of affection due to him keeping Ranma away from her.
• Took a Level in Badass: As clumsy as she was with her sword at first, later appearances showed a dramatic improvement in skill and confidence. It's never made clear how good she actually is, however.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: It's a mystery how a beautiful woman like her ended up married to a man like Genma, who can be most generously described as "strong-featured". At least we now know where female Ranma got her good looks from.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Fixated on honor, wears a kimono, carries a katana, and supported herself during the years her husband and son were on their training journey.

Sasuke Sarugakure

Sasuke Sarugakure (猿隠 佐助, Sarugakure Sasuke)

Voiced by: Shigeru Chiba (Japanese), Robert O. Smith (English), Herman López (Latin American Spanish), Rafat Bazoo (Arabic)

For reasons that will never be known, the anime's creative team decided to drop the minor character Hikaru Gosunkugi, Akane and Ranma's creepy classmate who would sometimes become a reluctant ally or flunky to Tatewaki Kunō. Instead, they decided to create a new character to take the role of Kunō's dedicated servant, and thus was born Sasuke Sarugakure, whose name means something like "Ninja from the Hidden Monkey Village". This ugly midget Ninja is most frequently seen at Tatewaki Kunō's side, but he will also serve "Mistress Kodachi" if she needs his assistance as well. Sasuke serves as something of the Jack-of-all-trades manservant to his masters, doing everything from spying on their enemies/love interests, to cooking their food, to cleaning their house, to making shadow puppets to help them sleep, to helping them train or fighting at their side — it's implied he may have actually been their primary caretaker when they were children. In return, he is rewarded with horrific mistreatment. He is forced to sleep outside in all weathers like an animal, fed only leftover scraps (and that infrequently; he once had to live for ten days on a single bowl of brine, and he's forgotten what milk and watermelons taste like), forced to drink the water from the storm gutters, and frequently beaten and berated by his charges.

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• Butt-Monkey: Even more so than Kunō, as he generally doesn't mean any more harm than needing to serve his master and is fairly amiable if not being compelled by that, but he still gets physically abused a lot.
• Canon Foreigner: Created exclusively for the anime.
• Combat Pragmatist: He's a ninja, what were you expecting? He's aware that he's pretty lousy fighter, so he uses traps, ambush tactics, deception, trickery and basically any dirty trick he can come up with to even the odds.
• Fragile Speedster: He's rather fast but sucks at combat, and his ability to take a hit is atrocious. Combined with his clumsiness, Sasuke has a tendency to knock himself out in a fight.
• Happiness in Slavery: Downplayed. Sasuke makes it quite clear that he would like if the Kunōs treated him better, but he's a strong believer in the duties of a servant, so he tolerates the abuse and does his best to fulfill their every command.
• Made of Iron: While not very good in combat, he has a tremendous threshold for pain, quite capable of feats like remaining in an exposed mailbox, in the middle of a blistering heatwave, for three whole days with no food or sleep in order to wait for his designated quarry to pass by.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: He's well aware that his masters are insanely abusive and barely capable of feeding themselves without him, yet stays loyal to them and refuses to leave. In the episode "Les Miserables of the Kunō Estate", he even leaves Akane, whom he had been planning to transfer his loyalty to after being fired by the Kunōs, because Tatewaki promised to start treating him better.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Has no problem with Ranma or his relationship with Akane personally, he just becomes antagonistic to them when one of the Kunōs orders it.
• Ninja: A parody or subversion as, in a city full of practitioners of Supernatural Martial Arts, he's a clumsy incompetent with minimal fighting skills and armed with basic ninja tricks. He is, however, incredibly fast (able to go from one end of the school gym to the other, help Akane spring over the leaping horse, and then dart back into the shadows where he started from, all without anybody seeing him) and very skilled at the art of camouflage... though not so good with outright disguise.
• Old Retainer: Not that old, but he has worked for Kunō since he was a child.
• There Was a Door: Sasuke once bursts up through a loose panel in the floor to give a report in person.
  Kunō: I meant through the door, you blithering idiot!

Hinako Ninomiya

Hinako Ninomiya (二ノ宮 ひな子, Ninomiya Hinako)

Voiced by: Yumi Touma (Japanese), Janyse Jaud (English)

The last of the major characters to be introduced (in the manga — the anime was cancelled before she was created, so in that canon she was merely the subject of an OAV and appears in a second one, "Nightmare Incense of Spring Sleep"). Miss Hinako was hired by Principal Kunō ostensibly as a new Homeroom/English teacher for Ranma's classroom, but, aware of her fame dealing with troublesome students, with the express purpose of having her pacify and discipline his unruly students. Hinako's story begins many years before the series, when she was a little girl in the hospital for an unidentified ailment. Happōsai, wandering by, dropped in and either took pity on her, saw someone he could use to help him steal underwear from the nurses, or both. He subjected her to a regime of Pressure Point manipulation that would endow her with the ability to drain the Battle Aura from other people, which he insisted would help her get better. Flash forward to the present day, and she's all better... but now she's stuck looking like a kid unless she drains somebody's Battle Aura, and she'll only remain in her adult form until she uses up the ki she stole. Obsessed with stomping out "delinquency", she frequently clashes with Ranma, particularly after she falls in love with Sōun Tendō.

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• Achilles' Heel: A simple set of five pressure points hit simultaneously will knock out her powers for an entire day. The two on her back aren't much of a problem, but the three in front are right over her breast - the resulting attack looks a lot like someone's wrestling her into submission and groping the hell out of her.
• Action Girl: Perhaps the second strongest recurring female character (behind Cologne). The only one who can hold her own at Ranma's level, albeit by use of her ki-draining skills as opposed to hand-to-hand combat.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: In her adult form, she is tall, beautiful and acts very aloof and elegant. However, if she stays this way too long, she will revert to her childish personality.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: During the "Little Hawaii" story, a bunch of male students from Fūrinkan are infected by the "Aloha virus" thanks to the Principal's latest ploy. This makes them act like "honeymooner tourists in Hawaii", the dream of any Japanese. Thus they begin assaulting female Ranma, Akane and Ukyō to make them their "wives"... but they twice ignore Hinako-sensei since she looks like a little girl. She feels quite insulted by that.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: She takes her role as an educator and disciplinarian very seriously, but she's JUST as easily distracted by toys, games, manga, snacks, and generally anything that would capture the attention of a little kid.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: The biggest case in the series, exceeding even Akane.
• Competing with a Corpse: Hinako has a crush on Sōun, but he can't seem to shake the memory of his late wife. She still doesn't plan to give up easily and secretly pursues Sōun in an effort to marry him.
• The Ditz: In child form, or after going too long without changing into it, she has an incredibly short attention span and tends to make very poor judgments about the world around her.
• The Dreaded: She has built up such a reputation as a disciplinarian that, when the Fūrinkan students catch wind of the "new teacher" coming to their school, they're already aghast that she has supposedly conquered three delinquent high-schools, and the Principal himself hired her specifically for this reason (so she would take down Ranma). They're all... less than impressed when they see a little girl making that claim.
• Dual Age Modes: Between "child" and "adult", via the "Happo Go-en Satsu".
• Energy Absorption: One of her two modes of attack, Hinako's "Happo Go-en Satsu" lets her siphon away the ki from active combatants, an act that temporarily renders the victim too weak to stand. It also makes her immune to even the fiercest of Ki Manipulation, as the Go-en Satsu lets her simply drink them up. As a bonus, she can release that energy as a blast that will hit like a speeding truck. If an opponent is wise to her absorption technique and refuses to engage, she can still use the "Happo Gojuu-en Satsu" (Fifty Yen as opposed to Five Yen, for extra punch) to suck the ki of anyone in the effect cone, even onlookers and bystanders.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Almost literally. Principal Kunō hired her based on her reputation without even bothering to know what she looked like. To say that he was disappointed to find out the truth is an understatement.
• Genki Girl: In kid form, she acts somewhere between this and The Ditz, being full of energy and constantly running around until she tires herself out.
• Glass Cannon: To anyone who knows her pressure points. However, even Ranma can only do it over the course of a drawn-out battle, given that she can reduce any fighter to a groaning mass with just one shot, and take out a wall with the resulting firepower.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Her adult form tends to understandably attract some attention.
• Hopeless Suitor: Though she falls head-over-heels for Sōun Tendō, his daughters and future son-in-law object to the idea and he himself doesn't seem to reciprocate, partially because he's still mourning his first wife.
• Hot Teacher: Her adult (and true) form is an incredibly beautiful and curvaceous woman, which is an instant target of lustful admiration from her male students.
• Human Hummingbird: In her child form, to the point that in the series’ fandom this style of movement is known as the Hinako shuffle.
• Kamehame Hadoken: After she drains ki, she can launch it as a massive blast of ball lightning via her Happo Tsurisen-Gaeshi technique. Using this move expels all of the ki she drained beforehand, which shrinks her back to a child, but the blast usually instantly defeats her opponent if it hits.
• Likes Older Men: While vague, her true age is somewhere in her mid to late twenties, yet she falls in love with Sōun, who is anywhere between very late 30s or mid-40s. This is naturally much more pronounced when she regresses to her "little girl" form. Unfortunately for her, Sōun only acknowledges her strictly as a teacher when adult, and as nothing more than a child and friend of Akane's otherwise.
• Littlest Cancer Patient: She was one of these until Happōsai "cured" her.
• Magic Pants: Her favored one-piece yellow dress was specifically chosen to fit both her child and adult forms. It's just Stripperiffically short-skirted and low-necked on her adult form. For mainstream Japanese society and practically any school environment, anyways.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Under normal circumstances, her personality definitely changes whether she's an adult or a child, with the former being stern, serious and seductive, and the latter being a lazy, childish goofball. However, being stuck as a little girl has affected her so much that, if she stays too long in her "real" adult mode, though, her mind will wander and she'll start acting like a kid again.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her adult form. Her yellow dress manages to fit both her child and adult forms, but just so for the latter, resulting in a short skirt and a low neckline (and her adult form sure does fill it).
• Older Alter Ego: Inverted. She's Older Than She Looks — in her twenties — but can only appear thus after draining battle aura. Most of the time she's pre-teen.
• Phlebotinum Overload: Absorbing too much energy, whether accidentally or as a controlled, deliberate action, will lead to this. If controlled, she uses a source of endless battle ki to remain in adult form as long as she can, allowing her to fire off ki blasts as often as she pleases without reverting to child mode... but her mind will eventually drift back to a childish personality and break down even further to a point she absolutely cannot maintain focus at all (where she's otherwise implied to be a competent teacher even in child mode). But when she accidentally drains the angry, vindictive energy of all the students previously humiliated by the Principal, she becomes an engine of destruction bent on exacting revenge on him come hell or high water, and it takes several, extraordinarily powerful ki blasts (and actually hitting him with the last one) for her to vent all that burning rage and change back to normal.
• Punny Name: Her ki-draining attacks are called the "Happo Go-en Satsu" and "Gojuu-en Satsu", for the five- and fifty-yen coins she uses as a medium. When she gives back the collected ki as a projectile? "Happo Tsurisen-Gaeshi", or "Change-Return". In the English, these are named the "Happo (Number)-Yen Satsu" and "Happo No-Yen Coin Return" instead.
• Sensei-chan: When she's a kid, she acts more childish than her own students, goofing off, staring into space, sleeping at her desk...
• Spider-Sense: Because she can drain Battle Auras, she can sense when anybody is emitting them. This largely negates any attempt at sneak-attacking her; when her would-be assailant gets close, she can sense their hostile ki energy, and respond with her draining attack. That said, the move can be foiled if the assailant can hide in plain sight by mingling with a crowd of people who have battle auras up for legitimate, non-hostile reasons. Such as a basketball game for gym class.
• Soap Opera Disease: She had a "weak constitution" as a child, complete with IV and adorable cough. She got better thanks to Happōsai's treatments, which also turned her into a chi-vampire.
• Sweet Tooth: When in child form, her obsession with sweets rivals or exceeds Ranma's.
• Teacher/Parent Romance: She develops a crush on Sōun Tendō, the father of one of her students.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Hinako has absolutely no fighting skills, having never trained a day in her life. Get close enough to pin down her hands, and she can't retaliate. But you have to get close enough first, which is a huge feat in and of itself, given that her potent ki-drain and ki-blast combo techniques allow her to flatten virtually everybody that goes up against her.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Since her ki-draining techniques need a coin (specifically a 5 or 50 yen coin, which have holes in them) to funnel the ki into her body, and she can't use her ki blasts without having absorbed energy first, the one sure-fire way to defeat her is to knock said coins out of her hands. However, she's well aware of this, so she tends to carry plenty of change at all times, and, if pressed, she can easily turn any circular object in her vicinity as an intake, such as using a basketball hoop to completely drain Kodachi, Shampoo, and Ukyō when they deprived her of all her pocket change.
• Who Will Bell the Cat?: If her pressure points were to be hit every day consecutively for a month, she'd permanently lose her ability to drain battle aura. However, Ranma is the only one capable of doing so (Happōsai's more than skilled enough, but his armspan is too short to hit all five at once), and the first time he pulled it off required a drawn-out battle he spent several days recovering from and which practically destroyed his reputation, as everybody thought he was trying to molest her (three of those five points are located around her left breast, for starters). Understandably, Ranma promptly said "nuts to that" and contented himself with just living with her and exploiting her mental weaknesses to keep her out of his hair.
• World's Strongest Man: Thanks to her ki-manipulating abilities, Hinako is flat-out one of the strongest opponents Ranma goes up against, up there with the likes of Herb and adult Saffron. Her unique ability to siphon off an opponent's fighting energies and return it to them in a deadly energy blast makes a frontal attack effectively impossible; only someone who can out-think her can beat her. Appropriately, a translated chapter of the original manga actually refers to her as such.

Maomolin

Maomolin (猫魔鈴, Maomōrin)

Voiced by: Kazumi Tanaka (Japanese, season 5), You Yoshimura (Japanese, season 5), Masahiro Anzai (Japanese, season 7), Samuel Vincent (English), César Arias (Latin American Spanish), Esteban Siller (Latin American Spanish), Marwan Farhat (Arabic)

A giant bakeneko (ghostly cat) that Shampoo accidentally brought back to Nerima from a visit to China, Maomolin wants to claim a human wife and will do anything to get one.

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• Bakeneko and Nekomata: He's a bakeneko, a ghost of a cat from China, who's able to steal bodies and lay curses on people.
• Boisterous Weakling: Bigger than the average man, and has an impressive repertoire of powers to boot, but ultimately he's far less accustomed to violence than Ranma's usual rogues gallery, and runs if things get too violent. The anime even indicates he has a special fear of dogs.
• Grand Theft Me: Possessing people is his primary spiritual power. It never does any good as he's a terrible actor, he can be exorcised just by hitting whoever has possessed him, and he tends to choose people that whoever he's fighting would have no problems hitting. Like when he possessed Genma to try and escape the wrath of Ranma.
• I Owe You My Life: In the anime, Ryōga saves him from a pack of dogs, so Maomolin offers to grant Ryōga a wish, declaring he is also a guy and must repay such a debt. Upon hearing about his shyness and how this interferes with his desire to court Akane, he possesses Ryōga and proposes for him.
• Mars Needs Women: Despite the fact he's a cat, he's fixated on taking a human wife.
• Mega Neko: He's a cat the size of a grizzly bear.
• No Name Given: Technically speaking, "Maomolin" is just the name for the bell he dwells in. If he has a name of his own, it's never given (neither of his two appearances in the manga has him introducing himself, or anyone calling him anything besides "bakeneko"; in fact, it's not even clear if it is the same bakeneko in both stories). The anime (dub especially), which gives him a bit more focus as a character, treats it as his name.

Akari Unryū

Akari Unryū (雲竜 あかり, Unryū Akari)

A sweet, gentle girl who shows up very late into the manga. Heir to the Unryū farm of Sumo Wrestling Pigs, she rides around on her hand-reared Yokozuna Pig, Katsunishiki, seeking a man strong enough to defeat him. This is the only man she will be allowed to marry. When Ryōga succeeds, she instantly falls in love with him, and he quickly becomes attracted to her in return. After her introduction she featured in one more arc before the end of the manga and did not appear at all in the anime.

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• Best Her to Bed Her: A variant, in that in her instance, it's her giant sumo pig whom her suitors must defeat.
• Beta Couple: With Ryōga. They are the only couple in the series with a functional relationship and the only one to get a nearly definite happy ending.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gentle Girl to Ryōga's Brooding Boy. Considering how utterly unlucky and miserable the poor Ryōga usually is, having a sweet-natured and understanding girl like Akari fall for him is the best thing that has ever happened to him.
• Changing Yourself for Love: In her debut story, Akari does everything she can to force herself to hate pigs (refusing to even say the word "pig") after a standard-issue comical misunderstanding causes her to think Ryōga hates pigs, not knowing he actually hates turning into a pig because of his curse. It doesn't really work, but the effort alone probably makes her the single most considerate human being in the Dysfunction Junction that is Nerima.
• Compliment Backfire: Akari loves pigs and complimented Ryōga repeatedly by comparing him to a pig. He did not see this as a compliment, in part because he turns into a pig.
• Expy: A nearly identical character, a farmer's daughter with Super-Strength called Anna, shows up in the anime. While the manga was created before the anime, the filler episode with Anna (called; "Ryōga, Run into the Sunset") came before Akari's introduction in the manga.
• Happy Dance: Finding out Ryōga can transform into a pig makes her so happy that she dances.
• Innocently Insensitive: She seriously thinks that comparing someone to a pig is a compliment. Ryōga was especially offended because he hates being cursed to transform into a pig, which Akari had no idea about when she "praised" him for being like a pig.
• Kid with the Leash: She usually traipses around Japan riding an ENORMOUS yokozuna --sumo champion-- pig who will attack any man in their way.
• Love at First Sight: She is immediately enthralled by Ryōga at the moment he defeats her champion pig Katsunishiki.
• Love Martyr: Believing Ryōga hates pigs, Akari decides to make herself hate them too by having Katsunishiki attack her for an entire week. It fails since she can't bring herself to hate pigs even after all this.
• Nice Girl: One of the few genuine nice characters in the series. Akari is incredibly sweet, polite and patient. If you get thrown off by her calling you a pig, don't worry, she means it as a compliment.
• Satellite Love Interest: She's essentially designed with the specific purpose of being the perfect girl for Ryōga and her appearances in the story are all about her relationship with him. Basically, she only exists to give Ryōga a happy ending.
• Second Love: For Ryōga, although he still spends some time pining after Akane. By the end of the manga, Ryōga seems to be completely over Akane and is focused on his relationship with Akari.
• Twice Shy: She and Ryōga act very bashful around each other and have a hard time just looking each other in the eye, even during their dates.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Gender-swapped. When she learns her beloved Ryōga is cursed to transform into a pig, Akari is thrilled because pigs are her favorite thing in the world, so Ryōga's curse makes him even more of her dream man.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: A sweet, determined, and devoted Japanese girl who comes from a long family line of sumo...pig farmers.

Konatsu

Konatsu (小夏)

A male ninja raised as a kunoichi (female ninja) by his cruel and hideously ugly stepmother and stepsisters. Despite Konatsu being a prodigy in the arts of ninjitsu, he never managed to kill off his stepfamily (not through lack of trying) and was resolved to being their slave. Until the day Happōsai, Sōun and Genma wandered into the "Sexy Ninja/Red Hot Kunoichi Teashop" and, horrified by the fact the "sexy ninjas" were his stepfamily, destroyed it, whereupon they sent him for revenge upon Ranma. Konatsu decided he'd rather stay in Nerima, particularly after Ukyō treated him kindly and unintentionally caused him to fall in love with her, and began working at Ucchan's Okonomiyaki after his stepfamily was driven away with the help of Ukyō, Ranma and Akane. Though Ukyō still treats him in a way anyone else would consider ridiculously shabby, it's much more than he had at home and so he's content with it. The last main cast member to be introduced to the series, and the only one to appear less than Akari.

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• Agent Peacock: Konatsu is incredibly beautiful, whether he's dressing as a Bishōnen or a bifauxnen. He's also a natural ninjitsu prodigy so skilled, strong and fast that he can give Ranma Saotome a run for his money.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Whichever gender Konatsu deigns to dress up, he's absolutely gorgeous, to the point it's even a minor plot point in his only post-introduction focus story.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: He becomes slavishly devoted to Ukyō because she treats him better than the abusive family that raised him. Not very much better, admittedly, but still better.
• Butt-Monkey: The Universe seems to hate this boy. Forget Akane, forget Mousse's claims, or Ranma's vain melodrama. Only Ryōga has ever been as badly off as Konatsu, and only Ryu Kumon comes close.
• Camp Straight: He's a girly crossdresser and is in love with Ukyō.
• Cinderella Plot: Konatsu's mother died at a young age and his father, for reasons unknown, married a grotesquely hideous woman who already had two disgusting daughters, then died himself. Jealous of Konatsu's appearance, his stepmother and stepsisters treated him hideously and forced him to become their slave. Konatsu is pretty much Cinderella, except that here "she" turns out to be a man.
• Combat Pragmatist: He's a ninja and has very much assimilated this aspect of their fighting style.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Yes, he's very goofy. But Happōsai called him a "Genius Kunoichi" for a reason... even if he was wrong about the gender.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Up To Eleven. He was horribly and ridiculously abused by his step-family since childhood, to the point that he considers living like a starving vagrant to be "heaven". As a result, Konatsu has no common sense about everything about life in general.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Loves Ukyō, but, unlike the rest of the cast, doesn't really act on it... at least not beyond trying hard to be of use to her, rescuing her if anything dangerous happens, and writing "I LOVE Ukyō" all over his diary.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Actually something of a spoof of the concept; he's a boy who looks so much like a girl that he thinks of himself as a girl.
• Expy: He's basically Nagisa Shiowatari from Urusei Yatsura, being a Long-Haired Pretty Boy Wholesome Crossdresser who is as badass as he is beautiful.
• Extreme Doormat: All capacity for active resistance has been beaten out of him (literally) over the years.
• Gender-Blender Name: Konatsu is a feminine Japanese name, which makes his gender reveal even more surprising.
• A Handful for an Eye: One of his techniques involves stuffing balloons full of ground pepper in the front of his shirt, making him look like he has breasts.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Subverted. Konatsu has all the right traits to fit this trope, being a Love Interest for Ukyō who is introduced in the last four volumes of the manga, and has only one story featuring him in a major role that isn't his introduction. The subversion is that Ukyō never shows any signs of reciprocating his feelings, and of course the manga concludes on its infamous No Ending, so nobody ever really hooks up conclusively.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: He can hide behind speech balloons.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has long hair that he wears tied back in a ponytail, which only contributes to his feminine looks.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Konatsu is a quiet, gentle-spoken, and submissive boy who was forced to pretend to be a girl most of his life. Meanwhile, Ukyō is a brash, confident, aggressively assertive girl who dresses like a boy.
• Me's a Crowd: Knows a legendary technique that allows him to do this.
• Mistaken for Gay: At first, Ranma and Akane assume that "she" is a lesbian when they discover Konatsu loves Ukyō, as they're convinced both that Konatsu is female and that "she" is aware of Ukyō's true gender.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite being so slender he can easily pass as a beautiful (if flatchested) girl, Konatsu is strong enough he can chop down a tree with one swing of a wooden sword.
• Ninja: A parodiac version, although in a different way to Sasuke.
• Perpetual Poverty: His stepfamily kept him in the most appalling conditions, never giving him the slightest amount of money. He, consequently, has almost no grasp of how money works; this is even central to his only post-intro focus story.
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: Biologically, Konatsu is male and he never denies it, but he's been brutalized and forced into the female role by his evil stepfamily for so long that he dresses, speaks and even instinctively reacts like a girl ^note for example, trying to cover his non-existent bust and genitals if peeked upon whilst naked. He also considers his love for Ukyō "forbidden" because of his instinctual identity.
• Skewed Priorities: A financial version. Due to being brought up under hideously Abusive Parents, Konatsu has absolutely no understanding of the real value of money whatsoever. Played simultaneously for laughs and drama (it's that sort of series) in his only post-intro focus story, where he almost bankrupts Ucchan's due to his incomprehension of how normal people define "average", "poor", and "extravagant" by, amongst other things, selling his okonomiyaki for only 2 yen apiece because he thinks that's a fair price.
• Speed Blitz: One of Konatsu's special techniques involves repeatedly Flash Stepping around his opponent and planting fake lipstick kisses, causing them to get beaten up by angry girlfriends. Against Ranma, this is a truly devastating move.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks very much like his deceased mother.
• Super-Speed: Konatsu is one of the fastest characters in the series, to the point he even has legitimate Speed Blitz and Me's a Crowd techniques, and he can move faster than Ranma, himself no slouch in the speed department, can keep up with.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Does this to everyone in the cast at the end of his introductory story when his clothes get torn off and reveal the cute Konatsu as a guy.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Dresses and acts like a girl because he was brought up to do so, but seems to avoid male garb only because he's too used to dressing as a girl and/or Ukyō likes his ability to attract hungry guys to her shop.
• Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: Zigzagged. Konatsu wields a wooden sword only because he's so poor that he pawned his steel blades to buy food. However, he's still devastating with his wooden swords because he's just that badass.

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