Final Analysis: Ranma Saotome is a complicated little pirate. Here we have a guy who is quite passionate about certain things - martial arts for one - and who is not the least bit shy about expressing them... Until it gets into personal feelings. Then Ranma is entirely unable to emote. In fact it's often hard to tell exactly how he feels about anyone; it can be argued just as strongly that he views, for example, Ryouga as his best friend as it can be argued that he hates Ryouga. Ranma himself probably isn't even sure. One can easily put this stigma onto Ranma's upbringing with his father. Genma taught Ranma everything he'd ever need to know about fighting, keeping in top physical shape, keeping focussed when fighting; he even taught him the way a proper, honourable martial artist is supposed to behave, to the point where Ranma recognizes it whenever Genma does the exact opposite. ^_~ But he taught him nothing whatsoever about interacting with other people. Genma and Ranma themselves base their entire relationship around martial arts, and when they're getting along best, they're beating the snot out of one another. So it's no wonder that Ranma is - to say the least - stunted when it comes to expressing the softer side of his personality. To start with, everything he enjoys seems to boil down to fighting; sparring with his father or Akane is his idea of a good time, and when bored he will actually pick fights with Ryouga and Akane to keep himself entertained. On top of that, verbal fights (and instigating physical ones) seem pretty plainly to be his first instinct when he's in a situation he's uncomfortable with. Ranma is a strange contradiction, declaring early on that he hates it that Akane is always beating him up and yet picking the fights with her himself! This is the pattern with all of Ranma's friends, right down to Ukyo, who was his friend in childhood; yet another friendship based around trouncing one another. THE FINER POINTS OF MANHOOD The reasons behind Ranma's reluctance to admit to any softer feelings can probably be pointed to a worry that any "sensitive" kind of emotion could weaken him. Ranma is constantly proclaiming that he doesn't have time for girls - he is training. To date, martial arts have been his life; he even tries to center his friendships (and rivalries) around them, and generally succeeds. But a real relationship and real friendship would put his focus elsewhere, and that scares him. Just as the idea of anything he can't immediately understand and take control of scares him. As in, love. Ranma is, it seems to me, terrified of girls. Well, not in the way that sounds. ^_~ He hates to make them cry, he's scared to touch them most of the time, and he just doesn't understand the finer points of a male-female relationship, which scares the tar out of him. And Ranma? Doesn't like being scared. Yet another reason to push away all the possibilities of love. AKANE All kinds of cases can be made one way or another, but to my eyes, Ranma is in love with Akane. Though it's arguable as to whether he acknowledges this to himself. ;) Ranma's relationship with Akane had everything possible thrown in its way from the start, right down to someone other than Ranma planning and controlling his life for him; naturally, he rebels against that, intent on rejecting anyone he's forced into an engagement with. The, er, "misunderstanding" in the bathroom leads to Ranma - inexperienced with personal interactions, as mentioned - unable to simply apologize and wait for Akane's anger to wear itself out. Instead, when one apology isn't enough and a humiliated Akane tosses insults at him, Ranma fights back instinctively and has to one-up her. Things... don't go well from there. Their perceptions of one another are cemented before they even get a chance to know one another. It's true, of course, that Akane hits first and asks questions later. Ranma really can't be blamed for her apparently deliberate conviction to view him in the worst possible light in almost every situation he gets into; like many Takahashi heroes, Ranma is also often the victim of circumstance, and Akane is not one to care to take this into account. But it also can't be denied that Ranma loves to bait her. In the same episode, he wonders why they are always fighting and defensively states that he doesn't LIKE fighting with her, and then turns around and goes out of his way to rile her up until she attacks him. The only explanation for this that could possibly make sense is that Ranma wants her attention. Ranma wants to get to know Akane, and relate to her. And Ranma has no earthly idea of how to do that without fighting. A relationship between two stubborn, awkward, proud people who each refuse to be the first to admit to anyone how they feel - no wonder it takes a long time. Ranma and Akane feel the same way about one another fairly early on, but it's years (of the ongoing series, rather than within it) before they reach a point where a relationship could even begin to progress.
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