Ranma ep 1.10: "P-P-P-Chan! He's Good for Nothin'!"

Summary | Dub & Animation | Notes & Comments | Screencaps

Animation (1 to 5):
Five. It's the high point of the ep; even the crappy filler half is extremely well-animated. It's not just the characters or the facial expressions or what - the movements, everything looks great. Check out the fight sequence near the end - it looks like a Jackie Chan movie.

Dub (1 to 5):
Surprisingly enough, this is a damn good dub, too. It's too bad it's wasted on an uneven episode. The funniest thing is that the second half is a better dub than the first half, too; another redeeming feature to the filler part. So I'd say this ep is a four.

Certain aspects of weakness: Koichi Yamadera is a much better Jusenkyou Guide than Ian Cortlett. And I'm not just saying that because it's Koichi Yamadera. I just don't care for Cortlett's voice or line deliveries.

That said, it's the only thing I can think of performance-wise that is genuinely negative. I know I tend to be very hard on Venus Terzo, so I'm pleased to say that she is excellent in this episode. This is a very strong girl!Ranma episode - in Japanese it's very much Megumi Hayashibara's ep, not only because she has more lines than Kappei Yamaguchi but because she really makes them sing. The same can actually be said for Venus in much of this ep. There are only a couple of moments that I take any kind of objection to with her - one is the "HAAIYA!" shout in Ryouga's flashback, but I never like it when the dub actors do the martial arts yells, it always sounds fakey to me. The other part is her delivery after Akane kisses P-Chan. Megumi delivers the "see if I care!!" lines with an out-of-proportion anger that seems to borderline on frustrated tears. Venus loses that extra emotion and just sounds annoyed. Minor quibble!

Over all, her delivery is just great. "Uh... a panda and a girl..." Best line delivery is "Oh, you little COWARD, look at you!" Also, the parts where Venus stands out the most are not the parts where Megumi shines, which is also nice - it keeps both performances separate and shows they each have their own strengths. I'm glad Venus didn't try to imitate the noise Megumi makes when Akane grabs her boob - Venus's "HEEEEYYYY!" works well and if you haven't heard Megumi you don't know what you're missing, so it's okay. ^_~

Contrarily, this is not the best ep for Sarah Strange, although she has her high points. When she first comes into the episode she sounds like she's trying too hard to sound like a guy. Which isn't surprising, considering that she's NOT a guy, and all. ;) The "You'll get yours, Ryouga" line doesn't come off right to me. And the performance at the act break, the whole "It's not what you think" bit, misses the mark in my opinion (though she gets it better at the end). It's not just that it's not up to Kappei's performance - it doesn't match the animation and Ranma's expression. On the other hand, props to Sarah for the very creepy "Helloooo, Ryouga" in act 2. That's a great delivery!

Haven't much to say about Miriam Syrois, especially anything new. Good with the baby talk to the piggie (she always sounds really cute when she does that), not as good with translating Akane's evident despair after losing P-Chan - it's written all over her face, but it doesn't show up in the delivery. Best moment in this ep: when she's whacking Ranma with the sword at the end of act 1, in between his yelling she does these little shrieks of rage. They sound GREAT. XD

I don't know who they have performing the "Howells" - the rich couple - so named because the husband sounds like Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island in the dub. XD I liked that aspect of it, btw - their dubbing was done pretty well, particularly Mr Howell's. Of course, after a while that voice gets annoying too. :P

I have no real comments on anyone else's performance! Like I said, it's a pretty good dub in this ep. It's a given that Mike Donovan is great; Genma again has no lines at all, and the Tendos are barely in it. Willow Johnson does a very good job with Kasumi's "moral scolding" at the breakfast table, she's much more animated than Kasumi usually gets to be. Otherwise? Not a lot to mention, everyone's good. *G*

The translation this time is pretty straight, too. Like very little worth mentioning in terms of changes. One thing, though, that is very interesting is that Ryouga's lines are, for once, often more melodramatic in the dub than in the original! When, near the beginning, he goes on about how big China is and how he crossed it on foot, the dub changes all that to "I've endured unbearable torments chasing after you!" And shortly after that as he talks about falling into the piggy-pool, the original is translated as "that's when my body changed... and my troubles didn't end there!" The dub dramatizes this again, to "That's when I realized... I'd been cast into HELL!" I like the dub lines better in these cases.

For the win? Yet another Ryouga line. "This is nice. Are you happy now?" This also wins for Mike Donovan's best moment this ep. Seriously though. Line, delivery, Ryouga's expression during it... Wins. (It also makes much more sense than "have you figured it out yet?" because really, why would they have figured anything out before then? What in the world would ever make them think that the piglet they found was really a human, short of the piglet turning into a human? I mean, what clues did he think they were missing before the bath? Anyway, nitpicking.)

On the other hand I don't like everything better. It's kind of dumb that Akane falls asleep saying "Ranma's not jealous..." The pre-bath conversation between the Howells is just weird, too. "Yes, Mother, he's very precious. Let's give him a bath!" Non-sequitur much? And "Jeez. How uncute of you" doesn't work on me at the end. Even if it is a direct translation, in English that just sounds awkward and it's not Sarah Strange's fault that the delivery falls flat; it's an awkward line to say.

It is kinda funny that the dub changes "Tonkichi" to "Porkchop", though.

Thoughts on the translation:
Speaking of the Tonkichi/Porkchop thing - I tried to find out what Tonkichi meant, if there was any kind of meaning or origin that I could dig up. I couldn't find anything. I'm kind of thinking it has pig associations of some kind (like Tonkatsu sauce?) but I don't know what they are.

When Ranma jumps over the fence of the Howells' estate to fight the bodyguards, the subtitles translate his line as "In for a penny..." Obviously the second half of that is "...in for a pound." For those who, like me, don't actually know the exact meaning of this idiom, here we go: "If something is worth doing then it is a case of in for a penny, in for a pound, which means that when gambling or taking a chance you might as well go the whole way and take all the risks, not just some." (The dub doesn't keep this, he just says "Well, I've come this far" which means essentially the same thing.) I tried to figure out what Ranma says in Japanese, but I'm just not clever enough. :P

When addressing the bodyguards (taunting, one might say) Ranma refers to them as "Ossan-tachi". I know "-tachi" is essentially just a pluralization, but I was interested in "ossan" which I've never heard before. It's a way of saying "Uncle", like "oji-san", but - like much of Ranma's speech - it's a vulgar slurring of it, like "omee" instead of "omae". (As such I think the connotation is that it's a bit insulting as well. *G*)

From manga to episode:
The first half of the ep is a chapter in the manga; after that chapter, a whole new story arc starts and since they wanted to keep that until next episode, they stuck in some filler for the second half. They really should have done that at the end of last episode, if you ask me; or, potentially, even sooner. Maybe then they could have come up with a better story than "P-Chan Come Home!" :P