Ranma ep 1.4: "Ranma and... Ranma!? If It's Not One Thing, It's Another!"

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Characters in this ep:
Ranma
Akane
Genma
Soun
Nabiki
Kasumi
Kuno


Summary:

Ya know, the first time I saw this ep I was confused by the beginning. Now I feel kinda stupid, 'cause it's pretty obviously a dream; I wonder why I was so thrown off by that... *G* Anyway, Ranma has dreams all night about Kuno declaring his love, and Ranma is increasingly vulnerable - naked, naked in the bath, naked and a girl in the bath - as they go. He awakens and is drenched in sweat, so goes to take a quick bath before school; his father is already there, washing his - bald head, apparently :D And a fight ensues, which Soun tries to break up. Poor Soun. So noble, so beaten after unintentionally groping Ranma's chest. ^_^

Ranma and Akane run off to school. Akane asks Ranma why he seems so tired, and he answers that he had awful nightmares all night long; this is as far as any civility between them goes, though, because they slide right into bantering, their version of flirting (mwahahahaaaa), one-upping each other with insults. Meanwhile, they arrive at school a bit late, and just plow through Akane's Stalker Jocks, leaving Kuno for last. Nabiki watches from a window, as she did the first day, as Akane and Ranma both drop-kick Kuno in the face.

Inside, Akane tells Ranma not to fight her battles for her, but he says it had nothing to do with her; he's still not talking about the day before, though, and probably hasn't told anyone yet. In the infirmary, however, Nabiki cares for Kuno - kind of. She tries to put a washcloth on his head, but he's delirious (and yet, not surprisingly, his character in unchanged) and keeps sitting up and declaring his love for both Akane and the "Pig-tailed girl". Nabiki is easily able to put two and two together. She gets home that day and sneaks into Ranma's room as he naps, pours cold water on him, and takes out a camera...

A bit later, Akane is working out in the dojo, and Nabiki's snapping shots of her as well, the little extortionist. ^_^ An arrow comes shooting into the room, embedding itself to the wall; a letter is attached to it, and surprisingly, it's to Nabiki. Kuno has invited her to meet him at a restaurant that afternoon, and she tells Akane she's going. When she gets there, Kuno is looking creepy in a corner by himself, and holding a horrible-looking frilly doll.

Kuno explains that the reason he asked her there was the doll. ("No thanks," Nabiki says, to which he irritably answers that it's not for HER, it's for the Pigtailed Girl. The idea of Ranma with that doll makes Nabiki laugh so hard she spits out her food all over Kuno's face.) Nabiki takes the chance to bilk as much out of Kuno as possible, by offering him the snapshots she's been taking of Ranma: the ones from that afternoon, plus various other candid shots of him in girl-form with a lot of cleavage showing (and sometimes no shirt at all). She won't even show them to him unless he buys her more food, then sells them for 1,000 each; he reluctantly agrees to the prices but won't let them out of his sight.

Nabiki, ever the business woman, brings up Akane - "You tossed her aside pretty quickly." Kuno denies it - he's as much in love with Akane as he ever was! Nabiki tells him it's sleazy to two-time her, and he is offended. "How could you accuse me of two-timing?? I, with this strong, true heart which cannot lie? Do you call it deceit that I openly wish them both?" Nabiki: "No, Kuno-chan, I call it - two-timing!" He is shocked; apparently no one ever actually told Kuno the meaning of the term. *G* Seeing as Kuno is still interested, Nabiki offers photos of Akane for the same deal: more food, and 1,000 a shot. Again Kuno grudgingly agrees. As a parting gift for being such a great cash cow, Nabiki tells him that she knows the way to get the cute dolly to his Pigtailed Girl...

And it is thus that Nabiki returns home with a letter for Ranma - the boy side - from Kuno.

Ranma goes out to meet Kuno that afternoon. Kuno tosses the dolly at him and asks him why he has to give that to Ranma; thanks to Kuno's habit of forgetting to give context to his questions, Ranma has no idea what that question even means. *G* He clarifies: why did Nabiki tell him that the quickest way to get the dolly to the pigtailed girl was through Ranma Saotome? Ranma understands, but tells him to forget about "her" - he doesn't plan on letting Kuno ever see the "Pigtailed Girl" again. He walks away and around a corner from Kuno, who stands in shell-shocked silence for a few moments before racing after his rival - only to find his Pigtailed Goddess, standing wet after someone dumped a random bucket of water on her. He embraces her, despite a hearty punch in the face, and doesn't let go until Nabiki pours a pot of hot water on the Pigtailed Girl and inexplicably addresses her as "Ranma".

Kuno pulls back to find, to his shock and horror, his nemesis! Ranma Saotome! Ranma looks upset, and says "Okay, I guess you must have figured out my dark secret by now." He starts to leave again, but Kuno's firm grasp on denial will not be leavened. "Saotome! A practitioner of the dark arts! I will not let you enslave my love any longer, evil one!" Ranma and Nabiki figure they'll have to spell it out for him; however, Nabiki is having too much fun with it, and her version of "spelling it out" just makes things worse.

"The pigtailed girl... her body and soul both belong to Ranma!" she says dramatically, a maidenly blush affecting her features. Kuno is horrified, and uses the dolly to enact a quick play about Ranma's depravity. Kuno's Play Of Depravity, by the way, should not be missed. Watch the ep JUST for that 20 seconds. :D At long last, overcome by righteous anger, Kuno attacks Ranma and they fight. As they do, his snapshots of Ranma and Akane go flying, and Ranma catches hold of a few. They're sufficiently distracting for Kuno to get a good hit in on Ranma.

Akane, who has stayed to the side in all of this, now steps forward as Ranma rolls with the impact of Kuno's strike. Standing over him, she warns him that Kuno is very skilled when fighting a male opponent, and Ranma should be paying attention! Ranma, upside down at her feet, warns her in turn that the colour of her panties doesn't suit her. He reenters the fight courtesy of Akane's foot.

Kuno is so enraged that he strikes relentlessly, incredibly quickly; Ranma barely has time to dodge the strikes, which are so powerful that the air pressure alone is breaking the stone behind them. However, Ranma puts an end to the fight with a single move, and Kuno's down for the count. Akane finds the snapshots and yells at Nabiki over them, but Ranma "consoles" her by saying no one would want to look at a dull chick like her anyway... she'll never find herself a husband until she's at least half as sexy as his girl side is. Nabiki takes one last snapshot for posterity, of Akane smashing Ranma's face in with Kuno's bokken.