SAOTOME SADISM #5

 I've noted elsewhere that when Takahashi began the URUSEI YATSURA comic, some elements suggest that she meant for Ataru and Shinobu to remain a couple throughout the series. However, in the first episode she introduced not just the two Japanese high-schoolers, but also the alien charmer Lum. The latter seems to have instantly captivated enough readers that Takahashi was obliged to re-orient her plans so that, in essence, Lum edged Shinobu out.

In beginning RANMA, Takahashi seems to have been careful not to introduce any substantial competition for Akane until the quarrelsome relationship between her and Ranma had fully developed. Shampoo, Akane's greatest rival for Ranma's affections, thus shows up in the seventeenth adventure, and she's trying to kill Female Ranma.

Akane diverts the club-wielding Amazon and then tasks Ranma with explaining him/herself. The insecure teenage girl seems instantly sure that the trouble has something to do with how "cute" Shampoo is, though the warrior-woman's animus has nothing to do with any sexual interaction between her and either version of Ranma.

I won't detail the nature of the conflict, but it does turn sexual when Shampoo encounters Male Ranma, all unknowing of his shared identity with Female Ranma. Shampoo demands to know the location of Female Ranma and becomes threatening. Male Ranma disarms the Amazon and defeats her-- but instead of causing Shampoo to want to kill Male Ranma, she kisses him and wants to marry him. This is one of the key scenes in which Akane punishes Ranma, even though he's done nothing to invite the situation.

Almost inevitably, Akane and Shampoo declare hostilities (though in such a way that Akane doesn't overtly seem to be fighting for Ranma). 

However, though Shampoo could easily defeat Akane in terms of fighting-skill, she uses a Lum-like trick that makes Akane forget Ranma's very existence (possibly because the Chinese Amazon's not sure she could seduce Ranma after killing his apparent girlfriend). However, even after the erasure, Akane's instincts take over when she sees Shampoo embrace Ranma, with painful results for Ranma.

By a lucky chance, Ranma stumbles across a way to restore Akane's memory, by insulting her-- and this too reaps the usual reward.

Male Ranma then reveals his double identity to Shampoo, and despite her anger, she can't kill him now, and she takes her leave-- but only for a little while.

This is the first Ranma-arc in which the male hero really gets turned into a punching bag by the female lead (not to mention his getting some licks from his father and potential father-in-law as well). I think my survey will show that from now on this become the dominant pattern in the series. Unlike Ataru in URUSEI YATSURA, Ranma hardly ever seeks to show romantic attentions to any woman, including his reluctant betrothed. But Akane acts like a jealous wife, clobbering Ranma every time another girl even comes on to him.

SAOTOME SADISM #4

 The next development in the saga has Ryoga become a literal wedge between Ranma and Akane, for it's revealed that Ryoga too was exposed to one of the magic springs, and when doused with water he changes into a black piglet. Ranma finds this out but Akane doesn't and she makes Ryoga her pet, naming him "P-chan." Thus whenever Ranma tries to punish Ryoga, Akane punishes him.

Shortly afterward, the two teens encounter the first female who overtly pursues Male Ranma. However, Kodachi "Black Rose" Kuno is a little too crazy to be viewed as a possible love interest, so she doesn't occasion a lot of jealousy from Akane. Kodachi does almost get to kiss Ranma after paralyzing him, and Akane acts a little jealous, though she doesn't clobber Ranma this time.

SAOTOME SADISM #3

The advent of Ryoga, Ranma's enemy from Japanese middle-school, comes close to testing the fragile relationship of Akane and Ranma. Akane shows her true feelings by trying to save Ranma from harm during the fight, and he shows his by telling her to get lost. When Akane blows up at Ranma, Ryoga proves the unlikely means of their reconciliation, when one of his weapons slices off a huge hank of Akane's long hair. She's momentarily traumatized by this assault on one of her most feminine attributes, but she's not too paralyzed to dole out punishment to both guys-- which turns comic, since they don't really expect her to hit them so hard.

Then, after various other tribulations, Akane makes peace with her new situation and gets even with Ranma's earlier trick of suckering her with an appeal to "cuteness."

At this point, Takahashi hadn't fully fallen into repeated use of the "Pay-in-Pain" trope. But that trope wouldn't take long to assume dominance.

SAOTOME SADISM #2

 Even were I reading RANMA in the original Japanese, I doubt I would see Rumiko Takahashi explain why Ranma acts like such a jerk, when he's actually a fairly compassionate guy. Since he's a Japanese kid who's been away from his home country for many years, mostly training in Chinese martial arts, the most believable explanations are that (a) he simply hasn't been around his peers very much and has not been well socialized, particularly in relationships with the opposite gender, and (b) he's so heavily invested in martial arts that he tends to see every conflict as a challenge.

So after his knowing Akane a few days, it's evident that he likes her and is attracted to her, but he acts toward her more like a bratty ten-year-old than a sixteen-year-old high schooler. He's smart enough to see that, even though a lot of boys pursue Akane, she's still very insecure about her appearance and her tomboy pursuits. So after Akane challenges him to a match-- a match Ranma could certainly win with skill alone-- he uses the fight as an excuse to pay her a compliment and watch her get flustered.

However, as clever as this gambit is, he shows incredible stupidity by intruding on Akane via her window-- not even to peep at her, but apparently just to see if she's internalized his compliment. And because he can't resist the temptation to taunt her again, he gets a well-deserved clobbering from her. 

To be sure, Ranma enjoys teasing victims, particularly his rival Ryoga, so Ranma's combative nature isn't confined to his romantic interests. Akane, for her part, never shows any desire to play games with people, and barely has any interest in proving her skills against antagonists. Ranma might be some sort of masochist, but Akane is only a sadist when she's forced into the role.

SAOTOME SADISM #1

 I'm playing around with the idea that RANMA 1/2, first published in 1987, may be a trendsetter, if not THE trendsetter, for all Japanese manga that centered on what I may call the "Pay-in-Pain" Trope, to wit: "guy gains a harem of cute girls flocking around him but pays for it by suffering their constant abuse." LOVE HINA, first published in 1998, has probably eclipsed RANMA in the execution of the trope. But how greatly did RANMA pave the way?

As I did with HEAVEN'S LOST PROPERTY, I'm going to look at all or most of the moments in which Ranma, the male lead of the series and the character with the greatest proficiency in martial arts, suffers pain and/or humiliation at the hands of the girls in the harem. Said girls are usually capable of dishing out tremendous amounts of slapstick violence, for all that none of them are Ranma's martial superiors (in contrast to many later exemplars of "Pay-in-Pain," not least NISEKOI). I won't be exploring the "justified/unjustified" dichotomy as I did with HEAVEN'S, as RANMA's stories are usually less clear-cut.

In the beginning, the only member of Ranma's "harem" is Akane, like him a high-schooler, and one to whom he's informally engaged thanks to a marital agreement between their respective fathers. In the first couple of stories, Akane finds out that Ranma suffers the curse of transformation into a female version of himself when he's splashed with cold water. The two teens also see each other naked in the bathroom, setting the fractious tone for their relationship-- and leading to Ranma's first insult of Akane's looks.

The slapstick routine is swiftly repeated in the intro piece.

Though Ranma claims not to be attracted to Akane, their first day of school together attests to the fact that many, many boys besiege her every day, hoping that she'll date them if they can beat her in a bout. Of course both teens are already attracted to one another but refuse to admit it, though this incident makes it harder for the young man to claim that his "bride" isn't attractive to the male of the species.

Nevertheless, Ranma needles the over-sensitive girl again, and again she clobbers him. The scripts occasionally specify that Ranma's too much of a gentleman to lower himself to fighting a female, which explains why he never hits back. Still, his superior skill seems to conveniently vanish when Ranma's creator wants it to, so that it's rather revealing that he somehow can't avoid her pouncing on him on him and twisting him like a pretzel. 

And just to beef up the slapstick, there's the old "innocent sadism" trope, where the girl just can't seem to avoid causing the boy injury, in the same way he keeps accidentally intruding on her when she's naked or semi-clothed.