Saturday Morning Cartoons
I'm feeling nostalgia for a show I've never seen before.
I used to love Arrested Development. Most people who claim to love the series loved it secondhand, and who can blame them. Even I came to the series late, receiving the first disc of the first season - through the US Postal Service - from Netflix. I was so taken with this whip smart show, I gobbled up the first and second season before greedily Tivo-ing the third season as it aired, in real-time, on Fox. Freshman year in college, sitting in my dorm room on a Friday night, watching Arrested Development? I’ve never been cooler.
I loved the series and mourned its cancellation in 2006. Which is why I was so excited to hear it was coming back - to Netflix, of all places - in 2013. The now-streaming giant was already producing Orange is the New Black and the Kevin Spacey president show, both to acclaim. What could go wrong with a fourth season of a proven cult classic?
Turns out, basically everything. While the actual plot of Season 4 is just as bananas as the first three, it is told in a Rashomon style where each episode is shown from the perspective of a particular character. As the series progresses, the timeline comes into focus and the crisscrossing hijinks of the Bluths eventually intersect.
It’s disorienting and jumbled at first, even if the scope slowly comes into the picture and random scenes are frequently provided with hilarious context as each layer is peeled back1. However, as a result we seldom see significant interaction with the main ensemble. It feels like a reunion special at times - we are glad to be here, we think, but we’re probably going to stick to the original for a comfort watch. Doubly so for the fifth season.
That’s the problem with reboots, revivals, whatever: they seldom match the creative verve of the parent series. Some resuscitated IPs may cheaply borrow a name or a setting, but typically establish their own dynamic and cast. The Hawaii Five-O reboot on CBS lasted for a decade until 2020, but it has little apparent DNA from the original series. The CW spent a decade shamelessly rebooting classic ‘80s and ‘90s series like Dynasty and Charmed to abysmal results. These series paid little homage to their parent series. On the other end, Battlestar Galactica was incredible television and rooted in the mythos of the original show, but it had been nearly 25 years since the original series when 2003’s reboot premiered.
Outside of licensing series titles from the estate of Aaron Spelling, there are still so many subpar reboots. I think the worst offender was Will & Grace, which ran for three mercifully brief seasons beginning in 2017. It is so jarring to see the gang back in Will’s apartment twenty years later. The apartment - and Jack - have had a facelift or three. The first few episodes are so Trump obsessed - there’s a scene involving a pink pussy bow and the White House - it’s hard to imagine how someone on the writing team or NBC thought this would go over or age well? Imagine telling yourself in 2024, ‘I need a break from the world’s events right now. I think I’m going to watch a reboot of Will & Grace which premiered seven years ago and should feel totally removed from current events,” and seeing this:
This reboot is so bad that it has retroactively made it impossible to go back and enjoy the original series for me. Imagine: your reboot is so bad it actively undermines the legacy of the maybe groundbreaking original show. This very well may end up being the case with Frasier, the reboot of which is in its second season and only now coming around to bringing back cast members from the original, but Frasier’s brother and Daphne are completely out of sight. Why are we even here?
That’s another issue with these series that hope to grab you by the nostalgia, sometimes only in service of making a quick buck. It’s why I pray to the television gods we never encounter a reboot, revival, or even an HD remaster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Desperate Housewives. Some things deserve to be left alone.
Fans of a particular property sometimes serve as self-appointed gatekeepers, nitpicking the newest iteration for not catering to the longtime fanbase. What happens when someone discovers a reboot without much exposure to the original series? One reboot that I happened to fall into like a cursed hot spring is Ranma ½.
Ranma ½ is about teenage martial artist Ranma Santome who, after falling into a cursed hot spring during a training exercise, instantly turns into a girl when splashed with cold water. In the first episode, Ranma and his father Genma arrive at the Tendo Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts - are at least, are supposed to. Instead the dojo is met by female Ranma and the cursed form of Genma, a panda bear. Ranma meets Soun Tendo (the dojo’s owner) and his three daughters. It is during this meeting the fathers advise Ranma and Akane Tendo they are to be engaged. Family chaos, romantic subplots, and high-energy combat scenes ensue. It sounds absurd, it is, and I’m tweeting about it on Saturday nights. Old dog, right?
Ranma ½ is one of the best-selling manga series of all time, running from 1987 to 1996. An anime series ran from 1989 through 1992 with 143 episodes. I was a ‘90s kid with a toe dipped in anime - think Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and other stuff you would find before school or on weekends - but Ranma wasn’t something I saw on TV and wasn’t spending $40 per DVD to watch. Ultimately, I just never got around to it.
The remake, however, has captured my attention. The animation is sharp; the music is excellent; and the voice acting is top notch. Only a few episodes in, and each character feels unique. The best part is I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen next. The reboot airs once a week, with new episodes coming out on Saturdays. We’re only seven episodes in. There are 143 episodes of the original, and I have no clue what the plans are for the length of this project. I’m strictly here for the vibes and the ride, hoping it ends up a bit more tightly run (and produced) than another recent reboot of a hyper popular anime series, Sailor Moon Crystal.
Despite enjoying these weekly check-ins, I can’t help but want to know more. Who is this character named Shampoo referenced on Reddit? Does Ranma ever break the curse? I’ve so far successfully avoided watching the original series past where the reboot is in order to avoid any spoilers - you know, of the second anime adaptation of a manga older than I am. In an attempt to still immerse myself in the series, I looked into Ranma video games, hoping the SNES era of licensed video games would come through.
Ranma’s got game(s). Game Boy, PC, an awful looking PSX-era fighting game, and a handful of Super Nintendo games. Most of these titles are exclusive to Japan, although a 2D fighting game would be released in the United States after being reskinned into a generic combat game called Street Combat. The game’s sequel, Ranma ½ Hard Battle was released for the SNES in the US in 1993. What really spoke to me was a turn-based RPG called Ranma ½: Hidden Treasure of the Red Cat Gang, released in Japan three decades ago. Despite no official localization, this title was fan-translated in the early 2000s with a group of other stellar turn-based RPGs based on popular anime at the time (Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tenchi Muyo, to name a few).
In Red Cat Gang, players control Ranma who must track down a criminal enterprise of cats in order to rescue his father Genma and prevent the Red Cat King from collecting the titular treasure to transform into a Cat Demon God to rule the world. During his travels, Ranma recruits Akane, Ryoga, and others from the series as they collect the treasure, rescue Genma, and save the world.
The game is a very standard 1993 SNES RPG in the vein of early Final Fantasy, featuring random encounters and turn-based combat where Ranma and cohort can attack, use items, or deploy abilities using “ki” energy. While I described it as a Final Fantasy clone, that’s a generous comparison as the game lacks any finesse and polish whatsoever. The game looks way more like Tecmo Secret of the Stars.
It has charm, but it’s certainly not a beautiful game. The world maps are adorable and look like one of those children’s playmats made to resemble a town. The music is, diplomatically speaking, wholly forgettable. Otherwise, the game is relatively short and isn’t particularly difficult, since the slow-moving party is embroiled in a random battle seemingly every other step.
It sounds like I am maligning the game, but it was still fun to play in short bursts, especially when able to take advantage of the emulator’s fast forward function. Still, there were some unique challenges that presented to a new fan to the series. For instance, in an early scene, Ranma and Ryoga need to infiltrate a woman’s spa to rescue kidnapped girls. To do so, Ranma must use the bucket in his inventory to splash himself with water or else he will be prevented from entering the room.
I did so but was still unable to enter the room. I had no idea what to do, so I turned to a website I’ve been viewing since the AOL days where I found out that Ryoga, your party member, is also cursed and turns into an adorable pig named P-chan when splashed with water. They both needed to be in their cursed forms2 to continue!
Another quirk is regarding ability names - there is no explanation or description for them in the game that I could find. Instead, I had to eventually figure it out or use a guide. While it took a few sessions to realize “Teate” was a healing spell, there are still a few abilities whose names and even attack animations are still lost. This is one of the odd quirks of using a fan translation, but I am thankful to the stellar work required to produce this.
When it comes to Ranma 1/2, I’m enjoying experiencing the series for the first time and the faux nostalgia I oddly feel for it. There is a lightness about it, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Couldn’t we all use a bit more of that? Lacking the prior experience and emotional attachment to this iconic series feels like a blessing as I come around to the reboot. I’m not burdened by knowledge, familiarity, or fandom of the original series and am free to enjoy the reboot for precisely what it is. A thirty-seven year old, sitting in his living room on a Saturday night, watching anime? Just like I said: I’ve never been cooler.
The Fourth season is divisive, with a chronological recut coming out in 2018. Real sickos like me watched a better fan re-cut sometime in 2014 on Reddit.
One thing I appreciate in the game: there is no change in Ranma’s stats or fighting abilities regardless of which form they are taking. It’s true to the series but just woke enough for me.
My wife and I were just talking about how we've never seen a successful reboot of a TV show. Ever.
Futurama, Family Guy, MST3K, and many many more pale in comparison to their original runs. The creative decline is staggering. (Can't say I've seen the Battlestar Galactica reboot, though I've heard it's quite good, so maybe it's the lone exception).
The original Ranma 1/2 anime was pretty excellent, at least what I remember of it in middle school. I think I would find it more pervy now then anything (hilariously pervy? Doubtful).
Those ability names are next level. And here I was thinking Final Fantasy's spell cannon (Fire, Fira, Firega) was a stretch!
Some things do deserve to stay buried. But in a world where we're willing to take less risk on content success than ever before, dredging up the past and riffing off nostalgia seems inevitable.