Well, Viz Media just won Otakon for me with this announcement. The company announced at Otakon today that they would be bringing Ranma 1/2 back out this fall to Neon Alley, which will expose it to a new generation of potential fans, and will be bringing out the series again on DVD as well as new Blu-ray releases and digital distribution through Vizanime.com and Hulu in the near future.
The series, based on the manga by Rumiko Takahashi, ran for 151 episodes across two TV series that Viz Media has previously released that began in 1989 and finished in 1992. A few films were also made and a number of OVAs and specials. Japanese Blu-ray box sets began showing up this year along with Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura in Japan.
Plot concept: Ranma Saotome and his father, Genma, both practitioners of the Saotome school of anything-goes martial arts, fall into the cursed springs of the legendary training ground of Jusenkyo in mainland China during a training mission. Each spring holds a different curse for any who come in contact with its water, all of which involve who or what has drowned in the spring in the past – Ranma emerges from the spring a girl and Genma a panda, both now cursed to change forms each time they come in contact with hot and cold water.
At the end of their training mission, Genma decides to take up residence with his old training partner, Soun Tendo, owner of the Tendo dojo and head of the Tendo school of anything-goes martial arts, dragging a reluctant Ranma along with him. Soun and Genma discuss the arrangements they had made in the past involving Ranma becoming engaged to one of Soun’s three daughters in order to combine the two schools and allow Ranma to inherit the Tendo dojo. It’s informally decided that he is to be engaged to Akane Tendo, Soun’s youngest daughter, and the two must put up with one another – and their engagement – as Ranma and his father settle into domestic life at the Tendo household.
Read more at http://myanimelist.net/anime/210/Ranma_%C2%BD#fHwUPkoSSDv59TVa.99
