Ranma ½

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi with an anime adaptation. The story revolves around a 16-year old boy named who was trained from early childhood in martial arts. As a result of an accident during a training journey, he is cursed to become a girl when splashed with cold water, but hot water will change him back into a boy.

In Japan, the manga was serialized in Shogakukan's Shōnen Sunday where it ran from 1987–1996. Takahashi has stated in interviews that she wanted to produce a story that would be popular with children. Ranma's main audience was boys from elementary to junior high school age.

Ranma ½ was extremely popular among American anime fans in the 1990s and popularized many of anime's most common visual gags. The infamous 'cursed springs' plot device has even come up in anime-themed custom role playing games as a quick transgender device.

Ranma ½ had a comedic formula and a gender-swapping main character, who often willfully changes into a girl to advance his goals. Ranma ½ also contains many other characters, whose intricate relationships with each other, unusual characteristics and eccentric personalities drive most of the stories. Although the characters and their relationships are complicated, they rarely change once the characters are firmly introduced and settled into the series.

Plot
On a training journey in the Bayankala Mountain Range in the Qinghai Province of China, and his father  fall into the cursed springs at Jusenkyo. When someone falls into a cursed spring, they take the physical form of whatever drowned there hundreds or thousands of years ago whenever they come into contact with cold water. The curse will revert when exposed to hot water until their next cold water exposure. Genma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Panda while Ranma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Girl.

Upon returning to Japan, the pair settle in the dojo of Genma's old friend, a fellow practitioner of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū or "Anything-Goes" school of martial arts which Genma passed on to Ranma. Genma and Soun agreed years ago that their children would marry and carry on the Tendo Dojo. Soun has three teenage daughters:, and the hot-tempered, but helpful, martial arts practicing. As Akane is Ranma's age she is appointed for bridal duty by her sisters. Their reasoning is that Akane dislikes men, and that Ranma is only a man half of the time; therefore, they are perfect together. Although both initially refuse the engagement having not been consulted on the decision, they are generally treated as betrothed and end up helping or saving each other on numerous occasions. They are frequently found in each others company and are constantly arguing in their trademark awkward love-hate manner that is a franchise focus.

Ranma goes to school with Akane at Furinkan High, where he meets his recurring opponent, the kendo team captain who is aggressively pursuing Akane, but who also falls in love with Ranma's female form without discovering his curse. Furinkan serves as a backdrop for more martial arts mayhem with the introduction of Ranma's regular rivals, the eternally lost, the nearsighted , and Ranma's perverted grandmaster. His prospective paramours include the martial arts rhythmic gymnastics champion, and his second fiancee and childhood friend the okonomiyaki vendor, along with the Chinese Amazon , supported by her great-grandmother. As the series progresses, the school becomes more eccentric with the return of the Hawaii-obsessed and the placement of the power-leeching alternating child/adult  as Ranma's English teacher.