There’s a pretty direct and linear relationship between how much Happousai an episode of Ranma has and how much it annoys me. And that’s in spite of his being voiced by one of my all-time favorite seiyuu, Inoue Kazuhiko. There definitely seems to be less Happousai in this version than the original anime (though it’s been so long that I wouldn’t swear to it). And that would make sense, given that the character feels so dated and is even more offensive now than decades ago. But he still does turn up sometimes like a bad penny, and this is one of those times.

With all that said, this really wasn’t all that bad. Even Cologne – probably the second most-annoying character – came off OK here. It’s a beach episode, and interestingly Ranma has chosen to default to girl form rather than fight the obvious. Unfortunately Happousai has sneaked along (hiding in a box) and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself in the usual way. Ranma decides that in order to placate Happousai he’s going to fix him up on a date. Akane assumes it’s with Shampoo, so Ranma can get her out of his hair (pun intended), but he has a cleverer plan in mind.

I mean, Cologne and Happousai is the logical pairing isn’t it? If nothing else he makes her come off less awful by comparison. But unfortunately he has a history with Cologne and her clan, back in his youth when he was known as “Happy”. And that includes stealing the bracelet imbued with three love potion gems – “Instant”, “One Day”, and “Forever” – though Happy didn’t know that until he eavesdropped on Cologne explaining it to the kids. They cause one to fall in love with the first person of the opposite gender they see (it was a different time).There are some miscellaneous hijinks with Ranma falling for Cologne and such, but the main event is Akane swallowing the forever pill – though Cologne misidentifies it as the one-day at first.

I suppose this works better when Happousai is the butt of the jokes rather than the instigator, and that’s mostly how it is here. He winds up engaged to an octopus in fact (they’re intelligent enough that a potion is the only way one would fall for him). Ranma tries to take one for the team and be the male Akane sees before she sees someone really awful (like Happousai). But that was when he thought it was the one-day gem she’d swallowed. It’s not vintage Ranma ½ to be sure, but considering how much screen time the old farts got, this was pretty funny and could have been a whole lot worse.