Man, the budget for this season of Ranma ½ got a serious pimping. The action scenes in these first two eps have been just crazy. And “Breaking Point” is an arc where that really shows up, too – there’s all kinds of supersonic punches and kicks and showers of flying debris. In a way this is like the series distilled down to its essence – Ranma and Ryouga fighting over Akane, with annoying adults meddling and offering snarky commentary.
I still contend Ryouga is one of the more likable members of the cast. But as others have pointed out the whole P-chan thing edges comfortably into creeper behavior, especially when the lights go out. Nevertheless he doesn’t try and beat Ranma with sneak attacks and cheats like the other “rivals” do – he just wants to win, period. He wants Ranma to know it’s coming and not be able to do anything about it. Learning a technique from Cologne is fair play – learning techniques from withered old fossils is what martial artists in battle shounen do.
In effect this showdown of two secret techniques – Cologne’s “Breaking Point” and the Saotome secret technique, “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire“. Except as we – and Ranma – soon find out Breaking Point was just the pretext. Ryouga can go all out with his kanchou attack but it’s a relatively simple matter for Ranma to avoid it – especially with the special training Genma has been subjecting him to. In fact Ryouga is inflicting collateral damage on himself every time he misses Ranma and takes out a rock.
But that’s incidental – Cologne never intended for him to hit Ranma with it (after all she wants Ranma to marry Shampoo, not die here). In fact it wouldn’t even matter if Ryouga could kanchou Ranma, since Breaking Point doesn’t work on humans. No, it’s all about getting squashed by giant boulders over and over – gradually toughening Ryouga up so he can absorb Ranma’s blows and not take any real damage.
Eventually Ranma figures this out. And that forces him to break out the Saotome secret technique – “Chestnuts” eventually but first nobly running away and luring Ryouga to a wooded region more suited to his attacks. The problem with Chestnuts is that landing hundreds of hyperspeed kicks and punches takes it out of you, even if you’re Ranma. Granny figures Ryouga will win a war of attrition – and Akane, as if she has no say in the matter herself. Ranma would have no choice but to admit Ryouga has seriously leveled up here. But the gap between them is still too wide.
No, this ain’t exactly The Brothers Karamazov here. But for what it is, this is good material – a straightforward fight between major characters with a couple of wrinkles, and absolute heaps of sakuga. It doesn’t do anything to address the issue of why Ranma ½ has a tendency to not really move forward, and why it works better as a snapshot of the moment than as an ongoing narrative. But for an ep without a lot of humor, this is about as strong as the series gets.
