Black haired Ranma-chan

[Ahye]

While I'd agree about black hair being correct for all the reasons already given, I do find it interesting to note that the receintly released vid clip for the opening of the exhibit of Rumiko Takahashi's manga work has a female Ranma with red hair. Weither or not Takahashi-san approved of the color specifically I have no idea so don't know if the clip has any weight towards which color is ''official'. One argument would be that others threw it together and she just gave it the nod and said go ahead with it, the other argument was that she might have been involved and said to make the hair red herself. I somewhat get the feeling that whatever color the hair started out as, its meant to be red now, and I suspect that if the comics were ever reprinted, we'd see red.

Here's a link for the vid clip I'm refering to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf953nWYSlA

[Neko-]

Now that you've mentioned Nodoka, there's something that always surprises me in fanfics. A lot of writers mention that Ranma looks a lot like a younger Nodoka. Well, I don't think so. Just lok at the scan of their first meeting. I don't see any family resemblance.

\

Judge for yourself:



I do need to leave the haircolor out of the equation here to see the resemblance tho.

[Cheb]

I do find it interesting to note that the receintly released vid clip [...] has a female Ranma with red hair.

But of course. It's an anime clip, after all.

I somewhat get the feeling that whatever color the hair started out as, its meant to be red now, and I suspect that if the comics were ever reprinted, we'd see red.

The idea of changing to red is good, but who should color all those multitudes of manga frames and correct the resulting plot discontinuities? I suppose Takahashi-sensei has better things to do.

As I've pointed before, if you try to introduce red hair into Canon, the characters look really stupid in many situations. Excusable in anime, avoidable in fanfics, not possible in manga without serious rehaul..

[Dumbledork]

Now that you've mentioned Nodoka, there's something that always surprises me in fanfics. A lot of writers mention that Ranma looks a lot like a younger Nodoka. Well, I don't think so. Just lok at the scan of their first meeting. I don't see any family resemblance.

\

Judge for yourself:



I do need to leave the haircolor out of the equation here to see the resemblance tho.

I know that picture but I still can't see all that much of a resemblance except for the pose. Sorry. You could add some other girls in the exact same pose and they wouldn't look all that different either.

[PepperJAQ]

on page 32 of the ranma art book released by viz, it quotes takahashi herself:

"It was easy to draw Ranma, because I like both the boy and girl characters. In the black and white version, both have black hair, but in color, I gave girl Ranma a pinkish color so that you could tell them apart more easily."

thus, yes, it is manga canon that ranma-chan has black hair. in the end though, it's whatever color you want to use. black, pink, or red.

there is nothing more then that.

{edit} by the way, interesting note: having looked through said book, i have not only found a good many color pics that have the black hair color for the girl type, but also a great many of them depict boy type with grey eyes, once in a while having red, and very very few with blue ( i mean like maybe three total.) going by the average here, ranma's boy type eye color could be said to be grey rather then the common blue. oddly enough, the girl pics have few with blue as well... but almost all the blue eyed ones seem to also be ones with the red hair.

[TerraEpon]

Now that you've mentioned Nodoka, there's something that always surprises me in fanfics. A lot of writers mention that Ranma looks a lot like a younger Nodoka. Well, I don't think so. Just lok at the scan of their first meeting. I don't see any family resemblance.

You may not, but Kasumi and Nabiki do:
http://ranmahentai.ranma.ws/RanmaManga/ ... 22-061.gif

[Dumbledork]

You may not, but Kasumi and Nabiki do:
http://ranmahentai.ranma.ws/RanmaManga/ ... 22-061.gif

The only thing I notice in that picture is that Nabiki is once again being a total bitch ^_^.

I still wonder why fanfic writers give her so many redeeming qualities.

I sometimes wonder if she isn't the real chaos magnet in Nerima since she loves to cause trouble.

[Knight of L-sama]

I know that picture but I still can't see all that much of a resemblance except for the pose. Sorry. You could add some other girls in the exact same pose and they wouldn't look all that different either.

Look at the shape of the jaw line and nose. Nodoka's face is a little longer than Ranma's but not enough to obscure the resemblance. The biggest difference I see in that picture is that Ranma's bangs completely obscure her forehead and Nodoka's hair is pulled back a little which does have an effect.

[mondu_the_fat]

on page 32 of the ranma art book released by viz, it quotes takahashi herself:

"It was easy to draw Ranma, because I like both the boy and girl characters. In the black and white version, both have black hair, but in color, I gave girl Ranma a pinkish color so that you could tell them apart more easily."

thus, yes, it is manga canon that ranma-chan has black hair. in the end though, it's whatever color you want to use. black, pink, or red.

This is not mean that "ranma has black hair canonically in manga".

It is impossible to give a character red hair (or, if you do, it ends up black) in a black and white manga, hence it is colored black. Unless your argument is that colored printing=not manga,You're completely ignoring the second statement.

[Cheb]

Unless your argument is that colored printing=not manga,You're completely ignoring the second statement.

As I wrote uncounted times before, the main argument are the multitudes of scenes in the early, and even later, manga where the character's reactions would look extremely weird if Ranma's forms had different hair color. No matter is both his form's hair black, red, or purple polka-dotted.

In the black and white version, both have black hair, but in color, I gave girl Ranma a pinkish color so that you could tell them apart more easily.

These aren't words of Takahashi-sensei, this is a translation of her words. You cannot base your arguments on it unless you have these words in original and your Japanese is very good. No serious argument could be built upon a translation. Seriously, people. Did you forget how imprecise these can be?

Did she talk about the color pages of the stories themselves or about the color covers? The covers don't count, they are imperonation of the author's flight of fantasy. Remember, for example, the page where Ranma poses in Lum's costume with a spiked iron club.

Does anybody have the color pages from the Herb arc? The Common Internet Version has these in b/w, but it's clearly visible that they were originally colored.
[goes searching Inet for torrents with color Ranma pages]

[Zwzn]

I know that picture but I still can't see all that much of a resemblance except for the pose. Sorry. You could add some other girls in the exact same pose and they wouldn't look all that different either.

Look at the shape of the jaw line and nose. Nodoka's face is a little longer than Ranma's but not enough to obscure the resemblance. The biggest difference I see in that picture is that Ranma's bangs completely obscure her forehead and Nodoka's hair is pulled back a little which does have an effect.

The eyes and eyebrows are similar as well.

It's pretty clear Ranma really fell into spring of drowned proto-type sailor senshi, and has a faulty disguise field on.

[PepperJAQ]

This is not mean that "ranma has black hair canonically in manga".

It is impossible to give a character red hair (or, if you do, it ends up black) in a black and white manga, hence it is colored black. Unless your argument is that colored printing=not manga,You're completely ignoring the second statement.

no, it is possible actually. well, not to give colors directly, but you can use screen tone to give the impression of color.

check out this. granted it's from one of the 'computones' books of the how to draw manga series, but the technique was originated in screen tone... hell most of the book is how to make digital screen tone (well, more of 'how to use', but same difference)

for more examples, look at the images i have at the end of this post.

In the black and white version, both have black hair, but in color, I gave girl Ranma a pinkish color so that you could tell them apart more easily.

These aren't words of Takahashi-sensei, this is a translation of her words. You cannot base your arguments on it unless you have these words in original and your Japanese is very good. No serious argument could be built upon a translation. Seriously, people. Did you forget how imprecise these can be?

it's hard to be imprecise with a statement like this: "both have black hair". we aren't talking about issues that are hard to translate like policical opinions or poetry, we are talking about colors. this line in japanese was probably something even a first semester japanese language student could decifer by the end of a few leasons. if you can find the original japanese for this (probably in the japanese version of the art book i'm sure) and prove this point wrong, fine. i can exept that. but if you can't trust a simple line like that, then why trust translations at all?

find evidence to the contrary first. until then, this is all we have to go on.

... well, that and all this:

i have the first few chapters in color... now granted it's hard to tell from the quality of the vis translation whether all these pages were originally colored or not, but being as they are watercolored and not digital, i'd say that adds some weight:
more of the first scene
again...
and again.
akane is trying to make friends...
spar
the poke
washing up.

also another point: unlike here in the states, screen tone is a dime-a-dozen in japan. if ranma's hair was really red, takahashi would have toned her hair... hell, in some ways it would have been a time saver. (take it from me, inking takes longer then a block of tone.). there are other characters in the series that clearly do not have black hair...
one of ranma's friends for example:
during p.e.
just before the skating pair shows up

or how about the skating pair:
skating pair...
again...
i never liked these two to be honest...

all this shots are chapter title pics... and, unlike the cover pics, so far i have seen not a one that depicts any color aside from black.
color scan from the art book
b&w
b&w
b&w

sadly, no herb pages that are scanned in in color form... but i will say that the point of screen tone still stands:
check out the difference in hair... both are girls on this page.

[Zwzn]

or how about the skating pair:
skating pair...
again...
i never liked these two to be honest...

Is it just me, or does Azusa Shiratori hair get lighter and darker at times? Her hair seems to me to go from gray to black and back.

[PepperJAQ]

mostly that's from the quality of the vis translation... which was not always that great. (well, that and the quality of the scan itself...)

{edit} just checked out the actual book... yeah, the quality of the scan. her hair is always toned. i'd scan it, but i'm heading out to work right now... but i'll do it later and edit it in to the post.

[antimatterenergy]

Here is the first chapter of Ranma as it was original released in Shonen Sunday drawn by Takahashi (or a member of her staff). They, like 32 other chapters, have colored pages. In the color pages by Takahashi herself that aren't covers/filler the hair color is black.

http://www.websunday.net/museum/no17/no17in.html