Customer Reviews

Ranma 1/2 - The Movie 1, Big Trouble in Nekonron China

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought this movie was great! BIG TROUBLE IN NEKONRON CHINA was a great movie for the Ranma ½ series and it was also very funny!

It starts out as a "normal" day in the neighborhood when panty thieving Master Happosai comes back for a "visit" to the Tendo dojo. But he's not alone! After years of searching for him, a young Chinese girl, Lai Chi and her elephant, Jasmin have followed him all the way back to Japan. She's angry about a scroll that was given to her family and passed down many generations because it was said that the scroll brings luck to the holder of it. After taking her hands off of it for a second, the prophecy comes true and a Prince comes to find and marry the one who holds the scroll, and by pure luck Akane has the scroll. She gets kidnapped by Kirin and the 7 Lucky Gods Martial Artists and now it's a race to follow them to China and save Akane before she gets married to Kirin. It's up to Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse, Shampoo, Mr. Tendo, Mr. Saotome, Happosai and Kuno to save her and defeat the Seven Lucky Gods.

This is a great movie for the Ranma series. It's very funny, the story is great and all of your favorite characters are in this one. Along with a great soundtrack, BIG TROUBLE IN NEKONRON CHINA is a necessary component to any Ranma fan's collection. Plus Lai Chi is hilarious. She is really funny. Happosai's "usual antics" are pretyt funny as well, like when Ryoga and Happosai get into it on the boat to China. And of course, the Seven Lucky Gods weren't bad either.

Definitely check out this movie, it's very worth it and it's great for any Ranma collector. Also check out the special OAV series and the second movie RANMA ½ NIHAO MY CONCUBINE. I do warn you that if you aren't up to speed with the series, you might want to catch up a little and check out TV Series 1 and the ANYTHING GOES MARTIAL ARTS series otherwise some things might not make all that much sense. Either way it goes, you'll enjoy this one.

To me, this is good collector's item for every Ranma fan. The intro at least cameos basically every character (including both cursed forms of the Jusenkyo victims) in the Ranma World. The fight scenes were stupendous, but could've been better had Ranma not gotten his clock cleaned in half of them and if Lychee would've fought at least once. As we all know, The Movie: II is better, but the first one's the classic. A decent question: Where's Ukyou? She cameoed at the beginning and that was it. It would've been da bomb if Ukyou would've lasted the whole film. This is a "must buy" movie!

The thrill alone of actually purchasing a Ranma 1/2 movie is worth the price. However, if you are expecting it to be faithful to the show, you may be dissapointed. I am a longtime Ranma fan and this may be one of the dullest videos (however it still deserves 4 stars) in the series.

If this is your first time experiencing Ranma, this movie is not a good thing to start off with. Watch (or read) the series to understand all the wacky events. Just because it seems weird, doesn't mean it isnt good. On the contrary, weird things can always be excellent and interesting.

The story is simple enough (too much for the Ranma 1/2 world). Akane is kidnapped when a scroll is dropped into her hands. Kirin, the master of the scroll, arrives to take her as his bride. Ranma and Ryoga do not take kindly to this and along with the rest of the gang, and Lychee, who owns the scroll, set off to Nekonron in China to confront Kirin.

As usual the dubbing stinks (except for Shampoo), but the DVD soon fixes this problem by adding te additional language (Japanese) and English subtitles. Not only this, but there are other extra features: movie trailer, conceptual art, original japanese ending, information on the story and characters. Either way it is a great experience. I would rate the dubbed version 3 stars amd japanese version 4 stars (so I rounded it up).

This is the first theatrical release in the Ranma 1/2 series, featuring a high school boy who turns into a busty girl when doused with cold water, and back in hot water.

First, the movie. While not as good as the second one, it's still funny and gives one of the best minor characters, the lecherous martial-arts master Happosai, a chance to truly shine. Happosai's scheming leads to Akane (Ranma's reluctant fiancee) being kidnapped by a prince who wants to marry her, and the entire gang (plus Lychee, the bride originally intended for the prince, and her pet elephant Jasmine) have to set out for Nekonron, China to stop the wedding.

The DVD has a few extras, most notably a character gallery - they're strictly bare-bones, though, nothing particularly good or worthy of seeing twice (although this seems to be the case more often than not with anime). The video quality is as good as the animation can look on DVD (much better than the TV series), and the language tracks in English and Japanese are good. It helps that Viz Video is one of the few competent anime dubbers around.

If you're a Ranma fan, you should buy this - just don't expect worthwhile extras.

Okay, so maybe not really. Don't we all wish we could be P-chan though? I dunno why, it just sounds like fun. Ranma 1/2 is a well established anime (Japanese Animation) series, centering around a boy who turns into a girl (Ranma), his father (Genma) who turns into a panda, and Ranma's fiancee (Akane) who doesn't turn into anything. In this, the first movie,Akane is taken captive by the Seven Lucky Gods, and Ranma must try to rescue her. But, where goes Ranma, go his two other fiancees, his friends, family, and enemies... From chasing Happosai and a bag of underwear through the streets of Tokyo, to the final showdown in a tower in Nekonron China, this movie is great for both long-time, and new, Ranma viewers....

This was a funny film, Ranma and co. have to head to China when, true to series form, Akane is kidnapped, and once more by a guy named Kirin who wants to(what else?) marry her, so it's up to the usual gang(and thankfully, Ukyo's not with them, she only makes a brief appearance), along with their reluctant ally Laichi, who is ticked off at Happosai, because Kirin was supposed to marry her, but he mistook her for Akane, as well as her elephant, Jasmine, and save Akane from him! There's a bit more humor than action in this one, and the fight scenes in the 2nd film are a bit better, but it's still worth at least checking out. It also has one of the rare times Soun uses his infamous, "Demon Head," form in the anime, plus also features a HUGE chase scene at the beginning with nearly every character to ever appear in the series, including Mikado, Asusa, Ryoga's dog, the Dojo Destroyer, Gosunkugi, Dr. Tofu, the Gambling King, the little pork and bean bun-headed guys that wanted the Dragon Whisker, the Ghost Cat Maomolin, and more! I also think the end theme, "It's Love," by Rabbit, is also pretty catchy! Although people not familiar with the series may not know what's going on, if you're a Ranma fan, I recommend you check it out!

Again we find ourselves in the situation where a sequel is much better than its predecessor. I happen to own this video and it tends to collect a lot of dust sitting next to its more viewed Ranma 1/2 neighbors on my entertainment shelf. This movie seemed to be just a vehicle to inlcude as many Ranma 1/2 characters from the series as possible (watch the opening chase scene to view quite a few cameos). Unfortunately, it just never moves past the "Ranma and his Friends Back Together Again" genre. Another thing which is a bit stale is the rice and pickles jokes through most of the movie. Okay, I get it. I've eaten rice and Japanese pickled vegetables; it does get old after awhile. Don't get me wrong, "Big Trouble" is a competent attempt (why else would I have given it three stars) and there are some spectacular animations as well as larger than life fight scenes (but then again, isn't that the hallmark of most Ranma 1/2 climaxes). Nontheless, the animation in "Big Trouble" is improved for the movie release format, but I just found myself rather disappointed, especially after watching Ranma the Movie II (Nihao My Concubine) and the other OAVs available. In my opinion, Ranma the movie Part II has much more character development, is funnier, and has better animation than the "Big Trouble" offering. In short, save your money and get Nihao my Concubine instead (very little if no dust on top of that particular video). NOTE: This movie has nothing to do with the John Carpenter movie starring Kurt Russel.

I bought this DVD by mistake thinking it was a different Anime for my daughter. She is a BIG anime fan and was dissapointed at first that this was what she got given, but when she watched it the first time, she loved it! and so did I! It was jamed with a lot of humour and was a great Love triangle comedy! At first we were a little confused on why Ranma turns into Ranma-chan a female at first, but the DVD has extras, including the story line and character bio's. Now my daughter can't get enough of Ranma 1/2 and I have even decided to by the TV series Boxed sets now. So I would say this title is a must for all you ANIME lovers out there! A very imaginative and fun filled Anime! BUY IT TODAY FOLKS!

what a great movie, it has just about everything! romance, comedy, action, drama, (drama as in kirin finally putting down his chopsticks & rice bowl for akane) & of course you cant forget the pickles (dont ask just watch it)

This was a great deal of fun to watch! (No, I haven't gone mad, and no, Viz hasn't bought me off. And yes, I realize that I'm watching a dubbed show!) What can I say? Everything that's made Ranma such a popular long-running series is present in this package, and the folks over at Viz did a pretty decent job of dubbing to boot. The story is not exactly Academy material, but bear in mind that this show is aimed at kids. That means that you should expect to see some very silly action, and as far as movies go, it will be short. As so this is, on both counts. There is a lot of slap stick and Saturday-morning cartoon-type humour, right from the very opening scene. If you think that the martial arts action of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles is great, this show is right up your alley. And just so you'll completely involved, there's even pretty decent opening and closing themes to boot.

The animation is on par with higher-quality OAV's, but what I really like about the Ranma series -- at least in this incarnation -- are Nakajima Atsuko's character designs. Clean, simple and very, very innocent. Plus the animators gave everyone some of the most expressive anime eyes every to grace the screen. It's not that they're large by anime standards, but these babies convey emotion in volumes. Fans of some of the other characters, most notably Ryoga, Shampoo and Mousse will be disappointed, as they get very minor supporting roles. And those who are fans of Ukyo will be disappointed even further, as she gets what amounts to a cameo, along with many others that appeared in the TV and OAV episodes. But this story's pretty basic, and 74 minutes is far too short to try to bring the whole crew in, so what we're left with is a fairly stock 'knight in shining armour rescues damsel in distress' story. The writers kept things quite simple, keeping the action very straight forward, punctuated by regular one-line zingers.

I was most impressed with the English scripting, since things seemed to flow quite seamlessly. (Unfortunately, I don't have an original Japanese dialog version, so I can't rate how accurate the translations might be.) Vocal cast was certainly acceptable; in fact, I've come to like the dubbed voices for Nabiki, Shampoo and the poetry-spouting Kuno. Give Ledoux & Co. credit, they did a very credible job, especially when it came to the prose-spouting, go-shi wielding twins, Daihokusai and Daikokusai. Their final line when Ranma discovers their weakness had me laughing. It may seem like a very formulaic/derivative movie, and it is (any fan of Bruce Lee movies will immediately recognise the influence of 'Game of Death'), but the Ranma formula seems most successful when things are kept pretty basic, and concentrates on Akane and Ranma's relationship. This movie is the first, and probably the best of the lot.