Ranma 1/2 is the story of a boy who turns into a girl when he gets hit with cold water and the ever growing crazy cast of characters who become a part of his life after it happens. Nonsense ensues and that's pretty much all there is to the story, which is where everything started falling apart for me.

I know I'm in the minority, but I really didn't like Ranma 1/2. At first, I enjoyed it enough for what it was, but it became apparent that not much of anything was going to change over the anime's entire run and that became a problem. Ranma 1/2 is just too long. It's too long because it's just the same thing over and over and over again for 161 episodes. Ranma and his fiance Akane will fight and then he'll probably fight with one of the other characters who either likes boy Ranma and hates girl Ranma or vice versa, rinse and repeat. Nothing ever happens and what was kind of fun and funny at first quickly became annoying and frustrating.

I like to see some kind of progress being made in the longer series I watch, story arcs and the like, and Ranma 1/2 has very little if any progress being made from the beginning of episode 1 to the end of episode 161, with the final episode basically ending with Ranma and Akane being like, "We out, adios everyone," and I couldn't help buy ask myself in that moment, "What on earth was the point of all that?" The biggest problem, though, is the fact that I don't care about almost every character on the show, especially the main characters.

If I liked any of the main characters, I'd probably be more tolerant to the show's lack of interest in pushing the story or any of its characters forward, but I didn't, so the show quickly became a slog and ultimately bummed me out. Also, I watched the dub and, while it's solid overall, some of the voice acting is terrible--I'm looking at you Shampoo--and I do wonder if I might have disliked it just a little bit less had I watched the sub instead.

I didn't hate everything, though. While dated in ways, I generally enjoyed the art and really liked most of the character designs--I wasn't a fan of Happousai or Cologne's look--but for me, when it comes to anime, story and character is more important than art and animation, so while Ranma 1/2 succeeded in one way, it failed miserably in another (and the significantly more important) way.

All that said, despite my disliking it, I do think it's worth checking out because, one, I am in the minority and, two (and more importantly), if you find yourself liking the cast of characters (which, again, wasn't the case for me), I think there's a good chance you'll enjoy the show and its gender bending shenanigans. It didn't end up working for me, but that doesn't mean it won't work for you.