Ranma 1/2 Kessen Tougenkyou! Hanayome o torimodose!! (1992)

[This 60-minute movie was theatrically released on 1993.mm.dd as the second [or was it first?] half of a double feature with the Urusei Yatsura 10th [??] anniversary movie: "Forever My Darling." (UYMV6)]

The movie starts with images of an island in a thunderstorm, dark and foreboding... a mountain fortress in the jungle... a wall bearing a family crest with a peach as the central motif.

Cut to: Nabiki and her family are soaking up the sun on a beach, while Ranma is out in the ocean surfing (in female form, naturally).

Akane and Ryouga are on the shore working on a hut. Ranma hits a wave the wrong way and wipes out near them. Ranma teases Ryouga from the water, asking him why he doesn't take advantage of the waves. Ryouga gets pissed at Ranma. Never one to quit while she's ahead, Ranma keeps teasing Ryouga. Akane just holds her head in her hand as Ryouga gets really pissed off, and throws a large rock at Ranma. Ranma manages to dodge out of the way of the rock as it splashes down, and then makes faces at Ryouga from behind it. Ryouga gets angry and reaches for more rocks....

Nabiki and Kasumi are a short distance down the beach. Nabiki is watching Ryouga pitch a stream of smallish boulders and rocks into the surf at Ranma-chan. Kasumi (as usual) seems oblivious to all the commotion.

Mousse is sweeping up the Nekohanten hut when Shampoo's great- grandmother, Cologne, tells him to make a delivery. Shampoo intercepts the thrown containers, saying that since it's for Ranma, she'll take it to him. When Mousse protests and tries to follow after Shampoo, Cologne splashes him with water, turning him into a duck.

Ukyou is at her Ut-chan stand, making up a special seafood okonomiyaki for Ranma. When she finishes it though, Shampoo shows up (carrying a pair of delivery boxes) and they have a small disagreement over whose meal Ranma's going to finally end up eating.

At this point Ranma-chan runs up, still holding the surfboard, and still being pursued by Ryouga. Ryouga has a very large rock and throws it in Ranma's direction. Ranma grabs Ukyou and Shampoo and jumps clear so the rock won't hit them. Ranma's surfboard falls and hits Ryouga, laying him out flat in the sand.

The three girls land safely on top of the boulder. Shampoo hears a noise coming from her delivery boxes and throws them up into the air. Happousai bursts out (he's eaten the lunch Shampoo was bringing for Ranma) and immediately begins feeling up Ranma's body. Ranma smacks Happousai high into the air. Happousai escapes down the beach with Ranma's top, leaving Ranma bare-breasted. Ranma hastily covers up, and sets off in angry pursuit of Happousai. Shampoo and Ukyou follow after her. Everyone in the procession manages to trample Ryouga on their way back down the beach.

We pull back from this little parade to reveal the entire island as the movie's title fades onto the screen:

Flashback to: The Tendou Dojo, where the girls and their fathers are sweltering in the summer heat. Kunou-sempai shows up with a photo of his new yacht to invite Akane and the pony-tailed girl on a cruise. The rest of the Tendou household winds up inviting themselves along. Ukyou & Shampoo and Ryouga & Mousse invite themselves along, too. Just to make it a clean sweep, Happousai and Shampoo's great-grandmother decide to come along on the trip as well.

Out in the ocean, everybody is enjoying the sailing trip, aside from the fact that the yacht seems to be sailing around in circles. (Oh well.) Kunou is up on the bow, thinking pompous thoughts about the majesty of the seas, and fails to notice some thickening black clouds in the sky.... Ukyou and Shampoo come up from belowdecks and say that they've heard a storm warning on the radio. They warn Kunou who, full of pride in his new yacht, says that nothing bad will happen.

Shortly thereafter we cut to the island with the boat on the shore with its sails ripped and the hull full of holes, and Kunou laboring to repair the damage. [Play the opening theme from Gilligan's Island here: "This is the tale of our castaways" :-) ] He looks up to see his beloved pony-tailed girl pursuing Happousai in his direction.

Happousai clambers up the mast of Kunou's yacht, causing it to collapse and completely smash the already-damaged boat. Ranma clobbers Happousai, and is looking suspiciously around the beach when Akane pops up and starts bitching her out for breaking the boat. Ranma protests, saying that it's all Happousai's fault. We see a black blob move quickly up the beach toward Kasumi...

Nabiki observes the ruckus down at the yacht and turns around to say something to Kasumi... except that Kasumi isn't there anymore. The only thing left behind is a peach on the ground.

Panic ensues. In the main hut, Mr. Tendou runs around in circles, distraught at the loss of his daughter, as the rest of the group tries to plan strategy. Ranma remarks to Ryouga that the situation is getting grave: with Kasumi missing, Akane may be forced to take over the cooking duties. Akane overhears, and whacks Ranma a good one with a frying pan.

Everyone begins searching for Kasumi. Akane drags the unconscious Ranma off to search while Ryouga dreams that Akane will be eternally grateful to him if he finds her older sister. By this time, however, there is nobody left to team up with but Genma. (Too bad.)

Happousai meets up with Akane and Ranma, and says that he's going to go off and bother Shampoo. Just then Mousse bursts out of the bushes and tells them that Shampoo vanished right in the middle of cooking something. A quick search of the Nekohanten hut turns up... a peach.

Genma and Ryouga are out searching. Genma speculates to a credulous Ryouga that Kasumi might have been eaten by squids. We see a dark blob creeping across the ground as Ukyou shows up (with yet another okonomiyaki) and hears the news of Kasumi's disappearance. It doens't seem to bother her unduly, since she reasons that Ranma will doubtless be starving to death with only Akane's cooking to eat. Ukyou goes off to deliver the okonomiyaki to Ranma, but disappears moments after leaving Genma and Ryouga. We see a peach ooze out of the black spot on the ground where she had been moments earlier. The men panic.

Genma and Ryouga return to the main hut with the peach, only to discover that Nabiki has also gone missing. Mr. Tendou is now even more distraught than before (he's running out of daughters here), as Kunou tells everyone how Nabiki was there one moment and then... Kunou vanishes! [I think Ranma-kun yells out "Sempai!" here, something that he normally would only do while a girl.] Everyone runs up to where Kunou was standing, and sees that he just fell off the porch. (What a blockhead.)

Everyone figures out that only the girls are being kidnapped. Cologne announces that she knows who is probably next on the list... her! The rest of the group collapses to the floor. Ranma doubts this, and yells that nobody would want to kidnap "an ancient mummy" like her. They decide to be ready when the unknown kidnapper comes for the next victim. By this point however, the only girl left is Akane or.... Everyone in the hut looks at Ranma-kun.

Cut to: a loudly-protesting Ranma-chan, tied to a stake out on the beach underneath a kettle of hot water. The gang is hiding in the bushes, figuring that when the mysterious abductor shows up to take her away they'll all leap out of the bushes and capture him. (Or just pound the snot out of him.)

Naturally, when the odd black spot returns, it goes after Akane instead of Ranma. The black stain begins sucking Akane into the ground! Cologne tells Ryouga to use his "Exploding Point Technique" on the black stain. He does, and the resulting explosion blasts a monkey-man out of the sand. The monkey-man speaks, complimenting Ryouga on his martial arts.

After the monkey-man has been exposed, two more black spots appear on the beach and go after Ranma-chan. Akane manages to pull the rope which tips the kettle over top of Ranma, changing her back into a boy.

The black spots turn out to be a dog-man and a bird-man. A giant peach floats down from the sky and splits open to reveal... a boy. He turns off the light from his giant peach, and introduces himself as "Genjutsu-Ouji Touma" (Prince of Hallucinational Techniques, Touma).

Touma further announces that he has come to take the remaining young women away with him. The monkey-man places a lobster on the ground in front of Touma. Touma takes a flask from his belt and pours some water on the lobster. It turns the lobster into a man! (Well, partially at any rate.) He threatens that if Akane won't come along for his "Suitability- to-Marry-Him" contest, he'll just dump some of this water on her, and no man will ever be interested in her again.

The reactions of Mousse, Ryouga, Genma, and Ranma aren't quite what he was expecting. They see a cure for their curses in this water, and they all charge at Touma en masse, trying to get the flask of water from him.

Touma blasts everyone with a powerful shot of magic while he and his three animal-man servants fly off with Akane. The flying peach heads off towards the dark and foreboding island, which has floated closeby.

Ranma hasn't awakened by the time the others regain consciousness, so they splash him with a bucket of water to get him up. Their plan seems simple and straightforward: to assault Touma's island, get the magic water, and incidentally rescue the kidnapped girls.

Ryouga calls Soun "Father," and promises that he will personally rescue Akane. Mr. Tendou doesn't quite understand why Ryouga is addressing him like a member of the family. Ranma watches as the guys charge off towards Touma's island... and all get transformed into animals as soon as they step into the ocean. Clearly, they're not going to get over there that way.

At about this point, Kunou comes up and hugs Ranma from behind. Ranma freaks out and clobbers Kunou, then acts really cute so that "Kunou- sempai" will take them over to Touma's island in the small boat from the yacht.

Over on the island... Akane is led, blindfolded, down a corridor by Touma's animal-man servants. She is tossed into into a large ballroom, filled with young women dressed in gowns. All of the missing girls are there. (Surprise!) Ukyou comes up to Akane, and wonders what will happen to them. Akane says everything will be all right, that soon Ranma will come to the rescue. Ukyou interprets this to mean that her Ranma will come to save her (Ukyou) soon, irritating Akane.

The imprisoned girls seem to be doing well in their luxurious captivity, although Nabiki is doing rather better than the rest of them: she's taking advantage of their host and is being carried around by some of Touma's guards, sipping oolong tea. Akane is exasperated with her.

Outside, the men and Shampoo's great-grandmother are hiding in the bushes, trying to figure out how to get into Touma's fortress, when an alarm goes off. Happousai comes bounding out of the fortress, carrying (you guessed it) a large sack of girl's panties.

Ranma-chan stops Happousai and yells at him for raising the alarm, since this will make sneaking in much harder. Happousai throws one of his happodaikarin bombs at Ranma, knocking her out. Touma's guards run up to the site of the explosion and find an unconscious pony-tailed girl on the ground. They figure she must be one of one of Touma's potential brides, and carry her inside the fortress.

The guards take Ranma-chan to a wardrobe room to get some suitable attire. Shampoo's great-grandmother is in there (she snuck in while the guards were occupied with Ranma) and offers to select a nice dress for her, since she's uncertain of what to wear. Ranma comes out wearing a gown with her hair really long. Drop-dead beautiful, and trying to act very ladylike. Even the monkey-man is impressed, and offers to escort her to the waiting room.

They take Ranma to the large room with all of the missing girls. Akane is happy to see Ranma until Shampoo jumps past Akane and hugs Ranma, which pisses Akane off.

Touma makes a grand entrance and takes his seat on the throne. The girls comment that Touma is just a kid, and too young for them Ranma tries to snuggle up to Touma (so she can steal the flask with the magic water in it) by claiming to be Touma's long-suffering fiancee. Touma doesn't buy it, and tells her she'll have to compete for the right to be his fiancee. He orders his servant the monkey-man to announce a series of "kakutou" (martial arts) competitions so he can determine the most suitable bride among the girls.

Ranma participates because a) she wants to win so she'll get close enough to Touma to steal the flask of water, and b) the contests have the word "kakutou" in its name, and Ranma's got this thing about never losing that sort of contest.

The first contest is moving grains of rice from one plate to another using chopsticks. Some of the girls opine that the contests are silly, and ask what will happen if they don't participate. The bird-man presents them with an enormous bill for all the luxury accommodations they've been enjoying, and says they'll have to pay it if they don't compete. (There had to be a catch someplace.) Nabiki is distressed at this.

The contest begins, and Ranma uses her martial arts skills to get done first, but Touma tells her that he didn't enjoy watching the contest. It doesn't count, he says. Ranma protests but Touma smugly tells her to go or she'll miss the next contest. Ranma vows to win all the other contests, too.

The second contest is something like flower arranging, except the "flower" is a gigantic Venus Flytrap monstrosity. The plant grabs Akane and several other girls. Ranma defeats the plant by wrapping it in vines and putting it in a fountain, and Touma says "Fantastic, fantastic!" but then, "Let's keep going." Akane is still trapped in the plant, and yells at Ranma to get her out of it.

Touma calls for another contest. Ranma complains about not being the winner. Touma says he's having too much fun to declare a winner. The next contest is an endurance run. To get the brides on their feet, a swarm of mice is herded into the room. Ranma is unfazed. The mice are being herded into the room by a a swarm of... cats. Ranma loses it.

Meanwhile, Ryouga drops nimbly from the roof out in the corridor, only to be squashed as the rest of the party falls on him. (So much for stealth.) They begin searching for the missing girls, and run straight into... a whole roomfull of guards! Apologizing and leaving quickly doesn't seem to mollify the guards any. The guards jump up and chase them.

Ranma is running around the room, frantically trying to get away from the cats. Eventually she slams face-first into a decorative tree. Touma is incredibly amused by this, and commands the monkey-man to announce the next contest, just so he can see what amusing things Ranma-chan will do next.

Down on the floor of the ballroom, Nabiki tries to keep the action going by shouting encouragement to Ranma, still dazed from hitting the tree: "C'mon, Ranma! Fight!" The next contest is cooking, and Ranma grimly sets out to win this one too.

The gang charges into the ballroom. They've found the missing girls, but are quickly surrounded as Touma's guards catch up with them. The monkey-man looks to Touma for instructions. He orders the guards to attack the trespassers. A free-for-all erupts between the martial artists and the guards. Ranma finishes cooking a perfect rice-omelet just in time to have her face shoved into it by Genma, who doesn't appreciate fighting tons of guards without his loyal offspring's help.

Chaos reigns in Touma's domain, and he's having a great time. He looks up just in time to see Akane marching up to him. Akane slaps Touma in the face. She yells at him because he's making all these people suffer just for his entertainment. The monkey-man restrains Akane before she can slap Touma again. Touma is quiet for a moment, and then asks Akane what her name is. She tells him.

Touma says that he likes Akane's spirit, and selects her to be his bride. The monkey-man, Sarutoru, asks Prince Touma about the remaining bride candidates. Touma says "Oh, I don't care. You can have them," and so the girls are given to the hired help. The guards all cheer and dash out of the room, each with a girl over his shoulder. The bird-man and the dog-man run off with Shampoo and Nabiki, respectively.

Akane is stunned that Touma selected her. Ranma is stunned too, and jumps up with Touma and Akane to get him to change his mind. Ranma, unfortunately, does this by telling Touma that he won't like being married to Akane because she's not cute, is a violent tomboy, etcetera etcetera, whereas Ranma-chan is very cute, nice and pleasant, and therefore ideal as bride-material. Akane takes these comments rather personally, and is so angry with Ranma that she clobbers her (with the throne Touma was sitting on) and stalks off with the young prince. The pair of them disappear. Mr. Tendou is distraught over losing his daughters again. Shampoo's great grandmother sits up on her staff, contemplating the destruction wrought on Touma's waiting room.

Touma takes Akane to his personal chambers high in the trees, and gives her tea...

Touma: Do you like my room?
Akane: Sure... What's that?
Touma: This is a picture of my mother and me.
Akane: Your mother?
Touma: She died soon after I was born. Sometimes I wonder what kind of woman she was...
Akane: You also lost your...
Touma: So did you, Akane?
Akane: Yeah, ...but I have my father and sisters...
Touma: I'm never lonely either. The whole crew in this island are like my family...and, I have you now.
Akane: Touma...
Touma: With you somehow I feel good, very good.
Akane: Can't be! There're many girls more pretty and lovely than me...
Touma: In this island only males are born from early times by the magical force of the spring, which wells out in the center and turns any creature which falls down there into a man. It's so to speak a cursed island.
Akane: Turn into a man...

Prince Touma also uses his peach amulet to open some doors in the floor, and shows Akane the source of the magic water: a spring, located deep inside the mountain.

Akane: What's that? Touma: That's the spring. Because of it we have to get brides from outside. Akane: Touma? Touma: However, the spring is sacred since it protects the island. The story of the spring is a secret of only two of us. You'll stay here with me, won't you? Akane: I can't, I have my fiance'... Touma: Fiance'? Do you like him? Akane: Oh no! Such an insensitive, thoughtless guy! When you get down to it, he's a fiance' our parents decided for themselves! Touma: Then you don't have to care! Akane: Eh? Touma: I'll knock down him if he comes!

An alarm goes off. Touma closes the doors to the cavern and talks with his guards through a speaking tube. He goes to deal with the disturbance, leaving Akane locked in his chambers.

The rest of the group decides to split up and rescue the girls individually.

Nabiki is taken to the dog-man's quarters. She keeps swatting him with a pillow and then tells him that he can't just attack her like that -- she wants some expensive presents first. The dog-man tries giving her a bone with a bow tied around it. Nabiki sighs.

Kunou and the pony-tailed girl show up. Actually you hear Ranma say "Keep your hands off me!" and then Kunou flies in through the door. The dog-man stops Kunou in mid-air. Kunou attacks the dog-man and is knocked through the wall. Ranma tries fighting the dog-man, but has a tough time of it, since he's incredibly powerful.

Determined to save Nabiki and the pony-tailed girl from this monster (and too stupid to realize when he's outclassed), Kunou returns and keeps attacking the dog-man. He winds up being pounded into the floor until Nabiki finally gets the dog-man's attention.

Nabiki has an interesting solution to the situation: Shake hands! The dog-man does. Sit up! The dog-man does. She shows him the bone, and then throws it out the window. The dog-man jumps after the bone. Bye-bye!

Ranma-chan is amazed at this display of trickery. Nabiki comments that she has a way with animals, helps Kunou off the floor, and they set off to find the rest of the group. Kunou is under the impression that the dog-man ran away because he was frightened by Kunou's skill.

Mr. Tendou is running around searching for his daughters and finds Kasumi. Contrary to his fears, she isn't being ravaged by the guard who carried her off... actually, she's going to make him a nice dinner with the groceries he's carrying for her.

Shampoo is taken by the bird-man, Toristan, to his aviary-like quarters. She spurns his advances, and tells the bird-man that she already has a strong sweetheart (meaning Ranma naturally), when Mousse enters the room. Toristan assumes Mousse is Shampoo's sweetheart and they start to fight for her, ignoring what she says to correct them. The bird-man is about to finish Mousse off when Shampoo intervenes and helps him out a little bit, hitting Toristan in the face.

The bird-man's mask comes off. Shampoo and Mousse stare for a second: he really IS a bird under the mask! Shampoo laughs hysterically. Mousse tries not to laugh, but can't resist either. Toristan loses his cool. He attacks both Shampoo and Mousse with a lot of feather-shuriken, and gives Shampoo one last chance to agree to marry him. She says she prefers death to marrying him. The bird-man says she shall have her wish.

Mousse staggers, and gets back up. The bird-man is amazed: nobody could get back up after that attack. Mousse shakes off the feather-shuriken, and clobbers the bird-man. As he defeats the bird-man, Mousse passes out and falls off the perch. Shampoo catches him before he hits the floor. She finally seems to be taking pity on Mousse.

Ryouga starts looking for Akane all over again. He goes into a room and finds Ukyou and the monkey-man. Since he's looking for Akane, not Ukyou, Ryouga starts to leave! Ukyou and Ryouga argue about whether Ryouga should stop and save her or whether he should just keep looking for Akane. The monkey-man watches the argument, vainly trying to get a word in edgewise.

The argument finally reaches a pause, so Sarutoru uses some sort of mind-affecting special technique on Ryouga. It's a technique that makes you think you see the worst thing you can imagine. Ryouga is enveloped in vapors, and imagines that he walked into the room and, instead of seeing Sarutoru and Ukyou, sees Ranma and Akane sitting together. Akane looks up and says "What are you doing here? I finally manage to get some time alone with Ranma, and you butt in. I really hate you."

This disables Ryouga with depression for a few seconds, but depressing Ryouga is always a bad idea. He uses his Shishi Houkoudan technique... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

SHISHI HOUKOUDAN! Ryouga takes the monkey-man out completely with a massive stream of energy. End of fight. Ryouga collapses. Ukyou picks him up and they head off to look for the others.

Ranma bursts into Touma's chambers and sees Akane. But before he can get to her, Touma appears. Ranma fights with Touma. Touma throws Ranma several times but he still keeps fighting. Finally Touma notices that Ranma is trying to get his flask, so he tosses it to him. Ranma upends the flask over his head but it is empty. Ranma keeps fighting Touma so he will tell him the location of the magic spring.

Touma draws his sword, and decides he's had enough of Ranma. He tries to kill him with a massive blast of fire. Ranma is reminding himself that Touma's magic is all a hallucination when the fire hits him. Touma is shocked when Ranma resists the attack, and gets in a deciding blow. Touma is knocked down, and loses his peach amulet. Akane picks it up, asks Touma to forgive her, and then opens the door into the cavern where the magic spring is.

Ranma goes into the cavern. Touma gets up and starts fighting Ranma again. He puts Akane into a small train of mine cars nearby and sets off for the bottom of the cavern, trying to escape. Touma and Ranma fight until about halfway down the tracks, when Ranma derails the mine cars and sends them all flying.

Touma grabs onto the tracks and arrests his fall, but Ranma and Akane end up plunging straight toward the magic spring...

Ranma: That's the spring? Akane: Now you can be a real man again! Ranma: It's impossible. Akane: Eh? Ranma: I'll destroy the spring! Akane: Stop! If you do it, you'll... Ranma: You said you don't care, even if I'm as I am! Akane: But... Ranma: For me, the present Akane is the best too... so I'll do it! Akane: Ranma...

Ranma blasts the bottom of the pool out with the Moukou Takabisha technique. A gigantic plume of water rushes up through the cavern, engulfing Ranma and Akane, and shooting them out the top of the mountain. They wind up in the trees, both uninjured, and both female. They see a rainbow.

Later, Akane talks to Touma with Ranma. Touma admits his fault and decides to look for his real bride. Ranma says that it is wise for Touma to give up on Akane because she's so coarse and unyieldin--

Akane elbows Ranma in the stomach. She thanks him for making such a great sacrifice for her sake by destroying the magic spring. Genma, Ryouga, and Mousse are livid that Ranma destroyed the spring, until Sarutoru tells them that they don't have to worry. The spring consists of the sap of holy trees and will recover in only a few hundred years. Everyone's jaw drops in disbelief.

During the Closing Credits the song "A Piece of Love" is played (loudly) and there are scenes of everyone finishing up their vacation on the floating island with Touma and his animal-man servants. Everyone in the cast says "Bye-Bye" and the Katakana for BAI BAI appears on the screen at the very end.

Here are some interesting pieces of information that I found out while working on this synopsis. Hopefully they will help you understand the story better. Many thanks to the readers of Shampoo-L who helped me understand this story better.

TOUGENKYOU -- A legendary paradise in China. But the kanji for "gen" and "kyou" have been changed in this movie.

Prince Tarou, the antagonist in this story, is based on a character from a famous Japanese folk tale, "Momotarou Densetsu" (Legend of Momotarou). The story of which goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was an old man and woman. One day, she went to the river to wash clothes. Then a big peach floated down from the upper stream of the river. They brought the peach home and cut it open, and found a male baby inside. They named him "Momo-tarou" (Peach-boy) and brought him up. When he became a strong young boy, he decided to go to Oni-ga-shima (Island of Oni) to get rid of an evil Oni. On his way there a dog, a monkey and a bird became his servants. They all finally reached Oni-ga-shima and succeeded in getting rid of the evil Oni.

OOLONG TEA -- Oolong tea tastes similar to black tea without sugar. Oolong tea is produced in China and is a popular drink recently in Japan.

SHISHI HOUKOUDAN (Lion's Roar Projectile) -- From "Ranma 1/2 Nettouhen" TV episodes #123 and #124. It's supposed to be a variant on the Bakusai Tenketsu (Exploding Point Technique) that Ryouga uses on rocks -- except that it works on people. They're both supposed to be "Engineering" techniques, for destroying rock, apparently. It's based on focussing your depressing/"heavy" emotions, and then projecting them at your opponent.

MOUKOU TAKABISHA (Fierce Tiger Domineering) -- Ranma develops a variant of the Shishi Houkoudan to be able to counter Ryouga in "Ranma 1/2 Nettouhen" TV episode #124. In Ranma's version of the technique, you focus your *confidence* (instead of your negative emotions) and project it at your opponent.