Akane Tendo
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Akane Tendo (天道 あかね Tendō Akane) is a fictional character in Rumiko Takahashi's anime and manga series Ranma ½.
Akane Tendo is the youngest of Soun Tendo's three daughters. She is also one of the heirs to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts.
History
Akane's mother died when she was very young. Thus Akane was never really taught the things that mothers usually teach their daughters, and her terrible cooking skills are a running joke during the series. Akane grew up as a tomboy, getting into fights, acting tough, and perfecting her martial arts to the best of her ability. When she was in elementary school, she was so much like a boy that she was once cast by her schoolmates to be Romeo in their school's production of Romeo and Juliet.
However, despite what she projected on the outside, Akane is indeed a girl. At the beginning, she had a crush on her doctor, Dr. Tofu Ono, who patched her up many times when she got into fights. Unfortunately for Akane, Dr. Tofu is besotted with her older sister Kasumi. In an attempt to get his attention, Akane grew out her hair so it would be longer than Kasumi's, however during one of the first fights with Ranma and Ryoga, her hair is cut down to short length, a look she retains for the rest of the series.
Despite her crush on Dr. Tofu, she claims to hate boys, despite being very popular with the guys at Furinkan High School. Because her original "suitor," Tatewaki Kuno, challenged all the boys in school to defeat Akane in battle to be worthy of dating her, Akane is attacked by at least 50 or so boys every morning on her way to school. A very annoying situation, indeed, but Akane always manages to handily beat them all, including Kuno, the school's top fighter—and pervert.
Character
Akane is a very strong-minded and short tempered girl. She can become angry and jealous, and is apt to hit Ranma a lot whenever this happens (as this is a comedy, most of the violence is slapstick). Despite her temper, Akane does have a gentle, feminine side. Akane has shown a willingness to come to the aid of her rivals, even helping the people who routinely try to make her life miserable, like Shampoo or Happosai. She has also been known to apologize for her behavior, once she has had time to cool down or learn the facts. Most of her faults can be attributed to violent overreaction to the situations she and Ranma find themselves in, a common trait in comedy anime. Constantly this overreaction ends up with her comedically attacking Ranma throughout the series,. Even though Akane is more tempted to hurt someone when angry, she has also cried several times throughout the series, often times due to an overload of Ranma's obnoxious comments and insults.Having been raised in a family without a mother figure, Akane has a hard time trying to sort out her feelings for Ranma. There are many times when Akane is on the verge of telling Ranma how she really feels, but this is almost always interrupted by different comedic circumstances, and they return to their usual habit of hitting and insulting each other (Ranma: "Kawaiikune!" [Uncute!] and Akane: "Ranma no baka!" [Ranma you idiot!] - are oft-repeated). Akane has adopted her sister Kasumi as a surrogate mother figure, trying to build up her matronly skills. Before Ranma's arrival at the Tendo dojo, she seemed more or less uninterested in being a "normal" girl for the sake of a boy.
Akane seems to have a special charm that appeals to the opposite gender, resulting in her having a fair number of suitors who would be interested in dating her, the number of which is second only to those for Ranma—male and female. Perhaps this is because Akane is the closest thing to an average real-life person in Ranma ½ - someone who has no particular obsession, gets angry when pressed, and unafraid to fight for what she believes in. Akane also has many noble traits, such as personal honor and the need to fight for those she cares for.
Akane may never admit it, but her deepest wish is to be the ideal of a Japanese matron figure: gentle, skilled, understanding, and even-tempered. She has made some progress in this goal, in no small part due to the efforts of Kasumi and Ranma's mother, Nodoka. One of her reasons for this goal is to win Ranma's approval for her.
Story
When Akane was 16, her life took a new turn. She was engaged against her will to her father's friend's son, Ranma Saotome, so that the Tendo dojo and the school of Anything Goes Martial Arts were ensured a future.
Akane's sisters thought that this match was a perfect excuse to get out of the engagement, since Akane hated boys, and Ranma was half-girl, she would be the most obvious person to palm the weirdo off on. Akane's first meeting with Ranma does not go smoothly: when Akane first meets Ranma, he is in his girl form, and Akane unknowingly walks in on him in the bathroom just after he's transformed into a boy again.
She and Ranma often fight and insult each other (though not as often as most fans seem to believe). Usually, Ranma insults Akane for being a tomboy and calls her "uncute," while Akane insults Ranma for being a pervert. Akane's anger reaches its peak when Ranma suggests, or just plainly announces, that his girl-form is sexier than her natural figure.
Despite their constant bickering, Ranma is always there to protect Akane sincee the begining. The arrival of Ranma into Akane's life heralds the end to the morning challenges after Ranma defeats Kuno in a fight. Because of Kuno's loss, the other male students Furinkan tearfully decide to give up on Akane.
When, during Ranma's first battle with his arch-rival Ryoga, the hair she had worked so hard to grow out for Dr. Tofu was accidentally cut off and she became extremely angry and sad, Ranma comforted her by telling her that she looked cute with short hair. After that, Akane was able to get over her feelings for Dr. Tofu.
She continues to be pursued by Kuno and other guys—some love her in secret, like Ryoga—but although she won't admit it, she does have developed feelings for Ranma, which she has trouble expressing because of her lack of experience on the matter. She can be nice to Ranma and actually gets along well with him most of the time, but she is also jealous of the other girls who chase him. The two are often seen in eachother's presence when they're not fighting, and often work in tandem together when trying to accomplish something. At the end of the series, Ranma admits his love for Akane, and it is heavily implied the two eventually marry.
Physical Abilities
Despite being trained in the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, Akane, while able to handle most threats directed at her, is the fiancée who has to fight the least in the series since Ranma, Ryoga or her father always save her when she’s in a dangerous situation.
Overall, Akane, as one of the heirs of the Anything Goes Martial Arts School, is in good fighting form and knows the basics of the Anything Goes style, but she apparently doesn’t know enough of it to use it as effectively as Ranma. The cause of this could be a lack of proper training; Soun Tendo probably didn’t want to have his daughter suffer through the real, harsh training the Anything Goes School demands and which he, Genma and Ranma Saotome had already experienced.
However, Akane is by no means a weak character and has been shown in the manga to be capable of physically compete with the other girls her age with the notable exception of the Chinese Amazon Shampoo, who is arguably the best of all the young female fighters.
Akane might not know any special techniques other than using a variation of her father's Yokai Head Attack—which consists on her expelling her battle aura in a frightening manner—when she's angry at someone (usually Ranma, Genma or her father). Still, she is a strong martial artist in her own right.
Akane is quite athletic, albeit slightly clumsy, and practices and excels in various sports such as volleyball (she appears to be the captain of her school’s team), tennis, ice skating and gymnastics. She has had numerous athletic achievements, including:
- She used to fight—and defeat—about fifty other students every morning without getting hurt or them touching her.
- She was able to fight evenly with Tatewaki Kuno in a Kendo match. At that point in time, Kuno had already undergone the watermelon training, which increased his fighting skills to the point that he was a decent threat to Ranma. Also, during the match, Akane was disguised as a boy, meaning Kuno was not holding back against Akane like he usually does because of her gender.
- She was able to defend herself quite well against Kodachi Kuno when the Black Rose tried to ambush her in her bedroom. Akane often stops bare-handed the weapons (usually a bokken or large hammers) Kodachi commonly attacks her with.
- She did a good job against Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin when she and Ranma fought them during the Charlotte Cup.
- Akane was able to stand her ground against the dojo destroyer and even forced him to use the Tendo Dojo sign as a shield, which enabled her to put him on the defensive.
- During the Water of Life story arc, Akane was able to jump and maneuver between the heads of a giant, seven-headed dragon in order to collect the magic moss needed to save the life of her childhood friend, Shinnosuke.
Akane Tendo’s fighting skill has been a source of controversy among Ranma fans for years. While some consider her weak and not skilled at all, others think of her as being the weakest fiancée but still somewhat skilled, most of the fans though, fall in a middle ground, conceding Akane a certain level of strength and skill that enable her to compete with the other fiancées.
Fanfiction
In fanfiction, it is not uncommon to hear Akane Tendo referred to as the, true fiancée. It has become increasingly obvious throughout the manga that Akane and Ranma are romantically interested in each other, something often stated by Rumiko Takahashi herself. However, in recent years, with anime and manga becoming more popular and widespread throughout the US and other parts of the world, some people have come to see Akane in a more negative light. Many Ranma fanfiction authors are inexperienced in the Ranma series as a whole, and rely on fanon and fanfic cliches to portray their understanding of the story. Also, the slapstick violence in the series is often taken far too seriously, and foolishly reinterpreted as domestic violence.Like many characters, Akane's negative traits are often emphasized to absurd levels in fanfiction. It is common for Akane's cooking to be portrayed as being so bad that the food actually either moves, attempts to crawl off the plate, or comes to life and attacks someone. A lesser version of this cliche is that Akane's cooking has physically painful and/or hallucinogenic effects, or even acts as a powerful poison, which is still more extreme than even the anime.
Also, Akane's temper is usually expanded to such a degree that the least little thing on Ranma's part can result in him being hurled skywards or crushed into the ground by Akane's wooden mallet. The mallet is also something that becomes exclusive to Akane in fanfiction. In the manga, it is a running gag used by the entire cast, with fanonized Akane only using one in fanfiction.
Regardless of these common distortions to her character, Akane is still a popular character in fanfiction today.
| Ranma ½ Series
| |
|---|---|
| Saotome Family | |
| Ranma Saotome | Genma Saotome | |
| Tendo Family | |
| Soun Tendo | Kasumi Tendo | Nabiki Tendo | Akane Tendo | |
| Chinese | |
| Shampoo | Mousse | Cologne | Jusenkyo Guide | |
| Kuno Family | |
| Tatewaki Kuno | Kodachi Kuno | Principal Kuno | |
| Furinkan Residents | |
| Ukyo Kuonji | Hikaru Gosunkugi | Tofu Ono | Hinako Ninomiya | |
| Other / Recurring / Minor Characters | |
| Ryoga Hibiki | Happosai | Ranma ½ minor characters | |
| Places | |
| Furinkan | Jusenkyo | |
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