Ukyo Kuonji
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Ukyo Kuonji (久遠寺 右京 Kuonji Ukyō) is a character in Rumiko Takahashi's anime and manga series Ranma ½.
Life
Ukyo Kuonji is an okonomiyaki or Japanese pizza cook who is Ranma Saotome's oldest friend. Ukyo's initial problem with Ranma goes way back to when she and Ranma were little kids. During Ranma's decade-long training trip, he met Ukyo, who was at the time with her father, an okonomiyaki vendor. During the time that Ranma lived in the same neighborhood as Ukyo and her father, they had a game in which they play-fought every day. If Ranma won, he got a free okonomiyaki from Ukyo's dad. Needless to say, he managed to defeat her every single day.
Eventually, Ukyo's father proposed Genma Saotome to engage Ukyo to Ranma, and to throw his okonomiyaki cart in as a dowry. Genma, always mindful of where his next meal was coming from, agreed. Unwilling to let go of the okonomiyaki cart, but not wanting to break the promise he made to his friend Soun, Genma asked little Ranma which he liked better, Ukyo or okonomiyaki. The young boy, eating an okonomiyaki at the time, quickly chose the food. Thus, Genma stole the cart and left a furious Ukyo behind. After this, Ukyo turned into the target of the other girls at her school, who mocked her for not being feminine enough to keep her fiancé with her. Because of that, she decided to give up on her feminity and learned to act as a boy. She then spent the next ten years training in the martial art of okonomiyaki to prepare for her revenge against the Saotomes.
Ukyo caught up with Genma and Ranma ten years later, at Furinkan High school. Ukyo, still posing as a boy, beat up Genma, who made no effort to defend himself, and then transferred into Ranma's school to try and kill him. Ranma didn't remember her at first, and had a hard time understanding why she wanted him dead. Finally, they dueled on an enormous okonomiyaki grill. It was during the bout that Ranma finally discovered that Ukyo was a woman and why she hated him. As the she was about to finish him off, Ranma stopped her by calling her "cute." However, this in turn angered Akane, the daughter of Soun engaged to Ranma. Upon seeing the two quarrel and Akane "congratulating" Ranma on his "cute" fiancee, Ukyo immediately forgave Ranma and re-established their engagement the next day.
Near the end of the series, Ukyo meets Konatsu Kenzan, a crossdressing young ninja who falls in love with her. While Ukyo has no actual feelings of love towards Konatsu, she still appreciates him as a friend, and allows him to live and work as a waitress in her restaurant.
Character
Overall, Ukyo is a nice girl and actually gets along well with Akane most of the time. However, Ukyo is not above trying to hurt Akane or to guilt-trip Ranma into being with her if it suits her in the moment. Ukyo often tries to break Akane and Ranma's engagement indirectly, but they are mostly unaware of her plotting because it backfires before it gets anywhere. Usually, Ukyo drags Ryoga Hibiki into her plans.
Even if Ranma has no romantic feelings for Ukyo, she still feels a close bond of friendship with him, which Ranma returns. He usually calls her by the nickname "Ucchan," which is the base of the name "Ucchan's," the okonomiyaki restaurant she owns.
Ukyo is bitter rivals with Shampoo and Kodachi, and often fights with them for a chance to date Ranma. However, she will team with them if it is convenient for her.
She is strong, agile and her skill with her giant spatula is unmatched, making Ukyo a force to be reckoned with. Her only weak points are her reliance on her weapons and that her fighting style is not very useful in small spaces.
Ukyo still dresses as a boy most of the time, even though every student in Furinkan knows that she is a girl. It is unknown why she does this though, but it could be that she is by now so used to posing as a boy that she sees no need to dress like a girl. In the anime she did dress as a girl once and all the boys at school fell in love with her in spite of her relationship to Ranma. Ironically, the only one to immediately recognize Ukyo in the girl's uniform was the usually clueless Tatewaki Kuno.
Special Techniques
After Ukyo decided to abandon her womanhood, she trained to be an okonomiyaki chef by the raging sea, consumed by the desire to get revenge on Ranma. Because of this effort, Ukyo is now a top-notch martial artist. Her style is based in the preparation of okonomiyaki, using food-based moves to confuse and defeat her opponents. Her techniques aim mainly to stun her opponents long enough for her to crush them with her trademark spatula. The fact that her style is so specialized and unusual gives her an initial advantage, but stronger fighters like Ranma and Ryoga have no trouble overcoming it. Among the females her age, Ukyo is generally considered by fans to be just below Shampoo's level as a fighter.
- Battle Spatula: Ukyo carries a large spatula on her back that she uses as a sword or club. She is highly skilled with it, but it is often destroyed by stronger martial artists. She also has several small spatulas she uses as shuriken to attack from a distance. Her most common attack.
- Adhesive Batter: A special batter made with rubber cement, used mainly to slow her opponents down to smack them with her spatula or other techniques.
- Flour Bomb: Uses a bag of flour to create a smokescreen effect to hide her movements and to confuse her opponents. Has a small range and it's not very effective.
- Yakisoba Rope: Large ropes made of rubber Yakisoba noodles, used to tangle or restrain her opponents to make them easier to hit with her spatulas. Later in the manga, it is also used like a whip and a rope to swing across gaps.
- Tempura Bomb: Ukyo's strongest attack. Mixing tempura flakes with gunpowder, she creates flashy explosives to blind and stun her opponents for a few seconds. Later, she improves this technique to create exploding okinomiyaki bombs.
- Batter Dragon: An anime only attack she used to defeat the Crepe King. Combining all of her food based techniques together, she creates a huge dragon made of batter, which fuses all of Ukyo's attacks into a single one. It also traps her foe as an ingredient in a giant okinomiyaki.
Fan Fiction
In fan fiction, Ukyo, it appears, is often the fiancée who is paired with Ranma most often if the pairing of Ranma with a fiancée doesn't include Akane. Many supporters of the Ranma/Ukyo pairing state that because Genma had taken Ukyo's dowry and 'spent' it, her claim on Ranma should be more valid. The exact fate of the cart remains unknown to this day.
When Ukyo doesn't end up with Ranma or alone, she is almost always paired up with Ryoga Hibiki in fanfiction, mainly because of some strong indications by the anime that they could become a couple (primarily the OAV "Oh Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love!"), and the fact that they always teamed up to plot the end of Ranma and Akane's relationship from early to past the middle of the manga. Since Konatsu never appeared in the anime and is introduced very late in the manga, he's hardly ever used in fanfiction, and most authors can't see him as a boyfriend for Ukyo.
Trivia
- Ukyo speaks in the Osaka dialect of Japanese.
- The name "Ukyō" is composed of the kanji for "right" and "capital city." "Kuonji" means "eternity." It is believed that Takahashi chose this name to portray Ukyo as Ranma's eternal friend.
- Latin American Spanish Voice Actor: Gabriela Willert
- Ukyo has been compared to Sango from Inuyasha. This rationale comes from the fact that they both have long hair, carry a large object on their backs and are even voiced by the same person.
References
| 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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