Ryoga Hibiki

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Ryoga Hibiki
Ranma ½ character
Ryoga in the anime.
First appearance	Volume 2
Last appearance	None
Created by	Rumiko Takahashi
Voiced by	Koichi Yamadera (Japanese) Michael Donovan (English)
Profile
Aliases	P-chan, by Ranma and Akane Moron, Jerk, Pig-Boy, Fiancé, Brother, Young Master, Two-Timer by Ranma Charlotte, by Azusa Shiratori Ryoga dear, by Akari Joe, by Anna Stupid piggy, by Taro Jackass, by Ukyo
Age	16
Date of birth	Unknown
Occupation	Martial Artist Wanderer Pet Pig
Known relatives	Mrs. Hibiki, mother Mr. Hibiki, father Grandparents, Deceased Shirokuro, his pet dog
Information
Curse	Human to Piglet Horrible sense of direction
Fighting style	Self-taught

Ryoga Hibiki (響 良牙, Hibiki Ryōga^?) is a character in Rumiko Takahashi's anime and manga series Ranma ½. The name Ryoga can be broken down to read as "good fang," which refers to the fact that he has rather prominent canines. Hibiki is translated as "to echo or resound."

[edit] History

Ryoga is introduced in chapter 10 of the manga, titled "The Hunter," in which he casually stops a giant boar from attacking rural villagers. He politely asked for directions to Furinkan High School, but overshot the distance by 500 miles (800 km) south, and again shortly thereafter by 500 miles (800 km) north. A week later, he finally managed to reach his destination and promptly attacked Ranma. The latter had to think hard to remember him, but was glad to see him when he remembered Ryoga as a friend from his old boys' school. At first, it seemed like he simply has a grudge because the latter "ran away" from their scheduled fight, at a vacant lot located 500 yards (460 m) from his own house. His bad sense of direction forced him to wander all over Japan for four days looking for his destination, while Ranma only waited three days before leaving with his father for their training trip to China. Ranma recalls the motivation as consistently beating Ryoga to the last bread at lunchtime, slowly building up the latter's resentment towards him.

Ryoga ends up a week late travelling to their next duel. During their confrontation, he discovers Ranma's curse, and the latter accidentally cuts off part of Akane's hair, by kicking away Ryoga's belt-slash, leading both boys to profusely apologise.

After another fight takes place in a rainstorm, female Ranma finds out that Ryoga tracked her to China, and concludes that the reason for his anger lies in being cursed by the springs of Jusenkyo. Ranma finds a dog on the scene which she assumes to be Ryoga and allows it into the house, while Akane finds a suspicious small black piglet in her room and tends to it. Akane tells Ranma to bathe the pig, but when he puts it the hot bath Ryoga appears. Female Ranma almost manages to convince him that he should be mad at the girl who pushed him into the spring, leading him to almost be cooked and eaten, but it turns out to have been herself, during a chase for Genma-panda, aggravating Ryoga once again. Akane decides to adopt the pig, naming him P-chan^[1] ("cute pig"; the "P" is actually derived from the English word "pig"), completely unaware of his dual identity and that he has become utterly enamoured with her.

Afterwards, Ryoga frequently finds himself back in Nerima, whether to challenge Ranma, search for a cure for his Jusenkyo curse, bring pastries and gifts to Akane as awkward shows of affection, or simply become entangled in the schemes and chaos that seem to follow his rival. His antagonism towards Ranma gradually lessens with time. It starts out as a fierce rivalry, then shifts back and forth between tense competition, uneasy alliances or non-serious conflicts and, after a brief lapse, progresses to friendly enough terms to repeatedly risk his life to help Ranma. However, they remain highly competitive. Ranma himself considers Ryoga as "generally a friend"^[2] and as his only true rival/equal.^[3]

Ryoga has collaborated with Mousse on a few sparse occasions, to get a cure for themselves during the Musk arc, and considered competing together during an onsen race. He and Kuno also made two very brief accidental team-ups against Ranma, when independently simultaneously entering after seeing a photograph where he kissed Akane, and for 1 second during a 3-way food fight. In the anime continuity, they both attacked Ranma in the episode "Ukyo's Skirt! The Great Girly-Girl Gambit!". They also allied in the episode "Pick-a-Peck o' Happosai" and to stop Ranma and Akane from getting together in the episode "Let's Go to the Mushroom Temple". They also both beat up Ranma in the OVA "Curse of the Contrary Jewel". Regardless, Ryoga is not remotely friends with either in the manga storyline, and is here on better terms with Ranma himself.

[edit] Profile

Ryoga stands out in the crowd due to his regularly rough appearance. He spends much of his time wandering, often depressed over having to spend so much of his time alone in the wilderness, with the slightest rain turning him into a defenceless pig at the mercy of hungry humans or animals. His most notable characteristic is that, like his parents, and even his entire family,^[4] he has no sense of direction whatsoever. He is unable to go the right way, often sticking to the letter of any directions given to him, regardless of whether the path eventually turns. He has an inability to understand even the simplest of directions or draw any legible maps, once running the wrong way at the start of a three-legged race.

This is not due to lack of motivation, however. For instance, on the way to a date, he was supposed to follow the edge of a lake, to reach a statue in plain sight directly in front of him. Instead, Ryoga follows a brook and gets lost again. In the anime, Maomolin the bakeneko possesses Ryoga and tries to lead him towards the girl he loves. However, Maomolin had as much trouble navigating as Ryoga himself even though the former was doing the thinking.

In real world terms, he would be classified as suffering from autistic limitation or brain damage in this area. It is also possible that his lack of direction might be some form of family curse. Another theorethical possibility is that the Hibiki family suffers from an inflamed or infected hippocampus gland, this gland being the human biologic compass, handling orientation and directional accuity along with short-term memory.

In the anime this condition is worsened by Ryoga's ability to traverse obscene distances in surprisingly little time on foot, although how he does this is unknown. When the two problems are combined, it results in Ryoga having essentially no idea where he is at any given time, which allows him to miss his destinations by insane margins. In one case, he attempted to reach Hokkaido and instead ended up in Hong Kong. Luckily, he carries a backpack, which evidently contains essentials for survival in the wild.

In the manga this is not as heavily implied to be a supernatural talent, at least not beyond his comical tendency to pop up at odd moments. He seems to need much longer travel times, and has not explicitly been seen to swiftly and randomly traverse continents under his own power. However, in his first appearance he quickly overshot Tokyo by 500 miles (800 km) twice in a row,^[5] apparently within the span of one or two days, though no explicit reference was given. Through the aid of the Kinjakan, he also quickly made it all the way from Jusenkyo to Moscow and back while out to get some dumplings in Peking.^[6] His map was also once shown to contain a forest, a café, a road with a red car, the Tendo dojo, some African tribesmen, China, and France.^[7]

Ryoga's family house is within sight of Mount Fuji, where his dog Shirokuro (Checkers in the English translation) and her puppies live. However, given the Hibiki family's condition, it is usually empty. Ryoga generally leads a nomadic lifestyle, and only occasionally manages to find it. His dog, however, has no such trouble finding her way and recognises him in both human and pig forms. It has been mentioned that Ranma helped to lead Ryoga home when they went to high school together.

The combination of his poor sense of direction and his curse have regularly subjected Ryoga to imminent misery, constantly placing him lonely and lost in the wilderness, with tight food rations, or at the mercy of hungry predators. When first introduced, he is a very angry and seemingly unapproachable individual. Ryoga is emotional, more often than not following his heart rather than his head, though he has shown capability of using strategy when he is focused or lacking distractions. He is emotionally fragile, straightforward and naive. He regularly feels depressed, which thus far has served as the source for his chi projection. He is generally shy, humble and polite, especially around women. He is often easily tricked and used by some of the more manipulative characters and turns extremely grateful, loyal and self-sacrificing for any kindness offered to him.

A running joke is that whenever female Ranma dons a disguise, no matter how transparent, Ryoga will nonetheless be fooled. Ranma has used this to his advantage to find out about any training Ryoga has been doing, to tease him, or to torment Ryoga during any dates with Akane to destroy the latter's prospects.

[edit] P-chan

Ryoga as P-chan, Akane's pet pig

Ryoga's lonely wanderings make him rather desperate for affection, to the point where a hug as Akane's pet P-Chan was his only way to get any kind of warm human contact, and he has been overjoyed when snuggled like a teddy bear or kissed on his snout. However, he generally does not seem remotely lecherous, and will become heavily embarrassed simply from daydreaming about innocent dates or holding hands. When possessed by an Oni, the most evil thing he could conceptualise was peeking on Akane in the bath, and he was utterly mortified in shame afterwards. Even being hugged by Akane can cause the shy Ryoga to nosebleed and faint. He wouldn't enter the girls locker room together with Ranma even though they believed there was a Jusenkyo cure within, until Ranma threw him in and he quickly turned the opposite way of the girls changing. P-Chan is frequently present when the Tendo/Saotome families are talking or are involved in something, sometimes sitting in Akane's lap. Ranma, Genma, and Happosai all know of Ryoga's curse, but apparently don't consider it a problem. Cologne, Shampoo, Mousse, Soun, and several minor characters also know about the curse, but as one of the series running gags, Akane never figures it out.

His piglet form tends to more openly show when he is sad or needs comfort. The curse may also be age-specific, given that it was unchanged when he was turned into a child by the "mushrooms of time".

Ranma has mostly been shown as very considerate regarding Ryoga's curse, likely because he was the one who caused it, sheer sympathy, and possibly due to a silent "warrior's code" vow to the dog that he initially thought was Ryoga. While Ranma was initially willing to threaten to expose Ryoga's secret to Akane,^[8] he eventually finds out that Ryoga sees himself as Akane's protector even in his near defenceless P-chan form and endures her regularly violent nightly movements to keep her safe and happy,^[9] and helped to save her from drowning even in this state.^[10] He has generally tried to keep Ryoga's curse a secret from Akane ever since, through such actions as catching him when he is about to fall into water, switching Akane's head in another direction, and making up excuses and explanations. He became sad for his rival when it seemed like Akane had found out (when he saw Ryoga's headband in her hands, which is indeed the same as the handkerchief tied around P-chan's neck), and tried to explain that "Ryoga never meant to hurt you", when actually "P-chan" had run away from Akane and left his bandanna behind.^[11] Though he still likes to tease Ryoga about it in their ongoing banter and sometimes makes blunders, like when honestly trying to convince Taro that it is possible to live with a curse through support from Ryoga, without considering that Akane was near.^[12] However he also sometimes teases or plays with the piglet, even juggling it with his feet, which can make him attempt to beat it after it bites his hand in retaliation.

The one moment when Ryoga was shown as slightly lecherous occurred close to the end of the manga. When turned into a young child, and Ranma presented him to Akane, he was hugged and very bashfully accepted her offer to sit in her knee. When she offered to bring "Ryoga's brother" into the bath with her, he initially protested but then reconsidered, before being stopped by Ranma, going strongly contrary to his characterisation in all previous appearances, possibly explained by having loosened up somewhat due to meeting Akari. Turning this more interesting is that Akane wasn't the least bit upset when she found out, making it questionable whether she would mind learning about the P-Chan curse, given that nothing nearly as serious ever occurred with the piglet.

[edit] Good and Bad Moments

Despite his flaws and occasional lapses, Ryoga is generally portrayed as an honourable individual. A prime example occurred during the time Happosai had weakened Ranma with moxibustion. Ranma's other rivals took advantage by attacking him, but Ryoga saved him from their assault.^[13] In fact, he was saddened by the loss of his rival and helped him to regain his strength.^[14] Unlike Mousse and Shampoo, Ryoga also had no duplicitous intentions when assisting in the fight against Taro and saved him/her from drowning even though he was in piglet form.^[15] He likevise risked himself to help Ranma against the Musk Dynasty,^[16] by saving Ranma from being killed by Herb, and entering a closing chasm to unlock her/his curse. Although originally, he only intended to help Mousse and himself. Further, he helped rescue Akane from the Yamata no Orochi,^[17] In the concluding arc, he saved Ranma from being eaten alive by Saffron, king of the Phoenix People, and later threw large rocks into their aerial battle, when he realised that Saffron could not withstand hard impacts.^[18] Ryoga is fiercely proud and brave. Even in completely outmatched piglet form he has stood up to Ranma,^[8] Happosai,^[9] Lime and Mint,^[19] regardless if he would take a severe beating, and he cannot stand the thought of being seen as weak by Akane.^[20]

Ryoga's worst lapse in behaviour occurred during and immediately following, the infamous "Fishing rod of love" story.^[21] He here tried out a magic fishing rod that he did not truly believe in, to gain the love of Akane, although he accidentally snared Ranma instead. When Ranma turned murderously jealous and possessive, Ryoga decided to kill his rival out of desperation, but couldn't force himself to go through with it until Ranma made him furious through a kiss on the cheek. After Akane became involved, Ranma furiously attacked her and attempted to snare Ryoga with the rod. Ryoga confronted the insane Ranma to save Akane, managed to win, and accidentally freed his rival from the spell.

Ryoga's heroic moment was destroyed when he attempted to hug and confess to Akane, but grabbed Ranma instead. This humiliation left Akane to believe that he deliberately tried to gain Ranma's love and "couldn't understand him", while Ranma viewed Ryoga with disgust and suspicion. Mitigating the former, Ryoga had immediately reconsidered his actions directly after the failed attempt,^[22] and apparently learned his lesson, since he later helped to discourage Mousse from taking advantage of his chance to enforce Shampoo's love with an imprinting egg.^[23]

Directly following this incident, unlike with Taro, Ryoga initially had no intentions to help Ranma find a cure during the Musk arc, and knocked her out from behind to retrieve it for Mousse and himself. After Ranma returned his betrayal with assistance, Ryoga more than paid for the favour, by first saving Ranma’s life from a killing strike, and then putting severe risk on his own by entering a closing chasm to unlock the latter's curse. Afterwards he turned back into a reliable ally in times of crisis.

[edit] Relationships

It is very unclear as to what extent Akane is aware of Ryoga's highly visible infatuation with her. He regularly brings her gifts from the widespread locations he visits during his travels. He becomes extremely flustered at even talking to her, outright affirming that he's overjoyed from even innocent "dates" between them. Even more significantly, he becomes furious and comes to her defense the very notion of anyone (especially Ranma) disrespecting or hurting her, and has helped to save her life on multiple occasions. Ryoga has also made a few embarrassed, and highly transparent, attempts to confess his love to her. Perhaps the most transparent of these attempts was during the "Miraculous Soap" short story shown in the anime, in which Ryoga finds the courage to confess his feelings after using a soap (which ended up in his hands after Shampoo lost it) which would nullify his Jusenkyo curse (as a matter of fact, the soap itself was a product from Jusenkyo). However, Ryoga only managed to scare Akane off with his lack of control, as he kept on destroying everything before him while chasing after her.

Despite all the evidence, Akane seems almost completely oblivious to his affection. During Ukyo's prolonged introduction story, she witnessed Ryoga's very emotional reaction when Ranma made him think she was holding his hand, but drew no conclusions. She adamantly protested out of genuine confusion when Nabiki suggested that the latter was actively pursuing her, in the "Fishing-Rod of Love" arc, stating that he was simply a good friend. However, she has mentioned that she considers him as kind, pure and gentle, in the "Sakura-Mochi" arc, and as much more reliable than Ranma, in the "Tunnel of Lost Love" arc, where she also wanted him to hold her hand in order to comfort and protect her from the ghosts in the cave. Given the above she generally seems to view him as a younger brother.

There have, however, been a few exceptions. Early in the manga, even Akane clearly noticed his feelings when Shampoo's "remote-control acupressure" made her charm Ryoga, making him overjoyed and relentlessly persistent. This ultimately terrified her when she realized that his overwhelming casual power might kill her through a simple hug. She afterwards stated that whoever became his girlfriend had to be a lot sturdier than herself. During the "Sakura Mochi" story she also, for once, actively considered him as a potential boyfriend upon noticing several "petal marks" on Ryoga's face after he ate a "true love predicting" cookie. Even then, Akane was visibly relieved when Ranma's face showed more of them, though the "petal marks" she saw were actually P-chan's hoofprints. She has also consistently been very happy for Ryoga whenever she thinks that he has managed to find a girlfriend, admitting that she has been worried about him due to his overwhelming loneliness.

Late in the manga Ryoga meets a girl named Akari Unryu whose family runs a dojo dedicated to training massive "sumo pigs". By accidentally defeating her strongest pig, Katsunishiki, Ryoga became Akari's betrothed by the decree of her grandfather.^[24]

Akari is a sweet girl who loves Ryoga, although she is initially unaware of his curse, and when she tries to compliment him through comparisons with pigs (which she cherishes above everything), he takes it as a grave insult. Ryoga despises his curse and thinks it makes him pathetic and inferior, which is one of the main reasons he has trouble sharing his feelings with Akane. In the end, Akari finds out about his condition, which only makes her adore him even more. This further complicates Ryoga's life, since he is initially indecisive about her and Akane and once tried to court both of them at the same time.^[25] Towards the end of the series he seems mostly focused on dating Akari,^[26][27] but during the Saffron arc, he adds Akane's photo (purchased from Nabiki) into a holder, which also has Akari's picture. After Ryoga accidentally loses them during one of their initial skirmishes with Saffron, he is desperate to reclaim them, to the point of falling into a deep fissure. At the end of the manga, Ryoga appears content to let Akane wed Ranma without interrupting, until he gets lost and accidentally winds up at the reception anyway.^[28]

In the official 'Memorial Book', Ryoga and Akari are described as feeling reciprocal 'great attraction' towards one another, while he only felt 'lingering affection' for Akane. In this respect Ryoga seems to have received a more conclusive ending than most of the main characters, since the others were still caught up in the usual romantic entanglements and complications. His rivalry for Akane is gone and he has met his seemingly perfect match, but his direction sense and remaining curse naturally still complicate matters.

Ryoga and Ukyo as a couple are joked about in the anime (likely due to that Akari was never introduced in this continuity), but this pairing seems unlikely in the manga. She has bluntly and abrasively reiterated her derision towards his lack of judgement, direction sense and shyness/'cowardice', followed by hard whacks of her battle spatula. They seemed even more antipathetic towards one another after being forcefully separated by the ghosts in the "Tunnel of Lost Love", possibly due to the previously referred "break-up curse", alternately simply due to blaming one another. Regardless, they never cooperate, or speak, again in the manga. Ryoga also tends to be infatuated with girls who are consistently gentle with his feelings.

[edit] Physical Abilities

See also Ryoga's techniques.

Fighting-skill: Ryoga is an exceptionally proficient martial artist, roughly comparable to Ranma, whom he has defeated or fought to a draw on many occasions, especially during shorter or off-screen battles, having triumphed roughly twice as many times as the opposite if these are included (times of outside enhancements or enfeeblements discluded), occasionally in seconds when sufficiently upset or similarly motivated, but also had a great disadvantage when the latter was far more focused while Ryoga was extremely flustered.^[29] Sometimes even Ranma has to distract or trick him to triumph in climax situations. Unlike most cast members, Ryoga seems to be mostly self-taught, with immense natural talent, and relentless hard training as his only mentors. Takahashi has mentioned in an interview that the reason for his great power lies in his constant harsh hiking life.^[4]

Physical Power: Under regular circumstances he appears to be a few times physically stronger than or, at the very least, as strong as Ranma. They have never outright competed in this area, since Ryoga tends to rely on skill and special techniques.

Ryoga's strength, speed, durability, and striking power. Respectively: Throwing a few hundred tonnes ice-boulder; barely keeping up with Ranma's full supersonic barrage; withstanding several hundred punches without damage; accidentally shattering a 7 m-diameter platform of solid bedrock.

Ryoga's greatest explicit feat happened during their ice skating competition. When supremely motivated, Ryoga here moved two enormous buoying blocks of ice (to catch/stop Mikado Sanzenin) and far more impressively was shown to hurl at least one of them, with an approximated weight of roughly 206 to 642 metric tons,^[30] at least 30 metres, by using the arm he previously gripped it in.^[31] He here used Ranma's head as a brace not to fall into the water, but the latter nonetheless supported the pressure from the floating slabs. Although, to throw the weight such a great distance would take some dozen times the effort from simply lifting it. Like with his chi-generation, it seems to undergo a boost depending on his emotional state, beyond his general conscious level, and (much like most 'Ranmaverse' fighters) the force of this seems to be his general power-source, but he has seemingly never used his full capacity to directly empower his physical traits, indirect and dispersed usage of which has been shown to eclipse even Lime in terms of raw power.^[32]

Further comparative references include that Ranma broke his legs from the effort of supporting a 50-100-metre fall, while carrying four girls.^[33] Then again, the latter likely remained severely weakened from poison at the time, so his peak effort should be greatly multiplied. Ranma also proved unable to get out when trapped under a 90-100 tonne large iron bell, without handicaps, but he wasn’t significantly motivated, and had no hold for his hands to grip.^[34]

Female Ranma seemingly effortlessly pushed a roughly 40-tonne boulder into the mouth of the Yamata-Orochi while swimming underwater, when supremely determined to save Akane from being eaten.^[35] Also, when under the influence of a magic incense a simple hug from Ryoga almost crushed male Ranma's ribs.^[2] Other hints in this vein include that even a casual Ryoga seemed overwhelmingly stronger when Ranma pretended to be his "sister",^[36] (almost knocking her out with a playful finger jab to her forehead) but Ranma was in female form at the time. Akane was terrified of his casual power, while she has not reacted this way towards Ranma,^[37] though Ranma may simply have better conscious muscle control. He was also the chosen counterpart for Lime, but that may simply have been a case of their most pronounced ability.

Striking Force: Other displays of strength include completely shattering a roughly 7 m-diameter, solid rock platform simply by prostrating on it,^[14] and punching Ranma so hard that the latter made a 4 m diameter, at least 0.5 m deep, indentation in a mountain.^[38]

Stamina: Ryoga also appears to have greater durability, honed through years of training in the mountains and through Cologne's Breaking Point Training.^[39] Though the possibility exists that it is simply a more overstated trait than for his counterpart. He has been repeatedly struck with dense heavy objects, fallen hundreds of meters into solid rock, been covered in a rockslide, and even been caught in a closing chasm, without any damage whatsoever, and emerged ready to fight on. He was unfazed by a full force blow from Taro's monster form,^[40] while a similar effort rendered female Ranma unable to continue fighting. But she was also struck through a wall and in a state of confusion about the latter's transformation.^[41] Male Ranma was only briefly stunned on another occasion, when not restrained by these limitations.^[42] Ryoga was only slightly discomforted from hundreds of Ranma's punches landed in less than a second, but repeated efforts, and putting both of them in freefall, presumably giving the latter an opportunity to instead land thousands of punches, all instances directed at the same spot, together managed to knock him out.^[43] He apparently even stayed unharmed after he and Ranma were hit dead-centre by Happosai's smaller Happo-Daikarin,^[28], which are capable of knocking out Taro-monster in a single strike, while his rival was rendered unconscious, although the force greatly varies from occasion to occasion.^[44]

Limitations: Ryoga seems far more vulnerable if he is distracted and his guard is completely down, so it is not impossible that his durability is bolstered by active chi-infusion. Lime was able to almost beat him in one full-force blow by taking advantage of such an opportunity, after Mint tumbled at Ryoga’s back from behind, and the latter became angered at Mousse for not keeping his fight contained.^[45] He has also been knocked out by an unexpected staff blow to the larynx from Mousse, while completely focused on Ranma,^[46] who has likevise managed this feat. For example by showing Ryoga Ukyo's breasts, paralysing him from embarrassment, and then kicking him through the school wall,^[47] or by hitting the embarrassed Ryoga's head with a stone pillar from behind, when the latter's eyes were closed, since he was tricked by Shampoo into believing he would get a kiss from Akane.^[48]

Speed: While initially an even match, Ranma briefly gained a severe advantage in swiftness and skill after undergoing a power-up at Cologne's hands, but Ryoga quickly catches up in these areas as the manga progresses. By the time of the 'weakness moxibustion' arc, he is able to simultaneously parry, disarm and beat up Mousse, Tatewaki, Principal Kuno and Gosunkugi in under a second.^[13] He likewise proved to be swifter than Mousse some volumes later, during an onsen race battle, where he avoided all the latter's attacks.^[49] Additionally, when Ranma is turned murderously jealous by a magic koi mark, Ryoga manages to narrowly avoid and parry the latter’s 'Amaguriken'-training enhanced supersonic barrage,^[29] and later eventually best his rival.^[50] In battle with the physically stronger and extremely durable Lime, he easily managed to stay out of his opponent's grasp until Mint's interruption.^[45] In the final story, he managed to effortlessly parry all of Genma-panda's strikes, while looking in another direction.^[23]

Development: While he has occasionally thrown roughly 10-tonne boulders a considerable distance, Ryoga has not shown explicit feats of greater physical power later in the series. However he did improve his strength enough to stand up to Lime, who seemingly has an upper maximum of around 100.000 tonnes.^[51] More noticeably Ryoga seems to turn into a more balanced fighter, greatly increasing his shown speed, skill, versatility and durability. Near the end of the manga the author spoofs their relationship by portraying Ranma and Ryoga as two constantly feuding and completely evenly matched children, not counting Ryoga's more powerful and dependable force-blasts, which gave him a certain edge.^[52]

Possible Potential: In both the manga and anime series Ryoga once helped a starving martial arts calligraphist by sharing his food. As thanks the latter bestowed the "mark of the battling god" on his belly, bringing forth a fighter's full power.^[53] Under this influence Ryoga temporarily became the, by far, most formidable character ever shown in the series, and was literally capable of casually defeating Ranma with his pinkie finger, or without noticing when tied up, blindfolded and shackled to the floor. Even his piglet form was overwhelmingly superior, capable of effortlessly beating Ranma with a single strike. However, unlike with Akane's battle-dougi, it is uncertain whether or not this was intended as an indication of his full potential.

[edit] Notes and references

• Used references: Online fan-translation and Egmont's Swedish pocket-manga editions.

[edit] External links

• Ryoga at AnimeInfo
• Ryoga at Furinkan.com