Fighting Beauty Wulong

Fighting Beauty Wulong (格闘美神武龍, Kakutō Bishin Ūron) is a seinen manga series by Yūgo Ishikawa There are currently 19 volumes. The story has been adapted into an anime which spans two series. Both anime series covers volume 00-18. The first series is Fighting Beauty Wulong and the second is Fighting Beauty Wulong: Rebirth. Both series have approximately 25 episodes apiece.

The lead character, Mao Ran, a person of Chinese origin born and raised in Japan, has been trained in the secret martial art of her family by her drunken lecherous grandfather Master Mao Hung. Her grandfather has promised her that he'll tell her what happened to her parents to encourage her to train and fight. Without her knowledge, her grandfather signs her up to participate in a televised martial arts competition between female martial artists known as "Prime Mat". During the course of the manga and anime it is revealed that Ran's mother married Cao Da Hen and gave birth to Ran's step sister Rin Shen.

Characters

Mao Ran(毛蘭) (Mao Lan in Mandarin) (17 yrs old) Voiced by: Wakana Yamazaki. Is the main protagonist of the series. She tries to act as typical teenage girl with little results. She has been trained since she could walk in the Mao's family style called Mao Juhe Kenpo. The form takes characteristics from sword techniques and incorporates them into an empty handed fighting style. From the start of both the manga and anime Mao Ran demonstrates almost complete mastery of this form. Through flash backs it is shown that she develops skills and abilities that only a master should be capable of.

Mao Hung(毛混) (Mao Hun in Mandarin) (75 yrs old) Voiced by: Takeshi Aono. Grandfather to Mao Ran and grandmaster and creator of Mao Juhe Kenpo. After moving from China with his friend and rival Cao Fu Shen. He develops a style of Kenpo based on the fighting style of the samurai sword techniques. He teaches Mao Ran to fight using varies odd and sometimes dangerous tests like fighting a bear or fighting a gang of thugs.

Masao Oba(大場政夫) (17 yrs old) Voiced by: Shuuhei Sakaguchi. Bullied by boys who are stronger than him, he sees Mao Ran defeat a group of bullies and wishes to become her student. He learns to use some of the Basic techniques and can defend himself from normal fighters.

Cao Fu Shen(曹福生) (Fu Sheng in Mandarin) (75 yrs old) Voiced by: Eiji Maruyama. Fu Shen is the true master of Cao Eight point Fist Kenpo the rival of Mao Juhe Kenpo. In both the manga and anime he is extreme ill. He is also upset that his son Cao Da Hen has taken the family style kenpo and turned it into a product for money. At the start of the series he asks Mao Hun to have Mao Ran stop his granddaughter Cao Chun Yan by killing her (actually by the end you realize it is not a literal death, but by Chun Yan's defeat his style will die with him.)

Cao Da Hen(曹德興) (De Xing in Mandarin) (47 yrs old) Voiced by: Unshou Ishizuka. Father of Chun Yan and Rin Shen. Uses his families martial arts style for profit. Creates the Prime Mat competition to show case Chun Yan's fighting skills to prove his family is the strongest.

Cao RinShen(曹鈴音) (Ling Shen in Mandarin) (15 yrs old) Voiced by: Risa Hayamizu Actually Mao Ran's younger sister who's step sister Chun Yan uses her as a sparring dummy. Rin Shen runs away from the Xao temple to learn Mao Juhe style under Ran in hopes of defeating her step sister Chun Yan one day.

Cao Chun Yan(曹春揚) (Chun Yang in Mandarin) (20 yrs old) Voiced by: Junko Minagawa. Main antagonist of the series and Ran's strongest opponent. She is extremely vain and arrogant. She hates her younger step sister to the point of almost killing her by using her as a sparring dummy. Chun Yan is secretly trained in Mao style by Gangli who was a former student of Mao Hun, so she can counter Ran's Fajing technique. She is beaten by Ran at the end of the first series, then at a train station she's talking to Ran saying she has a lot more to learn and hopes to have a rematch sometime in the future.

Yagi Megumi(八木めぐみ) (19 yrs old) Voiced by: Wasabi Mizuta. Megumi is a member of the Naniwa Women's Wrestling she helps train Mao Ran in the beginning. Her fighting style combines elements of judo and professional wrestling, but later implements some of Mao's basic fighting techniques into her own style. She is then chosen to compete in the Prime Mat competition and is beaten twice once by Mao Ran then by Cao Rin Shen.

Lucky Shimoda(ラッキー下田) (20 yrs old) Shimoda, like Megumi, is a member of the Naniwa wrestling team and is considered as their most skilled pro-wrestler, specializing in grapples and throws. She is also their sexiest most buxom member. When fighting in the ring, she is a flamboyant attention-seeker who has a strong tendency for humiliating her opponents during matches. By the time Mao made her debut in her "Mao Tiger" pro-wrestler persona, Lucky Shimoda was already the defending champion in women's wrestling. Shimoda first met Mao when the latter accompanied her grandfather's entourage to the wrestling gym where the Naniwa Women's Wrestling team were practicing in the hopes of preparing Mao for Primat. Initially antagonistic to both Mao and Megumi, she saw Mao as a strict competition upon seeing her enter the gym, and challenged her afterwards to decide whether or not Mao deserves to wear the mantle of the Mao Tiger, only to be miserably defeated by Mao's family style brand of martial arts. Humiliated, Shimoda seek to return the favor by participating as Mao's opponent in her debut as Mao Tiger; this was easily consented as she was the reigning female wrestling champion at that time. It is also for this reason why Cao presented her with a bouquet of flowers as a special guest audience, right before proceeding to shake Mao's hand. But Shimoda, impatient to start the match, quickly strode over to Mao's corner and used the bouquet Cao just gave her to whack Mao over the head. Lucky Shimoda began the match with her inexperienced foe at an obvious disadvantage, since the it was pro-wrestling and thus, Mao could not resort into using the style her grandfather taught her. That, along with the fact that Shimoda witnessed Mao's training with Megumi enabled the much experienced wrestler to see through Mao's pattern of attacks allowed Shimoda to effectively counter them. After hitting Mao with the bouquet, Shimoda quickly followed with a descending elbow to Mao's lower back, doubling her over even more, before pinning her to the nearest corner post with her forearm choking Mao's neck. She then whispers some words audible only to Mao, saying that "even though she's (Mao) garbed in a revealing pro-wrestler's outfit, she is no wrestler and that she will meet a brand new Lucky Shimoda in this ring - one who won't lose so easily in this match, and she (Mao) shall be the stepping stone to her (Shimoda) success". She soon becomes a sort of cheerleader, when Mao and Megumi compete in Prime Mat.

Other media

A PlayStation 2 fighting game based on Fighting Beauty Wulong was developed by Dream Factory and published by Bandai in 2006.^[1] The game was given a 17 out of 40 by Famitsu magazine.^[2]

References

External links

• Official Site at TV Tokyo (anime)
• Official Site at Young Sunday magazine (manga)
• Fighting Beauty Wulong (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Fighting Beauty Wulong (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia