KAIRASHI MUSHROOMS

Manga: 9/10 
Anime: 5/10 [Adaptation Grade: 2/10 - what the hell were they thinking??]

This can hardly be called an adaptation. They took the premise, a few characters, and then proceeded to change and mutilate EVERYTHING.

MANGA VS. ANIME

Shampoo gets the mushrooms

MANGA: Cologne accidentally gets an order of kairashi mushrooms and explains to Shampoo what they are. She demonstrates on the delivery man. Shampoo dreams of using its magic to force Ranma to hug her, and happily buys them.
    

ANIME: Shampoo already knows what the magic mushrooms are, and bakes them into steamed buns. She tries to trick her great-grandmother into trying some, however, Cologne knows what they are. Instead, they test them on a delivery man, and after confirming they work, Shampoo says she knows exactly who to use them on.

Shampoo feeds Ranma the mushrooms

MANGA: At school, Kuno challenges Ranma to a duel, except it's really a ruse to give him his cold. Shampoo finds Ranma, and tricks him into eating the dumplings by pretending it's a new menu item at the cat cafe. Ranma happily devours them. However, before she can snap her fingers, Kuno sneezes, changing the trigger, and all of Ranma's classmates are horrified when Ranma suddenly hugs Kuno. After learning the trigger is sneezing, not snapping, Shampoo tries to make him sneeze by using pepper. However, the wind catches it, blowing it towards all his classmates. Ranma quickly hugs all of them instead of Shampoo, so Shampoo angrily yells at Ranma, boots him, and then storms off. She never tells him what’s going on.

ANIME: Shampoo finds Ranma at school and offers him some buns she made. All the male classmates are jealous and drool in envy, but Ranma's not really interested (so they've already lost me). They offer to eat it instead, so Shampoo drags Ranma outside to eat in peace while the boys start yelling/acting like wild dogs? I don't know. Akane runs through the school looking for Ranma because she has something important to tell him. Outside, Shampoo tries to set her trigger to a snap, but right at that moment, a cat sneezes, and Ranma hugs the cat instead. Realizing the trigger changed, Shampoo gets Ranma to hug her repeatedly, and at that moment Akane finds them outside hugging. Ranma begs for Akane to listen to him, but she ignores him, and with a fake smile, tells him he’s supposed to watch the house tonight.

Akane’s cold

MANGA: Akane sneezes and Kasumi observes she has a cold. Akane is warned by Nabiki and Kasumi that she and Ranma will be home alone tonight. They tease her about having to protect her virtue, and tell her to beat Ranma up if he tries anything. Akane’s not worried and brushes it off as she watches tv. The show she watches is similar to her own situation: a girl is home alone when she's attacked by a perverted acquaintance (Horsebert and Cowbert). Akane is then unexpectedly hugged by Ranma, which is when Ranma makes the connection that it's sneezing that's making him hug people.

ANIME: After Akane witnesses Ranma and Shampoo hugging, she goes to the movies with her friends. There, she proceeds to be pissed off and rude in the theater, making everyone clearly uncomfortable and mad. On the way home, she’s so angry and distracted, she walks into an open manhole and catches a cold. Yes, you read that right. Meanwhile, Shampoo accompanies Ranma home, and tells him the truth about the kairashi.

Home alone. . .

MANGA: Recalling the TV show and her sister's warning, Akane fears Ranma’s trying to take advantage of her after all. She thinks she's proven right when he hugs her again. Akane punts him through the roof. Knowing she won’t be able to fend him off in her weakened condition, Akane gathers her weapons, and prepares to fight. Ranma gets through her iron defenses anyway, and she punts him through the roof again. Ranma finds himself in town, hugging strangers.

ANIME: Akane watches a music video. She locks the house, hears someone entering, and goes to investigate, armed with a bat. She finds Ranma sneaking food from the fridge. She complains that he didn't use the doorbell and tells him Kasumi left him some food. Once he spots her medicine and asks about it, Akane confirms she has a cold. He reacts like a crazy person, and Akane becomes offended, having incorrectly assumed he was worried about her. Ranma repeatedly tells her to stay away. She doesn’t. She sneezes, Ranma hugs her, and Akane proceeds to beat him repeatedly - with a bat, frying pan, tea kettle. He tries to explain again, but she doesn’t believe him. This time, she throws a microwave, and threatens him with a rice cooker. When she almost faints, Ranma tries to catch her, but she gets angry (again) and glares at him before wandering away.

A brief interlude

MANGA: No counterpart

ANIME: Even though she's still clearly mad, Ranma is worried and decides to check on her. Akane's rude and dismissive. Out of concern, he gives her a family remedy anyway; Ranma marvels over her thin wrists while preparing the tonic. She thanks him and they hug again after she sneezes, but this time it’s much more romantic.

Shampoo returns

MANGA: After being punted through the door after hugging and insulting Akane again, Ranma runs into Shampoo who is outside their home in cat-form. After she sneezes, Ranma hugs cat-Shampoo while screaming and crying. He jumps into a hot bath and yells at Shampoo to undo her spell. She says she doesn't want to. It's at this point Akane tells him she believes him - after hitting him with a mallet since he's still in the bath with a naked Shampoo. Shampoo prepares to force a hug out of Ranma again, but the pepper blows over to Akane instead who begins to sneeze repeatedly, but Ranma is long gone, having resolved to sleep outside . . . but then he runs into Kuno, who brings him right back home. 

ANIME: Shampoo busts through a wall, interrupting their romantic moment, and tries to get Ranma to eat more of the kairashi. He refuses. She makes him sneeze, so he hugs her. Akane sneezes next, but when he goes to hug her, she shoves him away and begins throwing random objects at him - multiple books, pouches, cushions, cups, a kettle - and calls him a “perverted, cross-dressing, immoral sex fiend.” She throws a dumbbell at him which breaks the tv, and then lifts a table next. Ranma, fed up, yells that he’s "not hugging because he wants to!” For some reason, this hurts Akane’s feelings, so she drops the table (on him) and goes running dramatically back to her room.

Shampoo feeds Akane a mushroom

MANGA: Shampoo feeds Akane a dumpling "as a sign of friendship" and tells her to give a passionate hug to all men except Ranma. For the trigger, she strikes a giant gong. Akane hugs Kuno tightly. Shampoo explains about the kairashi mushroom, and goes to strike the gong again, but Ranma saves Akane by kicking Kuno out the door. Akane is terrified by its power, and feels awful for how she blamed Ranma and hit him repeatedly. She turns to apologize, only to see him hugging Shampoo again. Annoyed, Akane strikes him with a mallet. Ranma, angry, yells at her right when she's about to sneeze again. Fed up, he plugs her nose to stop her.  

ANIME: No counterpart.

Ranma is jealous.

MANGA: Furious at Ranma for popping her ears, Akane punches him and sends him flying right into the gong . . . and suddenly, Akane is suddenly hugging Ryoga. Ryoga, confused but overjoyed, decides he'll never forget this day as long as he lives. Ranma boots him out the roof, then turns to Akane and calls her a floozy. Akane tells him if he doesn't like it to find a way to cancel the spell - she hits him with the gong, breaking it. She taunts Shampoo that now she has nothing to worry about. Shampoo attacks, prepared to feed her another mushroom, but Kuno suddenly returns and repaired the gong, stealing another hug for himself. Ranma boots him as Akane complains about how she's sick of this. 

ANIME: No counterpart.

And so, it ends. . .

MANGA: Ranma resolves to put an end to this nightmare. He plops a dumpling in Shampoo's mouth and tells her to go home. Shampoo cheerfully obeys and waves goodbye as she busts through the door and wall. Once she's gone, Ranma and Akane quickly work together to board up the house. When they're finished, they freeze, realizing this means they're going to be home alone. Ranma warns Akane not to sneeze, but she does, and after Ranma doesn't react, they realize the effects have worn off. They laugh in relief. Later, the two relax while watching tv, and Ranma points out, unamused, that Akane's still holding on to her weapons. "Well, we are still alone," she tells him. 

ANIME: After Ranma refuses to eat her buns, Shampoo threatens to feed them to Akane instead. Panicked, Ranma grabs Akane and runs, escaping to the roof while ordering her not to eat any. Ranma manages to steal the mushrooms from Shampoo after calling her cute and hugging her, then tricks her into eating one and orders her to go home. Finally, Akane admits she believes him. Akane sneezes again, but the effects have worn off. They laugh, and when their family returns home that night, it's to find Kasumi has brought them home steamed buns, and she wonders why they're not hungry.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

This was such a poor adaptation. The beginning of the manga was comedic gold: Kuno trying to give Ranma his cold, Ranma hugging him and trying to defend himself, then his classmates horrified reactions after being hugged too ("I feel so cheap!"). I have no idea why they removed that scene in favor of the pathetic exchange we got in the lunchroom instead. Rumiko Takahashi is a comedic genius - who had the nerve to think: "You know what? I can do better." 

Instead, the 90s anime has no respect for Akane. It's like they want the viewers to hate her. They took a simple, straight-forward cold, and turned it into one of the most obnoxious, stupid, unnecessary scenes ever: She fell in a MANHOLE? Reaaaaally?? And her behavior at the theater was atrocious. They made Shampoo and Ranma seem like saints by comparison even though they were ALL terrible in the manga.

First though, I need to address the elephant in the room: I know some people take issue with the whole Akane-fears-Ranma-will-rape-her plot line, but this is a recurring joke in the world of Ranma, and even though it's not a funny subject, it's almost always played for laughs. Just like murder. It's not meant to be taken seriously. And it's not something that's exclusive to Akane either: Ranma had to fight off Ryoga when he's disguised as his fake-fiancée, Ranma pretends he assaulted Akane during the Hiryū Shōten Ha arc, Shampoo tries to force Ranma while under the influence of the imprinting egg, Akane has to save Ranma from Kuno multiple times, etc, and the list goes on. And Akane, who was harassed by a group of horny boys for months, has every right to harbor this particular fear.

That being said, manga-Akane's violence was much more justified and in line with her character. It makes sense that Akane would fear being taken advantage of, especially after her sisters and that tv-show drilled the idea into her head (even though we know Ranma never would). But from Akane's perspective, she's home alone with 1.) a boy who pretended to be a girl and only came forward after seeing her naked 2.) who snuck into her room and hugged her while she was sleeping 4.) who is much stronger, and as her "fiancé", can pretty much do whatever he wants  3.) who suddenly hugged her out of nowhere the moment their family was away. Just considering her history with all the perverts at school, Akane being on guard makes sense - especially after she convinced herself she had nothing to worry about, only for Ranma to immediately prove her wrong while her guard was down. So her extreme reaction - to make an effort to protect herself - made sense, as did her outrage every time he got through her defenses.

However, in the anime, she's just randomly angry, chaotically violent, and insanely jealous for almost the entire episode. 

The original story is the perfect example of how ALL the characters can be hypocritical, not just Akane: Shampoo gets mad and hits Ranma when he hugs everyone but her, despite it being her own doing; Ranma acts violently and punts numerous people through the roof; Shampoo never tells Ranma what's going on and flatly refuses to undo it, even after he was forced to hug her as a cat; Ranma gets mad at Akane and calls her a floozy for hugging Ryoga, even though he knows how powerful the kairashi is; Kasumi and Nabiki intentionally rile up Akane despite knowing how sensitive she can be. We don't see any of that in the anime. Instead, Shampoo is painted as cute, playful, and not very threatening, and even explains to Ranma what she did. Ranma is shown being kind, patient and practically a saint--someone who is trying to care for his shrewish, ungrateful fiancée who is sick. Meanwhile, Akane's absolutely nuts and hateful. It's no surprise that people hate her character if THIS bastardization is the only exposure they've gotten to her!

The anime's only saving grace is the adorable hug-scene we're given when the atmosphere turns romantic. However, they could have easily achieved this same effect by having them blush and stare at each other when they realize they're home alone after ridding themselves of Shampoo. Rewriting the entire episode was unnecessary, not to mention disrespectful to the source-material and its author. When you have the source material: USE IT!! 

Also, as usual, their clothing in the anime is atrocious. Look at the cute outfits both Akane and Shampoo are sporting throughout the two chapters in the manga! Making them wear such ugly outfits should be a crime. I can only hope the new anime remake gets this story right because I think it would be fantastic animated!