A Teenage Ghost Story

A Teenage Ghost Story (追跡! 手まり唄の謎) is the 117th episode of Ranma ½ Nettohen.

Relation to the Previous Episode
None.

After School
Another day at Furinkan High School has ended and Ranma is with Tatewaki Kuno in Toramasa's room, listening to him talk about he defeated Napoleon. When Toramasa finishes, Kuno begins to cry and exclaims that if he was there he would've used the "Sword of Kuno" to defeat all his enemies singlehandedly. He continues to curse his fate of not being there. Ranma then interjects and tells Kuno and Toramasa to stop making up stories and tend to the business at hand.

Akane shouts for Toramasa and asks him if he's shop is open or not, to which Toramasa replies that he hasn't been feeling well so the shop's closed. Regardless Akane enters and angrily explains that the notebook she bought earlier is completely useless she also adds that it seems to be over 100 years old. Ranma examines the notebook (which Akane had placed just placed in front of Toramasa) and begins to wonder just how old it really is. Toramasa attempts to sneak away, but Ranma stops him and rhetorically asks him where he's going. With nowhere to go, Toramasa tries to get out of the situation by saying that old doesn't necessarily mean it's worthless and that, like him, its true value lies in "it's artistic depth and innate beauty".

These words touch Kuno, who compliments Toramasa and lays down a pile of cushions for him to sit on. Toramasa then begins laughing, which causes Ranma to pull out on of the cushions and makes Toramasa fall over. Ranma continues by calling Toramasa a scam artist, angered, Kuno attacks Ranma with his Bokken as well as calling Ranma an insulting cretin. In response to Kuno's outburst, Ranma defends himself with the cushion.

While the two struggle against each other, they accidentally knock over some tea onto the notebook. Annoyed, Akane tells the pair that if they're going to act like little children then they should go and fight outside, she then bends down to get the soiled notebook. Akane flips the book open, where writing suddenly starts to appear so she calls over the others to come have a look. When the others gather around her, Akane reads what's in the notebook and soon notices that it seems to be a song.

Just then a dark shadow along with two floating blue fireballs appear behind the group. A voice then sounds out and begins to sing, soon followed by a girl appearing in the shadow. Naturally everyone is shocked and afraid by this, except for Kuno who tries to use his Bokken to try and hit the girl, while telling her to begone. Before Kuno can hit the girl, however, she disappears and reemerges in another corner of the room. Kuno then repeatably tries to hit the girl, only for her to disappear and emerge somewhere else. Out of breath, Kuno begins to look everywhere for the girl. Eventually the girl disappears again, but doesn't reappear. Kuno then declares that she must be afraid of him so begins to laugh. This scene causes an unimpressed Ranma to note that Kuno looks slightly insane, he then notices that Toramasa has fainted standing up shortly before he collapses to the floor.

Later at the Dojo
Back at the Tendo residence, the family is eating dinner and Akane has already told them of their experience. Kasumi tells then that it must've been exciting for her and Ranma, while Nabiki hopes that they were at least able to get a refund on the notebook. Akane explains that she couldn't since Toramasa fainted. At the other end or the table, Soun wonders why nothing like that ever happened to him when he was young. Then a voice comes out of no where, and the girl appears in the corner. Kasumi exclaimes that shes really cute.

Soun, a little freaked out, tells Akane to ask the girl to leave, and Akane replies that she can't, while Ranma wonders why she followed them. Nabiki goes over to the girl and asks her name and what she wants, to which the girl only replies 'The Racoon on Kukuri Mountain'. Nabiki tells her not to change the subject and answer her and the girl starts to cry, afraid of her. Kasumi tells Nabiki not to scare her while the others wonder why she came here. Akane suggests that they ask her, to which the ghost explains that she forgot something, but when they ask what she says she doesn't remember. Kasumi feels sorry for her and says that she could stay until she remembers, and Nabiki says she can sleep in Akane's room. Soun asks if he's the only one that realizes that she's a ghost, and Akane replys that if a Panda is allowed, why not a ghost. Ranma pokes his dad and points to the girl, but Genma turns his back and refuses to share his meal. Soun invites the girl to the table, and she thanks them for their hospotality. Soun ask how many people could say they had a ghost over for dinner, to which nobody replies.

Later, Genma goes to take a bath, but when he enters the dark bathroom he finds the ghost girl is already in the bath. She turns around and says she sees him, and Genma faints. While the others try to wake him, the girl appolagizes, explaining that she thought she could take a bath without asking first. Akane counters and says its not her fault, and Kasumi says just to turn the light on next time. Later that night, Akane and the ghost are in her room. The girl asks if she could just sleep in the closet, explaining that she liked the dark, causing Akane to comment how depressing the scene looks.

The Next Morning
As everyone enjoys their breakfast, the ghost helps out by refilling Ranma and Genma's cups, for which they are grateful. Kasumi then tells the ghost that she can make herself visible, as they don't discriminate against ghosts. Kasumi continues by commenting that the ghost's song if very interesting, prompting Akane to ask her sister if she's heard it before. Kasumi admits she hasn't, but adds that she has heard of the "Badger at Mt. Kokkuri". Continuing, Kasumi reminds Nabiki that she knows the story too as there is a hill near Furinkan High called Mt. Kokkuri.

After Kasumi talks about the fairy tale of how a badger threw itself off the hill after losing a bet to a fox, Soun adds that there is a shrine to a badger on the hill, meaning their may be some truth to the story. Nabiki then realises that there may be a connecting between the ghost's forgotten object and the song. Continuing Nabiki questions if this may mean there's a riddle hidden in the song that the ghost sings, so if they solve the riddle and find what the ghost lost she may be able to pass on. The ghost thanks everyone for how much they've done for her. Ranma then comments that the whole situation sounds like fun, so he decides to go check the mountain, prompting Akane to follow Ranma in pursuit.

Unfortunately, the group miss Sasuke who's heard everything they just discussed. Sasuke reports the events to Kuno, who remembers about the badger shrine atop the hill as well. Kuno then heads off to a library and takes out an extremely worn out and aged booked entitled "Furinkan High School History"...

As the ghost continues singing it's song at the Tendo Dojo, Akane and Ranma make it to the top of Mt. Kokkuri and begin their search for the shrine. Some time later, the ghost plays a game of against Soun, which she loses. Genma demands to have a do over, but Soun refuses. This causes the ghost to comment on how hateful that if, and Soun, in a worried panic, turns the board around so it looks like the ghost won, causing the ghost to glare agitatedly at Soun.

The Search of Mt. Kokkuri
Back on Mt. Kokkuri, Ranma and Akane arrive at the place where the Crane and Turtle meet, as per the song, when suddenly Kuno appears and tells Ranma that he won't allow him to have Furinkan High's secret gold. Kuno explains that according to the history book he looked at earlier Furinkan High has hopes for world domination, but the advent of put a stop to it, so the students of Furinkan buried some gold so that the future sons of the school could find it and continue their plans.

Ranma is obviously extremely skeptical of this claim, but this doesn't deter Kuno from exclaiming that he use the gold as war funds and conquer the world. After Kuno tries to get Ranma out of his way, Ranma tells Kuno that nobody's stopping from going on a wild Goose chase, so Kuno begins digging. As Kuno digs, Ranma begins wondering about the riddle of where the turtle and crane meet again. This time Ranma notices that the shadows of the two statues are coming closer together and after looking at where the shadows are closest notices a small shrine behind them where the turtle and crane are shown meeting each other.

As Kuno looks up from his digging, he sees Akane walking down the hole in front of the shrine and gives up his digging in favour of following Akane. Whilst walking through the cave which the stairs led to, Ranma and Akane discuss the next part of the song, which involves a dark path and a thousand needles. With the cave obviously being the dark path, Akane wonders what the "thousand needles" part refers to. She quickly finds out after Akane accidentally sets off a trap and causes hundreds of small arrows to start firing from the ceiling above.

Using his to deflect and break the arrows, Kuno quickly gets through the trap as Ranma and Akane look on in confusion. Kuno continues rushing through the cave, until he trips on a rock and uses a nearby rope hanging from the ceiling to support himself. Unfortunately, this releases another trap and makes a large pillar of stone fall from the ceiling. Ranma and Akane soon catch up and overtake the still dazed Kuno.

Walking through the cave, Akane sees a puddle of water on the ground and suddenly stands completely still whilst staring at her reflection. After Ranma tries to make fun at Akane, the ghost appears in the water and asks the "hateful ones" what they think they're doing. Ranma and Akane remind the ghost that their the ones helping her, to which the ghost apologises as what she did was a typical ghost greeting. The ghost then offers to help Ranma and Akane in their search, an offer which the pair happily accept.

Finding the Treasure
After travelling further through the cave, the trio come across a fork in the road and begin wondering which path they should take. Akane quickly decides they should go right since the next line of the song involves which hand Chopsticks are held in. But the ghost stops them by saying that she thinks she was left-hand, but then adds that she thinks she ate with her right hand, making her previous comment completely pointless.

Just then Kuno appears and runs down the right path. After running down the path, Kuno comes across a dead end, but notices a flower in the wall. Kuno remembers the song and begins pulling the flower with his Chopstick hand and, sure enough, Kuno eventually manages to pull the flower out and reveal a path behind the supposedly dead-end. Unfortunately, Kuno soon suffers as a boulder starts rolling towards him and, despite Kuno's best attempts to out run it, he gets hit and the boulder explodes.

After comparing Kuno to the character in the song who's "big in gladness and shame", Akane remembers that the next part of the song involves "slipping and falling". No sooner does Akane say this than the floor beneath her and Ranma stands to rapidly descend, leaving the ghost behind who begins to cry from loneliness.

Once Ranma and Akane finish their descend they're subject to a flood of water rushing straight towards them. Ranma tries to swim over to save Akane, but the current it too strong and Ranam gets swept away as well. The eventually find themselves in Toramasa's shop, much to his shock. Shortly afterwards Kuno arrives, convinced that Toramasa is hiding the gold. Toramasa outrightly denies this claim when the ghost reappears and starts singing her song again.

Once she finishes, Toramasa thinks and realises he might have what the ghost left behind. After looking through some boxes he finds it, an old toy which the ghost calls "Badger". Ranma, Akane and Kuno ask for an explanation and Toramasa tells them that when he first started working at the campus store there was a special sale of every notebook came with a Tanuki doll, but one girl forgot to take her doll, so he kept it for her. Ranma then brings up the question of what the last line of the song means "Toranu Kogane. Ah, hateful" which the ghost explains that her name is Kogane and the line means "Kogane never got it".

As Ranma, Akane and Kuno are devastated at this revelation, Kogane thanks them for their work and is engulfed by a bright light as she finally passes on. Once Kogane leaves, Akane comments that it was good she could finally rest in peace, to which Ranma declares the mystery solved. Kuno, however, still weeps at not finding the hidden treasure, prompting Tormasa to comment that he knows the story. As Toramasa tells Kuno the story, Ranma and Akane slouch in disbelief as Ranma declares that she gives up.

Trivia

 * For some reason, while Toramasa is talking about defeating Napoleon, his moustache is completely black instead of grey.
 * In the sub, Akane compares Kogane being in her closet like a Buddhist Altar, while in the dub she compares it to a.
 * Oddly, Kasumi's knowledge of the song varies between the sub and dub, as in the sub she doesn't know the song (having only heard about the "Badger of Mt. Kokkuri") while in dub she does know the song.
 * When Ranma saves Akane from multiple traps inside the cave, her outfit temporarily changes from a yellow top and red skirt to her Furinkan High uniform and back again by the next scene.