Ranma and... Ranma? If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Ranma and... Ranma? If It's Not One Thing, It's Another (乱馬とらんま?誤解がとまらない), is the fourth episode of Ranma ½.

Ranma thought it couldn't get any worse when Kuno professed to be in love with his female side. But it does, as Akane's sister, Nabiki, smells potential profit in Kuno's new infatuation.

Relation to the Previous Episode
The nightmare Ranma has when this episode opens is due to Kuno's declaration of love from the end of the previous episode. Ranma asked if Akane would like his help against the boys that attack her each morning during the previous episode and was refused, hence why she is so angry about his uninvited "intrusion" in this episode.

Plot Overview
Ranma awakens with a scream after suffering through a nightmare in which he is repeatedly confronted by Kuno confessing his love to him. Heading to the bathroom to freshen up from his nightmare, he gets into a brawl with Genma over the elder Saotome hogging the bath, which ends only when Soun enters the bathroom and pushes the two apart. Realising too late that he has just groped the now-female Ranma and that his daughters can see him doing so, though he doesn't get a chance to explain what's going on before Ranma punches him for taking such liberties.

On the way to school, Akane notes how tired Ranma looks, with Ranma explaining that he had a terrible nightmare, and this leads to a childish argument between the two that only ends when Akane notes they're going to be late. As usual, the horde assaults them, but this time Ranma remains at Akane's side and they plow through them with little effort. When Kuno bursts out of the school's doors, knocking aside a disapproving teacher in his rush, Ranma and Akane perform a perfectly synchronized diving kick to his face, leaving him out cold as Nabiki watches scornfully from her window. Inside, Akane angrily berates Ranma for fighting at her side when she didn't ask him to, which prompts Ranma to angrily tell her he wasn't doing it for her as his thoughts make it quite clear he's still upset about what Kuno did.

In the nurse's office, Nabiki tends to Kuno, who babbles at several points in his delerious state until Nabiki snaps him out of it by hitting him on the head with a washbasin. With a short discussion, she confirms the impression she received from his rantings that he now wants to pursue Ranma's female form, still being unaware of what relationship she has to Ranma. After school finishes, and hearing from Kasumi that Ranma has gone to catch up on his sleep, Nabiki sneaks into Ranma's room with camera, bucket and kettle, gently drenches Ranma, takes photos of his female form as she tosses in her sleep, then pours hot water on Ranma and nonchalantly leaves. Ranma promptly wakes up and is horrified to think he may have wet himself in his sleep.

Outside, Nabiki starts taking some photos of Akane at her workout, stopping only when an arrow with a letter wrapped around it impales a nearby pole. The letter turns out to be an invitation to her from Kuno to meet at the Café Tarumaru, an invitation she accepts. There, she discovers Kuno waiting with a cute doll, which he explains to her, as she eats a bowl of shiroku (sweet-bean soup) that he paid for, is a gift he intends to give to the pigtailed girl. This leads Nabiki to revealing she has some photos of the pigtailed girl, which she allows Kuno to buy after he first buys her some spaghetti. When Nabiki comments about Kuno "tossing aside" Akane for "the pigtailed girl", Kuno reveals he has no intention of doing so and in fact intends to chase both girls. This makes Nabiki request ice cream in exchange for letting him buy photos of Akane, and she still requires him to buy her some coffee and possibly a hot dog before she finally tells him that the fastest way to get his present delivered is to give it to Ranma. Kuno promptly writes up a letter that Nabiki delivers to Ranma.

To say Ranma is confused and irritated to be asked to meet Kuno again, especially when Kuno gives him the doll in question, is to put it mildly. After hearing who the doll is intended for, Ranma throws it back at Kuno and declares that he should forget about the pigtailed girl, as she'll never appear before Kuno again if Ranma has any say in the matter. He walks away and around the corner, whereupon a woman in an apartment above thoughtlessly pours cold water out the window and straight onto him, as Kuno lets these words sink in. When Kuno tries to confront Ranma, though, he finds "the pigtailed girl" and even her immediately punching him in the face fails to dissuade him from embracing her.

Nabiki promptly pours hot water over Ranma, who kicks Kuno in the face after he hears Nabiki address him by that name and asks if Kuno has finally gotten the idea after escaping from the elder teen's hold. Kuno promptly declares that Ranma Saotome must be a practitioner of black magic and demands to know where Ranma hid his "goddess", much to Ranma's annoyance. Nabiki declares that they must need to spell it out for Kuno and tells Kuno that the pigtailed girl's body and soul both belong to Ranma.

Kuno immediately begins calling Ranma a monster, and attacks Ranma while declaring that he will "smite" Ranma and "rescue the pigtailed one". Ranma asks if this means that Kuno will give up on his girl side if he loses, but Kuno refuses to answer. During one strike, Ranma knocks loose the photos that Kuno purchased, and Kuno takes advantage of the fact Ranma is staring at the first one he catches to slash him in the side. Hurt, but not out by any stretch of the imagination, Ranma effortlessly dodges Kuno's subsequent strikes while catching the photos, then rolls backward to evade a thrust of the bokken, ending up upside down in front of Akane, who just wandered by.

She warns Ranma that Kuno is really hard to beat when he gets worked up, and Ranma thoughtlessly tells her that the polka-dotted panties she's wearing don't really suit her. Akane promptly kicks Ranma back into fighting range with Kuno, who begins rapidly stabbing with his bokken so fast and hard that the statue Akane is standing nearby is shattered from the air pressure. Though it looks as if Kuno has the advantage over Ranma, Ranma instead uses Kuno's stance to hammer him with multiple kicks too fast for the girls to see and strong enough to knock Kuno out cold.

Once the fight is over, Akane asks what distracted Ranma in the first place to let Kuno hit him (having just poked Ranma in the side to prove whether he was really alright or not), and Ranma shows her some of the photos of her he retrieved. When she angrily demands to know what he was doing with such photos, Ranma angrily clarifies that Kuno was the one who had them, which makes Akane rather mad at Nabiki. When Ranma asks what the big deal is with such "boring" shots and taunts her that she should work on making herself at least half as sexy as his female side, else she'll never catch a husband, she forgets all about Nabiki and instead lays Ranma out with Kuno's bokken.

Trivia

 * This episode first shows Nabiki's greedy, manipulative, mischief-making side, an aspect of her personality that will become increasingly important to her characterization as the series progresses.
 * Ranma claims that Akane's photos are nothing, but boring shots and even boasts that his female form is sexy, more so than Akane or any other girl. This could have something to do with the fact that while Akane's photos are completely innocent, depicting Akane at her usual morning exercises, Ranma's shots display considerably more skin and actually look somewhat risque.
 * Nabiki shows herself able to consume quite a sizable amount of food in one sitting in this episode, taking soup, spaghetti, icecream, coffee and possibly a hotdog all in relatively short order. Her appetite would get another comedic reference in Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan.
 * The sequence of Nabiki eating at assorted cafes on Kuno's yen does not occur in the manga, where instead he speaks to Nabiki during their lunch period in Furinkan High School.
 * In the anime, Kuno's intended present for "the pigtailed girl" is a stereotypical cute girl doll. In the manga, he wants to give her a dopey yet cute stuffed panda toy instead.