Kuno's House of Gadgets! Guests Check In, But They Don't Check Out

Oni mo Nigedasu Karakuri Yashiki (鬼も逃げだすカラクリ屋敷) is the 17th episode of Ranma ½ Nettohen.

Although the trip to Furinkan High School's female locker-room was a bust in terms of the Japanese Nanniichuan, Ranma & Ryoga haven't given up yet; the strange urn they found beneath the floor may hold the key to unraveling the true location of the real Japanese Nanniichuan. With the aid of Shampoo and her great-grandmother, they set out once more... but when the urn's map leads them to the Kuno estate, can they survive?

Relation to the Previous Episode
The second part of the Japanese Nanniichuan arc, this episode continues on directly from the last episode. It even uses the ending of the last episode (cutting out the scene of Akane hearing that the "spring" Ranma found was just a broken water main) as the pre-title opening sequence.

Plot Overview
Returning themselves to their true forms, Ranma and Ryoga take the urn to Cologne, who they figure is their best chance of understanding it. She does indeed have information on the urn; it's one of three that Ranma and Ryoga will need to find to summon the Japanese Nanniichuan. Ranma breaks the conversation at that point and furiously grabs Ryoga by the shirt, shouting about how he's been through hell because of Ryoga, even having to wear girl's gym shorts. Ryoga notes the hypocrisy by pointing out that it was Ranma's idea and he came up with it as his first plan. Cologne nips the argument in the bud by revealing that the urns contain a code to where the next urn in the sequence lies; with a little more examination, she deciphers the location of the crimson urn and quickly writes up a map.

At once, Ranma, Ryoga, Shampoo and Mousse (currently in duck form) all set off for the next urn. First, 30 steps southeast; Ryoga childishly tries to take the map from Ranma, who dodges and points out how pointless it is to let him have it. After leaping over a sweet potato cart (except for Mousse, who just crashes straight through), they then turn west for 700 steps. Ranma gets ahead of Ryoga, who exits the alley to find there's no sight of him. In his frustration, he fails to realise Shampoo is running up behind him until she crashes into him and knocks them both over a previously-unseen ledge, landing on top of Ranma, who had failed to realise it was there before falling over it himself. Ryoga promptly tries to snatch the map, but it is snatched from him by Shampoo... who in turn has it snatched away by Mousse. He promptly flies right back and gives it to her, whereupon she casually drops him to the ground and runs off with Ranma, first heading south for another 700 steps, and then turning west for 100. When Ryoga follows them, though, he takes a right turn around a corner and finds Shampoo flying at his face, idly flipping over his shoulders and then kicking him in the back of the head, causing him to go staggering over the railings that she and Ranma had just been brought up short by. As Ryoga falls into the water, the two blithely carry on their way, Ranma noting that the site of the crimson urn must be straight ahead.

As they are running over the bridge in pursuit of this, Akane appears nearby, seeing "P-chan" being swept down the canal and hearing the quacking of Mousse. She spots Ranma and Shampoo and, curious, gathers up her pet and the transformed Chinese boy before heading after them.

Ranma and Shampoo find themselves at a massive, heavily walled estate, and decide to look for the way in, even as Akane and the transformed boys spy on them. At the front gate, Ranma receives an unpleasant surprise; the kanji for the family plaque reads, simply, "Kuno".

Inside the house, Tatewaki Kuno is enjoying a bath while reading poetry, drifting off into a pleasant daydream about finally having defeated Ranma and subsequently having Akane and "the pigtailed girl" throw themselves into his arms. When he snaps out of it, he realises he has accidentally embraced a sheepish Sasuke. He promptly starts using Sasuke like a towel to scrub his back, mentally cursing Ranma over his interference in Kuno's "romance".

Ranma and Shampoo leap over the walls into the garden and begin advancing towards the mansion proper. Shampoo asks if they shouldn't ask first, but Ranma insists that Kuno would simply deny them just to be spiteful; better to try and take it without him ever finding them. As they advance, though, they end up setting off a trip wire; dozens of rapid-fire crossbows start launching arrows at them, with Ranma unthinkingly scooping up Shampoo and running for their lives. Shampoo, on the other hand, is ecstatic that Ranma would do such a thing, perfectly confident in his ability to keep her safe.

In the bathroom, an alarm consisting of boards on a rope starts clattering, alerting Kuno and Sasuke to the presence of brigands on the grounds. Sasuke is dispatched at once to intercept them, but as Kuno settles back to continue contemplating how lucky he is to have two "loves", Sasuke suddenly returns with Kuno's bath towel - much to Kuno's irritation.

Having escaped the firing range, Shampoo asks if Ranma is alright, to which he replies with a distracted affirmative. Both teens hide themselves when they hear Sasuke coming, then approach him without fear when they realise who he is. Mocking Ranma's foolishness, Sasuke leaps to a nearby stone birdfeeder and rotates the top of it in a gloating fashion... which promptly gives way to confusion as nothing happens. He examines it, commenting to himself that the workmen said it was fixed, but then again, it's not been used since his grandfather's day. He starts trying to estimate how long it'll take if he puts the work order in today, but Shampoo promptly cuts him off with a diving knee to the head, the two teens getting ready to go. Regaining consciousness with remarkable speed, Sasuke desperately smashes the birdfeeder with a jump kick - this triggers a barrage of tiles from the sloping roof and crescent blades from the trees, but none of them pose even the slightest effect to the teens. In fact, it is Sasuke himself who ends up getting knocked out by his own trap.

Akane, meanwhile, has reluctantly snuck into the estate's grounds herself, though she has either been waiting a while or chose to approach from a different angle after seeing Shampoo and Ranma set off the arrow trap. She approaches an oldfashioned weaving house, but the female figure within suddenly lashes out, sending numerous sharp projectiles punching through the paper door and almost hitting Akane. Pushing the door open with her foot, she reveals herself to be perhaps the last person Akane expected (or wanted) to see; Kodachi Kuno. Mistaking Akane for a brigand, she attacks, but Akane's efforts to calm her down fail miserably; first she assumes that Akane has come to deliver a personal challenge after recognizing who she is, and then, when Akane reveals Ranma is present on the grounds of the estate as well, she attacks Akane for always "coming between them". Though P-chan and Mumu-chan both come to her defense, Akane narrowly escapes injury at Kodachi's hands; eventually, she is backed against a wall... which suddenly swivels around as a secret door is triggered, snatching up the three intruders. Kodachi laughs this off and goes searching for Ranma.

Ranma, meanwhile, has wandered into a labyrinthine part of the mansion that resembles an almost Western-style medieval fortress... complete with portculis that traps him and Shampoo in a dead end. Sasuke pops up to taunt them again, and then drops the floor out from under them, casting them down into the underground Kuno Family Labyrinth.

Akane is currently wandering its depths when she hears the screams of Ranma and Shampoo falling, chasing them down and coldly greeting Ranma when he comes to. He warns her not to get any ideas, then tells Shampoo not to start anything either, reminding her they're here for the urn - much to Akane's confusion. Any chance to explain gets interrupted when Sasuke suddenly appears, taunting them before unleashing the first of his House of Gadgets attacks. Sealed in, the crew starts running for their life, not made easier when Shampoo latches onto Ranma's waist in fear. As they run, Sasuke drops down to unleash his second attack, repeatedly striking Ranma painfully and leaping away when Ranma tries to catch him - it is only the intervention of Mousse and P-chan that causes him to fall down and be pinned amidst the rolling balls. As Ranma approaches, though, Sasuke triggers the dispersal part of the trap, scattering them all across the house.

Akane, along with P-chan and Mousse, ends up in a random room, where Sasuke makes the mistake of taunting her, laughing like a loon until she gets fed up, leaves him unconscious with a kick, and then wanders off through the open door.

Ranma wakes from a nightmare in which he defeats Kuno and finds the urn, only for it to shatter before him, to discover he and Shampoo have landed in a room that Sasuke starts filling with cold water, forcing them to scramble onto the ball that dropped down with them to avoid assuming their cursed forms.

For the Kunos, meanwhile, Tatewaki is having a dream in which a scantily clad Akane and pigtailed girl ask him to choose who is worthiest of his love, ending when they blow him up for saying "both" and he wakes to discover he has fallen face-first into the bath, while Kodachi is exploring the garden for Ranma.

For Ranma and Shampoo, trapped in the steadily rising water, things go from bad to worse when the strange fan-like contraption on the floor starts churning the water into a froth; it's inevitable that both end up taking a plunge into the icy depths.

Akane discovers a secret stairway that leads up to the baths, where she finds Sasuke reporting to Kuno about the intruders. Upon realising that Akane is present, Kuno eagerly starts showering her with declarations of love and pleas to come to his arms and kiss him. Akane will hear nothing of this, and when Kuno gets too close for comfort, P-chan leaps up into his face and starts scratching at it with his hooves.

Trapped in the thrashing water with no surface to reach and with neko-Shampoo clinging to her for dear life, Ranma enters the Nekoken, desperately swimming down to the floot and clawing a great hole through the center of the fan, the water rapidly draining away and washing her and Shampoo down along with it.

Kodachi, meanwhile, is excitedly exploring the mansion interior in search of Ranma when a wall portrait suddenly bursts open, neko-female-Ranma leaping out in front of her right before the water comes gushing out like a torrent, sweeping the two girls and the girl-turned-cat away down the stairs... right into the bathroom, where they knock over Akane and Kuno while sweeping them into the baths.

Akane surfaces from the water, sourly wondering why she was stupid enough to follow Ranma here anyway, then blinking as she realises Ranma is currently upside down in the water, Shampoo and Kodachi fighting over who gets to hold him, while Mousse has lovingly glomped "Shampoo" - much to Ryoga's fury. Ranma finally manages to get his head back above the water, paling as Shampoo and Kodachi both press in close and affectionate. Kuno stamps on the back of Ranma's head, indignant that Ranma would practice his lechery in Kuno's private hotspring, then starts attacking him with his every-present bokken. Ranma tries to explain he's just here for the crimson urn and ask to be allowed to look around for it, but Kuno will not stand and talk. When Ranma evades one strike, though, Kuno shatters a boulder that he had previously been trapped against - revealing the crimson urn.

Ranma excitedly takes it up, even as Kuno admits it has some sentimental value, but is otherwise worthless. When Ranma politely asks if he can have it, though, Kuno refuses out of spite and takes it from Ranma. Which is when Ryoga grabs it and tries to make off with it, only for Sasuke to snare his foot with a manriki-gusari (a chain with two small weights on its ends) and pull it out from under him; Ranma just manages to catch the urn before it shatters on the floor. A confused melee breaks out as Kodachi attacks Shampoo and Akane, Ryoga struggles with Sasuke, Kuno chases Ranma and Mousse fawns over a tanuki statue he thinks is Shampoo. The whole mess ends when, Ryoga and Ranma getting ready to gang up on Kuno, Sasuke activates the final of his special traps, an explosive surge of hot water blowing them all into the garden.

Everyone recovers from the impact quickly enough, though Kuno is taken out of the fight when Kodachi (who is laughing with glee at the excitement) lands on him, and Sasuke is not only stuck on a branch, but gets knocked out cold when the red urn bounces off of his head. Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse and Shampoo go racing after it, but the urn falls onto the head of Happosai, much to their dismay. They try to give chase, even as Happosai pulls it off and runs off with it, deeming it the perfect thing to store his stolen underwear in, only for him to escape.

Trivia

 * In the dub, they first set off 30 paces southeast, but the subtitles say they need to take 3000 paces southeast - this latter value appears correct, as they are shown to cover more steps than that before turning west.
 * In the subbed version, Ranma deliberately set Ryoga up to take the fall into the canal when they took their final west turn.
 * In the dub, Kodachi's "Sleeves of Steel" are stated to be a Kuno Clan Special Relic, implying it is just more of the same dirty tricks as her Razor Hoop, Spiked Batons and Steel Bar Rope. In the subtitles, though, it's stated to be a Kuno Clan Secret Technique.
 * In the subtitled version, Kuno says his great-grandfather dug the urn up when had the garden pond put in.
 * Somehow Mousse mistakes Ryoga and a tanuki statue for Shampoo in Kuno's bathhouse, even though he had his glasses on.
 * The projectiles that Kodachi throws at Akane seem to be fingerpicks, a type of plectum stylized to resemble artificial fingernails on rings so they can be easily slipped onto the fingers. Combined with the music, it is obvious that she was playing a stringed instrument when Akane interrupted her - given the Kuno family's traditional nature, she was most likely playing a koto, as this instrument is traditionally played with fingerpicks rather than a one-piece plectum.