Goodbye Girl-Type

Kore de Onna to Osaraba? (これで女とおさらば?) is the 18th episode of Ranma ½ Nettohen.

The Japanese Nanniichuan is so close that Ranma can almost taste it! But, to find his way there, he needs to recover the urn so carelessly stolen by the malevolent Happosai...

Relation to the Previous Episode
This episode concludes the Japanese Nanniichuan arc and takes place directly after the previous episode.

Plot Overview
Having ensconsed his collection in the urn since retrieving it the previous night, Happosai amuses himself by pulling out its contents and showering himself in them. Ranma foolishly comes charging in, demanding Happosai return the pot, and is promptly sent flying through the roof with no more thought than swatting a pesky fly. He ends up coming back to earth right on top of Akane's practicing bricks, just as she was getting ready to break them herself; when he vows he's going to get Happosai for this, Akane irritably smacks the back of his head and asks if he has to keep interrupting her like this. Indignant, Ranma asks if she thinks he likes getting beaten up by Happosai, and asks how else he's going to be a whole man again - this catches Genma's ear.

After explaining to the rest of the household what's going on, Soun asks why Ranma is so certain that this is for real, with Nabiki reminding him about the Instant Nanniichuan. Ranma insists that this time it's for real, even as Kasumi notes that Ranma can't dismiss the possibility without trying to get the crimson urn back from Happosai. Nabiki asks if he's really so certain he even wants to be cured, commenting that his and Akane's honeymoon would be very interesting with it and they certainly would never be bored - perhaps luckily for her, Akane appears not to have been listening. Ranma furiously starts gnawing at a rice cracker, muttering around his food that she has no idea what she's talking about, a sentiment that Genma echoes. As Kasumi places a piece of sweet bean jelly before Genma, Ranma's father encourages him to go and get the urn back. Soun chooses that moment to snatch the sweet bean jelly and start eating it himself, noting that Ranma will need all the luck he can get when trying to retrieve something from someone so selfish and disrespectful of others as Happosai, in a moment of hypocritical humor. Genma promptly starts trying to steal it back from Soun, even as he encourages Ranma once more to get the urn back.

Ranma sneaks into the roof and squirms through the crawlspace to above Happosai's room, using a hook and a rope to draw the urn up to him after seeing no sight of Happosai. However, he discovers too late that Happosai was hiding in the urn and is promptly blown through the roof again. Despite ending up stuck on a branch of the plum tree in the garden, angrily snapping at Genma demanding he try again, he makes a second approach - forgoing subtlety to instead cast a grappling hook through the door and snag the urn in hopes of making off with it before Happosai can react. Instead, Happosai snags a ride and then buries Ranma under a boulder. Shattering it with a roar of fury, Ranma goes charging right back against Happosai. Hearing the commotion, Nabiki notes that Ranma has problems with subtlety and Kasumi declares she'll need to get the repairman in.

The fight ends with Ranma going flying, though he manages to flip in mid air and lands on a boulder near the pond, rather than the expected splash landing. He notes that he needs a different approach... and also, to his embarrassment, he's accidentally stolen a pair of panties. Ryoga appears, asking why Ranma called him here, and Ranma promptly starts laying on the charm. Between his assertions about them being friends at heart, and the pair of panties he's just given him, Ryoga's guard quickly drops and he ends up taking a dip in the pond, the panties wrapping themselves around P-chan's head. Much to Ryoga's fury, Ranma tosses him into Happosai's room; as Ranma expected, the sight of P-chan wearing some of Happosai's collection drives the old pervert into a jealous rage and he tries to catch the transformed human, only to end up being snared by a noose that Ranma set up and hoisted into the tree, allowing Ranma to take the urn and laugh at Happosai's protests.

Ranma proudly displays his catch to the Tendos and his fathers, allowing nothing to phase him - certainly not Ryoga, when he comes storming in and furious over how Ranma tricked him into running around with panties on his head. Though he's quick to deny that when he realises Akane just heard him. Ranma simply takes the urn and runs off after some banter, Akane following... though she is slowed by the encouragement from her family, Soun declaring that it's times like these that fiancees need each other the most, even as Kasumi wishes that their mother could see her and Nabiki shouts for Akane to go for it. Embarrassed, Akane brushes this commentary off and gives pursuit to Ranma and Ryoga.

At the Nekohanten, with Mousse (in duck form), Shampoo and Akane watching on as Cologne finishes the translation, Ryoga hisses how irked he is over Ranma's dirty trick to him, even as Ranma disdainfully asks if he's still going on about that. The argument is interrupted when Cologne reveals she has the completed map, but Ryoga promptly snatches it and tries to take off on his own, Ranma, Shampoo, Akane and Mousse all giving chase. Noting the first direction is 3000 paces north-by-northeast, Ryoga heads off... only to double back and ask Ranma which direction that is. Disdainfully, Ranma snatches the map back and takes off in the lead again, pointing out that they've been through this song and dance before and instructing Ryoga to just leave the pathfinding to him when Ryoga petulantly demands the map back. Once they've taken the first 3000 steps, they head east for 790 steps, and then turn north up a slope... to Ranma's fury, though, it takes them right back to the Nekohanten. He attacks Cologne, accusing her of having played a trick on them, and gets sent flying into the kitchen. All the fight immediately leaves him when he discovers something; the final urn. As Shampoo recollects, they found it when building the Cat Cafe, and Cologne saved it because she thought it might be handy to make pickles in. Ranma couldn't care less, instead demanding that Cologne hurry up and translate, which she does. What is revealed are not more directions, but a riddle:

"When you see the first evening star,

Sibling stones will not be far,

What you seek flows from the jar."

Nobody has any idea what this means, until Akane recognizes it. A short train trip later, and the group as a whole is in the mountains. Akane points them to a hiking trail, explaining that she recognizes the "sibling stones" in the riddle as being the three boulder brothers, a location she once visited on a school trip. As they set off up the trail, Akane comments in pleasure that Ranma and Ryoga really must be friends if Ryoga is willing to help Ranma get a cure like this; she used to think they hated each other's guts. Though Ranma agrees with her interpretation, Ryoga shoves her into a nearby pond in embarrassment, which infuriates Ranma. As the group heads on, they are unaware that a furious Happosai has followed them, bullying Soun and Genma into helping him in his plan to steal the urn back and beat Ranma up for taking it in the first place.

Further up the mountain, the group as a whole starts to quarrel. Ryoga starts muttering to Ranma about the panties yet again, to Ranma's disdain, while Shampoo asks why Akane wanted to come along and if this means she doesn't hate Ranma any more. Akane points out she is the only one who knows the trail to take, and reacts in disgust when Shampoo's reply to the same question is that she wants Ranma to be happy by regaining his manhood completely - not to mention it means she'll have a real man for her honeymoon. As they start passing by some cliff edges, rocks fall, and seeing Shampoo stumble back forces Ranma to leap forward, wrapping her arms around the Chinese girl and using her foot to brace her from falling back-first against the wall, thus risking breaking the urn. Shampoo is ecstatic that Ranma would do something like that, while Akane immediately threatens to leave in a jealous rage... and when Ranma points out she was saving the urn, she just makes Shampoo mad. Fortunately, her jealous threat to break the urn she's carrying is cut off when more boulders fall. Though the group dodges them, Ranma notes that such a landslide is most definitely not natural.

At that point, Happosai shows himself, threatening Ranma and demanding the urn back. Though Soun and Genma try and reason with Happosai to at least lend it to Ranma for the cure, he refuses to listen to it. The teens won't back down either, and end up challenging Happosai to a duel, casting the urns aside and then rushing him. However, he easily knocks them all aside with a technique that creates a vortex of wind whirling around him, which he then casts forward to sweep them off their feet. As they scramble to their feet to make another try, Cologne interrupts and declares that she will fight him. This time, she wins, taking advantage of Happosai's underwear fetish and lack of discipline to distract him with her own bra, with Ranma promptly kicking him over the edge into the river far below. Soun and Genma make a show of weeping over his defeat, then start gloating to Ranma and company over how they did it... which results in them being sent screaming over the edge by the unimpressed teens.

Finally, the group scrambles and claws its way up the last stretch of mountain to find the Boulder Brothers; three stones stacked on top of each other with a shimenawa stretched around the middle one. Placing the urns in three small depressions arrayed in between a large circular hole and the boulders themselves, with Shampoo's rush to Ranma's side scattering Akane's joy for Ranma's sake (Ryoga feebly trying to tell her to go home now doesn't help things) the group waits for the first evening start to rise. As they wait, both Ranma and Ryoga hope and pray that this time they will be cured, with Akane taking Ryoga's gestures as yet more proof that he and Ranma really are good friends despite it all. As the first star comes out, water starts pouring down into the depression from the pots. Ranma tricks Ryoga so that she and Mousse are the first ones into the pond once it's filled enough, but this turns out to have been a good thing for Ryoga and his dirty little secret; though the water initially glows, it is a female Ranma and a duck Mousse that arise, to great confusion all around. Then a sign covered in kanji rises from the depths; as Ranma reads, to the mounting horror of herself, Ryoga and Mousse, this branch of Jusenkyo has been closed down due to lack of service - anyone wishing to avail themselves of Nanniichuan must come to mainland China and visit the original. Dumbstruck, Ranma sinks below the water, even as the girls get ready to start the long trip back to the train station and Nerima.

Trivia

 * Though it's not explicitly stated, it's implied that Ranma has actually tried to take back the crimson urn in the time between the previous episode and this one.
 * In the subtitle, the first direction is to go south, not north-by-northeast.
 * In this episode, Ryoga is shown as having trouble roofhopping; he fails to clear the distance from ground to rooftop in one leap like Ranma does, instead having to grab the roof with his arms and pull himself up.
 * Happosai's Bean Jam Blowout technique (referred to in the subtitle as "Equinox Sweet-Bean Blizzard") was used by Happosai to steal bean jam buns from Soun and Genma while they were training under him. It's possible he may have developed it after being on the receiving end of the Hiryu Shoten Ha in his youth.