And the Challenger is... A Girl?!

Dōjō Yaburi wa Onna no Ko? (道場破りは女の子?) is the 76th episode of Ranma ½ Nettohen.

Relation to the Previous Episode
None.

Part one:
Ryoga is trying to get his bearings when he overhears a group of kids marvel at cards that a man in a red octopus mask laid out. As Ryoga walks up for a closer look, the mysterious card-player starts to show off combat-like maneuvers with the cards, which he called "Super-duper Mid-air Lightning Strike" and "Ultra-high-speed Whirlwind" to create a whirl of cards. The kids watch with mouths hanging open, and the card-player laugh heartily, with even Ryoga being impressed. Suddenly, an RC toy race-car zooms past the masked man and his audience, ruining the cards. The children chase after it in delight, leaving the red-masked card-player and his white-masked companion upset. They then asked Ryoga if he was a martial artist, much to his confusion.

Later that same day, Ranma walks along one side of a fence when he hears the same masked men Ryoga, and spies on them behind the fence as the "lord-of-marbles", in the white mask, shows a new group of children an attack-maneuver he calls "Super-spinner Juggernaut", where he flicks a marble to hit several marbles at once. The kids are impressed until one of them notices that they have to go to cram school, and they all head back, much to the dismay of the masked men. They complained at what a sad world it has become and agreed that it wasn't the Japan they recall from their own childhood, wondering what happened to what playtime used to mean to kids. The red-masked man feels nostalgic for the good old days. He looks at one of the marbles and reminisces the days when boys played cops-and-robbers, enjoyed puppet-shows, and had fun running around playing.

Then the leader of the group, a green-masked man who called his character "Ultraman", assures his comrades that things are going to be alright before noticing Ranma. The Ultraman-masked man could tell by the way Ranma was watching them that he knew martial-arts too, and Ranma introduces himself as being part of Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. The leader of the masked men seemed impressed, and offers Ranma a chance to test his skills. The other two masked-men brings out their signature toys, and gets into a battle-stance. Ranma defeats them easily.

Meanwhile, at the dojo of Anything Goes Martial Arts, Akane Tendo had just gotten home and found that she was the only one there. When she goes outside to look around, she finds Genma in his panda form playing hopscotch with a little girl. He welcomes Akane home with one sign and admits with another that he didn't know who the kid is. The little girl says she came here earlier and found nobody home, so she asked the panda if he can play with her. After Akane assured her that she wasn't the owner of the dojo, but rather the daughter of the owner, the little girl challenges her for the dojo.

Genma, in human form, insist to that Akane follows through with it, but only to humor the little girl (who promised that she was strong for her size). Akane tries to talk the kid out of it with offers of videogames and cartoons instead. The girl says Akane was afraid she would lose to her, and which convinces Akane to fight this kid to teach her a lesson. When asked if she's ready, the girl admits that she is Temari Kaminarimon, 12th generation of the Good Old Days Martial Arts. Genma then realizes the full potential and tries to warn Akane, but she gets caught with her "Cat's Cradle Hundred Tread" attack. Tamari then finishes Akane off with "Fireflower Bean-bag Endless Downpour", where the victim is first hypnotized before launching a barrage of beanbags (in Akane's instance, the hypnosis transformed Temari into Akane's mother

After being beaten by Ranma, the Good Old Days Masters tell him about the challenge that was currently taking place in his dojo, forcing Ranma to run back as fast as he can. But before he can reach the dojo, he sees Temari walking away with the sign.

That evening, Soun cries at the sight of his wounded daughter (even though her sisters' assured him it was mostly just shock) when Ranma comes in and tells the group that, along with seeing Tamari, he fought and defeated some friends of hers, and asked what kind of fighting style is Good Old Days. Genma recites its historical connection to Japan's Edo period, and Soun insists that Ranma gets the dojo sign back (the excuse for not doing it himself is because Ranma is Akane's fiancé). Just as Ranma was considers the task, Akane, despite her need to recover, tells him to stay out of it, for the matter was all her fault. She walks away and Soun wonders why Genma wasn't the one that fought the Kamanarimon child instead of her, and Genma turns himself into a panda to apologize with a sign.

Meanwhile, Ryoga, in full bandages from the fight earlier, overhears the conversation from under the floor and takes off on his own.

Part two:
While running in human form, Ryoga was focused on fighting the masters of Good Old Days Martial Arts. He has a flashback to when he was defeated by the masked thugs, and the desire to avenge Akane motivates him to fight again. Ranma finds Ryoga and asks what he was doing. Ranma learned that Ryoga knew about the Good Old Days masters, but were unable to locate them due to his bad sense of directions. Meanwhile, the Good Old Days practitioners are seen lounging under a bridge, and it was revealed that Tamari Kamanarimon challenges dojos in an attempt to get firewood for her masters, especially since their leader likes his bathwater very hot. Before they can burn another sign, it is knocked away by Ranma and Ryoga. The Good Old Days masters recognize them as the "the strong guy" (Ranma) and "the weak one" (Ryoga). Ranma is surprised to learn that Ryoga lost to them, to which Ryoga replies that he let his guard down. Ryoga prepares to fight, but Ranma tells Ryoga to back off, for they both knew Akane wouldn't like it this way. The master realizes that Ranma is here for Akane's sake, as she wants a rematch against Tamari to get the dojo sign back. Ryoga doesn't like the sound of that since Akane was still recovering, but Temari accepts the rematch and the master sets the match for noon the following day.

The next morning, Akane was practicing inside the dojo while Ranma and Ryoga were having an argument over who caused it. Akane was tumbling all over herself, as she was still recovering from the last fight, and laid on the floor exhausted with thoughts of just giving up. Kasumi then comes in and tells her that if she learned of this sooner, she'd have helped out. Kasumi then offers her the beanbags their mother had since she was little and begin juggling them while singing. As Kasumi recreates their mother's routine, Akane realizes, that in that surprise attack, she didn't notice that it had something to do with the hand-speed and images of the very nostalgic "Good Old Days" come across.

Afternoon comes and Akane, Ranma, and Ryoga come to the temple where the fight was scheduled to happen. They find the three masked individuals and Temari already waiting and issue a bet for the challenge: should Akane win, the sign will return to Tendo Dojo, but should Temari win, Good Old Days Martial Arts School sign will hang on their door instead. Ranma reminds Ryoga to not help, but can't help wondering who they are. Suddenly Genma and Soun show up with a drum to cheer for Akane while the masked men cheer for Temari on their side.

The fight begins and Akane runs toward her opponent, while Tamari begins by launching her threads. Akane easily counters this by cutting the strings with two giant pairs of scissors. She then goes on the attack and does a mid-air kick, but is countered by Tamari's smoke balls. She follows it up with Iron Tops, which misses Akane and destroys Genma's drum. Tamari attempts the top bombs again, but Akane expected such a maneuver and pulls out a large magnet, which attracts the tops and renders them useless. Tamari then pulls out a and begin swinging it at close range. Akane rolls on the ground to avoid the hits. By the time she recovers, Temari starts the Fire Flower Beanbag Endless Downpour. As the singing begins, Akane realizes that she hypnotizes the opponent with her quick hands to burn an afterimage of the beanbags, thus to defeat the technique she must close her eyes to prevent any excess images of the beanbags from tricking her. When the final barrage is released, Akane opens her eyes and correctly identifies the real beanbags and blocks them. The last beanbag flies into the air and heads to Temari, who is saved when Akane blocks it for her. Temari begins crying and apologizes to Akane.

She then turns to the man wearing Ultraman mask and reveals that he is Kumajiro Kaminarimon Temari's grandfather and the 11th head of Goold Old Days Shool of Martial Arts. The man to his right removes his mask and introduces himself as Tatsukichi Komagataya, and the man to his left does the same and introduces himself as Torahachi Kachidokibashi. Soun becomes curious and asks about them and Komajiro reveals thaet they wanted to spread their style throughout Japan and bring back the feeling of the good old days, but says that the dream is now at its end, surprising his pupil.

He then gives Temari a chance to give up martial arts and live as an ordinary girl, but Akane's company tells her there is no need to give up. Akane herself even offers the Tendo dojo for her to practice, which excites Temari. Her grandfather is moved by Akane's generosity and thinks that this may be a chance to fulfill her dream. They then learn that Temari's real goal is to be in the Tokyo Olympics, despite the fact that the next Olympics is to be held in Barcelona. Komajiro tells them that Olympics have to be held in Tokyo, since that's what happened in the good old days. When he hears this Soun begins arguing with the old man, telling him that not everything in the good old days were actually good.

Trivia

 * This episode has become rather infamous amongst fans of the English dub for the large number of references to the Pokémon franchise.
 * None of these references exist in the original Japanese script given that this episode was aired roughly six years prior to the first Pokémon anime episode.
 * The Olympic mentioned near the end of the episode refers to the, which was held in Barcelona, Spain.
 * In the dub, the next Olympics are held in Australia, not Barcelona. This is because the dubs came out several years after the initial release, so the next summer Olympics was, held in Sydney, Australia.
 * When Kumajiro mentions that Olympics should be held in Tokyo to relive the good old days, he is likely referring to the, which was held in Tokyo, Japan.