Anime
Ranma’s hair color in remake causes controversy, but current studio is right
The team handling the new work is using only one of the versions that the original mangaka once played with.
With the remake of Ranma 1/2 being such a beloved and popular series, it was clear that it wouldn’t be long before a controversy would break out, although the fact that it’s already happening before the series has even started (it will start on October 5th) is quite a mark. Everything revolves around one of the most significant changes seen in the first trailer shown for the new series, where the female version of Ranma can be seen with pink-magenta hair, instead of the “traditional” red hair that the vast majority remembers the alter ego of the protagonist, generating rejection.
A perfectly coherent change
The female version of Ranma and her red hair is indeed an iconic image in the history of the anime and something that is closely linked to the character, but the change is not accidental or made on a whim. The mangaka who created Ranma, the famous Rumiko Takahashi, tried different shades of hair for the first color covers of the series: black, red hair, pink-magenta, blue... Later, with the transition to animation, Studio Deen decided on red hair and established it as the predominant image. Takahashi Sensei had other battles to fight, such as making sure that the male and female versions of Ranma had different, gender-appropriate seiyus, as opposed to the original proposals that the female version be dubbed by the same male actor speaking as a woman. Besides, the redhead was an option that she herself had been trying out for years before the show went on the air, so it was certainly not something that kept her up at night.
Canonically, there is no definitive version of Ranma’s female hair in the original manga, so MAPPA’s choice of pink-magenta is as good a way as any to distinguish themselves from a fully current and available original work. In any case, Ranma is Ranma.