Akane Tendo

Akane Tendo (天道 あかね Tendō Akane?) is the leading female and deuteragonist of Ranma ½. She is the youngest of Soun Tendo's three daughters and one of the heirs to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts.

Biography
Akane's mother died when she was very young. Perhaps because of this, she appears not to have learned many traditionally feminine skills, and her terrible cooking is a running joke during the series as nearly everything she cooks ends up making people sick, except for her curry. Akane may see Kasumi Tendo (Akane's older sister) as a surrogate mother figure, since she helps her with more traditionally feminine chores.

Akane grows up as a tomboy, getting into fights, acting tough, and improving her martial arts. In elementary school, her classmates thought she was so much like a boy that she was cast to play Romeo in their production of Romeo and Juliet: Akane accepts the role and plays a very cute Romeo, though deep down she always wanted to be cast as Juliet, a wish that she'll have fulfilled only years later (though she would have four different Romeos fighting for her).

At the beginning of the series Akane has a crush on Dr. Tofu Ono, who patched her up many times when she got into fights. Unfortunately for Akane, Dr. Tofu is in love with Kasumi. In an attempt to get his attention, Akane grew out her hair longer like Kasumi's. However, during one of the first fights between Ranma and Ryoga, her hair is cut, a look she retains for the rest of the series.

Because of her unrequited crush on Dr. Tofu, she initially claims to hate boys.[1] It turned out that because her original 'suitor', Tatewaki Kuno, declared that only someone who defeated her in battle would be allowed to date her, many of the strongest male athletes at Furinkan High School began to violently attack her en masse every morning. Akane always beat them all without being late for class.

When the series begins, Akane is engaged against her will to her father's friend's son, Ranma Saotome, so that the Tendo dojo and the school of the Anything Goes Martial Arts will be assured a future. At first, Ranma could have been engaged to any of the Tendo girls, but Akane's older sisters palm Ranma off on Akane. Akane's first meeting with Ranma does not go smoothly: when Akane first meets Ranma, he is in his girl form, and they have a short sparring match. But as she goes to wash off the sweat from their workout, Akane unknowingly walks in on him in the bathroom just after he's transformed back into his boy form. She freaks out under the assumption that he's a random pervert, and once the confusion is cleared up, she angrily feels like a fool.

Akane and Ranma often fight and insult each other. Usually, Ranma insults Akane for being a tomboy and calls her "uncute," while Akane insults Ranma for being a pervert. Despite their bickering, Ranma is always there to protect her, and Akane often helps him through his fights, or saves his life. The two are also usually seen hanging out with each other outside of school and the dojo. Ranma's arrival heralds the end of her daily morning fights shortly after he defeats Kuno, the school's best warrior, in combat. Because of this and due to learning of her engagement, her daily attackers sadly declare that they give up on her.

After Akane's hair, which she had worked hard to grow out for Dr. Tofu, was suddenly and accidentally shorn off during Ranma's battle with his rival, Ryoga, she became extremely angry and sad. Realizing this, Ranma comforted her by telling her she looked cute with short hair. After that, Akane was able to get over her feelings for Dr. Tofu (later making several attempts to help bring Kasumi and Dr. Tofu closer) and began to develop affection for Ranma, although his abrasiveness sometimes jeopardized these emotions.

The two are often seen in each others presence when they're not fighting, and often work together when trying to accomplish something. At the end of the series, Ranma admits his love for Akane. He opens his mouth wide, and thinks the words, but it is unclear if anything comes out, save her name. Regardless, Akane states that she heard him somehow, and willingly takes part in the planned surprise wedding in the final chapters of the manga. While it is evident that Soun had partially blackmailed her by warning her he had stolen Ranma's cure and would not give it to Ranma unless he and Akane were wed, she was also enthusiastic about the idea herself, although she didn't actually say this to Ranma.

Appearance
Akane is the shortest of the main characters, being shorter than Ranma Saotome in his male form, but about the same height as his cursed form. She has short black hair (blue highlighted in the anime) and brown eyes. At the beginning of the series she had long hair, but after it was cut off during a fight between Ryoga Hibiki and Ranma, she kept it short for the rest of the series.

She usually wears the girls' uniform for Furinkan High School, but has a wide variety of outfits. For training or anticipated combat, Akane wears a light yellow gi and is barefoot.

Personality
While Akane is generally shown as compassionate and helpful towards anyone in trouble, she's also a vulnerable, stubborn, relentless and very short-tempered girl. She frequently becomes angry and jealous, and is apt to hit Ranma when this happens, often a reaction to Ranma's own bad traits like his smart mouth and insensitivity, but also due to rampant paranoia and willingness to generally believe the worst of the situations she finds him in. Despite her temper, Akane has a more prominent gentle side. She has come to the aid of her rivals, even consistently feeling compassion towards or helping people who try to make her life miserable (or in the first case even kill her), like Shampoo, Happosai or Kuno. She has repeatedly expressed extreme disapproval in attacking or hurting anyone unable to defend him or herself, and refrained from striking Ranma when he was turned into a small child despite being insulted[citation needed]. She has also apologized for her behavior, once she has had time to cool down or learn the facts, and consistently risked her own life trying to help Ranma without a second thought, showing extreme courage in this regard given her own comparatively limited skills/increased danger. For example, she chose to use a magic paper doll to take the damage for Ranma rather than herself, when both were bitten by lethally poisonous snake-herbs/wines, effectively consciously trading her life for his, and entered the Orochi's mouth in an effort to save him from being eaten.

Akane Tendo Ranma Saotome.jpg Most of her flaws can be attributed to insecurities about her own attractiveness, skill, or lack of traditionally feminine talents. Despite this, she seems to have an appeal to the opposite gender. Ryoga, Shinnosuke, Kuno and Gosunkugi have all been in love with her and she's considered attractive by her schoolmates, but given that she seems generally, but not consistently, oblivious to the first case and the others have largely been of a highly negative nature (constant assaults from Kuno and sports club members, general stalking from Gosunkugi) this has not served to build up her self-esteem. Her insecurity often leads her to overreact upon finding Ranma in compromising positions and to punt, repeatedly whack, stomp, or attack him with bokken, shinai, mallets, arrows, stones, tables or any other available blunt object. Ranma seldom seems injured in the following panels, but in the Reversal Jewel story, she punched him so hard into the horizon that he was in a full body cast. Although in the anime this was also due to sustaining a follow-up beating from Kuno and Ryoga.

She's also once stated a remarkable double-standard in this regard as she was burning with outrage and vowed to never forgive him if he deigned to strike her even once during her relentless assault while wearing a 'battle dougi' that greatly enhanced her fighting power. During the 'Nabiki's fiancé' arc she got upset just from overhearing an affirmation that a dejected Ranma found this treatment very taxing (though she only clobbered him after he derisively insulted her as well), so while she's remorseful about specific instances, and has gradually strengthened her restraint as the series progresses, she doesn't stop the pattern as a whole.

Akane has difficulty trying to sort out her feelings for Ranma. There are times when she is on the verge of telling him how she really feels, but this is almost always interrupted by comedic circumstances, and they return to their usual barbs and antics, but she is consistently worried when he is endangered and overjoyed when he turns up safe.

Akane does have a need for being comforted when sad or scared, but they are both usually too uncomfortable to interact in this manner. Unlike most other main female characters, she's expressed great, traditionally 'feminine', fears of ghosts or reptiles and can be extremely frightened simply from a scary story, being in a casino, or imagining Kuno drugging girl Ranma.

Despite not being as technically skilled as several other characters in martial arts, she takes pride in her legacy and position as the scion of her father's Tendo-Ryu, and never backs off from a fight or rejects a challenge.

Akane seems to get along well with people who are technically her rivals, like Ukyo and Cologne. She tends to be naive in often wishing to believe the best of everyone even when repeatedly proven to the contrary, as with Nabiki or Shampoo. The two most notable exceptions are Ranma and Kuno. In the former case attributed to her own insecurities being fueled by regular insults and the very awkward and chaotic semi-relationship, and in the latter due to intense harassment.

Ranma easily owes Akane his life several times over (though the opposite holds true as well). She is kind, helpful, self-sacrificing, forgiving and somewhat naive towards people in general, even technical enemies, being the only character in the series who can almost match Kasumi in her ordinary mood. She's also very appreciative if Ranma treats her with consideration, and is consistently worrying about, cheering him on, or going to extremes to assist him. When severely upset however, she undergoes a bipolar shift into a state of arrogant derogatory insults, unreasonable paranoia and self-righteous violence, on average treating Ranma worse than his arrogant and extremely insensitive behavior justifies, but she can just as swiftly switch back to being very kind again and make a shamefaced apology whenever she realizes a mistake. Kasumi’s initial assessment that "She's really a very sweet girl. She's just a violent maniac." has consistently held true, if usually only in Ranma's case. That said, Ranma has also been beaten up several times by his other paramours, Akane is simply around him more often. It is also more evident in the anime than in the manga.