Ranma 1/2 is a series that's about as original as they come, and this movie side-story is exactly the same. Set some time around the fourth or fifth season of Ranma 1/2, Ranma 1/2: Big Trouble in Nekonron, China offers all of the same great action, comedy and great voicework that I've come to expect from the series.

Being a movie based off a television series, the animation and music quality is quite a step above that found in the series. The character designs are as crisp as they could be, and the soundtrack is a nice mix of rock and the usual slapstick Ranma 1/2 music found in the series. Even the parts that weren't drawn too well were still far better than the television series.

Unfortunately, this movie is really almost exactly the same as a Ranma 1/2 episode, just an hour longer. The premise is pretty much the same as so many episodes in the series (Akane gets kidnapped, Ranma goes to save her), but now it just drags on for an hour extra. I could raise a bunch of complaints about the story, but then I remember that the series didn't really have an amazing story either. However, one question just lingered in my mind for my entire viewing of the movie: if Lai-Chi's family held the secret scroll of the Seven Lucky Gods for several generations, how come they only came as soon as Akane picked it up? There are a few other questions like that that I wondered about, but that one was probably the one that bugged me the most.

If there's one thing that really, really makes me angry in this world, it's watching a Ranma 1/2 episode where there's a lot of romance elements but nothing actually HAPPENS between Ranma and Akane, leaving their relationship just as ambiguous as before. Though this movie certainly doesn't change the Ranma 1/2 formula in any way whatsoever, it was still a very entertaining movie to watch and I'd recommend it to any fan of the Ranma 1/2 series. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking.