Ranma ½

Ranma ½ (Japanese: らんま 1/2, Hepburn: Ranma Nibun-no-Ichi, pronounced Ranma One-Half) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday from September 1987 to March 1996, with the chapters collected into 38 tankōbon volumes by Shogakukan. The story revolves around a teenage boy named Ranma Saotome who has trained in martial arts since early childhood. As a result of an accident during a training journey, he is cursed to become a girl when splashed with cold water, while hot water changes him back into a boy. Throughout the series Ranma seeks out a way to rid himself of his curse, while his friends, enemies and many fiancées constantly hinder and interfere.

Ranma ½ has a comedic formula and a sex-changing main character, who often willfully transforms into a girl to advance his goals. The series also contains many other characters, whose intricate relationships with each other, unusual characteristics, and eccentric personalities drive most of the stories. Although the characters and their relationships are complicated, they rarely change once they are firmly introduced and settled into the series.

Ranma (disambiguation)

Ranma is the common abbreviated name for the Ranma ½ media franchise.

Ranma may also refer to:

See also

Transom (architectural)

In architecture, a transom is a transverse horizontal structural beam or bar, or a crosspiece separating a door from a window above it. This contrasts with a mullion, a vertical structural member. Transom or transom window is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece. In Britain, the 'transom light' above a door is usually referred to as a "fanlight" if a semi-elliptical shape, and occasionally as an "overlight" or "hopper", or by the French word "vasistas".

History

In early Gothic ecclesiastical work, transoms are found only in belfry unglazed windows or spire lights, where they were deemed necessary to strengthen the mullions in the absence of the iron stay bars, which in glazed windows served a similar purpose. In the later Gothic, and more especially the Perpendicular Period, the introduction of transoms became common in windows of all kinds.

Transom windows which could be opened to provide cross-ventilation while maintaining security and privacy (due to their small size and height above floor level) were a common feature of office buildings and apartments before air conditioning became common.