Ranma ½/Characters/The Kunos

Tatewaki Kuno (九能 帯刀)

Voiced by: Hirotaka Suzuoki (JP), Ted Cole (EN)

Originally the greatest champion of Furinkan High, until Ranma Saotome arrived. He does remain its greatest pervert though. A pompous, bombastic scion of a noble house, his father is the principal of Furinkan and this, coupled with his skill, makes him someone of importance in school. Caught up in his own ego and almost delusional obsessions with the samurai, he blatantly lusts after Akane Tendō... and doesn't lose any interest even when he finds himself also attracted to a mysterious "Pigtailed Girl", making no secret that his ultimate desire/intention is to have them both as his concubines. That neither of them is even attracted to him, never mind happy with the idea, is something that doesn't register.

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• Badass Normal: The guy can shatter stone statues with the air pressure from his sword strikes! Basically, he is still superhuman.
• The Bully: Debatable: during the Hiryu Shoten Ha arc, he has no qualms at all about attacking Ranma upon finding flyers that announced Ranma's weakened state, even though he had already confirmed they were true by beating up Ranma earlier that morning. On the other hand, Kuno's ego meant that he assumed the flyers were lying and he had won "fair and square", so he was attacking Ranma to try and prove that Ranma wasn't weak at all. Didn't stop him from continuing to pummel Ranma, or attacking him twice during and after the final battle of the arc, though.
• Butt Monkey: His track record would point in this direction... though oddly, Kuno himself seems rather oblivious to it.
• Can't Catch Up: Presumably because he's so arrogant that, given how he frequently "explains" away his losses to Ranma and co, he doesn't believe he needs to improve his skills. Subverted when he loses his memory and learns a technique that turns him into more than a match for Ranma. The problem is that he can only use it with a visual trigger (watermelons). So, since there usually aren't any around, he stays much the same after this incident. For extra subversion, the training was never intended to boost his fighting skills: it was Training from Hell so he could become a master of the Smashing Watermelons game. He learned the move to be able to impress girls whenever he went to the beach.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Kuno on a good day, the rest of the time he's a Handsome Lech.
• Congruent Memory: See Can't Catch Up above. Don't come near him if you're carrying watermelons, unless you want him to turn into human-shaped whirlwind of Razor Wind that even Ranma can't defeat. He gets over it by the end of the story arc, and it's not mentioned again in the manga, though an anime Filler episode shows he does still have it, and may even have more control over it... Of course, he doesn't think of its combat potential even then; it's a way to impress girls.
• Easy Amnesia: Caused by the watermelon training incident mentioned above.
• Faceless Goons: An identical look-alike to Kuno in an anime Filler episode delivered the page quote to his group of Highly-Visible Ninjas.
• Friendly Enemy: Considered a friend of the Tendos (though not a reliable one) in the anime.
• Handsome Lech: Lusts after Akane and "The Pigtailed Girl", including groping them and grabbing them whenever he can, but is actually fairly attractive to other girls, due to being rich, good-looking, aristocratic and capable of speaking/acting in a flowery, poetic fashion. The anime plays this up by having Kuno be willing to try chasing after other women who he notices as attractive, including Ukyo, Nabiki, Azusa Shiratori and Miss Hinako. However, he never gives up on chasing Akane and Ranma's female form while doing so (in fact, the Nabiki episode goes so wrong partially because he declares to the whole school he's going to marry Nabiki and keep his "other loves" as his mistresses) and goes right back to chasing them wholeheartedly after his attempted diversions come to naught.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: His dad berated him in flashbacks, left him to go to Hawaii, and shaved his head.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Kuno takes a lot of abuse and gets hurt easily but he has a high recovery rate most of the time. Lampshaded in the episode "Tatewaki Kuno, Substitute Principal" in which Kuno gets kicked out of a window and instantly pops up two seconds later to Ranma's surprise.
• Kid Samurai: An excellent example of the comedic/antagonistic variant. Barely samurai in name only though...
• Lethal Joke Character: Compared to Ranma, Ryōga and Mousse, he's almost a joke. However, he's very deadly against normal humans and can fight evenly against Akane or his sister, who in turn has been able to keep up in free-for-alls against Ukyo and Shampoo.
  • Kuno actually has the potential to be freaking scary if you consider that he was throwing Sword Beams long before ki was introduced as a viable power-up, meaning that he's making Razor Wind projectiles by sheer muscle power. There's no telling just how terrifying he'd be if he ever got some dedicated training that didn't depend on having watermelons around.
• Lord Error-Prone: Considers himself a samurai, and technically is one, but is a bumbling fool blinded by his own ego and lechery and considered by most as an arrogant moron.
• The Nicknamer: Even after learning her name, he refers to Ranma as "The pig-tailed girl" (though this could be because he doesn't want to associate her with his hated rival). He also refers to himself as "The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High", even though nobody else does. During his first appearance, it is implied that he has given himself a long string of self-aggrandizing titles and nicknames, of which "The Blue Thunder" is only the most recent (and apparently the last); before Ranma showed up, he had been calling himself "The Shooting Star".
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Once Ranma and his real rivals, and maybe even his other fiancées, showed up, Tatewaki became a second-string threat.
• Parental Substitute: Had to raise Kodachi alone for quite a bit. A whole episode in the anime is centered about his and the Principal fighting out for the right to be at her parent-teacher conference, which is considered as Kuno's Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Poster Gallery Bedroom: Has dozens, if not hundreds, of photos of Ranma's female form and Akane Tendō scattered around his room, both in dozens of photo albums and as blown up posters on his walls. In the anime, at least, he even as a poster-sized portrait of each girl hanging in the kendo club, in front of his favorite meditation spot.
• Selective Obliviousness: He has had "the pigtailed girl" change into Ranma right in his arms, and back again, and he comes up with outlandish explanations instead of acknowledging they're the same person.
• Self-Serving Memory: Once when Tatewaki had amnesia, he came up with a romantic history between himself and Girl Ranma.
• Sempai-Kohai: He always insists demands that the younger students address him as "Kuno-sempai" ("Upperclassman Kuno" in the English translations).
• Ship Tease: With Nabiki in the anime. Besides the time he thought he was destined to wed her, she also saved him in Nihao My Concubine, they got through the Cursed Tunnel of Love, and she immediately shows concern for him when he gets poisoned in "Let's Go to the Mushroom Temple".
• Small Name, Big Ego: Despite how frequently he gets the floor wiped with his ass, and the blatant disdain both Akane and "the pigtailed girl" have for him, Kuno insists he is the greatest martial artist around and that his two "love interests" are actually fighting each other for the right to be his one and only.
• Stalker with a Crush: An exemplary example, and perhaps the earliest one in the series. When first confronted in public with both Akane and Ranma's female form at the same time, he agonized over choosing between them for several moments, then finally tried to Glomp them both with a passionate cry of "I must have them both!". This phrase is something of his unofficial Catch Phrase amongst the fans.

Principal Kuno

Voiced by: Tateno Hitouchi (JP), Scott McNeil (EN)

The headmaster of Furinkan High School, and father of Tatewaki and Kodachi, this strange man abandoned his family for an extended vacation in Hawaii, coming back as what can essentially be considered a compound of the "obnoxious tourist" archetype and the stereotypical Hawaiian. Obsessed with cutting hair and short haircuts, delighting in making his students hate him and fight against him, Principal Kuno frequently throws his school into chaos to amuse himself.

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• Abusive Parents: Almost makes Genma look like a model parent in comparison. At least he devoted far more time and effort on fostering Ranma than a normal parent, and made him extremely capable as a consequence. Kocho on the other is both abusive (in a very silly manner, but his children ended up insane), and extremely neglectful to the extent of leaving them alone for years to go and play with ukuleles, coconuts and Hawaian resort luxuries.
• The Bully: Relishes abusing his power over the students; seems to find their efforts to stop him hilarious. When Ranma is weakened by Happosai, tries to take advantage of it to forcibly cut Ranma's hair at last.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Even crazier than his children, but not bloodthirsty.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His first name was never revealed, so everyone calls him "Principal" in English and Japanese.
• Gratuitous English: In the Japanese version, replaced with Gratuitous Hawaiian in the Viz translations.
• Hula and Luaus: Just came back from a 3-year vacation to Hawaii, and acts like a flamboyant walking stereotype of Hawaii. The man dresses in a grass skirt, "Hawaiian" shirt and sunglasses as his principal's uniform and wears a bonsai palm tree on his head.
• Jerkass: He's a dick. He knows it. He likes it. He's proud of it.
• Large Ham: Flashy and flamboyant, even by this series' standards.
• Pet the Dog: In the anime: once with Kodachi, when he seems to want to come back into her life and be a good father to her (pity about the implications he's just doing so to try and get back at his son again), and once with Akane, when he whackedly but genuinely tried to help her get rid of her Super Drowning Skills.

Kodachi Kuno

Voiced by: Saeko Shimazu (JP), Teryl Rothery (EN, Seasons 1-5), Sylvia Zaradic (EN, Seasons 6-7)

Tatewaki Kuno's younger sister, whose revelation of kinship is only made in her second episode/chapter. The self-proclaimed "Black Rose of St. Hebereke Girls High School", Kodachi Kuno is a master of the fighting style "Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics" and, while her general skill level may only be about the same as her brother's, she's a ruthlessly pragmatic fighter who is completely willing to use poisons and cheating to overcome her foe. Like her brother, she is unaware that Ranma Saotome is a Gender Bender, but in her case that's because she's only seen Ranma transform once, in a situation where the switch could have been a variant of the Ninja Log, and no attempt has been made to explain it to her (unlike her brother). She fell obsessively in love with Ranma after he saved her from falling off of a roof, though he was the one who knocked her off in the first place, and refuses to let his reluctance to be near her and her lack of an official tie to him keep her away.

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• Annoying Laugh: Kodachi's shrill, ear-splitting maniacal cackle makes her instantly recognizable.
• Badass Normal: Possibly the weakest martial artist of the lot (but in that case not far behind, as she can hold her own against either Shampoo and Ukyo, her brother, or Akane), but the one you least want to cross.
• Blackmail: Tried to blackmail Ranma with a doctored photo and does so again in a later arc to her brother/Ranma with another altered photo.
• The Bully: Ties with Happosai for position of the worst in the series about it; she just has less capacity for damage than he does.
• Catholic School Girls Rule: She goes to an all girl Catholic school.
• Cute but Cacophonic: She's fairly good looking, but, particularly in the Japanese audio, her laugh is almost as bad as Naga's.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Pale white skin, black hair and purple eyes in the anime.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Her main weapon of choice is a gymnastics ribbon, but she also turns the clubs into melee weapons and sometimes makes use of razor-edged hula-hoops and exploding balls as well.
• Fluffy Tamer: Her beloved pet "Midorigame", which basically means "Mr. Green Turtle" (though in a few episodes of the anime it is mistranslated as "Mr. Scaly Green"), is a 20'-30' alligator. She's also shown in the OAV opening "Where Do We Go From Here (You & Me)" to be feeding a massive shark as though it were a koi.
• Flung Clothing: Her typical method of changing from her school uniform to her gymnastics leotard.
• Improbable Weapon User: Her standard weapon is a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon, but she has weaponized all the items of rhythmic gymnastics and her own brother.
• Manipulative Bitch: Tries to pull this off, but her reputation is such that everyone's on guard for it, so it never works.
• Mooks: Her gymnastic team.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Taken to a ridiculous extreme.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: OK, she's no match for Ranma outside a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match, but she can hit hard enough with a steel bar to hurt Ranma, do practically anything with her ribbon, club an enemy with a dozen clubs per hand...
• Poster Gallery Bedroom: A bit less blatant then her brother, but still likes to have large-scale images of Ranma to admire. She's not pleased when her brother purloins one of these to use as target practice.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Kodachi is... extremely immature, prone to acting more like a daydreaming child than a nearly-grown woman. However, she's also capable of extraordinary acts of violence on a whim. To put things in perspective, she's willing to paralyze Ranma with poisonous attacks or even try to feed him to her pet alligator.. and he's the man she loves!
• Rescue Romance: She falls for Ranma when he saves her from taking a bad fall.
• Rich Bitch: Oh yeah!
• Right-Hand Attack Crocodile
• She Fu: She practices Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics; what did you expect?
• Strange Girl: Perhaps the weirdest of the main characters, and that is saying something.
• Suck My Black Rose: Sticking a rose in her mouth as a dramatic gesture is practically her trademark. She also uses rose bouquets to disguise bombs and even creates her own flurry of rose petals when she wants to make a dramatic exit.
• Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty: She tries to ambush and beat up her opponents prior to the scheduled matches, uses dirty tricks, likes to use knockout powder, is a massive Loophole Abuser, etc.
• Whip It Good: As mentioned above, her ribbon is her weapon of choice and she is a master with it.
• Yandere: She is completely infatuated with Ranma, and like Shampoo, will go to any lengths to be with him, albeit her methods are usually more extreme (i.e. blackmail, paralysis powder, etc).