Ryoga Hibiki totally deserves his own Spin-Off...

Everyone who has read the House of Rants for a while knows of my love of Ranma½. I've mentioned a few times that I have a certain kinship with Ryoga.

Well, as you already may know, I am revisiting certain anime series from various decades. Great Teacher Onizuka was the one I chose for the 90s, Ranma½ for the 80s, for the 00s I'm torn between FullMetal Panic! or the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Well, I saw this Filler Episode of Ranma yesterday: Ryōga! Yūhi ni Mukatte Hashire or as I like to call it: Red Dead Ryoga. This episode is rumored to have been the inspiration for Akari Unryu, AKA Ryoga's official Girlfriend in the manga.

So, we all know that Ryoga spends half the time MIA, due to his travels and horrible sense of direction. Well, that easily lends itself for a whole spin-off series following Ryoga in his travels. We have seen a few snippets of what he does in filler episodes. but most of them are him hiding from the rain in some shack or something. What Ryōga! Yūhi ni Mukatte Hashire did was to give us a Ryoga adventure that didn't rely on Ranma or Akane to push the plot forward. Ryoga getting lost can lend itself to various different kinds of episodes, like in one Episode he could end end up in Yokosuka and accidentally get involved in a gang fight on the port. (Yes, it's a Shenmue reference) then the next episode he could end up being captured and used in Piglet Races by US Soldiers in Okinawa. There's plenty of bizarre situations that Ryoga/P-Chan can be put into. Not only that, but Akari could get an official introduction without having to do a complete Ranma ½ reboot (which I wouldn't mind if it's made a lot more faithful to the manga.) Heck maybe some episodes could mildly connect to some Ranma episodes. Like say in episode 12 Ryoga sends Ranma a challenge, but Ryoga doesn't actually arrive at the Tendo Residence until Episode 26 (sidetracked by his bad sense of direction and misadventures.)