Ranma 1/2 season three returns to Netflix on 3 October
A third trailer confirms the new season's opening and ending themes and a returning voice cast, with episodes streaming on Netflix right after Japanese broadcast.
The third season of Ranma 1/2 arrives on 3 October, and the show's third promotional video confirms the music that will carry it. Fumino performs the opening theme, "Sunao Miman", and Yuika handles the ending, "Kawaikunai". Both get an airing in the new trailer.
Studio MAPPA is back on animation with Konosuke Uda directing, and most of the core staff returns: Kimiko Ueno on series composition, Hiromi Taniguchi on character design, Kaoru Wada composing, and Chihiro Okawa on art direction. The voice cast is intact too, with Kappei Yamaguchi as Ranma Saotome, Megumi Hayashibara as Ranma's female form, Noriko Hidaka as Akane Tendo and Koichi Yamadera as Ryoga Hibiki all returning.
Netflix will stream the season exclusively outside Japan, with episodes going up immediately after the television broadcast — the same same-day pattern the service has used for the previous two seasons. Rumiko Takahashi's original manga ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday from 1987 to 1996 and has already been adapted twice before, first by Studio Deen across 161 episodes, twelve OVAs and three films.
Why the reboot keeps working
The 2024 revival was a gamble on nostalgia that paid off, and season three is where the source material starts to open up: the cast is now large enough that the new trailer has to move quickly through rivals, love interests and one very put-upon panda. MAPPA's version keeps the slapstick and the martial arts at the front and treats the romance as the engine rather than the garnish.
Our opinion
Twenty-seven years after the manga ended, Ranma 1/2 is in better shape than most of the franchises that tried to follow it. The same-day Netflix window is doing a lot of that work — a Takahashi comedy that lands the morning after Japanese broadcast simply cannot be spoiled, and that is worth more to a western audience than any marketing push. The only real complaint is volume: three seasons in and the show still has a habit of treating its huge supporting cast as a checklist. Here's hoping season three gives Ryoga more to do than lose a fight and shout.