Ranma Saotome

Ranma Saotome, a young man who turns into a woman due to an accident during one of his training sessions where he falls into an enchanted pond, the Pond of the Drowned Red-Haired Woman. He will turn into a woman every time he comes into contact with cold water.

Ranma favors Chinese-style clothing in the form of long-sleeved, short-sleeved, or sleeveless shirts of various colors, black pants (also dark blue or teal in the anime), and slip-on shoes. This has served him well when changing into or out of his cursed form. In the anime, Ranma has black hair, while his female form sports a deep red. To help distinguish Ranma's transformation in the manga, Rumiko Takahashi always drew Ranma's female form with a bright patch of hair.

Rumiko Takahashi herself has described Ranma's personality as a mix of nice, frank, energetic, indecisive, stubborn, demanding, mean, and cunning, and has stated that she finds politically correct characters quite boring.