Class of Bootleg	Class 2 - Duplicated and Modified
Class Notes:	Possible retooling on the larger figures from DragonBall Z originals
Bootleg Source:	Bandai(?) Ranma 1/2 Toys
Bootleg Rating:	(Three out of five stars)
Sightings:	California
Vintage:	Summer 1998

For those of you not "in the know", Ranma 1/2 is a popular Japanese cartoon featuring the (mis- or is that "miss-") adventures of one Ranma Saotome. He's under a curse, you see. While training in Japan he fell into a magic spring...now whenever Ranma gets splashed with cold water, he becomes a SHE.

Anyway, it's a very funny show.

And popular.

By now, you should know what THAT means.

That's right....

Bootlegs!

At left we have a Ranma 1/2 2-Pack. As you can see, it comes boxed with a vac-formed insert tray to hold the toys. You get two toys for your bootleg dollar...a 4" Figure and a 1" animal figure.

The packaging identifies the figures as coming from the

Super Battle Collection

All the text is in English, with the execption of the logo, which has "Ranma" and a word that I don't have a translation for.

We now know that the "mystery text" reads "Ranma" in Cantoneese.

Thanks to Anna for the translation!

The painting isn't all that bad on the figure, but the expression is far from the sultry image the cartoon would lead us to expect. She looks a little bit stunned to me.

Also included in the package is the animal-form of Ranma's dad, Genma. (He fell into a spring too.). The Genma-Panda is painted pretty well, but how hard is it to screw up a black and white figure? (Don't answer that!)

The second 2-Pack I've seen has Ryoga on the package. The large figure, however, is that of Boy-Type Ranma. Ranma is again articulated at the shoulders but nowhere else. Hard to imagine him doing any good in a "super battle."

The painting is OK, but the eyes again are done really goofy.

Ryoga does make an appearance in this set, but only as his animal-self, P-Chan. (Yep, you guessed it. He fell into a magic spring. Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Also notice the very obvious seam where the plastic halves of this figure were assembled! Yep, it's a bootleg!

The back of both sets is the same...an image of Ryoga, P-Chan, Girl-Type Ranma, Genma, and Panda-Genma. There's a small "Made in Taiwan" tag, a part number (No. 8721), and a "FDR 3 AGE & UP" line. Not sure if that was supposed to be "for" or "fdr".

The smaller "animal" figures are taken from molds for Japanese keychains, the same molds bootleged for the Ranma 1/2 3-Pack..
BanDai toys puts out a line of DragonBall-Z toys with a very similar packaging style.

It has been suggested to me that the Ranma figures themselves may just be re-tooled DragonBall-Z super battle toys. I'm not familar enough with the line to say yea or nay on this idea. If anyone has a photo of a figure that could be the "unmodified" version of Ranma, or any other information on the origins of these bootlegs, please drop me a line.