Volume summary

 

Volume 2

In Ryoga’s first appearance in the manga, he challenges martial artist Ranma Saotome to a duel at Furinkan High School, though true to form Ranma doesn’t clearly remember Ryoga or why Ryoga would have a grudge against him. It is revealed that Ryoga and Ranma were schoolmates, but Ranma would routinely shove or strike Ryoga aside in the process of fighting for the last remaining piece of bread in the lunch room at school. Ryoga originally challenged Ranma to a duel in the vacant lot a few hundred meters behind his house, but was unable to find the lot and Ranma left after several days.

Eventually, Ryoga and Ranma are able to continue their duel, during which Ryoga shows high proficiency in the martial arts. However, Akane Tendo, Ranma’s fiancee, is one of the onlookers and Ryoga accidentally cuts off her hair below the chin during the battle. Apologetic about the accident, Ryoga offers to let her hit him in recompense.

It is further revealed that after missing the first duel, Ryoga followed Ranma on his training journey to the cursed Jusenkyo Hot Springs in China to try to follow through on the duel, but in so doing was shoved by Ranma into the Spring of the Drowned Pig, whereupon Ryoga was cursed to transform into a small black pig whenever splashed with cold water (and return to normal when splashed with hot water). While in his pig form, Ryoga is cared for by Akane, who is unaware of his true identity. Akane nicknames him P-chan and treats him like a pet. Ranma, who knows Ryoga’s secret, is resentful but determined not to reveal Ryoga’s secret as part of an unspoken sort of martial artist’s code.

After a gymnast named Kodachi Kuno from a rival school takes out the Furinkan gymnastics team, Akane agrees to take Kodachi on in a battle of martial arts rhythmic gymnastics. Ryoga offers to train her and encourages her progress even when it is obvious that Akane is too uncoordinated to truly benefit from a crash course.

Volume 3

When Akane sprains her ankle, Ranma is forced to take her place in the match against Kodachi; Ryoga offers to train him as well, but mostly so he can try to beat Ranma into an unrecognizable pulp. Despite their mutual animosity, Ranma somehow learns the art of martial arts rhythmic gymnastics from Ryoga in a single night. Unfortunately, Ryoga is captured by Kodachi in his P-chan form. Kodachi chains him to Ranma’s arm as a sort of before-the-match sabotage. Still overtly antagonistic towards Ranma, Ryoga attempts to sabotage Ranma at every turn, while Ranma uses Ryoga as a human (read: pig) shield against Kodachi’s attacks. Eventually, Ranma beats Kodachi.

Ryoga’s troubles are not over, however, as he is captured in his pig form by a martial arts ice skater named Azusa Shiratori, who renames him ‘Charlotte’ and collars him. Akane and Azusa get into a fight over P-chan that results in a martial arts ice skating couples’ duel.

Volume 4

Though the battle begins with Akane and Ranma against Azusa and her partner Mikado, Ryoga butts in to the duel and ends up paired with Ranma again. Their teamwork is severly lacking, however, and they end up on the receiving end of the devastating Couple Cleaver attack, which involves grabbing a rival skating couple and slamming one half of the couple into the rink wall while pile driving the other into the ice. Infuriated by his inability to ice skate properly, Ryoga punches the ice rink so hard it breaks, only to find that there is cold water underneath. The battle continues getting further and further out of hand, with Ranma and Ryoga actively fighting each other over rights to date Akane, until Akane herself falls into the water. Disregarding the possibility that his identity might be revealed, Ryoga leaps into the water with Ranma to rescue her, as she cannot swim.

Volume 6

Incensed by Ranma’s increased skill in the martial arts through multiple battles with the ancient Chinese Amazon Cologne, Ryoga accepts an offer to train with Cologne and applies himself to learning the Breaking Point technique, which is based on finding the weak point in rock and poking it really hard to make it explode. In his training, Ryoga is tied up, suspended in the air, and smashed against boulders repeatedly, making him so superhumanly resistant to damage that Ranma must punch him hundreds of times to try and defeat him.

Volume 8

Ryoga obtains a map to the Japanese Spring of Drowned Man, which will cure his curse; because of his terrible sense of direction, however, he is utterly unable to find it. Ranma eventually gets wind of the map and insists that they team up, only to find that the spring is located under the girls’ locker room at Furinkan High and that Akane and her classmates are on high alert due to attempts by the panty-snatching Master Happosai to steal their underwear. Abandoning his earlier mission to find the spring, Ryoga volunteers to help guard the locker room from perverts – including Ranma, whose efforts to find the spring he decries as morally degenerate attempts to steal panties. He attacks Ranma, but in the many ensuing struggles that follow, it is revealed that the spring has dried up, anyway.

Volume 9

Ranma’s other-other fiancee (he has at least three), Ukyo Kuonji tries to throw a wrench in his relationship with Akane by setting Ryoga on Akane up on a date. Ryoga, however, is extremely nervous, and the situation is worsened when Ranma disguises herself as a woman and claims to be Ryoga’s fiancee, loudly declaring “her” love for him. Conflicted, Ryoga eventually declares her love for his supposed fiancee until Ranma’s disguise is compromised and both Ryoga and Akane realize his true identity.

Volume 11

Ryoga’s dog, Checkers Hibiki, appears on the local TV network to announce that she has had puppies and wants Ryoga to come visit his house to see them. Ryoga invites Akane to come see the new puppies as well, but becomes lost and unable to find his own house until the last minute – he eventually tricks Ranma into taking him home. Ranma responds by disguising himself as Ryoga’s “sister”, Yoiko. While puzzled at first, Ryoga concedes that it’s possible he has a sister because his entire family has such a terrible sense of direction that he may simply never have had the time to meet her. None of the Hibikis except Checkers, in fact, can actually find their way back to the Hibiki house with any regularity.

Ryoga’s complete embrace of his role as older brother quickly prove stifling for Ranma, however, who tries to escape outside. Temporarily horrified when he loses sight of “Yoiko” and ready to blame himself for letting his sister get lost, Ryoga and Akane are both infuriated when it is revealed that Yoiko is actually Ranma.

Volume 12

An accident at the bath house leaves Ryoga in possession of a mystical bar of soap that promises to make the user “waterproof” and thus unaffected by the Jusenkyo curse. Shampoo and Ranma disguise themselves as the Kew-Pid twins and set him up on a date with Akane to distract him and steal the soap back, but it turns out that the soap is of inferior make and eventually washes off.

Volume 13

A depowered Ranma’s only hope for a cure is to learn the Heaven Blast of the Dragon, an attack that relies on essentially reflecting back the rage of his opponent. Ryoga guards Ranma from his many, many enemies as he cannot stand seeing the weak get picked on, and offers to help Ranma train. Ryoga is unable to fight seriously with Ranma, however, as he knows that Ranma has been robbed of his strength.

When circumstantial evidence and Ranma’s own false confession convince Ryoga that Ranma sexually assaulted Akane, however, Ryoga is completely infuriated and attacks Ranma with an intent to greviously harm (if not kill). The training is successful and Ryoga is defeated with the Heaven Blast of the Dragon. It is unclear whether the question of the falsified sexual assault was really settled, but apparently so because everyone basically forgets about it for the rest of the manga.

Volume 16

Ryoga enters a three-legged obstacle race with Ukyo to try and win a trip to Jusenkyo and cure himself of his curse, navigating log runs, exploding geysers, and mazes. He wins, but is unable to find Jusenkyo because of his terrible sense of direction.

Volume 18

Ryoga plays a support role in trying to defeat a martial artist named Pantyhose Taro, who is enraged with Happosai for naming him after pantyhose. Due to the rules of his village, Pantyhose Taro cannot change his name until the man who named him (i.e. Happosai) changes it for him. Happosai eventually agrees to change the name to Awesome Taro, but then decides to change it back.

Volume 21

While trapped in a cave-in, Ryoga learns the Lion’s Roar Blast, a chi attack that relies on feelings of negativity to blast his opponent into submission. The final form of the Lion’s Roar Blast can be achieved only by someone who truly feels down in the dumps, which Ryoga achieves by asking Akane to tell him that she hates him. Though Ranma attempts to counter Ryoga’s attacks by many different means, he fails for most of their duel. Upset by Cologne’s gloomy predictions that the Lion’s Roar Blast only leads to disaster, Akane attempts to cheer Ryoga up by telling him she wants to be friends with him, further fueling his negative mood.

Though it looks as though Ranma might lose the duel, he distracts Ryoga by disrupting his depressed mood by cheering him up/distracting him with a lie or two about Akane, rendering Ryoga susceptible to his own Lion’s Roar Blast. Ryoga is defeated by the weight of his own attack but returns to his usual self.

Volume 23

Ryoga finds himself in possession of the Fishing Rod of Love, a toy fishing rod with a little suction cup at the end. Supposedly, those stuck with the suction cup will fall in love with the caster – but instead of Akane, he ends up sticking the rod to Ranma. Ranma subsequently falls madly in love with Ryoga and chases him down and professing his love. Eventually, Ryoga manages to return Ranma to normal with a second use of the rod.

Volume 24

Members of the Chinese Musk Dynasty arrive in Japan in possession of the Pot of Preservation, which seals those affected with the Jusenkyo curse into whatever form they hold when water from the Pot is poured on them. They are in search of the Kettle of Liberation, an artifact that reverses the effects of the Pot of Preservation. Hoping to use the Pot of Preservation to fix his curse (and not really thinking things through, honestly), Ryoga volunteers to help Ranma recover the Kettle of Liberation after Ranma finds himself on the receving end of the Pot of Preservation’s curse.

Ryoga is able to use the Pot of Preservation on himself, but it is filled with cold water, and he thus traps himself in his largely helpless pig form. After using the watter from the Kettle of Liberation to transform back into his normal form, Ryoga dives into a fissure to retrieve the Kettle for Ranma, eventually allowing everyone affected to free themselves from the influence of the Pot.