Genma Saotome

About Genma Saotome

Genma Saotome is Ranma's father and a master martial artist whose parenting consists mainly of dangerous training trips, broken promises and engagements arranged without consulting anyone. His own Jusenkyo curse turns him into a giant panda, a form he uses shamelessly to dodge arguments, debts and his wife. Beneath the cowardice and appetite, his skill is real, and so, in his own way, is his pride in Ranma.

Appearance

Genma is a heavyset, balding man with glasses and a white gi and bandana. As a panda he is a full-sized giant panda, still wearing the glasses, and communicates by holding up wooden signs since pandas cannot talk.

Personality

Genma is cowardly, gluttonous and shameless about avoiding responsibility, and a genuinely skilled martial artist who is proud of Ranma in his own unreliable way. He will promise anything, eat anything and flee anything, usually in panda form.

Background & Story

Genma trained under Happosai with Soun Tendo, then took young Ranma on a decade-long training journey, arranging engagements and making promises wherever food or shelter was offered. At Jusenkyo he fell into the Spring of Drowned Panda moments before Ranma's own accident. Now living at the Tendo dojo, he spends his days playing shogi with Soun, eating Kasumi's cooking and letting Ranma deal with the consequences of every promise he ever made.

Powers & Abilities

• Anything-Goes Martial Arts (Saotome style): Genma is a master of the Saotome school and inventor of dangerous sealed techniques he later forbade.
• Jusenkyo curse form (panda): Cold water turns Genma into a giant panda; hot water restores him.

Key Relationships

• Ranma Saotome: His son and student, his pride, and the victim of all his promises.
• Soun Tendo: His old training partner and best friend, co-conspirator in the engagement.
• Happosai: His dreaded teacher, whose return he has never forgiven fate for.

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