RANMA 1/2 Book 38, the final book in the nine-year-old series, continues the story begun in Book 37 (see the premiere EX issue for the review). (Any reader who doesn't want the story spoiled should, of course, not read anything but the last paragraph of this article). Ranma, Akane, and the other major characters are all in China, battling the mysterious bird-people of the cursed springs, Jyusenkyou. The bird people have shut off the water flow to Jyusenkyou, and in Book 38 we find out why.
At the source of Jyusenkyou, within the Jyusen caves, are a pair of giant faucets: a dragon and a phoenix. With Saffron's heat-producing golden sceptre acting as the faucet handle, the phoenix faucet produces hot Jyusen water; with the sceptre's silvery twin, the dragon faucet produces cold Jyusen water. Saffron must undergo an insect-like metamorphosis that is catalyzed by hot Jyusen water, and the hot water can only run when the cold water line is shut off. With their normal outlet of hot water dried up, the bird people have chosen to come to the source.
Akane and the Jyusenkyou tour guide watch as Ranma battles Saffron beneath the hot water faucet. Saffron, already reacting to the running hot water, has begun to change: he produces a sticky material that threatens to engulf Ranma. Akane, realizing that Ranma is in danger of becoming trapped in Saffron's rapidly developing cocoon, turns off the flow of hot water and stops Saffron just long enough for Ranma to escape --- but because she grasps the golden sceptre at the peak of its heat production, she instantaneously evaporates (much to Ranma and Ryoga's dismay). It turns out, of course, that Akane herself did not evaporate: only the water within her body is gone. Now left as a freeze-dried doll-sized figure, her only hope (so explains the Jyusenkyou guide) is to be re-hydrated with cold Jyusen water.
So Ranma and his friends try to reach the cold water faucet, but the wild attempt merely results in the phoenix faucet falling on Saffron's cocoon-egg and Ranma becoming captured by the brainwashed Shampoo. With help from his friends, Ranma manages to defeat Shampoo --- in fact, Mousse has the opportunity to make Shampoo his servant, but ingeniously frees her from servitude instead --- and they return to the Jyusen faucets. Unfortunately, the damage to Saffron's cocoon-egg causes him to emerge early, before his metamorphosis has completed. He now has the form of a tall, winged young man, and he holds the ability to generate intense amounts of heat and light. His destiny as King, he explains to Ranma, is to become the source of heat and light for his people ("You mean, you're a rural mountain's equivalent of the electricity and gas company," quips Ranma). Unfortunately for Ranma, the interrupted metamorphosis means that Saffron has failed to develop only one thing: the fine adjustment ability. Saffron wants the hot water to finish his change; Ranma wants the cold water to save Akane. With that, they leap into combat.
As one might expect of the final story in Ranma 1/2, the combat lasts a long time. This one involves the use of the golden sceptre, which produces heat, and the silvery sceptre, which freezes anything it touches. To Ranma's dismay, Saffron, like the mythical Phoenix, is seemingly immortal: even lost limbs are quickly regrown. But with the help of his friends --- including Akane, who can move just a little bit --- Ranma finally triumphs.
Without giving away too much, suffice it to say the very end of RANMA 1/2 is precisely what one expects of a "gag" manga like this one: everything goes on as it has been. In this case, the last page contains the word "overtime" --- as in, "The game has gone into overtime." For Ranma 1/2, that's certainly an apt description.
Overall, Book 38 is an improvement over Book 37. The human aspects of the characters come through in this book. Mousse manages to show a bit of nobility and a touch of ingenuity; as usual, Akane saves Ranma more than once (one of the facets of this combat manga that helps distinguish it); Ryoga weeps shamelessly; and Ranma almost but not quite admits that he loves Akane. Akane's doll-like state does stretch the suspension of disbelief a little far, but much of the series had been doing that already. In any case, Book 38 is worth reading, worth collecting, and though perhaps not as good as one might have hoped, generally "worth it."

--Eri Izawa