Mousse (Ranma ½)
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| Mousse 沐絲 | |
|---|---|
| Image:Mousse from Ranma.jpg Mousse and his vast arsenal | |
| Alias: | Mu-Tsu Mu Mu-chan the duck Stupid Duck-boy, by Shampoo |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age: | 16 |
| Curse: | Human to Duck |
| Family: | Unnamed mother |
| Love Interest: | Shampoo |
| Rivals: | Ranma Saotome Cologne Maomolin Happosai Ryoga Hibiki, (occasionally) |
| Occupation: | Waiter/Delivery Boy |
| Residence: | Formerly: Joketsuzoku Village, China Now: Cat Café, Furinkan |
| Fighting Style: | Hidden Weapons |
| Attacks: | Oversized Sleeves Hawk's Talon Fist of the White Swan Flying Ostrich Kick Exploding Eggs |
| Seiyū: | Toshihiko Seki |
| Voice Actor: | Brad Swaile |
| 1st Appearance (Manga): | Volume 10 |
| 1st Appearance (Anime): | TV Series, Season 2, "Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan" |
Mousse (沐絲 Mùsī or ムース Mūsu) is a fictional character in Rumiko Takahashi's anime and manga series Ranma ½.
Contents |
[edit] History
Mousse is a male Chinese Amazon and a master of the Hidden Weapons figthing style who is desperately in love with his childhood friend Shampoo. He's been in love with her since they were both three and sees Ranma Saotome as the rival he needs to defeat/kill in order to win Shampoo's affection.
He has extremely bad eyesight which requires him to wear Coke-bottle glasses, but he usually has them concealed within his robes (manga) or propped up on his forehead (anime), leading him to sometimes mistake people (or animals, sometimes even inanimate objects) for other people (usually Shampoo or Ranma).
Mousse fights using hidden weapons (Anki 暗器), which includes roped hooks, rope darts, iron balls, hidden knives, bombs, and even training toilets, all hidden in his long sleeves and robe. He seems to hide his weapons in Hammerspace - a pocket dimension created with Ki - making him one of the very few males who has access to it. Additionaly, he's also quite crafty, able to make complex fireworks or actually plan traps to defeat Ranma.
He was cursed at Jusenkyo to turn into a duck, having accidentally walked into the spring of the drowned duck due to his poor eyesight. According to the Jusenkyo Guide, he is the first person to ever fall in a spring after taking only one step. Even in the form of a duck he can still make use of many of his projectile weapons, such as knives and bombs.
Mousse's vision appears to improve greatly while he's a duck, but this is only because when he is in his cursed form, he has to always wear his glasses, with which he can actually see well enough in both forms. Unfortunately for him - either on reflex or to appear cooler when making an important statement - he tends to take off his glasses and thus embarrasses himself when he talks to the wrong addressee.
[edit] Character
Mousse is set to be paired up with Shampoo by the time of the second Ranma ½ feature film (Nihao, My Concubine), and it's also implied late in the manga that he is slowly making progress in his quest for Shampoo's love, even winning a chance to go on one real date with her after the invincible glasses incident. Unfortunately for him, his poor romantic taste — he took Shampoo to watch a gory zombie film — ruined it.
It is also proven that, despite his obsession, he truly cares for Shampoo's well-being. In the last story arc of the manga, Shampoo is placed in a Surikomi Egg, a form of magical mind control that causes one to become slavishly devoted to the first person one sees after being released from it. Later in the arc, she is placed in one again, and Mousse is offered the chance to make her his slave. Instead, he shows her a mirror, granting her independent thought. Unfortunately for him, she immediately returns to chasing Ranma, leading Mousse to remark that he's going to be kicking himself over the decision for years.
Mousse dislikes Ranma with a great intensity, but at the same time seems to be developing a friendly rivalry with him, much like Ryoga did. He has gone as far as to help Ranma on a few occasions, like during the fight with Pantyhose Taro, the confrontation with the Musk Dynasty warriors, and the final battle with Saffron. But if given a chance, Mousse will do all he can to clobber Ranma and win Shampoo.
[edit] Special Techniques
Mousse, along with Ryoga, is one of the best martial artists in his age group, bested only by Ranma in terms of skill, although on a few occasions he has been beaten by Ryoga as well but despite this he is still the third strongest fighter among his age group in the regular cast. He is a master of several styles of Chinese martial arts, including the acrobatic and flexible Joketsuzoku style of Amazon martial arts; the same style used by the other two Amazons, Shampoo and Cologne.
While Mousse is not as strong as Ranma, he is actually faster (he was the only one who could compete with Mint, who is arguably the fastest character in the series in terms of speed). Mousse is also incredibly skilled with practically any weapon, and is also very agile.
Even though he is a very talented martial artist and a good hand-to-hand fighter, Mousse prefers to use his superior speed and mastery of the Hidden Weapons style to fight at a distance, where his naturally expert marksmanship can be put to better use. His greatest weakness, despite his remarkable abilities, is his own eyesight. On a few occasions, he has displayed tremendous strength such as in his battle with Torristan in which he was able to expand his muscles to remove many steel feathers from his body and defeat his opponent with a single punch despite being near death.
- Oversized Sleeves (Weapons Container): Mousse is a self-proclaimed practitioner of "dark magic," which is actually just hiding things up his oversized sleeves where it's dark. Mousse is able to keep almost any item imaginable in his sleeves and never seems to run out of room. Many fans believe this to be because of his ability to access Hammerspace. Mousse's weapons of choice are throwing knives, ropes, and chains.
- Fist of the White Swan (白鳥拳 - Hakucho Ken): This technique is similar to Mousse's others. He removes the "White Swan", in this case a swan-shaped child's training potty, from his sleeves and hits his opponent with it. He usually draws it out, swings it, and then quickly hides it again so the potty cannot be seen by his foe, representing the swan's graceful but unseen swimming.
- Exploding Chicken Eggs (雞蛋拳 - Keiran Ken): Mousse pulls a chicken out of his sleeves and it quickly lays eggs into his hand. When thrown, they become similar to grenades, exploding when they hit their target.
- Hawk's Talon (鹰爪拳 - Takazume Ken): Large, sharp claws appear on the tips of Mousse's shoes as he plummets toward his opponent. He stated it is taught to a single student per generation.
- Flying Ostrich Kick (飛鴕脚 - Dachö Kyaku): Facing away from his opponent, Mousse kicks sharply at an almost-180° angle. Usually performed with a needle on the tip of his shoe, this manga-only move is capable of slicing through metal.
- Scythes of Sorrow: An attack used only in Mousse's second fight with Ranma, it involves wildly slashing at his opponent with scythe-like blades from his robes. Additionally, the blades can be thrown like boomerangs.
- Love Rocket: Not really an attack, but a firework he planned to use to impress Shampoo. It would have formed a heart-shaped burst that rained down roses if it had functioned properly. Instead, he accidentally blew it up in her face.
[edit] Trivia
- Despite the fact that Mousse's parents are never mentioned in the manga, in the anime his mother once sent him a letter asking how his progress with Shampoo was going.
- Because of his mastery of the art of Hidden Weapons, he is sometimes credited as one of the few males with access to Hammerspace.
- His Latin American Spanish Voice Actor is José Antonio Macías, famous for his outrageous performance as James from Pocket Monsters.
- Mousse speaks with a Tōhoku accent in Japanese.
- Hsien-Ko, from the Darkstalkers series, has a fighting style similar to Mousse, from Hammerspace concealment of objects to throwing such objects. Judging from their fighting concepts and design, it appeared that Mousse somehow was an inspiration for her creation, though Capcom has never confirmed nor denied this. The only difference is that she is a Hopping corpse, while Mousse is a living person with a Jusenkyo curse.
[edit] References
| Saotome Family | |
|---|---|
| Ranma Saotome | Genma Saotome | Nodoka Saotome | |
| Tendo Family | |
| Soun Tendo | Kasumi Tendo | Nabiki Tendo | Akane Tendo | Mrs. Tendo | |
| Chinese | |
| Shampoo | Mousse | Cologne | Jusenkyo Guide | Pantyhose Taro | |
| Kuno Family | |
| Tatewaki Kuno | Kodachi Kuno | Principal Kuno | Sasuke Sarugakure | |
| Notable Furinkan Residents | |
| Ukyo Kuonji | Hikaru Gosunkugi | Dr. Tofu Ono | Hinako Ninomiya | Konatsu | |
| Major Adversaries | |
| Ryoga Hibiki | Happosai | Mariko Konjo | Herb | Ryu Kumon | Saffron | |
| Recurring / Other Characters | |
| Akari Unryu | Tsubasa Kurenai | Shinnosuke | Ranma ½ minor characters | |
| Other Articles | |
| Locations in Ranma ½ | Anything Goes Martial Arts | Chinese Amazons | |
