A heavyset man in his middle years, and his son of sixteen summers, trek across the wilderness of China, ever searching for ways of improving their art. They finally come to a mysterious place, a place known to outsiders as the Legendary Training Ground of Jusenkyo. Setting down their packs, they begin to train in earnest, but it is not long before one, and then the second fall into one of the springs below. Genma, now forever doomed to become a panda when he is splashed with cold water, could live with his curse, but his son, his pride and joy, the boy he'd raised to become a man among men, now stood in the body of a twelve year old girl.
With the aid of the Jusenkyo guide, they find out that there is a reprieve from the curse, that with hot water, they will return to normal form. However, the springs are fickle, or perhaps the Kami have a strange sense of humor, but each curse will revert at a different temperature of water. For Genma, it requires nothing more than warm bathwater, but for poor Ranma, nothing short of scalding will do the trick. Seeing as how boiling water is hardly readily accessable, nor pleasant to pour upon one's self, Ranma is forced to remain a young girl most of the time, and as such, ages only when he is a man.
After a short stay with the guide, the two 'men' continue their journey once again, heading this time back to the land of their birth. There, a decades old promise would be fulfilled. The year is 1596.
