- Gender: Female
- Age: 16
- Hair: Black
- Eyes: Brown
- Nationality: Japanese
- From the manga Ranma 1/2, by Rumiko Takahashi
- First Appearance: Chapter 1
The only daughter (presumably) of a okonomiyaki chef, Ukyou met Ranma Saotome when they were both young children, and Ranma stole food from Ukyou’s father’s okonomiyaki cart. Every morning Ukyou tried to prevent this, and every morning she got defeated. Ranma saw this as a grand game and him and Ukyou as great friends. Oddly enough, eventually so did Ukyou. She eventually grew to have a crush on Ranma, and relied on him to get her out of trouble. Ukyou’s father, seeing that his daughter was so infatuated with Ranma, suggested that the two young children be engaged for when they grew older, and offered his cart as a dowry. Genma, realising that he had made a previous promise to his old friend Soun Tendo to engage a child of his to a child of Soun’s, promptly gave Ranma a misleading question so that he could have an excuse to steal the okonomiyaki cart and run off, leaving Ukyou in the dust.
Ukyou, who had known of the engagement plans and very much wanted to be brought along with Ranma, was devastated (and very pissed off) by these events. Renouncing her femininity, she wore boy’s clothes, trained ceaselessly against the raging ocean, and pretty successfully lived her life as a male for the next ten years or so, going so far as to attend all-boys schools (apparently with noone except Tsubasa Kurenai the wiser).
Ukyou uses a martial arts style based on using highly exaggerated and modified versions of okonomiyaki cooking implements and ingredients, such as her trademark giant spatula, concealing-dust flour-bombs, super-sticky noodles, and tempura flakes packed with explosives. She is far above human level in strength, speed, and durability, but nowhere near that of Ranma, and about on par with the other “psycho fiancee girls” from the Ranma 1/2 series. Her main strength is in defence, where she can almost hold her own against someone like Ranma and Ryouga, but she’s notably weaker on the attack.
She’s an extremely busy person, who was able to juggle schoolwork, running a business, pursuing Ranma and various other hobbies and volunteer charity work at the same time. Ukyou is a generally nice person and can be counted on to help out people in a crisis; however, she has a fairly short temper and extremely little patience for people who get on her nerves or whom she considers slow-witted. She sees nothing wrong with solving problems with violence, but will often (not always) attempt diplomatic solutions. She’s a little shy about her feelings, a little (okay, a lot) frugal with her money, and prefers to project a gruff, butch demanour that matches her boy’s clothing.