History Characters / RanmaOneHalfTheChinese

* BestHerToBedHer: Invoked but subverted; despite this being the law of the Joektsuzoku tribe, he never challenges Shampoo to any marriage matches, instead trying to focus on beating Ranma. There is a passing reference in his introductory arc that he's actually already tried to do this and failed, although he indignantly protests that it shouldn't count, because it happened when he and Shampoo were three years old. Precisely ''why'' he never takes the direct approach is never explained in the series; two predominant fan theories are that either he's not allowed to do so whilst Shampoo is engaged to Ranma; he can't bring himself to hurt Shampoo even if it would result in their marriage, or a combination of the two.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/000_0.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:Cologne (back), Mousse and Shampoo[[note]]Artwork by [[https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/479715 Wantan]][[/note]]]]

* CatchPhrase: "Very tragic story!"

* BoobsOfSteel: A lot of fans consider her the bustiest of the girls after Ranma, and she is also one of the most formidable in combat.

* {{Expy}}: Of Lum from ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' in terms of appearance (including a planned but dropped color-scheme -- see below), nature as an exotic and affectionate yet violently possessive girl, FunnyForeigner InUniverse status (Chinese Amazon compared to AncientAstronauts {{Yokai}}), and her AccidentalMarriage to the main character. However, even when she's as violent as Lum, Shampoo is more scheming and less irascible. Her resemblance to Lum is even more pronounced in manga art showing her with green hair.

* {{Expy}}: Of Lum from ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' in terms of appearance (including a planned but dropped color-scheme -- see below), nature as an exotic and affectionate yet violently possessive girl, FunnyForeigner InUniverse status (Chinese Amazon compared to AncientAstronauts {{Yokai}}), and her AccidentalMarriage to the main character. However, even when she's as violent as Lum, Shampoo is more scheming and less irascible.

* BettyAndVeronica: PlayedWith. Shampoo seems like the Betty on the surface since she's the girl working at a restaurant who vies for Ranma's attention and competes with his {{Tsundere}} arranged fiancée. In reality, Akane is the more down-to-earth Betty to Shampoo's flamboyant Veronica; the exotic foreigner who likes to use her sex appeal to try and seduce Ranma, can act manipulative, and is not above playing dirty to get rid of the competition.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: PlayedWith. Ranma generally treats Shampoo as a pest because of her tricks, her amorality (or, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality more exactly, distorted morality]]), and the fact she's an AccidentalMarriage. Even though he has indicated on several occasions that he does find her attractive, she makes a bad impression because of her dirty methods to try and steal him from Akane.
* AccidentalMarriage: When she met Ranma as a man for the first time, he accidentally defeated her by breaking her weapon, causing its head to fall onto hers and knock her out cold. According to the law of her village, Shampoo is engaged to Ranma because he beat her.

** This is one of the reasons Ranma doesn't want to validate his engagement to her, as it involves him getting stuck at said village.

* {{Animorphism}}: Her curse turns her into a pink cat when soaked in cold water.

* AwfulWeddedLife: It's {{implied|Trope}} that if Ranma were to wed Shampoo, he'd be forced to live at the Amazon Village as per their custom.
* BadassAdorable: Shampoo is cute and a fighter. She even attacked the Jusenkyō Enforcer while she was in cat form to stop him from repeatedly drowning Ranma. Her cat form is also remarked as being adorable

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Simply put, she has a bizarre set of ethics due to being raised in a warrior women culture. Nobody's ever quite managed to figure out how she thinks the world works. For example, she doesn't mind assaulting Akane whom she perceives to be a rival for Ranma's attention but she would chat cordially with Akane's sister, Kasumi. When Nabiki tries to auction Ranma off, Shampoo attempts to kill her. Considering that even ''Kodachi's'' first thought was to pay up instead of hurting Nabiki, that's saying a lot. However, when confronted with a proper challenge, Shampoo does attempt to win fairly unlike Kodachi who would simply cheat.

* ButNotTooEvil: Even though she uses underhanded methods to bring Ranma close to her, it's shown that it's very important to her that he ultimately manifests that he wants to be with her willingly. She wants Ranma to like her and manifest that he enjoys her company, and will turn on a dime on her plans if there's even a remote possibility that it won't be the case.

** It's implied that part of the reason why Shampoo doesn't return Mousse's feelings for her is because she dislikes how Mousse is willing to forsake his pride -- by humiliating himself to try and impress her, by stooping to dirty tactics and blatantly cheating in an effort to win duels, and by consistently going back on his words -- as part of his efforts to pursue her.

* HypocriticalHumor: Shampoo dislikes Mousse's willingness to forego honor and play dirty, which is exactly the same approach she employs to try to woo Ranma.

** While she's making deliveries, she may use the meal plates themselves as weapons, be those dinner or soup plates.

* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: Shampoo will usually be completely naked when reverting from cat form.

* CantCatchUp: For a while, when Ranma and Ryōga kept gaining power ups from training, he just couldn't keep up with their level. He constantly gets trounced whenever pitted against them. Ryōga once even managed to simultaneously fight him, Kuno, Principal Kuno, and Gosunkugi off when they decided to gang up on a weakened Ranma in a GoThroughMe moment. However, he was still able to fight toe to toe with [[SuperSpeed Mint]] in the Musk Dynasty arc, and, later on, going on "dates" with a stupendously heavy Jizō statue [[WaxOnWaxOff accidentally brought up his strength and endurance tremendously]].

** To Kuno: Mousse is a rustic villager from the Chinese mountains, whilst Kuno is a Japanese aristocrat. Whereas Kuno is flashy, arrogant and bombastic, Mousse is straightforward, pragmatic and will humiliate himself shamelessly for victory. Finally, Kuno wields a melee weapon, whilst Mousse favors ranged weapons.

** Shampoo doesn't respect him both because he can't defeat her, and also because he doesn't respect the rules of courting her by ''actually trying to defeat her'', instead choosing to get rid of Ranma as if that were to woo her. Though she doesn't mind him and somewhat cares for him, she dislikes the fact that Mousse doesn't respect himself enough to do it right.

* HopelessSuitor: To Shampoo, much like she is to Ranma. Ever since his introduction he has been endlessly chasing her and trying to win her over.

* JerkassHasAPoint: He's right on calling out Shampoo and Cologne on using the excuse of the former having defeated him in combat when they were just 3-year-olds. He considers that he hasn't been given a fair opportunity to woo her
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He can be very petty and insufferable in his rivalry to Ranma and in his attempts to win over Shampoo. However when the situation gets really bad he will become sensible and [[EnemyMine assist his rival]] until the danger is averted. When Maomaoling had cursed Shampoo into permanently turning into a cat, he even agreed to allowing Ranma kiss her due to needing a TrueLovesKiss. In the final story arc, he even [[spoiler:gives up his best chance to bend Shampoo to his will because he was AboveTheInfluence]].

* AccidentalPervert: He accidentally stumbles across Rouge bathing, which leads to their enmity for each other when she beans him with a nearby rock and accuses him of trying to steal her "source of power" (magnetic back-ache pads.)

* NoNameGiven

* DamselInDistress: When Ranma first rescues her from Koruma and Masala.

* DoesNotKnowHerOwnStrength: Played with and overlapping with SlapstickHumor. Shampoo is extremely dexterous and strong when it comes to combat, but seems to be somewhat unaware of the fact that this does not apply to whenever she's behaving girly and/or flirty. As such, she's very prone to hit Ranma whenever she's being lovey-dovey. This seems to go over her head because Ranma is strong enough to take the punishment, so it's implied that she's not clued-in on the fact that this is not normal behavior for a girl.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: She is this for the adolescents of the cast, though not down to Kodachi's level. Ranma only keeps contact with her to a bare minimum, since he doesn't trust her, but he keeps her interested because of his male pride, and his avoidance of the whole situation, rather than his own feelings for her. The other girls aren't exactly that fond of her either and of the men, only Mousse wants to be around her. A lot of this can be tracked to the fact that, while the rest are (at worst) JerkWithAHeartOfGold, she more often veers into straight up {{Jerkass}} territory, especially with how callous she is towards Mousse.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: To Lum from ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''. Shampoo is very likely what Lum would have been if she had stayed an antagonistic love rival to the female lead as Rumiko originally planned until the readers and editors forced her to make Lum the main love interest. While both are {{Genki Girl}}s who pursue the male lead because of an AccidentalMarriage, Shampoo mostly lacks Lum's more sympathetic traits as she's much more callous to others except for Ranma and her attempts to make Ranma hers are quite devious while Lum was mainly a ClingyJealousGirl who just took out her anger on Ataru. Shampoo is also more methodical and less irascible than Lum - perhaps in part because Ranma's character deficiences are far less egregious than Ataru Moroboshi's.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: To Lum from ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''. Shampoo is very likely what Lum would have been if she had stayed an antagonistic love rival to the female lead as Rumiko originally planned until the readers and editors forced her to make Lum the main love interest. While both are {{Genki Girl}}s who pursue the male lead because of an AccidentalMarriage, Shampoo mostly lacks Lum's more sympathetic traits as she's much more callous to others except for Ranma and her attempts to make Ranma hers are quite devious while Lum was mainly a ClingyJealousGirl who just took out her anger on Ataru. Shampoo is also more methodical and less irascible than Lum.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: The prefix of his name is ''Pantyhose''. Is it any wonder he runs away from girls who ask him what it is? His planned new name isn't much better either: when he announces to the world that he wants to be called "Awesome Tarō" (Kakkoiitarō in Japanese), all of the other characters think it's even ''more'' embarrassing, but are either stunned into silence or have a good grace not to say anything.* FateWorseThanDeath: Pantyhose Tarō considers living his life with the name of Pantyhose Tarō as this, which is why he is so hellbent on hunting Happōsai to force him to change it.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: The prefix of his name is ''Pantyhose''. Is it any wonder he runs away from girls who ask him what it is? His planned new name isn't much better either: when he announces to the world that he wants to be called "Awesome Tarō" (Kakkoiitarō in Japanese), all of the other characters think it's even ''more'' embarrassing, but are either stunned into silence or have a good grace not to say anything.
* EqualOpportunityEvil: As Akane finds out, Tarō has no conniptions about hitting women in equal measure as he would do to a man.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Pantyhose Tarō considers living his life with the name of Pantyhose Tarō as this, which is why he is so hellbent on hunting Happōsai to force him to change it.

** Shampoo genuinely likes Ranma, and part of her attitude towards him is rooted in the fact that she takes offense at him not choosing her. From her perspective, her feelings should be more than obvious, and she has a point, considering it's one of the main reasons Ranma can't bring himself to alienate her.

Cologne runs a Chinese food restaurant at Furinkan where both Shampoo and Mousse work.

* NotSoStoic: Albeit she knows that they're pandering to her, she doesn't dislike being fawned upon by the young men in the story.

Shampoo's "stupid friend from childhood", Mousse is head-over-heels for her and chases after her madly in a desperate attempt to win her love, either by kissing her feet or by proving his prowess by defeating the man she wants to marry. Though his relationship with Ranma is much more bitter and hostile than, say, Ryōga's, Mousse does eventually come to something of an understanding with him, and stops actually attempting to kill him -- though not enough to make him stop blaming Ranma for "keeping Shampoo from him". While she doesn't seem to outright hate him, she certainly doesn't seem to have any romantic interest in him, to the extent that even saving her from mind control (giving up a chance to make her his literal love slave in the process) didn't earn him so much as a "thank you," and she had to be tricked into helping save his life.

** Whilst she doesn't seem too bothered by the idea of resorting to lethal force, it's actually ''not'' her preferred tactic. Even when she first came to Nerima, she made no moves against Akane until Akane had repeatedly assaulted Ranma in front of her and then tried to steal the lunch Shampoo made for him, and even then, Shampoo just gave her LaserGuidedAmnesia.

Cologne runs a Chinese food restaurant at Nerima where both Shampoo and Mousse work.

* IconicItem: For all his hatred for his first name, he still wears a pair of pantyhose around his waist in lieu of a sash. It is also his calling card when he first appears in Nerima, wrapping all his victims in pantyhose as a way to taunt the person who named him.

* PoorCommunicationKills: He fails to disclose the nature of the Jusenkyō springs to anyone in time to prevent mishaps. He fails to warn Ranma that challenging, and then defeating Shampoo as a man or as a woman will have consequences either way (even ''while'' he's translating said challenge and he's perfectly aware of the implications). He neglects to inform anyone that Jusenkyō ''can'' be drained, just so long as they restore the flow at the source again. And finally, he never says anything about Jusenkyō's level coming back down after it becomes flooded, so everyone goes home and gives up on the cures. In the anime, there's an episode where he comes to Nerima because, on this once-a-millenium day, the Tendō Dojo's koi pond can be turned into a Jusenkyō outlet. He naturally fails to warn that if they stuff this up, it can't be performed again for 1000 years, and that something like breaking the rope he surrounds the pond with will cause the ritual to fail and leave them all stuck with their curses.

* HellIsComingWithMe: She arrives at Nerima to warn the cast about the Phoenix People's plan to drain Jusenkyō, and ask for their help, while carrying the secret map that would reveal the location of the source of Jusenkyō, which the Phoenix People are after. The characters are then embroiled in a quest that, otherwise, would've blown right over them without incident.

Shampoo works as a waitress and delivery driver for her great-grandmother's Chinese food restaurant, often encountering Ranma and Akane en-route on her bicycle.

[[caption-width-right:250:Cologne, Mousse and Shampoo[[note]]Artwork by [[https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/479715 Wantan]][[/note]]]]

* ButNotTooEvil: Even though she uses underhanded methods to bring Ranma close to her, it's shown that it's very important to her that he ultimately manifests that he wants to be with her willingly. She wants Ranma to like her, and will turn on a dime on her plans if there's even a remote possibility that it won't be the case.

* DumbMuscle: Exaggerated in fanon, but Shampoo can be emotional, self-sabotaging and prone to foolish plans and fickle behavior that alienates her from Ranma... but at the same time, she's also definitely the strongest of Ranma's female companions, which the manga emphasizes by her tendency to [[ThereWasADoor bust through walls rather than use doors]]. Magazine/ShonenSunday even acknowledges this by making Shampoo's Intelligence score her [[DumpStat weakest trait]], at only INT 2.

* TheRival: Her beef with Ukyō is similar to that of Ranma's with Ryōga, in that they fiercely compete for Ranma's affections[[note]]whereas he and Ryōga compete for Akane's[[/note]], and as chefs. However, it's mostly seen in the anime since they hardly interact in the manga.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: To Lum from ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''. Shampoo is very likely what Lum would have been if she had stayed an antagonistic love rival to the female lead as Rumiko originally planned until the readers and editors forced her to make Lum the main love interest. While both are {{Genki Girl}}s who pursue the male lead because of an AccidentalMarriage, Shampoo mostly lacks Lum's more sympathetic traits as she's much more callous to others except for Ranma and her attempts to make Ranma hers are quite devious while Lum was mainly a ClingyJealousGirl who just took out her anger on Ataru.

** To Akane. They both have the strongest claims to be fiancees, Akane out of proximity and Shampoo out of appeal, and Shampoo is pretty much everything that Akane isn't, meaning, showy, a good cook, affectionate, persistent, you name it. The problem is that Ranma cares more about Akane than everyone realizes, ''way'' more than any of the other girls.

* WouldHitAGirl: He doesn't usually bother with weaklings, and [[AccidentalPervert deliberately lets slighted women]] [[ArmorPiercingSlap take out their anger on him for as long as he deems appropriate]], but if the girl in question proves strong enough to fight, he holds nothing back.

* CatGirl: When Maomolin captures her to make her his bride, he tries to permanently turn Shampoo into a cat if the New Year's Bell rings [[Mystical108 108]] times. As the ritual proceeds, she grows cat ears and a tail.

* QuackingUp: What happens when he’s doused with cold water.