Ranma's not really like that at all. First off, there is exactly two stories in the entire series where Ranma learns an "upgrade" to beat someone
(the Hiryuu Shoten Ha story and the Ryuu Kumon story), and neither of them are typical of the genre (the only other story where he gets an "upgrade"
to win a fight, it... decidedly does not win him the fight). Ranma wins fights against superior opponents by lateral thinking, dirty tricks and sheer dumb
luck, not via powerups or the ever popular I-refuse-to-fall-down-before-you-do tactic. Moreover, most of the stories in the series don't rely at all on
Ranma facing a superior opponent (in many cases he fights decidedly inferior opponents but just under conditions that make it difficult for him, such as
fighting to prove he loves Kunou more than a girl), and probably half of them don't involve a fight as the climax at all. Ranma 1/2 subverts most of the
common shonen fighting cliches, which is one of the major reasons I still like it.
Ranma is an episodic comedy with slow character development, but that's pretty typical of episodic comedies by their nature. Inuyasha is rather a different
sort of beast, being a drama with an ongoing single plotline from the first issue to the very end, even if it stylistically resembles a few of the later Ranma
stories (notably the Musk Dynasty and Phoenix Mountain arcs). I think that's part of the problem with it - each story in Ranma 1/2 is a STORY; they have a
beginning, middle, and end and stand on their own. Each story in Inuyasha is part of an ongoing narrative, and that narrative is glacially slow.
(the Hiryuu Shoten Ha story and the Ryuu Kumon story), and neither of them are typical of the genre (the only other story where he gets an "upgrade"
to win a fight, it... decidedly does not win him the fight). Ranma wins fights against superior opponents by lateral thinking, dirty tricks and sheer dumb
luck, not via powerups or the ever popular I-refuse-to-fall-down-before-you-do tactic. Moreover, most of the stories in the series don't rely at all on
Ranma facing a superior opponent (in many cases he fights decidedly inferior opponents but just under conditions that make it difficult for him, such as
fighting to prove he loves Kunou more than a girl), and probably half of them don't involve a fight as the climax at all. Ranma 1/2 subverts most of the
common shonen fighting cliches, which is one of the major reasons I still like it.
Ranma is an episodic comedy with slow character development, but that's pretty typical of episodic comedies by their nature. Inuyasha is rather a different
sort of beast, being a drama with an ongoing single plotline from the first issue to the very end, even if it stylistically resembles a few of the later Ranma
stories (notably the Musk Dynasty and Phoenix Mountain arcs). I think that's part of the problem with it - each story in Ranma 1/2 is a STORY; they have a
beginning, middle, and end and stand on their own. Each story in Inuyasha is part of an ongoing narrative, and that narrative is glacially slow.