Is it appropriate for me to feature Ranma 1/2 mash-ups on this site?
Originally, I imagined Age of Animus as an all-ages site, meaning that 100% of the content would be safe for kids, although now I feel ages 10 and up would be a better guideline. By extension, all the links on the site should also be safe for kids of that age to click on. And ideally, if I mention something on the site (for example, in a mash-up), kids could do a Google search on that thing and not come up with links to any questionable content. My basic guideline is generally, “If I had kids, would I feel okay with them watching/reading this?”
I would have no problem showing the anime or the manga to my (hypothetical) children, however Ranma features content (occasional casual nudity) which I know many will find inappropriate for children. Other than that, the cartoon violence and themes are about on par with your average Looney Tunes short, which most kids are allowed to watch freely.
I did some minimal searching for a rating and I’ve seen sites that rate it Ages 10 and up (about right for this site) and others which feel it should be Rated R, which is quite a spread of opinions. Rumiko Takahashi is said to have purposefully aimed for the manga to be popular with women and children, but then cultural norms being what they are, what a Japanese parent thinks is appropriate for their child does not always coincide with what a North American parent thinks is appropriate for their child.
IMDb certified the series as PG and that’s the rating I’m going to go with. I’ve featured other PG material on the site (such as Firefly) so I ultimately decided that I was comfortable featuring Ranma 1/2. Because of how touchy I feel this case is, I have decided to include a parental advisory on the posts stating that while the mash-up is safe, it is still better for parents to read up on Ranma 1/2 before showing it to their kids. I will include similar advisories on any material I feel is necessary.