Ran

is a fictional character appearing in the Japanese manga series Urusei Yatsura, created by Rumiko Takahashi. The character made her first appearance in the 55th chapter of the series, which was first published in Japan in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine on October 22, 1980. In Urusei Yatsura, Ran is portrayed as an alien with a bipolar personality who grew up as childhood friends with the Oni alien Lum, for whom Ran developed a one-sided rivalry after years of resentment towards her. In the anime adaptations of Urusei Yatsura, the character was initially voiced in Japanese by Yō Inoue and then by Kazue Komiya in the 1981 TV series, and by Kana Hanazawa in the 2022 TV series, while Donna Bella Litton provides her voice in English. Creation and development The character of Ran was created by Rumiko Takahashi, author of the Urusei Yatsura manga series, making her first appearance in its 55th chapter, titled "Sports Festival Close Call", which was first published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine on October 22, 1980. Takahashi stated that, when creating the character, she was inspired by which in Japanese Buddhism are the spirits of envious and greedy people who, as punishment for their vices in life, were cursed with an insatiable hunger for the life force of humans, an aspect that Takahashi embodied in Ran as the vampiric power to suck the youth and vitality out of people by kissing them. Takahashi named the character "Ran" due to its double meaning – translatable as "orchid" and "civil war", respectively – both of which the author felt suited the character's bipolar personality; this, in turn, causes Ran's behavior to continually change, going from friendly and pleasant to cruel and aggressive in an instant. Regarding Ran's design, Takahashi portrayed her as a teenage girl with pink, curly hair resembling a cloud, which the author associated with the belief that a gaki has an insubstantial form. The author also incorporated features such as fangs and pointed ears into Ran's design to tie her into the image of an oni. For the character's clothing, Takahashi simply drew Ran in either a pink dress or a silver bikini.