The Golden Pair (Ranma ½)

Infobox animanga character
name = Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin
series = Ranma ½


caption = Azusa and Mikado in the manga
first = Volume 2
last =
creator = Rumiko Takahashi
voiced by = Kazuhiko Inoue (Mikado, Japanese)
Naoko Matsui (Azusa, Japanese)
Ian James Corlett (Mikado, English)
Cathy Weseluck (Azusa, English)
alias = The Golden Pair
age = Unknown. Presumably 16
born =
occupation = High School Students
Freestyle Skating Champions
relatives =
divider = yes
aux1 name = Curse
aux1 = Azusa: Kleptomania of anything 'cute'
Mikado: Compulsion to kiss 1000 beautiful girls
Always getting into arguements with each other
whacking and insulting
aux2 name = Fighting style
aux2 = Both: Martial Freestyle Skating

In the "Ranma ½" manga and anime series, the term Golden Pair refers to a pair of figure skaters, the fictional characters Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin. Renowned and stylish freestyle skating champions for Kolkhoz High School, their specialty is Martial Freestyle Skating. They regularly train by being assaulted by a hundred hockey players at once.

History

Azusa came into conflict with Akane Tendo by apprehending the latter's pet piglet P-Chan (secretly Ryoga Hibiki), and renaming it 'Charlotte'. When Akane wanted it back, Azusa challenged her to a match to determine the rightful owner. Mikado earned a corresponding challenge from Ranma Saotome by trying to steal a kiss from Akane's lips, and later earned his full fury, by kissing Ranma's female form, and was barely bested in personal combat, despite Ranma's lack of skating skill. The official showdown, called the "Charlotte Cup", turned into a long, hard, 3-way battle between the Golden Pair, and their frequently distracted, shifting opponents Ranma, Akane and Ryoga.

Eventually, in the manga, Ryoga destroyed the ring by punching it due to being frustrated by Ranma. Eventually, after being smashed by chunks of ice, the Golden Pair lost the fight and apparently broke up afterwards after Azusa swiped away Mikado's stretcher blanket and clobbered him when he tried to snatch it back.

In the anime, the outcome was more or less the same, but instead the ring was destroyed by Azusa with a mallet which she used to stop Mikado from assaulting Ryoga, who she reconized as "her Charlotte" after she saw the coller around his neck. Even though the match ended, the ensuring chaos that followed after Ryoga and Ranma left the ring battling each other resulted in the match ending in a draw.

Azusa Shiratori

Azusa is very immature, and is known for taking things she feels are cute and giving them equally cute French names, even if they clearly don't belong to her, such a rice dumpling Genma was eating which she dubbed Josephine. She can be particularly violent towards any person that attempts to stop her from having them, and frequently assaults Mikado, or other inhibitors, with blunt objects.

She only appears once in the manga, but in the anime reappears during the first movie for a brief cameo along with Mikado and in a regular episode without Mikado, where she takes Tatewaki and Sasuke as two of her cute playthings.

In the dub, Azusa uses a similar speaking style to Shampoo, referring to herself in the third person quite often. They were also both voiced by the same person. However, while Shampoo has her speaking style due to lack of knowledge of the Japanese language, it is safe to assume that Azusa developed her linguistic habit as a way to sound "cute", especially considering she refers to herself as "Azusa-chan", adding the feminine, and "cute", treatment form.

Mikado Sanzenin

Mikado is a classic playboy, always looking to charm women and steal a kiss from them. He says he has a goal of kissing 1,000 different women, and even managed to kiss Ranma in his female form (the latter's first ever). However, he failed to get one from Akane, his stated intention during the "Charlotte Cup" match. Despite being partnered with Azusa, he appears to have little tolerance for her and often ends up insulting her.

Mikado only appears once in the manga, but in the anime has a brief cameo in the first movie along with Azusa.

Special Techniques

In the manga, the Golden Pair were never shown fighting outside of the ice-rink, and their general prowess is thus largely unknown. In the anime, Azusa has been shown using roller skates.

Within their domain they were together able to nearly instantly defeat a hundred large ice hockey players. Mikado alone fought Ranma by using his "Dance of Death", in which he landed a few hundred blows in the span of moments. Against more formidable opponents they could also use the "Goodbye Whirl" in which Azusa grabbed hold of the opponents, Mikado in turn grabbed hold of her and started to spin at great speed, building up a pseudo 'centrifugal force' to potentially cause great damage when an adversary was finally let go. Several of Ranma's bones were popped out of joint after this attack, making him take several minutes until he could move without great pain.