Volume 15 is a long one... the first half is dedicated to martial arts eating. Yes, even eating can be martial. A fellow named Picolet Chardin arrives and steals everyone’s food and eats it so quickly they can’t even see it. He challenges Ranma to a duel, and Ranma loses. Turns out he’s from a French family of competitive eaters whose secrets lie in their massive mouths. And it turns out that Soun Tendo promised that he could marry his daughter before they were born (because he honestly wasn’t expecting to have girls; he traded a hypothetical one for a meal. Looks like he no longer has the upper evans over Genma...) Ranma offers to go in their place (in girl form) so he can have his revenge match. He’ll go to the Chardin estate and learn their art, and he can get out of the marriage if he defeats Picolet in a duel. They train Ranma and put her in a metal corset, so she can’t change back into a guy at all, and she figures out a family secret - parlay du fois gras. It’s a technique that force feeds the opponent faster than the eye can see, rather than cleaning one’s plate by eating. Ranma does this and eventually manages to defeat Picolet. It... really can’t get much stupider than this. (I thought martial arts tea ceremonies were bad!)
The next arc is as good as that one was bad. Akane and Nabiki get into a fight, and Ranma chimes in to mock Akane, too. She loses her cool with both of them and suggests that he marry Nabiki instead. This leads to more fighting - Ranma doesn’t quite see what he did wrong, and feels like a pawn in the sisters’ war. Nabiki, meanwhile, tries to sell Ranma-time to his mother suitors and to sports teams and such, and when Ranma protests she confesses her love for him. Akane overhears this and believes her, and Ranma believes it too.
Akane and Nabiki discuss it, and Akane as good as admits she’s in love with him. “Why don’t you tell him how you feel?” Nabiki asks. “I’m... I’m not like you,” Akane replies. “I can’t say it!” (Oh my heart. She has tears.)
Ranma eventually overhears Kasumi and Nabiki talking, and learns that Nabiki was lying when she said she loved him nos he plots revenge, and part of that involves going on a date. Nabiki agrees, and tells Akane that Ranma wants to go with *her*. The next day the date occurs, and it looks like Ranma’s plan is to freak Nabiki out by pretending to be in love with her. But everything backfires and he chases Nabiki into a hedge-maze. He reaches through and grabs her, shouting that he loves her - but it’s actually Akane that he grabbed. There’s some awkward correcting, and Akane realizes that he didn’t want to date her, but he quickly comes to his senses and offers her the dozen roses he bought.
So, my favorite moment in this volume is when Ranma and Akane almost make up. They’re standing by the canal, he having just intercepted her on her morning jog. He apologizes and asks if they can go back to the way they were. Akane asks if he means the engagement too, and he says yes. “I don’t mind,” she replies, and he grins and says he’s glad. She then apologizes and says it’s all her fault, and he jubilantly cries that she finally gets it, that he’s an innocent victim of sibling squabbles and that the engagement doesn’t mean anything at all. “And it’s even worse getting stuck with the greedy sister than with the violent one!” he crows. So she knocks him into the canal. So close, Ranma, yet so damned far. Lolol.