Akane Tendo (天道 あかね, Tendō Akane) is Soun's youngest daughter at age 16. She first encountered Ranma's male form as a naked stranger emerging from a hot bath in the bathroom, as she had up to that point only known him in girl form. Her family chose her to be engaged to him and carry on the Tendo family dojo. Due to numerous arguments and misunderstandings, their engagement was not off to a good start and both later mellow out. In spite of Ranma's apparent derision, Akane is actually often revered due to her beauty and strength.
Akane regularly feels inferior to Kasumi in beauty and feminine pursuits, to Ranma and his other fiancées in cooking, martial arts ability or gymnastics, and to other students in swimming. She is trying hard to excel in everything, but is either clumsy or completely inept at all (especially cooking — the taste of her cooking can incapacitate most people for a significant amount of time) except for schoolwork and certain sports activities, like volleyball. She is also a capable martial artist, particularly excelling in the use of a wide variety of archaic weaponry, and is quite popular with the boys at school, though she would prefer a little less attention from them, especially Tatewaki Kuno. When someone, frequently Ranma, belittles her lack of success, or calls her uncute, ugly, over-muscled, unfeminine and tomboyish, she often feels upset and also gets very jealous when one of Ranma's other fiancées show physical affection towards him, although she will often state that she is not affected. She loves Ranma deep down, despite frequently refusing to show it. However, in the end of the manga, they both learn the affection they have for each other, and decide to accept it openly.
Akane's personality usually swings from violent, hot-tempered, aloof, bad-mannered scorn towards her suitor to friendliness regarding other loved ones or just strangers in general.
In spite of her apparent disadvantages, out of the three fiancées, Akane is considered to have the best claim as a suitor for Ranma; this puts her as the main target for the rest of the fiancées.
