Ranma has a strong and slim athletic body. He has black hair with a pigtail in the back. He favors Chinese-style clothing in the form of a sleeveless shirt in yellow-gold with a single slash design in each sleeve and a red single Chinese button on the collar, black pants, and slip on shoes. Ranma tends to rely on direct tactics and planning, though he can still be surprised by opponents whom he has never fought before. Regardless, he is adept at learning from his mistakes in a fight and generally takes advantage of an opponent's weaknesses during a later encounter. He has a massive fear of cats, to the point of paralysis. If his fear consumes him completely, his mind retreats into a condition of galeanthropy, the delusion that he is a cat. This state manifests by fighting like an unrestrained wild animal, using his power more efficiently, as well as the ability to attack his surroundings with air pressure swipes

Akane has short blue hair and light brown eyes. She usually wears the girls' uniform for Furinkan High School, which consists of a white blouse with a peter pan collar. As one of the heirs of the Anything Goes Martial Arts School, Akane is in a good fighting form, and has excellent physical strength, agility and speed, although she doesn't know enough to use her style as efficiently as Ranma does. Akane is compassionate, kindhearted, gentle, brave, and heroic, ready to help anyone, but she is also vulnerable and quite stubborn and occasionally prideful, characteristics she shares with Ranma.

Ryoga's usual outfit consists of a yellow and black speckled bandana around his head, a yellow long sleeve tunic with pale yellow collar and the folded sleeves, black trousers with yellow leg bands around the ankles and a black sash-like belt and black Tai Chi shoes. Ryoga is an exceptionally proficient martial artist, roughly comparable to Ranma, whom he has defeated or fought to a draw on many occasions. Due to his harsh hiking, Ryoga has great physical strength. Ryoga is very emotional, often following his heart rather than his head. However he has shown capability of using strategy.

Ukyo has long black hair (brown in the anime) that she will usually either secure with a headband or bow, or hair tie if she is in school. She has a masculine face. She normally wears the attire of okonomiyaki chef, which consists of a short-sleeved blouse with the sleeves tied back and form-fitting black pants. This outfit is equipped with a bandolier holding several small throwing spatulas, while her larger combat spatula is worn across her back. Ukyo is a talented martial artist, with her art based on cooking okonomiyaki. She uses food-based techniques to stun, restrain or confuse opponents in somewhat archetypal 'ninja' reminiscent patterns (shuriken, confusing fog, blinding flash etc). he is fairly carefree and friendly to those around him. However, he also lacks experience in social situations.

Shampoo has red eyes and knee-length purple hair, and two strands hanging in front, secured with yellow ties. Shampoo dresses in a matching blouse and pants. Shampoo is an excellent armed or unarmed fighter, is very swift and acrobatic, and strong enough to casually walk right through reinforced stone walls on a regular basis. She uses a pair of chuí as her primary weapons. Shampoo is manipulative, devious, strategic scheming, play-acting and completely ruthless. She speaks in a broken Chinese accent.

Mousse is a handsome young man with long, black hair which is past waist length and light colored eyes. He wears a long, white robe with a diamond pattern on the chest with black cuffs and voluminous sleeves from which he produces his arsenal of hidden weapons. Underneath this he wears black or dark blue pants. Characterized by his extremely bad eyesight, Mousse has to wear Coke-bottle glasses that are so thick that his eyes cannot be seen when he puts them on. Mousse fights using hidden weapons, which includes roped hooks, rope darts, iron balls, handcuffs, hidden knives, and bombs. Despite his obsessive behavior, Mousse truly cares for Shampoo's well-being. He isn’t above using dirty tricks or traps to succeed.

Ranma's female form is diminished in pure strength and shorter (half a head shorter than Akane), but is much more agile. It also depicted as very attractive, which he takes great pride in and often uses to his advantage of to feed his ego. It has been revealed more than once that the female form has a larger bust size and smaller waist size than Akane.

In his P-chan form, Ryoga's clothes can be seen falling off when he got washed up by cold water in various occasions in every episode. He appears as a small black pig as his yellow and speckled bandanna on his head becomes his collar.

Shampoo's cat form is light colored with dark ears and paws, a characteristic fringe, and similar strands that frame its face. She often douses herself with cold water to enter this state to terrorize Ranma thanks to his fear of cats.

Mousse's vision appears to improve greatly while he is a duck, but this may be because when he is in his cursed form, he has to always wear his glasses, with which he can actually see well enough in both forms. Somehow, he manages to hide a majority of his weapons within his feathers, even in this state.