As far as I'm concerned, it's really black.  I'll admit that my exposure to
Ranma 1/2 is limited compared to many other people here (I'll be glad to
list exactly what I have seen, but I doubt anyone cares), but from what I've
seen I believe it to be black.  My reasons are as follows:

1. I've never heard of anyone refering to Onna-Ranma's hair as red in either
the anime or the manga

2. The RAA* FAQ says that the weird hair colors in most anime is for the
viewer's benifit and is really brown or black (I don't doubt there are quite
a few exceptions to this, though)

3. In episode 3 (subtitled version), when Onna-Ranma jumps out of the pool
and runs off, one of the students watching says something like "Hey, doesn't
it look like Saotome's body just got smaller?", and another replies with
"Nah, couldn't be." (this is from memory, so thay's probably not exact, but
it was something like that).  If Onna-Ranma's hair were red, they probably
would have said something more a long the lines of "Hey, how did Saotome's
hair suddenly turn red?"

For fanfics, though, I figure it can be whatever color works best for the
plot.  

Now can we please drop this thread?  (I somehow doubt it, but it's worth a
try...)
--
Karsten Sethre           ksethre@io.com         http://www.io.com/~ksethre/
(}-----------<Anime>----------<Dilbert>----------<Programming>-----------{)