On Sat, 20 Dec 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:

When reading TIL, we're supposed
to shove aside any thoughts about what hitting one's partner means in
real life, because this is Ranma 1/2 and it just isn't all that big a
deal in Ranma 1/2.

TIL toned down the slapstick violence quite a bit and gave it serious
consequences.

While violence in TIL is treated seriously, the series is still part of the
story's past, and TIL assumes that the violence in the series wasn't serious.
(In fact, the entire nature of violence in the characters' world has changed
under their noses, and they notice that violence is bad _now_, but they never
notice that anything changed.)  If it assumed that the violence in the series
was serious, then Akane would have already been mentally ill at the start of
TIL even if she didn't swing another hammer in the story itself.