Rumiko Takahashi

Rumiko Takahashi (高橋留美子, Takahashi Rumiko, born October 10, 1957) is a Japanese author and manga artist.

She made popular manga books such as Ranma ½ and InuYasha. She is the richest woman in Japan and her manga is loved all over the world. She joined Gekiga Sonjuku college: a manga school run by Kazuo Koike, also a manga artist. With the school's help, she managed to make a "doujinshi" (self-published work mostly for beginners) manga artwork, for example, Bye-Bye Road and Star of Futile Dust.

Beginning of professional work (as a real job)

She first started with Those Selfish Aliens in 1978, followed by Time Warp Trouble, Shake Your Buddha, and The Golden Gods of Poverty, published in Shonen Sunday - this place was to become the publisher of her most important works. Later in this year, she tried to work on Urusei Yatsura (Lamu, the invader girl), her first full series of books. This had some publishing problems, but even so, it became the most loved manga comedy in Japan.

Major and important works

In 1980, she wrote a lot of books. The most important was Maison Ikkoku from 1980 to 1987. She finished both Urusei Yatsura (34 books) with Maison Ikkoku (15 books). After that she began a dark, story telling type of manga - the Mermaid Saga, finished at 1994, with the story Mermaid's mask. It is thought to be unfinished because it did not have a note to tell the reader it was ended. One-pound Gospel was her next book. It was nearly not finished because of the ending similar to Mermaid Saga, with the last story done in 2001.

At late 1987, she began another major manga called Ranma ½. It ended in 1996 with 38 books altogether. During 1990s, she began InuYasha. It was a magical story very similar to Mermaid Saga. Rumiko Takahashi had said that she would make it up to 500 chapters and 50 books. That would make it the longest she has ever made for now.

Anime based on her manga

In 1981, Urusei Yatsura was the first work to become an anime. This series began showing on October 14 at the Japanese television by a studio called Kitty Animation. This had many different directors during the making of this anime. The most well known director was Mamoru Oshii. He also directed the second Urusei Yatsura movie, Beautiful Dreamer. This is thought to be his best work for the anime. Kitty Animation also made the anime of Maison Ikkoku in 1986 (with 96 episodes and 4 Original Video Animation (OVA)s, which are animes made only on video but not on TV). It also made Ranma ½ in anime. Kitty Animation stopped because of problems, and Ranma ½ anime also stopped during episode 161.

Sunrise was the next studio to make animes out of Rumiko Takahashi's mangas. They made 167 episodes of InuYasha animes, started on 2000 and ending in 2004. As with Ranma ½, InuYasha did not finish. This was because the manga InuYasha was too long to continue in anime. The Mermaid Saga anime was made in 2003 for 13 series of the manga.

The later animes are from her short mangas: The Tragedy of P, The Merchant of Romance, Middle-Aged Teen, Hidden In The Pottery, Aberrant Family F, As Long As You Are Here, One Hundred Years of Love, In Lieu of Thanks, Living Room Lovesong, House of Garbage, One Day Dream, Extra-Large Size Happiness and The Executive's Dog.

Effect of her works in Western world (outside Japan)

Takahashi is still popular in Europe, mostly in France. Viz Media is the studio that translated most of the animes in English. At early 1990s, they began to translate Urusei Yatsura the anime. Because it was difficult to translate the Japanese way of life/culture and the confusing puns and wordplay, they stopped the series. Mermaid Saga, Maison Ikkoku and Inuyasha could go on even so. Ranma ½ was popular for English-speakers. It was shown all over the world. Viz also showed InuYasha anime on Adult Swim, where it was very popular. InuYasha is the very popular even now. Even with many of her works having Japanese cultures that is difficult to understand in them, the believable characters in them and their feelings are easy to understand all over the world.

Other websites

• Rumiko Takahashi Archived 2000-09-14 at the Wayback Machine, a fan-produced biography
• Rumiko No Sekai Archived 2021-12-23 at the Wayback Machine French website on Rumiko Takahashi manga
• Rumiko Takahashi entry at Anime.com Archived 2008-07-14 at the Wayback Machine
• Takahashi's Work Archived 2008-07-23 at the Wayback Machine