All About Rumiko Takahashi

Written by: Kanta Ishida

The time-traveling, supernatural adventures of middle school student Kagome Higurashi recently came to an end. In the manga series Inuyasha, Kagome slips back in time to the Warring States period of the late 15th to late 16th centuries. There, she teams up with allies including the series' title character, a hanyo (a being who is half human and half yokai), to confront an evil enemy called Naraku.

In its original manga form and in its TV series anime adaptation, Inuyasha has won popularity both in Japan and abroad. But after a 12-year run, the manga saw its final chapter published in mid-June in the shonen manga weekly magazine Shonen Sunday, which had carried the series since the beginning.

Shortly before this milestone was reached, I visited Inuyasha's creator, Rumiko Takahashi, at her studio in Nerima Ward, Tokyo.

Takahashi, also renowned for the hit manga series Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku, marks the 30th anniversary of her debut as a mangaka this year. Her work has had a profound influence not only on the world of manga but also animation and other parts of the culture from the 1980s onward.

For instance, Inuyasha is basically a piquant swashbuckler, but Takahashi broke new ground with it by clearly depicting serious love-hate dramas and the darker aspects of humanity.

"It took me some time to make readers realize I wasn't making a comedy manga this time," Takahashi said. "I always wanted to create a manga with a fateful story or with emotional scenes."

"My story, in a way, automatically develops according to the characteristics of the characters." Takahashi said she also wanted readers to focus on male characters in Inuyasha as it had always been her female characters who drew a lot of attention. "So I have never got bored with depicting Inuyasha and his elder half-brother Sesshomaru."

But perhaps the most striking character is Naraku, an invulnerable monster who repeatedly transforms himself in grotesque ways. It is a truly insidious manifestation of evil, which is rather unusual for a character found in Takahashi's work.

"Things like 'world conquest' do not mean very much to me," Takahashi said. "Isn't a desire to tenaciously pick on a romantic rival easier to understand?"

"It is the character of Naraku that he prefers destruction to control and wants everybody dead. Although, he might have just wanted to be loved by someone at heart," she said.

When asked whether she finds that people like Naraku are becoming more numerous in the real world, she said she dissociates her manga from reality.

"Since reality is much more harsh, I just think I can't forgive the culprits of brutal cases since people in a weaker position always become the victims," she said.

When it came to the fate of the series' heroine, even with a publication deadline already on the calendar, Takahashi told me: "I still don't know what I should do with Kagome in the end." ^[1]

Takahashi said she does not decide things in detail when she creates manga for weeklies since some improvisation is necessary for such publications. "My story, in a way, automatically develops according to the characteristics of the characters."

For a reporter who is of the same generation as her, Takahashi's debut with Urusei Yatsura while she was still a university student was shocking. I was fascinated with the manga's surrealistic, knockabout, strong science-fiction flavor and rapid-fire comic dialogue. Moreover, I got a major kick out of heroine Lum, a fantastically sexy bikini-clad princess with petite demon's horns from outer space.

"I didn't think the depiction was too racy. I just made it. I sketched about 10 kinds of hairstyles and costumes, and finally decided on what I thought best," Takahashi said.

Since she is a great fan of science-fiction novels by Yasutaka Tsutsui and Kazumasa Hirai, Takahashi had always thought of making manga like their world. ^[2]

"I first regarded Lum as a guest character. I didn't think she would be so popular," she said. ^[3]

Ataru Moroboshi, the protagonist, was originally slated to marry his classmate, Shinobu Miyake, but Lum became popular enough to wrest Shinobu's position from her, which made the closing episodes of Urusei Yatsura confusing.

After graduating from university, Takahashi started to serialize Maison Ikkoku, while continuing to work on Urusei Yatsura, in the newly launched manga magazine Big Comic Spirits, creating a renowned manga pattern of "love between a female manager and a male lodger".

Takahashi's works stood out for their reversal of power relationships between men and women. Her heroines are strong and tough, and men are masochistically at their beck and call. After Maison Ikkoku, manga with similar 'Ikkoku-kei' patterns began to find favour among otaku readers.

The 1980s were also an era of romantic comedy in manga, typified by such major hits as Kimio Yanagisawa's Tonda Kappuru (翔んだカップル), Mitsuru Adachi's Miyuki (みゆき) and Touch (タッチ), and Hidenori Hara's Sayonara Sankaku (さよなら三角). But Takahashi's works might have helped young male readers discover their inner 'girl's mind'.

"I just felt everything became possible in manga, and people began to read manga openly and fairly, compared to the time when I made my debut," she said.

Nowadays, female mangaka working for boys' manga magazines are not uncommon. But Takahashi's contribution to them is beyond comparison. The serialisations of Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2 lasted for nine years each, while that of Inuyasha continued for 12 years.

Even manga giant Osamu Tezuka, best known for his Astro Boy, did not accomplish the feat of working at the manga forefront for as long as 30 years.

Takahashi, the daughter of a gynecologist in Niigata Prefecture, has read Shonen Sunday ever since she was small, thanks to her elder brother's influence. ^[4]

She was fascinated with Osomatsu-kun (おそ松くん) by Fujio Akatsuka, Obake no Q-taro (オバケのQ太郎) by mangaka duo Fujiko Fujio and Tezuka's Vampire (バンパイヤ). "The main character was a werewolf, it was a perfect strike!"

Takahashi only once produced a short manga for a girls' manga magazine. It was The Diet Goddess, which she contributed to Petit Comic in 1991.

"I didn't know how to draw girls' manga, so I asked my assistant how to do it," she recalled. She said then she realised how difficult it is to do.

She also has been contributing a series of works to Big Comic Original with middle-aged salarymen as protagonists. The works are full of pathos, including The Tragedy of P and The Executive's Dog, and are receiving high critical marks.

But her primary arena is boys manga magazines. "I want to stick to manga for primary, middle school and high school students as long as there are readers."

"I began to receive a lot of fan letters from girl readers around when I began to draw Ranma. They sent me a lot when I began drawing Inuyasha, too. I want boys to read more in my next work," she said.

Her studio is filled with ambiguous or mysterious items, including a doll of Urusei Yatsura character Kotatsuneko, made by one of her fans; a potbellied figure of priest Sakurambo (Cherry), another Urusei Yatsura character; and a nobori vertical flag displaying the word "yakisoba" (grilled noodles).

It was like an ennichi fair--a collection of food stands and carnival game booths--from a different world, something that Takahashi fans cannot resist. Like the everyday tumult at the Ikkoku-kan lodging house in Maison Ikkoku, the world of Takahashi is basically upbeat and filled with childlike innocence and wonder, making you want to go back there repeatedly.

"It's up to readers whether they laugh or cry with my manga. What I want them to do most is to relax and enjoy it," Takahashi said.

We asked Takahashi-sensei to list 10 "recent favorites" things regardless of genre. You may see a strange side of her...

1. Hanshin Tigers - Takahashi's quickness is already famous, but since they lost to the Giants in the final game of the pennant in 1973 and missed the championship, she went into a "sleeper state" for a while due to shock over the loss. ^[5] However, after she moved to Tokyo, she started reading the Yomiuri Shimbun, which she still subscribes to. "The articles are easy to read, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of changing it." And how does she like the mega kanji characters? "It has helped me a lot, and my mother in the country really loves it."
2. Hige Danshaku - Comedy connoisseur Takahashi-san has recently been paying attention to this comic duo. Dressed as an aristocrat and his servant, they are popular for their gag of raising a glass of wine and saying "Renaissance". The fact that the tsukommi makes a toast is pretty new," she says. ^[6]
3. Miyuki Torii - She　is also in the world of comedy, and she says, “I’m really curious about her at the moment.” ^[7]
4. Glass Frog - Cute little frogs occupying a corner of Takahashi's bathroom. "I started collecting them little by little, and then somehow I couldn't stop. I got some from my assistant. I don't particularly like frogs, but... Maybe I like small pieces."
5. Solitary Gourmet - by Masayuki Kusumi and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. A unique gourmet manga serialized in Monthly PANjA, Fusosha published a new edition including a new drawing this April. "It's just a story about eating rice, but it's incredibly well drawn, it's very healing." As for manga by other authors, "I also like Kyosuke Usuta's Pyu to Fuki! Jaguar (ピューと吹く! ジャガー) and Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&! (よつばと!). ^[8]
6. Shuttle Chef - a vacuum thermal insulation cooker. It continues to simmer the ingredients in the remaining heat even after taking it off the heat. "When I have free time, I cook a lot myself. I got it from my sister-in-law, and I use it to make ratatouille and boiled pork."
7. Shikwasa (Citrus Depressa) - "I buy it at the supermarket in my neighborhood, but it is useful when making ponzu etc."
8. Miyakojima Salt - It is said that she has traveled to Miyakojima in Okinawa for the past few years in autumn. "Then I'll buy salt and seasonings while I'm there." ^[9]
9. Shabake - Megumi Hatakenaka's fantasy period novel. Published by Shinchosha. “I like Hatanaka-san because she is easy to read. My favorite writer is Mr. Natsuhiko Kyogoku.”
10. Farewell, My Love (さらば、わが愛) / Ha Ha Baekjeong (覇王別姫) - the original is a Hong Kong film depicting the love and hate relationship between Peking Opera actors. A Japanese version of the play was staged in March and April this year. “The stage performances I have seen recently are excellent."

From July 30th to August 11th, Matsuya Ginza 8th floor large event hall.

Approximately 150 original drawings of Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, etc., including original drawings, and original illustrations of Lum-chan by 34 popular artists will be unveiled for the first time. In addition, there is a reproduction of the Maison Ikkoku manager's room, and an exhibition of a model of the Ikkoku-kan. Admission is 1,000 yen for adults, 700 yen for high school and college students, and free for junior high school students and younger. Inquiries: Matsuya Ginza (03-3567-1211).

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Footnotes

• [1] Rumiko Takahashi has often said she does not begin a series with an idea of how she will end it, as she says that that would cause her to steer the story towards a predetermined ending. Her editor from this portion of her career, Shunsuke Moteki (茂木俊輔), discussed how Takahashi was still writing the manga week-to-week right up until the end, feeling out the story as she went. In this article Takahashi states she is unsure of what will happen with Kagome. In an interview in 2020 she said that as she was struggling with this question she asked Satsuki Yukino, Kagome's voice actress for her opinion. Yukino responded immediately that she thought Kagome would wish to stay with Inuyasha.
• [2] Yasutaka Tsutsui (筒井康隆) is a novelist perhaps best known to western audiences as the writer of Paprika which was turned into a film by Satoshi Kon. The Girl Who Lept Through Time (時をかける少女) is another well-known novel by Tsutsui. Kazumasa Hirai (平井和正) was a science fiction novelist best known for 8 Man (8マン), Genma Wars (幻魔大戦) and Wolf Guy (ウルフガイ). Takahashi illustrated a number of his Wolf Guy novels in the early 1980s. He published two interview books of discussions he had with Takahashi entitled The Time We Spoke Endlessly About the Things We Loved (語り尽せ熱愛時代/Kataretsuse netsuai jidai) and The Gentle World of Rumiko Takahashi (高橋留美子の優しい世界/Takahashi Rumiko no Yasashii Sekai) which is his analysis of Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer.
• [3] Takahashi has commented a few times about Lum originally only being planned as a guest character for a single chapter, which is the reason she does not appear in chapter 2 of Urusei Yatsura.
• [4] For more regarding her brother's influence on her reading habits you can read her interview here.
• [5] You can read more about Takahashi's longterm Hanshin Tigers fandom here as well as the two manga that she has published relating to the Tigers, Tiger and This Year a Championship!.
• [6] Hige Danshaku (髭男爵) is a comedy duo comprised of Louis Yamada the 53rd and Higuchi-kun. The two hosted the celebration of Takahashi's 30th anniversary. The tsukommi (ツッコミ) is akin to the "straight man" in a comedy duo.
• [7] Miyuki Torii (鳥居みゆき) was a fairly new comedian at the time this article originally was published.
• [8] Solitary Gourmet (孤独のグルメ) was published between 1994 through 1996 and then again in 2008. The solitary aspect was said to be important to separate it from other gourmet manga such as Oishinbo (美味しんぼ) and Cooking Papa (クッキングパパ). A live action drama was made from the manga as well. Takahashi is a fan of artist Jiro Taniguchi having written the foreward for Jiro Taniguchi Original Picture Collection People Who Can Be Drawn in Line (谷口ジロー原画集 描線に込めるひと).
• [9] Rumiko Takahashi took annual trips to Miyakojima with the cast and staff of the Inuyasha anime as she mentions in this 2013 interview. Her editor, Kento Moriwaki, also discusses these trips in his interview.

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