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 Takahashi Rumiko (Self-portrait) (From Rumic World) |
Takahashi's works range from slapstick comedy and heartbreaking romance to science fiction and supernatural horror (sometimes all at the same time). Her stories often include numerous Japanese historical and literary references (not to mention puns and other wordplay), making them exceptionally interesting to serious manga enthusiasts.
If her stories are taken in chronological order (of creation), Takahashi's skills as an artist and storyteller can be seen to evolve as her characters and stories gain increasing depth. The most appealing part of Takahashi's skill is her ability to bring her characters to life; the reader feels that he actually knows them and can sympathize (and empathize) with them.
Urusei Yatsura is Takahashi Rumiko's first major manga series (1979-1986); it has been compiled into fifteen widebon, and was turned into anime as a 197-episode TV series (1981-1986), eleven
OAV stories, and six movies.
Urusei Yatsura is a complex story about a beautiful space-alien girl (Lum) who marries a high
school student (Ataru). They seem like a perfect match, except that Ataru does not acknowledge the
"marriage", and refuses to confine himself to only one woman; he is an incurable (and unsuccessful)
lecher, who prefers instead to chase every attractive female he sees (except for Lum, the only girl
who actually loves him). Lum, on the other hand, is pursued by a variety of suitors, but is, alas,
hopelessly in love with Ataru. She is extremely jealous, and dispenses electric shocks as punishment
for his attempts at infidelity. On top of all that, the unlucky Ataru is invariably rejected by any
woman he pursues. And of course, there is a huge supporting cast of family, schoolmates, and aliens
to round off the stories.
This is a slapstick comedy, full of chases, space aliens and alien technology, with Japanese cultural and historical references scattered liberally throughout, and the relationships between the characters evolve throughout the series. As the story develops, one gradually begins to realize that Ataru does indeed love Lum, but for complex emotional reasons will not (or cannot) acknowledge that fact.
An English translation of the Urusei Yatsura manga was for a time being released by Viz in graphic novel format as Lum*Urusei Yatsura: Perfect Collection, and The Return of Lum*Urusei Yatsura, but was abandoned after only nine volumes. The original Japanese manga are available in most larger Japanese bookstores in the US.
| Availability: |
| VHS: ep. 1-100 |
| DVD: In progress |
AnimEigo is in the process of releasing the anime Urusei Yatsura TV series, the OAVs and five movies (nos. 1 and 3-6) on subtitled DVDs in beautifully remastered transfers. U.S. Manga has also released the Urusei Yatsura movie Beautiful Dreamer (the second of the six) on a dual language DVD. AnimEigo also has extensive liner notes for the series available on its Web site.
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 THE MUSICUrusei Yatsura was one of the first anime to include a wildly successful series of opening and closing themes, BGM, and other recordings, from voice dramas to arrangements for music box. Below are a few of the best song collections as well as a collection of background themes from the television series.
| Urusei Yatsura: Juke Box (Kitty H33K-20005) |
| Urusei Yatsura: Juke Box 2 (Kitty H33K-20063) | |
| Urusei Yatsura Super Best (Pony Canyon PCCG-490) | |
| Urusei Yatsura Music File: TV BGM (Kitty H55K20010/11) |
Maison Ikkoku was Takahashi Rumiko's next major manga series (1982-1987); it has been compiled into fifteen tankoubon, and was turned into anime as a 96-episode TV series (1986-1988), one OAV, and one movie.
Maison Ikkoku is a charming and deceptively simple story about the lives (and loves) of the denizens of a run-down boarding house called Maison Ikkoku. There is the flunk-out student Godai, desperately trying to study to pass his college entrance exams, and who has fallen in love with the beautiful (and older) new boarding house manager Kyoko, who is hiding from her painful past. Then there are the noisy (and nosy) residents who continually interfer in their lives, and of course family and other suitors (for both Kyoko and Godai) who enter the story to further complicate matters.
This romantic comedy is variously funny, touching, and sad. At times, the
meddling residents are the most honest folk in the story, as Godai and Kyoko continually tiptoe around
their feelings. While continuing to dwell on her past, Kyoko is afraid of reliving it. Godai, on
the other hand, is continually striving to make something of himself so that he can be worthy of
Kyoko's love, but is continually battling his own feelings of inadequacy.
| Availability: |
| VHS: Partial |
| DVD: No |
The anime Maison Ikkoku TV series was being released by Viz on VHS in English-dubbed or subtitled format (two half-hour episodes per tape). However, in 1999 they announced the discontinuation of the English-dubbed format after the 18th tape (36th episode), and the schedule for the release of the subtitled VHS became unclear (60 episodes, on 30 tapes, have been released to date). In 2001 they announced their intention to release the series on DVD, but no details have been provided yet. The complete Maison Ikkoku TV series and the movie have been released in Japan on Region 2 DVDs.
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| THE MUSIC There is a huge assortment of Maison Ikkoku CDs out there, of which the majority are voice drama albums. For the music your best bet are the two song collections and two BGM collections at right.
| Maison Ikkoku Best Selection (Kitty KTCR-1304) |
| Maison Ikkoku Super Best ([Kitty?] PCCG-492) | |
| Maison Ikkoku: Music Sour (TV BGM vol. 1) (Kitty H30K 20135) | |
| Maison Ikkoku: Music Shake (TV BGM vol. 2) (Kitty H00K 20162) |
Ranma 1/2 was Takahashi Rumiko's third major manga series (1988-1996); it has been compiled into thirty-eight tankoubon, and was turned into anime as a 161-episode TV series (1989-1992), eleven OAVs, and two movies.
This incredibly long-running
manga is based on a simple premise: Ranma, a not very bright
high school teenage martial arts
enthusiast, and his father, Genma, each fall into an accursed spring in China during a training
exercise. The result? When either is splashed with cold water, they turn into whatever drowned
in the spring last. In Genma's case, that something was a giant panda. Ranma, on the other hand, is
"condemned" to turn into a stunning red-haired girl (Ranma girl-type). Fortunately hot water restores
them to their original
forms, and characters are frequently seen chasing one another with buckets of water and/or
boiling teakettles. The results have to be seen to be believed.
As if that's not enough, it eventually appears that half the population of Furinkan (a
mythical suburb of Tokyo) has at one time or another managed to find its way into
the same springs. Ducks, cats, pigs, etc. are as likely as not to turn human on being appropriately
doused (or vice versa). The term "shape shifting" acquires a whole new dimension here.
What has kept the series alive for so long, however, is not so much the slapstick as the unspoken affection between Ranma and his unwilling fiance Akane. To Akane, the phrase "three little words" usually means "Ranma, you jerk!". Ranma, in turn, is not unwilling to taunt Akane with the fact that he's better built than she is (at least in his Ranma girl-type form).
The Ranma 1/2 manga is being released in English by Viz
in graphic novel format, and is up to twenty-one volumes so far; the stories in their vol. 21 are found in
vol. 23 of the Japanese manga compilation. The original Japanese manga are available in most larger Japanese
bookstores in the US.
Ranma 1/2 Television Series
Japanese anime series come and go with startling speed; it is rare for a series to go on to a
second season. Ranma 1/2, however, survived for a startling 161 episodes, surpassed only
by Urusei Yatsura's anime incarnation. The reasons are easy to see: outstanding
character designs, scripts which stick closely to the manga and as a result retain much of
the lunatic flavor of the original, superb seiyuu (voice actors),
and music which ranges from the circusy to the contemplative to the outright manic.
The Japanese release came in two collections: the first consisted of 18 episodes, and the remainder as a continuous series under the name Nettouhen (Chapter of Hard Battle). The American releases, by Viz Video, break these into arbitrary "seasons" (a total of seven). The first three of these "seasons" are among the best comedic anime ever made, and should not be missed. Even the English dubbed versions are considerably above the usual American dub standards, with some memorable voice acting.
Some bad news, however: after these three superb "seasons," the fourth came as a serious disappointment. Not only did the animation quality suffer a severe decline (in some cases the characters didn't even look like they were following the original character designs), but a change in the English voice actor doing Ranma boy-type was distinctly for the worse. Some of the plotting is rather thin as well, reflecting the stretching of some relatively slight manga chapters into entire half-hour episodes without enough real substance to sustain them. There are still some good to excellent episodes scattered throughout, but as a whole this season could go a long way towards explaining why the series was dropped without warning long before all of the stories in Takahashi's manga had been animated. (A few were done later as OAVs).
| Availability: |
| VHS: Yes |
| DVD: In progress |
the first season episodes in order, as they pretty much form one uninterrupted story and introduce most
of the characters that appear from then on. The US VHS releases (by Viz Video)
of the Ranma 1/2 TV episodes label them clearly, with the first "season" called "TV Series," the
second "Anything-Goes Martial Arts," the third "Hard Battle," the fourth "Outta Control," the fifth
"Martial Mayhem," and the sixth "Random Rhapsody." (The US releases are currently in the seventh season,
"Ranma Forever.") The manufacturer's numbers on the spine are a reliable guide to keeping the volumes in order.
You will frequently find that some stories are spread over two or more volumes, so if you're not going to
just buy the the first three seasons outright (You fool! What's the matter with you!?) you might
want to read the episode descriptions on the boxes. (Be aware that the sixth season's episodes are being
rearranged by Viz, so there is no guarantee you will be watching them in the order intended by their creators.)
The anime Ranma 1/2 TV series is being released by Viz on VHS in English-dubbed or subtitled format (two or three half-hour episodes per tape), and on hybrid DVD (three half-hour episodes per DVD) beginning with the sixth season; they have released most of the series this way. A DVD release of the earlier Ranma 1/2 TV episodes, by season, is also in progress.
By the way, don't miss the priceless "You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When..." Web site.
 (First three
seasons); (Fourth season) |
| Availability: |
| VHS: Yes |
| DVD: Yes |
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| Availability: |
| VHS: Yes |
| DVD: Yes |
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| THE MUSIC There's certainly no shortage of Ranma 1/2 music; in fact, the problem is sorting out what's actually from the anime and what's totally unrelated. A good starting collection includes the opening and closing themes from the TV series and the two movie soundtracks. For even more lunacy, get the actual soundtrack collections from the first two television series, complete with the galops, Ryoga's "tragic" themes, and lots more. The Do-Co albums you'll see around are made by the seiyuu for the series, and are quite good in themselves, usually including original songs and some of the opening and closing OAV themes as well. | [Ranma 1/2: TV series opening themes] (Pony Canyon PCCG-00190) |
| [Ranma 1/2: TV series closing themes] (Pony Canyon PCCG-00191) | |
| Ranma 1/2: Original TV Soundtrack vol. 1 (Viz Music CD-RA01) | |
| Ranma 1/2: Original TV Soundtrack vol. 2 (Viz Music CD-RA02) | |
| Big Trouble in Nekonron, China (Original soundtrack) (Viz Music CD-RA03) | |
| Nihao, My Concubine (Original soundtrack) (Viz Music CD-RA04) |
Inu-Yasha is Takahashi Rumiko's current manga series (1997- );
it has been compiled into twenty-eight (so far) tankoubon, and
has been turned into anime as a TV series (premiered October 16, 2000, and still running), and two movies.
Inu-Yasha is a story of a junior-high school girl (Kagome) from present-day Japan who gets pulled into an old well at her family's shrine by a hideous centipede-woman (the first of a truly horrific collection of fearsome monsters to come) and is transported into Japan's past, into the Sengoku-Jidai "Warring States" period (1534-1615). There she learns that she may be a reincarnation of a priestess (Kikyo) who saved the village from a demon (Inu-Yasha) by pinning him to a tree with her arrow. That was fifty years ago, and when Kagome frees Inu-Yasha to help fight off another demon, he is less than pleased to see the reincarnation of the priestess who had killed him. Circumstances force them to become unwilling allies in a quest to recover the shards of the powerful Shikon Jewel, which unfortunately seem to attract a continual stream of demons, monsters, thieves, etc.
| Availability: |
| VHS: No |
| DVD: In progress |
We also learn that there is far more to Inu-Yasha himself than originally meets the eye (the name Inu-Yasha is essentially a complex pun in itself, more or less loosely translatable as "demon dog-boy"), and that as is so often the case in both anime and manga, first impressions can be deceptive.
The Inu-Yasha manga is being released translated into English by Viz in graphic novel format in twelve volumes (so far); the stories in their vol. 12 are found in vol. 12 of the Japanese manga compilation. The original Japanese manga are available in the larger Japanese bookstores in the US.
The anime Inu-Yasha TV series is being released by Viz on hybrid DVD (three half-hour episodes per DVD); the TV series has aired over 90 episodes in Japan so far, and is expected to reach 120. No news yet on who has the rights to the two movies.
Takahashi Rumiko's Mermaid series (1988-1993) consists of nine short stories. The series is a combination of gothic/supernatural horror and love stories, about those who eat the flesh of the mermaid, and the consequences of their actions. While others around them are seeking immortality, Mana and Yuta are trying to become human again.
| Availability: |
| VHS: See text |
| DVD: No |
There have been two OAVs (Mermaid Forest, and Mermaid Scar) released by U.S. Manga and Viz, respectively, on VHS.
Takahashi Rumiko's One-Pound Gospel series (1989-1996) contains several short stories. The
| Availability: |
| VHS: See text |
| DVD: No |
The series has been translated into English by Viz in graphic novel format in three volumes; the original Japanese manga are available in the larger Japanese bookstores in the US. There has been one OAV, released by Viz on VHS.
Other Takahashi stories have been translated into English and compiled into graphic novels by Viz; these graphic novels are titled Rumic World Trilogy (3 volumes) and Rumic Theater (2 volumes). They contain three better-known short stories: Fire Tripper (time travel);
| Availability: |
| VHS: See text |
| DVD: No |
Looking at Takahashi's earlier stories, you can see rough drafts of many of the characters which would become so well-known in her later works; early versions of Ataru, Sakura, Yotsuya, Godai, Kyoko and others abound. It is definitely worth the time to read these lesser-known works.
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visitors since January 22, 2004.