Source - Wiki

Rumiko Takahashi (高橋 留美子, Takahashi Rumiko, born October 10, 1957) is a Japanese manga artist. With a career of several commercially successful works, beginning
with Urusei Yatsura in 1978, Takahashi is one of Japan's best-known and wealthiest manga artists.[1][2] Her works are popular worldwide, where they have been translated into a
variety of languages, with over 200 million copies in circulation.[3] She has won the Shogakukan Manga Award twice, once in 1980 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 2001
for Inuyasha,[4] and the Seiun Award twice, once in 1987 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 1989 for Mermaid Saga.[5] She also received the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in
2019, becoming the second woman and second Japanese to win the prize.[6] In 2020, the Japanese government awarded Takahashi the Medal with Purple Ribbon for her
contributions to the arts.

Contents

 1Career

 2Animation

 3Legacy and impact in the West

 4Honors

 5Major works

 6References

 7External links

Career[edit]
Rumiko Takahashi was born in Niigata, Japan.[7] Although she showed little interest in manga during her childhood, she was said to occasionally doodle in the margins of her
papers while attending Niigata Chūō High School [ja]. Takahashi's interest in manga did not start until later.[8] In an interview in 2000, Takahashi said that she had always wanted
to become a professional comic author since she was a child.[9] During her university years, she enrolled in Gekiga Sonjuku, a manga school founded by Kazuo Koike, author
of Crying Freeman and Lone Wolf and Cub. Under his guidance Takahashi began to publish her first dōjinshi creations in 1975, such as Bye-Bye Road and Star of Futile Dust.
Koike often urged his students to create well-thought out, interesting characters, and this influence would greatly impact Rumiko Takahashi's works throughout her career.[8]

Takahashi's professional career began in 1978. Her first published work was the one-shot Katte na Yatsura (Those Selfish Aliens), which garnered her an honorable mention at
that year's Shogakukan New Comics Contest.[7] Later that same year, she began her first serialized story in Weekly Shōnen Sunday; Urusei Yatsura, a comedic science fiction
story. She had difficulty meeting deadlines to begin with, so chapters were published sporadically until 1980. During the run of the series, she shared a small apartment with two
assistants, and often slept in a closet due to a lack of space.[10] During the same year, she published Time Warp Trouble, Shake Your Buddha, and the Golden Gods of
Poverty in Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine, which would remain the home to most of her major works for the next twenty years.[citation needed]

During 1980, Takahashi started her second major series, Maison Ikkoku, in Big Comic Spirits magazine. Written for an older audience, Maison Ikkoku is a romantic comedy, and
Takahashi used her own experience living in an apartment complex to create the series. Takahashi managed to work on the series on and off simultaneously with Urusei
Yatsura. She concluded both series in 1987, with Urusei Yatsura ending at 34 volumes, and Maison Ikkoku at 15.[11][12]

During the 1980s, Takahashi became a prolific writer of short story manga. Her stories Laughing Target, Maris the Chojo, and Fire Tripper all were adapted into original video
animations (OVAs). In 1984, during the writing of Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku, Takahashi began a series published sporadically in Weekly Shōnen
Sunday called Mermaid Saga which ran for 10 years, until 1994. The series was partially released in two wide-ban volumes, with the complete story released as a set
of shinsoban in 2003.[13]

Another short work of Takahashi's to be published sporadically was One-Pound Gospel. Takahashi concluded the series in 2007 after publishing chapters in 1998, 2001 and
2006.[14]  One-Pound Gospel was adapted into a live-action TV drama.[15]

Later, in 1987, Takahashi began her third major series, Ranma ½. Following the late 1980s and early 1990s trend of shōnen martial arts manga, Ranma ½ features a gender-
bending twist. The series continued for nearly a decade until 1996, when it ended at 38 volumes. Ranma ½ and its anime adaption are cited as some of the first of their
mediums to have become popular in the United States.[16]

During the latter half of the 1990s, Rumiko Takahashi continued with short stories and her installments of Mermaid Saga and One-Pound Gospel until beginning her fourth major
work, Inuyasha. Unlike the majority of her works, Inuyasha has a darker tone more akin to Mermaid Saga and, having been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1996 to
2008, is her longest to date. On March 5, 2009, Rumiko Takahashi released her one-shot Unmei No Tori. On March 16, 2009, she collaborated with Mitsuru Adachi, creator
of Touch and Cross Game, to release a one-shot called My Sweet Sunday. Her next manga series, Kyōkai no Rinne started on April 22, 2009. This was Rumiko Takahashi's
first new manga series since her previous manga series Inuyasha ended in June 2008. She concluded it on December 13th 2017, with a total of 398 chapters, collected in 40
volumes.

Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma ½,Inuyasha, and RIN-NE are all published in English in the United States by Viz Comics. Their 1989 release of Urusei Yatsura halted
after only a few volumes were translated, but began to be reprinted in 2019 in a 2-in-1 omnibus format.[17]

Rumiko Takahashi started a new manga series entitled Mao in Weekly Shōnen Sunday issue #23 released on May 8, 2019.[18]

Animation[edit]
This section of a biography of a living person does
not include any references or sources. Please help by
adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living
people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed
immediately.
Find sources: "Rumiko
Takahashi" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May
2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

In 1981, Urusei Yatsura became the first of Takahashi's works to be animated. This series first aired on Japanese television on October 14, and went through multiple director
changes during its run. Though the 195-episode TV series ended in March 1986, Urusei Yatsura was kept alive in anime form through OVA and movie releases through 1991.
Most notable of the series directors was Mamoru Oshii, who made Beautiful Dreamer, the second Urusei Yatsura movie. AnimEigo has released the entire TV series and all of
the OVAs and movies except for Beautiful Dreamer (which was released by Central Park Media in the U.S.) in the United States in English-subtitled format, with English dubs
also made for the first two TV episodes (as Those Obnoxious Aliens) and for all of the movies.

Kitty Films, the studio that produced Urusei Yatsura with animation assistance from Studio Pierrot and then Studio Deen, continued their cooperation and adapted Rumiko
Takahashi's second work, Maison Ikkoku in 1986; it debuted the week after the final TV episode of UY. The TV series ran for 96 episodes, 3 OVAs, a movie and also a live-
action movie. Studio Deen also provided animation duties on Maison Ikkoku and Ranma.

Maris the Chojo, Fire Tripper, and Laughing Target were all made into OVAs during the mid-80s. Her stories Mermaid's Forest and Mermaid's Scar were also made as OVAs in
Japan on 1991. They were all released, subtitled in English, in the U.S.

In 1989, Kitty Animation produced its last major series, Ranma ½. The series went through ups and downs in ratings until Kitty Animation finally went out of business. Ranma
½ was never concluded in animated form despite being 161 episodes and two movies in length. The TV series ended in 1992 amid internal turmoil within Kitty; Kitty and Studio
Deen continued to produce Ranma OVAs until 1996.

Sunrise was the first studio after Kitty Animation to adapt a major Rumiko Takahashi series. Inuyasha debuted in 2000 and ended in 2004. The TV series went on for 167
episodes and spawned four major films. The first anime ended before the manga did, thus wrapping up inconclusively. However, a second Inuyasha anime series
called Inuyasha the Final Act debuted in Japan in the fall of 2009 and ended in March 2010, finishing the series.

Viz Communications has released the anime of Maison Ikkoku, Ranma and Inuyasha in English, in both subtitled and dubbed formats.

The year 2008 marked the 50th anniversary of Weekly Shōnen Sunday and the 30th anniversary of the first publication of Urusei Yatsura, and Rumiko Takahashi's manga work
was honoured in It's a Rumic World, a special exhibition held from July 30 to August 11 at the Matsuya Ginza department store in Tokyo. Several new pieces of animation
accompanied the exhibit, including new half-hour Ranma ½ and Inuyasha (Black Tetsusaiga) OVAs and an introductory sequence featuring characters from Urusei
Yatsura, Ranma and Inuyasha (starring the characters' original anime voice talents), which has become a popular video on YouTube. The It's a Rumic World exhibit was
scheduled to re-open in Sendai in December 2008, at which time a new half-hour Urusei Yatsura OVA was scheduled to premiere. A special DVD release containing all three
new OVAs was announced as coming out on January 29, 2010, with a trailer posted in September 2009. However, it is not known whether any of the new episodes will ever be
released outside Japan.