Rumiko Takahashi is the best-selling female comic artist of all time, and one of the names by which to reckon the evolution of anime. One of the wealthiest women in Japan, all of her longer running
manga have become TV series, and nearly everything she has written has been made into an anime (
OVA or TV). Perhaps more importantly, her influence and the nature of her series since 1980 have been cited as large contributors to the perception and acceptance of anime as a medium today. The anime adaptations for her longer series have an unfortunate tendency to end well before their manga does: the
InuYasha manga ran for nearly two more years after the end of the
English dub of the anime;
Ranma ½ barely got two-thirds of the way through its story and was heavily laden with
filler, to boot; and
Urusei Yatsura likewise ended early, although it did get an OVA adaptation of its proper conclusion.
Maison Ikkoku is her only major series whose animated adaptation spans the whole story. Inu-Yasha got picked up again after the Manga Series finished as a second series, titled
Inuyasha: The Final Act, that continues the series from where the previous anime left off and tells the remainder of the story through to its conclusion.
She is noted for
a distinctive stylized rounded style, sometimes
to an excessive degree,
intricate relationships among the characters, so much
Belligerent Sexual Tension she has
her own page, and an ability with puns and allusions on both visual and verbal levels. One example would be a character from
Ranma ½ whose name, depending on whether the reading is Chinese, Japanese, or English (not to mention
which kanji you're using), means "hair care product", "unpolished gem", "mountain girl", "she whose breasts are as mountains"... all of which describe the character in some way.
In stark contrast to her better-known comedic works, Takahashi has also written a number of shorter dramatic manga, many of which are grouped together under the collective name "Rumic World". She has also ventured into the macabre and outright horror with her
Mermaid Saga.
She started a new manga series,
Kyokai no Rinne, in Shonen Sunday, which has carried all her major works to date, on April 22, 2009. It is also being
released in Japanese and English simultaneously
(as simply
RIN-NE).
TV anime series adapted from manga by Takahashi include:
OAVs adapted from manga by Takahashi include:
Live action TV series adapted from manga by Takahashi include:
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