The Queen of Shonen Sunday is Still Alive and Well! Rumiko Takahashi's MAO (Entry 106)
Translation by: Harley Acres
Keisuke Itagaki, who I talked about in my last article, has been serializing the Baki (刃牙) series in Weekly Shonen Champion (Akita Shoten) for 28 years since 1991, but there is a manga artist who's got that beat in Weekly Shonen Sunday (Shogakukan). [1] That would be Rumiko Takahashi the well-known "Queen of Shonen Sunday."
Her first serial, Urusei Yatsura, began in 1978 when she was still in university. After that, all of the works serialized in Sunday, including Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, and Kyokai no RINNE, were made into anime, and the total number of books published exceeded 200 million in 2017. Even in the 60-year history of weekly shonen magazines, Rumiko Takahashi is probably the only manga artist who has continued to publish serials for over 40 years. This year, her fifth serialization, MAO began in Sunday, and the first volume was released this September!
Nanoka Kiba was the only survivor of an accident that took the life of her parents when she was seven years old. When she became a third year junior high school student, she stepped into the shuttered shopping street at the scene of her childhood accident. In doing so Nanoka travels back in time to 1923, where she meets Mao, a boy who is an onmyoji. He was originally an onmyoji from the Heian period, but due to a curse from a monster named Byoki, he has continued to live in the form of a teenage boy for 900 years. For some reason, Mao decides that Nanoka is an "Ayakashi". Since then, Nanoka, who previously had a frail constitution, now often shows off her inhuman physical abilities.
The first volume's obi says, "a serious and bizarre romance that continues in the tradition of Inuyasha." Inuyasha is Rumiko Takahashi's longest-running work, serialized for 12 years starting in 1996. [2] There are certainly many key concepts that overlap, such as "a boy with superhuman powers," "a third-year junior high school heroine," "extermination of demons," and "time travel." When it comes to "eternal youth," there are parts that remind me of Yuta and Mana from the Mermaid series. By the way, the name "Mao" means "cat" in Chinese. Byoki is literally a cat monster, and "cats" are an important motif in this work, as when Nanoka exhibits her supernatural powers, her pupils narrow to those resembling a cat's. Will cats be next after the dogs of Inuyasha?
Mao isn't as cheerful as Inuyasha, he's just a cool, composed character. This suits the shadowy Taisho era well, and there's almost no comedy in the series. What does the "memory of the fire" mean from when young Nanoka was involved in her accident? Why did Mao think she was a monster? Why are people in shuttered shopping street transparent? The first volume is filled with many mysteries, and you won't be able to stop reading.
Furthermore, the year 1923, the year Nanoka time-traveled to, was the year when the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred. In 2011, 7-year-old Nanoka's accident occurred around noon on September 1st, the exact date and time when the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred, this must be an important foreshadowing of some sort. [3]
Footnotes
- [1] Keisuke Itagaki (板垣恵介) is well known for his long-running manga Grappler Baki (グラップラー刃牙) series that has appeared under various titles since 1991. He is also the father of noted mangaka Paru Itagaki (板垣 巴留) of Beastars fame. Itagaki and Takahashi are also acquaintences having both attended Kazuo Koike's Gekiga Sonjuku manga training school. You can read an interview between there pair here.
- [2] The "obi" (帯) of a book is a strip of paper that is wrapped around a book (or the spine of a CD) that has advertising copy written on it.
- [3] Indeed it was, as seen in MAO chapter 21.
Kazuhiro Ito (伊藤和弘), writer, born in Niigata Prefecture in 1967. He graduated from Niigata University Faculty of Law. After working in an editorial production company, he became a freelance writer. He continues to write mainly in the fields of manga, literature, and medicine/health. He has written the book, How Has Weekly Shonen Magazine Built the History of Manga? (Seikaisha Shinsho).
