Examining the Source of Masterpieces! Rumiko Takahashi's History

Translation by Harley Acres & Dylan Acres

"After All It Was Shonen Manga"

Rumiko Takahashi has produced numerous hits such as Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, and Inuyasha. What kind of inspirations did you come into contact with before making your debut as an author?

Follow the passionate days before Rumiko Takahashi's debut.

Memories With Manga That Touched on Childhood

How did you first encounter manga?

Takahashi: I had two older brothers and my family owned a medical practice, so I read what my older brothers and nurses bought. However, the first time I understood how to read manga was when I read Songo-kun in a school yearbook that my older brother had ordered. ^[1] That was my original experience with manga.

What magazines did your brothers buy?

Takahashi: These were my earliest experiences with manga. It was Weekly Shonen Sunday. At the time, it was serializing Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Iga no Kagemaru and Satoru Ozawa's Submarine 707, but I was still very young. ^[2] I liked children's manga such as Osomatsu-kun and Obake no Q-taro. ^[3] I followed the serialization of Dororo and Otoko do Ahou Koshien in real time. I was very sad when Dororo ended halfway through because I thought Hyakkimaru was so cool and the idea of him "getting his body back" was wonderful. In Otoko do Ahou Koshien, Shinji Mizushima's characterization was so good that it was easy to tell all the characters and their motivations right off the bat. ^[4]

What other magazines did you read?

Takahashi: My brother had been buying COM since its first issue in order to read Tezuka-sensei's Phoenix. I was grateful to be able to read COM. As a child, I would never have been able to find it on my own. Tezuka was publishing W3 in Shonen Sunday and there were many copies of Astro Boy at home. ^[5] At the time, there were special issues of Tezuka's works compiled in magazine size, so there were many Tezuka works around me.

You are well known for your love of Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow's Joe).

Takahashi: Actually, I read it in a magazine at a barbershop when I was in elementary school, but I gave up on it then. I had read all of Tetsuya Chiba's works at bookstores, and I had an image of him as a fun, heartwarming artist, but I read a story about Joe entering a juvenile reformatory, and that scared me. But when I became a junior high school student, I borrowed the book and read it. It was so interesting that I couldn't get it out of my head and started buying the book. ^[6]

How did you come to read Garo?

Takahashi: At the time, various issues of Garo were in the waiting room of my father's medical office, so I read it there.

What did you buy with your own pocket money?

Takahashi: I used to buy Weekly Margaret, but my brother stopped buying Shonen Sunday around the time I entered junior high school. But there were many manga in Shonen Sunday that I wanted to read, so I stopped buying Margaret and started buying Shonen Sunday.

So, if you had chosen Margaret instead of Shonen Sunday, would you have submitted your work to Margaret later on?

Takahashi: I don't know... I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have (laughs).

Motivation to Create and Establish a Style

When you were in junior high school, you wrote submissions for Shonen Sunday and Garo.

Takahashi: It was a four-panel comic that was somewhat like a parody of a fairy tale. ^[7]

Why did you establish a manga research group when you were in high school?

Takahashi: At the first self-introduction, one of the students said, "I like manga," and the others followed suit. Then we all decided to do something together. Yoko Kondo was in that circle of people. ^[8] I was simply happy to have friends with whom I could talk about manga. Kondo-san was a big fan of Moto Hagio, so I borrowed manga from her and read them. ^[9] We made a magazine for the festival, but we didn't distribute it to the general public.

Did you start drawing story manga at that time?

Takahashi: At that time, I was working on a story that was written down in text form.

A novel?

Takahashi: Well, to put it that way... maybe... you might say it was a novel, but it was a manga. Manga takes a lot of time and effort, so I just wanted to write down the stories that came to mind.

When you were in high school, you submitted your work to Weekly Shonen Magazine.

Takahashi: That's because Shonen Magazine at that time was very funny and very sharp.

What was the content of your contribution?

Takahashi: It was a gag manga with a near-future science fiction or dystopian world. The characters are seven heads tall. It was not so different from my present day style. The story took place in Japan, which was closed to the outside world, and there was an order that you had to wear a sword, and you had to compete with someone once a week. The main character is a student, but he and a businessman are in a dispute over whether they should battle it out... It was a story like that. ^[10]

Sounds interesting.

Takahashi: Well, it was a broken story ultimately, so I don't think it would be possible to draw that story again now. But I was full of passion for manga.

Aiming for Her Debut: Committing to Shonen Manga

What manga did you take with you when you came to Tokyo?

Takahashi: I left all my manga at my parents' house and brought my novels. Yasutaka Tsutsui and Kazumasa Hirai. I have all of Mr. Tsutsui's works anyway. I still have all of them at home. ^[11]

You also joined the manga club at university?

Takahashi: There was a manga club already, but it was not very active and did not have a club room. There was a girl who wanted to become a professional, so I became friends with her and we re-formed the manga club again. ^[12]

It is also amazing that you have established two manga clubs in your life. Did you have a clear goal of becoming a professional at that time?

Takahashi: Well, I was still a little uncertain. I submitted a piece to Shonen Magazine and it was not selected, and I was disappointed and thought, "I guess I can't do it after all." But whether I could become a professional or not, I still wanted to create something, whether it be print or manga. Besides, the manga club was fun.

While still in college, you submitted Katte na Yatsura to Shonen Sunday and it eventually became your debut work. It was a time when shojo manga was gaining momentum, but why did you stick to shonen magazines?

Takahashi: I was a big fan of Hagio, Yumiko Oshima, and Ryoko Yamagishi, and had collections of their books. I was a pure reader of shojo manga. On the other hand, when I think of the amount of money and passion I poured into shonen manga since childhood, it became like a part of me. ^[13]

At that time, there were not many female authors writing serials for shonen magazines.

Takahashi: There was definitely a tendency to ask, "why are you drawing shonen manga if you are a woman?" Even so, Machiko Satonaka was collaborating with Mizushima, and Masako Yashiro was drawing a few comics for shonen magazines. There were also Tamiki Noda and Noriko Kikuchi. So there were several female artists who were active in shonen magazines. Because there was such a precedent, I thought I would like to apply. ^[14]

Considering your own style, did you make a self-analysis that you would be more suited to shonen manga?

Takahashi: At that time I was impertinent, so I thought I could do it. I've been familiar with shonen manga for a long time, so I guess it suited me. People have a variety of things they "want to draw", "want to read", and "what they like", but I thought shonen manga fit all of those things for me.

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Footnotes

• [1] Songo-kun (そんごくん) is the 1964-1965 manga by Fujio Akatasuka (赤塚不二夫) of Tensai Bakabon (天才バカボン) fame.
• [2] Iga no Kagemaru (伊賀の影丸/Kagemaru of the Iga Clan) by Mitsuteru Yokoyama (横山光輝) is a 1961-1966 ninja manga. Submarine 707 (サブマリン707) by Satoru Ozawa (小澤さとる) ran from 1963-1965.
• [3] Obake no Q-taro (オバケのQ太郎) is often mentioned as one of Takahashi's childhood favorites. Dororo (どろろ) was Osamu Tezuka's manga about a samurai trying to win back the missing parts of his body.
• [4] Takahashi spoke of her love of Shinji Mizushima (水島新司)'s baseball manga Otoko do Ahou Koshien (男どアホウ甲子園) in a previous interview.
• [5] Takahashi has mentioned on a number of occasions her love of Osamu Tezuka's W3. COM was Tezuka's magazine that was intended to compete with Garo, both of which featured more avant garde manga. Interestingly, Takahashi read both as a small child, though these magazines were marketed towards a much older market.
• [6] Takahashi recounts meeting Tetsuya Chiba in a short, autobiographical manga she wrote.
• [7] Unfortunately nothing is known about Takahashi's pre-high school creations. She has given vague descriptions of them in interviews, but specific dates and titles has never been mentioned.
• [8] Yoko Kondo (近藤ようこ) is from Niigata and a high school classmate of Rumiko Takahashi's. She made her debut in Garo. Volume 2 of Bizarre Manga Road: Unusual Edition (怪奇まんが道 奇想天外篇/Kaiki Manga Dou Kisoutengaihen) has a story detailing her high school life with Rumiko Takahashi. Her Twitter account is @suikyokitan. Takahashi also thanks her in the final chapter of Urusei Yatsura.
• [9] Moto Hagio (萩尾望都) is the legendary shojo manga artist best known for her series The Poe Clan (ポーの一族/Poe no Ichizoku) and The Heart of Thomas (トーマの心臓/Tooma no Shinzo). She and Rumiko Takahashi interview one another in "New Year's Special Project Rumiko Takahashi and Moto Hagio".
• [10] Takahashi has mentioned this story before in "My Dreaming Days" and "Manga no Michi - Rumiko Takahashi Profile". The name for the series has never been mentioned. Other than the plot described here it is unknown what this story was or if it was a reworking of her Star of Empty Trash story.
• [11] 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.
• [12] Though she says here that she did not found the college manga club, she is typically considered as the founder of the still active club at Japan Women's University (日本女子大学/Nihon Joshi Daigaku). Thus A Half of Them Are Gone and Bye-Bye Road are examples of the manga she published as dojinshi through her manga club prior to her professional debut. The Japan Women's University manga club is still active today and its new members still publish Vivid (びびっと), the dojinshi that Takahashi founded in the 1970s. The girl she mentions here is perhaps likely Hanako Meijiro (目白花子), a college classmate of Takahashi's who collaborated with her on some of her early dojinshi such as Dust in the Wind. Like Yoko Kondo mentioned above, Meijiro is also thanked in the last chapter of Urusei Yatsura.
• [13] In addition to Hagio, Yumiko Oshima (大島弓子) and Ryoko Yamagishi (山岸凉子) are members of the Year 24 Group. Oshima is best known for creating the concept of the "cat girl" which can be traced to her Wata no Kuni Hoshi (綿の国星/Cotton's Country Star) about a kitten who dreams she is a little girl. Yamagishi is known for Arabesque (アラベスク), Terpsichora (舞姫) and Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (日出処の天子/Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun).
• [14] Machiko Satonaka (里中満智子) is best known for Tenjo no Niji (天上の虹/Celestial Rainbow) and which ran for 30 years. Masako Yashiro (矢代まさこ) who is sometimes cited as creating the first yuri manga (though often that designation is also given to the more widely known Ryoko Yamagishi mentioned above). Yashiro was a major contributor to COM magazine. Tamiki Noda (野田たみ樹) created a Rocky (ロッキー) short story manga based on the American boxing film shortly after its release that adapts the film as a manga. Noriko Kikuchi (菊池規子) is known for Wagahai wa Norakou (わが輩はノラ公).

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