Rumiko is the great creator of Inuyasha! When Rumiko Takahashi was seventeen years old, her interest in comics was limited to reading them and occasionally copying a character in the margins. Twenty-two years later, she is arguably Japan's favorite comics artist, a multimillionaire with close to fifty million copies of her books in print. A slim, attractive young lady with an enchanting personality, she seems perhaps a bit bemused by her unexpected success. Most people who meet her are surprised by her charisma--an attribute more often found in performing artists than comics artists who spend most of their time locked away from life--and by the husky contralto voice that seems rather inappropriate for such a petite lady.
She is renowned in Japan for her dislike of interviews, and her clockwork-like reliability in a field where editors often have to trap artists in hotel rooms in order to obtain finished artwork. She seems to be universally liked as a person, and Frederik Schodt, well-known author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha 1986), has said "I've never heard anything negative about her--in fact, everyone I've spoken to who has met her has come away thoroughly charmed." Talent, success, money, and personality--Rumiko Takahashi seems to have it all. But how did she get there?
Takahashi was born in Niigata, Japan, in 1957. After passing the difficult entrance exams for Nihon Josei-dai (Japan Women's University), she moved into a small student's apartment in Nakano, Tokyo, where she lived for several years. This experience was later to form the basis for her series Maison Ikkoku. Simultaneously with entering university, she enrolled in Kazuo Koike's famous training ground for manga artists, Gekiga Sonjuku. Koike is best known to American readers as the author of Lone Wolf and Cub, and like Joe Kubert's school in America, his collage has regularly turned out ready-made professionals.
Takahashi is casual about the difficulties of combining university courses with the notoriously demanding manga school: "Sonjuku was an evening course, about two hours long. It didn't really feel like school to me, more like participating in a club."
Since Takahashi had done so little drawing before entering the school, she had her work cut out for her. Under the personal direction of Koike, she turned out hundreds of pages over the next two years, and gradually began to feel that she'd found her place in the world. Koike's prime dictum--hammered into students from day one--is that "Comics are carried by characters...if a character is well created, the comic becomes a hit."
With this in mind, Takahashi began to carefully build the cast of Urusei Yatsura, even as she was honing her talents with various short stories. By 1977, her talent was obvious to everyone. "We all knew she would become a professional," said Reiko Hikawa, who was in the same comics club as Takahashi while at university (Hikawa is now a popular fantasy writer). "It was only a matter of time. Her art and stories had, well, they had that something special." The editorial board at Shogakukan had reached the same conclusion, and in that same year she was nominated for the annual "New Artist Award."
Urusei Yatsura first appeared in September, 1978, in Shonen Sunday, a weekly comics magazine for young boys. It ran erratically, often skipping several issues, until the middle of 1979, when it began regular publication. Life was hard for Takahashi in those days:
"My parents said 'Don't do it, you won't be able to eat--get a normal job!' And to be perfectly truthful, I myself wasn't absolutely sure I could do it...there was a lot of uncertainty in my own mind as to whether or not I'd be successful. And in fact, I ended up living in a roku-jo room [about 150 sq. ft.] along with my assistants. It was so crowded that I had to sleep in the closet!"
Due to the size and variety of the manga market (not to mention the higher remuneration), taking the plunge to be a professional involves somewhat less risk that in America. Conversely, however, the competition is fierce. "I think that, in Japan, comics are so much more an integral part of a young person's life...a lot of people are caught up by the 'look and copy' psychology."
So are comics truly a part of mainstream culture, rather than being a sub-culture as in America? "Perhaps I wouldn't go so far as to say they're completely in the mainstream yet-- think history will have to be the judge of that. But certainly, comics in Japan have become something that should be there, that should exist. They are, at the very least, something that couldn't be done away with without leaving a gap in popular culture."
A beginning artist makes a good $60-80,000 a year (although much of this can be eaten up by wages for their assistants). But young comics hopefuls in Japan are surrounded by examples of success--the late Tezuka, Fujiko-Fujio, Toriyama and others. All are multi-millionaires, and provide a peak to aim for. However, as Takahashi points out, it's still a risky move:
"That kind of success does happen, but it's kind of hard to imagine it happening to yourself. It's true that [in Japan] there are more chances to succeed, but if you fail, then everything is lost. [She is referring here to the usual Japanese employment system--students are signed up for companies long before they finish university, and few companies accept entry level staff any other way. A twenty-two year old failed manga artist is liable to find the job market virtually non-existent, even with a university degree]. So you have to make the decision, and just do it--in my case, success didn't come overnight, it took some time before things really began to move for me. But of course, the only way to find out is to do it, try for several years and just hope for the best."
Once Urusei Yatsura began to take off, it seemed likely that her life was destined to change dramatically. In October, 1981, Urusei Yatsura became an animated TV series--always a sure sign of success, and a significant boost to the bank account. But Takahashi says "At the level of my feelings, nothing changed. What I do now, the basic way I live, is the same. When I sit down at the drawing board, all that I can see is that white piece of paper--just as white after all these years. In any case," she laughs, "Even though I'm paid very well these days, I really haven't the time to spend it!"
The money was never important to Rumiko, as it has been with some of her contemporaries. Even the responsibility to produce hundreds of pages on a regular basis hasn't spoiled the essential reason she became an artist in the first place. "Everyone's feelings about this are different, but in my case, I'm just happy to be able to have this opportunity to write so much--it's vastly preferable to not being given that chance. There are so, so many things I want to write, more than I could possibly write in a lifetime...I guess I'm just happy that I can spend my time doing what I want."
At least she can be comfortable while doing what she wants--she has been one of the top two or three best paid comics artist in Japan since 1984, with an annual income averaging over three million dollars.
The popularity of animation based on her works has helped make her income what it is. The animated version of Urusei Yatsura ran from October 1981 to March 1986, and comprised 216 episodes. Urusei Yatsura has also spawned five feature films and three original videos. At its peak, the fan club had over 250,000 members. A limited edition laserdisc set of the complete run of Urusei Yatsura TV shows and movies was released, costing $2600.00--it was sold out in just weeks.
Maison Ikkoku ran on TV from March 1986 until March 1988, and was made into both an animated feature and a critically acclaimed live action movie. Several of her Rumic World short stories have been released on original video animation, including Laughing Target (Warau Hyoteki) and One-Pound Gospel (1 Pondo Fukuin). More original videos are in the works for Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku. Ranma 1/2 began TV broadcasting in 1989, and has settled in for a long run.
Urusei Yatsura (first published in English in 1989 by Viz Comics) epitomizes the Takahashi approach to comics. It concerns the tempestuous relationship between Ataru Moroboshi, a high school student in the small town of Tomobiki, and Lum--a green-haired, green-eyed package of sex appeal and jealousy, who just happens to be an alien. "Urusei Yatsura is a title I had been dreaming about since I was very young. It really included everything I wanted to do. I love science-fiction because SF has such flexibility." More than just SF, Urusei Yatsura was a melting pot of love triangles (and other more complex polygons), Japanese and Chinese mythology, high school life, and more.
The cast of characters grew over its nine year run, and when the series ended, the audience was following the adventures of more than 25 major characters. The characters were divided into roughly two groups--Lum's friends, who were often based on Japanese mythological figures; and the earthlings. Takahashi herself claims to be partial to supporting characters like "the bizarre Ran, or Benten. I also like Ryunosuke and her father--it was very easy to manipulate them in the story. Ryunosuke's character was very clear--she wants to live as a woman, and her father's role is to prevent her from doing so. Very clear and simple." Ryunosuke--the girl who dresses and acts like a guy--also provided the seed idea from which Takahashi's current series, Ranma 1/2, grew.
Lum's race comes to Earth intending to simply invade and take over. But Earth has one chance--if Ataru (chosen randomly by computer as Earth's champion) can defeat Lum in a game of tag, the invaders will just pack up and leave quietly. Ataru, who has glandular drives undreamed of by even the most lascivious of high school boys, is only too eager to get his hands on the delectable Lum. This proves rather difficult when he discovers she can fly.... But he triumphs in the end, after undergoing so much pain and humiliation he has (apparently) lost all interest in Lum. Lum has fallen irrevocably in love with him, however, and remains behind on Earth to chase after him for the next 34 volumes.
"For Urusei Yatsura, I didn't want to create stories in the usual way--I wanted the reader to be taken completely by surprise with the developments in the next panel. Ideally, every story should have numerous subplots connecting the beginning and the climax, so that the readers would be kept guessing. It was pretty tough, pulling off all those little tricks."
Much of the humor is very slapstick, but this is all part of Takahashi's plan: "I wanted to write slapstick comedy because it is a great way to get the readers to react quickly. I really get a charge out of seeing people laughing as they read my books. If a story is more serious, it's harder to determine if someone likes it or not. I guess I'm really just a kid a heart!" (laughs).
When it first appeared, Urusei Yatsura was not an instant success, and Takahashi kept herself busy writing short stories (some of which have been reprinted in the Rumic World series of books from Shogakukan) and another series, Dust Spot (the title is a strange Japanese/English term for garbage can--not original with Takahashi). Dust Spot concerns the adventures of two agents for the mythical HCIA organization. Yura, the female member of the team, is immensely strong, while her partner Tamuro is an esper--whose teleportation ability inevitably lands him in a garbage can or dump. It ran in Shonen Sunday from May to September 1979. But by the middle of 1979, Urusei Yatsura began to take off, and Takahashi concentrated her efforts almost exclusively on that series for about a year.