The spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi's career began in 1978 when she won an honorable mention in Shogakukan's annual New Comic Artist Contest for Those Selfish Aliens. Later that same year, her boy-meets-alien comedy series, Urusei Yatsura, was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday. This phenomenally successful manga series was adapted into anime format and spawned a TV series and half a dozen theatrical-release movies, all incredibly popular in their own right. Takahashi followed up the success of her debut series with one blockbuster hit after another--Maison Ikkoku ran from 1980 to 1987, Ranma 1/2 from 1987 to 1996, and Inuyasha from 1996 to 2008. Other notable works include Mermaid Saga, Rumic Theater, and One-Pound Gospel. Takahashi won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award twice in her career, once for Urusei Yatsura in 1981 and the second time for Inuyasha in 2002. A majority of the Takahashi canon has been adapted into other media such as anime, live-action TV series, and film. Takahashi's manga, as well as the other formats her work has been adapted into, have continued to delight generations of fans around the world. Distinguished by her wonderfully endearing characters, Takahashi's work adeptly incorporates a wide variety of elements such as comedy, romance, fantasy, and martial arts. While her series are difficult to pin down into one simple genre, the signature style she has created has come to be known as the Rumic World. Rumiko Takahashi is an artist who truly represents the very best from the world of manga.
Rin-ne is the newest manga from Takahashi, creator of Ranma and Inuyasha, two of the most successful anime and manga series of all time. Sakura is a teenage girl who can see spirits due to a narrow escape from the wheel of death and reincarnation as a child. One day, her classroom is plagued by a ghost, and she meets Rinne, a living boy filling the role of a shinigami-a supernatural being who guides spirits to their rest. Poor and alone on Earth, he tries to cadge meals and scam a living in between dealing with unquiet spirits. Despite potential melodramatic fodder, both characters are too practical and matter-of-fact for theatrics. Instead, Rin-ne tells the wry and funny adventures of two lonely kids becoming friends against a background of ghost stories that are more melancholy than frightening. Rin-ne is not the most profound of comics nor is it the most visually stunning, but it is a satisfying and heartfelt story, with promise of greater things to come as the tale unfolds. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
High schooler Sakura Mamiya can see and hear ghosts. She meets a mysterious classmate, Rinne Rokudo, who is half human and half shinigami (death god). Although Mamiya has no special powers to fight or exorcise ghosts, she joins Rinne in his task to help lost souls pass on to the other world. Takahashi, the creator of such blockbusters as Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2, delivers another engrossing saga full of adventure and light comedy. The clean, accomplished lines of Takahashi's signature art style complement the whimsical, character driven story. Rather than a grandiose save-the-universe-from-destruction plot, Takahashi tempers the paranormal elements and the cute, quirky, supernatural creatures with a resolute Rinne, who is trying to do his job, supported by the dependable Mamiya. Verdict Rated for older teens, the delightful Rin-Ne is less horror-based than Clamp's xxxHolic and less violent than the shinigami world of Tite Kubo's Bleach. Chapters can be viewed online here [LINK??].-June Shimonishi, Torrance P.L., CA Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
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