Rumiko Takahashi’s popularity worldwide

October 3, 2008 by Dennis Amith

In a recent column of “Through Otaku Eyes”, Kanta Ishida wrote about the worldwide popularity of Rumiko Takahashi.

Ishida wrote, “Who is the artist who played the greatest role in the “globalization” of Japanese manga?”

“It might be Akira Toriyama, whose Dragon Ball became synonymous with manga. Or it might be Katsuhiro Otomo, who showed his skill at precise description in Akira, or Naoko Takeuchi, who excited enthusiasm among girls across Europe and the United States with her Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Or maybe it’s Fujio F. Fujiko, as there can hardly be a child in Asia who doesn’t know Doraemon.”

“All these names are necessary when talking about Japanese manga’s foreign expansion.”

“But I’m beginning to think it may be the works of Rumiko Takahashi that showed the world the essence of manga more widely and deeply in and after the 1980s.”

“I am sometimes surprised by how widely her works are known while talking with people in the manga industry abroad. Pascal Lafine, editor in chief of Tonkam, a publishing company in France, told me about his considerable feeling for Takahashi’s hit manga series, Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku. Lau Wan Kit, a Hong Kong cartoonist who won the top prize in the second annual International Manga Award contest hosted by the Japanese Foreign Ministry for artists based overseas last month, said Takahashi is one of the mangaka he respects. Russian Japanologist Ivan Sergeevich Logachov loved Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2 so much that he finally translated it into Russian.”

“There may be mangaka who have sold more copies abroad than Takahashi has, but in many cases a certain title or artist is especially popular in one area and not so much so in others. Takahashi is a rare case in that her works are evenly popular over many parts of the world.”