Intro

Rumiko Takahashi is a legendary mangaka writer who pioneered many anime tropes and clichés we all know today.
Such cases are the love triangles and the tsundere type like Akane from Ranma ½, which I spoke about in my blog site, and of course, Kagome from Inuyasha. A series that I would like to rewatch and review one day.

I have been a fan of Takahashi’s work since it was a part of my childhood.
Moreover than that, I really like Takahashi’s classic take on Japanese folklore.
It’s the most authentic out there and really feels “Japanese”, for lack of a better term.

And as I said in my Ranma Retrospective, Takahashi is the only one who managed to “get me hooked” on the idea of the “waifu” BS.
Ukyo is for damn sure a nostalgia reason for me, but the one female character that I am always charmed at is Kikyo from Inuyasha.

But I digress, anyway.
This past week, I got the chance to finally read Takahashi’s latest manga, which is still ongoing, called simply “Mao”.
And, being an adult, I started to wonder, what’s Takahashi’s life been like?

She lived in the golden age of Japan, where the economy was booming and the Japanese culture was at its peak.
And yet, with all those love stories she wrote, where did Takahashi lead herself?

I invite you today to explore with me Takahashi’s life through the 4 major manga she wrote:

1. The 1st is Urusei Yastsu
2. The 2nd – Ranma ½
3. The 3rd – Inuyasha
4. And last but not least, the ongoing Mao series

Note: I’ll be covering each series by briefly discussing the personalities of the characters. I won’t go into the plot details, as I assume viewers are already familiar with them. Three of these manga series are already completed and widely known, so I expect you to have some background knowledge of the characters
You may wanna skip some parts in the Mao sub

Urusei Yastsu

The main character in this show is Ataru, a teenage boy with no real goals whatsoever.

He’s original love interest was Shinobu, the prototype Tsundere character that will be reimagined in later works.

However, this soon changed in favor of Lum the Alien (in Japanese “Yatsura”).
Lum likes to throw herself on Ataru, as if she’s his wife.
Fun fact: Lum will later be reimagined in another series later in Takahashi’s works, and you might even know who I’m gonna talk bout.

Anyway, with all that said, Ataru’s goals are more shallow than an Isekai MC’s goals.
Although he has Lum on his side, he insists on a daily basis to hit on girls on the street like Johnny Bravo from Cartoon Network.

To sommorize Ataru in one or two sentences, He’s a horny boy who doesn’t care about other girls feelings that actually like him.
He can, from time to time,e show affection to Lum, but ultimately, he just doesn’t give a crap

Lum is actually no different from Ataru, since she is bound to stay on Earth and become his “fiancée” since he won the Tag game.
Despite being “bound”, Lum has no problems showing affection to Ataru, no matter how many times he flirts with other women.

Shinobu is probably the only one who’s more on the sidelines and is seen as innocent.
I assume that THIS character is used by Takahashi to self-insert herself in her own story.
You’ll understand where I am getting at when I mention Takahashi’s later works

Ranma ½

The Ranma series is a vast improvement over Urusei Yatsura, rather than being completely different.

Saotome Ranma is a vast improvement over Ataru.
He confident, manly and isn’t horny 24/7.
He generally respects women, but for some reason, he constantly gets into verbal fights with Akane.
He’s sort of acting like a male tsudere whenever he’s confronted by Akane

Speaking of Akane, she’s a much more flashed out version of Shinobu.
So, in some sort of way, in this iteration, Shinobu finally gets her role back as the main female character

As for Lum’s version in Ranma, in this case, the outsider is Shampoo, a Chinese martial arts girl.
Shampoo looks very much like Lum, and much like her, she throws herself on Ranma because she’s bound by some tradition to be his “fiancée”.

There’s also a character named Ryoga, who’s sort of an alternative version of Mendo from Urusei Yatsura.
I didn’t mention him before, because he doesn’t play a major role in the story and neither does Ryoga from Ranma ½.

But, in Ryoga’s case, he’s trying to show affection for only Akane whenever he has a chance.
However, he’s too shy to be blunt about it, and Akane never seems to notice his “subtle” gestures and hints.
This “cuckary” will be the first of many male characters who try to show affection for a clueless female character

Akane is the 2nd reimagination of the tsundere character. But she’s not used as a self-insert character yet.
She’s much more rounded in this series and is much more explosive and emotional than Shinobu.

In short, Ranma ½ borrowed a lot of from Urusei Yatsura’s characters’ silhouette & personality.

Inuyasha

The major 3rd series of Takahashi’s work is the famous Inuyasha series, which oozes with Japanese folklore aesthetics.
The 2 previous manga series, in comparison, were set in modern-day Japan and were more comedic.
So this allowed Takahashi to create new characters without being tempted to copy from her previous work.

The story revolves around a young girl named Kagome who can teleport to the Sengoku period of Japan via a sacred well built next to her home.
When she goes into the well for the first time, by accident, she stumbles upon the main character of the show, Inuyasha.

Inuyasha is a half-demon dog with a bitter-sweet past. In the past, Inuyasha had a deep relationship with a young woman named Kikyo.
This relationship tragically fell apart due to the villain.

Kikyo just so happens to be a powerful Miko, a Shinto priestess, with powerful magic abilities.
And it just so happens that Kagome is the reincarnation of Kikyo.

Anyways, Kagome, despite having zero relations to Inuyasha, starts developing feelings towards him.

This is where we get into the first self-inserted character, Kagome.

The OG Isekai show, before the Isekai era

Before, male characters were surrounded by a harem in a fantasy world
Kagome had her own harem.

Inuyasha is Kagome’s primary love interest, and she competes with Kikyo for his affection.
Koga, a demon dog that wants to Wife her as soon as possible
And Hojo, the forgettable classmate that has a crush on her and frequently tries to ask her out or give her gifts. So in short, a simp.

What solidifies this as an Isekai anime is the fact that Kagome travels through 2 different parallel universes, and that the other world is run by magic and demons.

Ranma characters in Inuyasha

Now, Inuyasha, being a reimagining of Ranma, shares a similar personality to him.
Meaning that he’s a male tsudere who finds it hard to express his feelings towards Kagome.
Heck, he even shares the same Japanese voice actor VA.

Sadly, Kagome’s voice actor was not given to the VA of Akane, Noriko Hidaka.
Hidaka got to play the role of the love rival, Kikyo.
It’s amusing because, in Ranma ½, the voice actress for Kodachi Kuno, a rival for Ranma’s love, also voiced Shinobu, Ataru’s original love interest in Urusei Yatsura.

Anyway, Koga is an obvious reimagining of Ryoga, who is a reimagining of Mendo.
Like his previous versions, Koga also gets into many casual fights against the male protagonist.
He’s also brash & cocky like Mendo.

The cuckary, this time, was split into the new character Hojo, who’s a people pleaser.

And finally, we have our official self-insert female protagonist, Kagome, who’s a reimagining of Akane, who’s a reimagining of Shinobu.
Kagome retains some tsundere aspects, but nothing to the comedic levels of Akane.

She also shares another trait with Akane, which is being oblivious to those who show deep affection for them.
While Akane has Ryoga as her cuckold, Kagome has Hojo to buy her gifts.

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Another way to look at the characters’ archetype

Mao

A lot of time has passed since Inuyasha ended in 2008. Takahashi’s next work was Kyōkai no Rinne, which was set back in modern-day Japan.
And after that, in 2019, she started to work on her new series called “Mao”.

Many characters that were iterated from previous works are no longer present, but 3 characters remain.

The 1st one is Mao himself, who looks very much like Inuyasha in terms of appearance.
He’s sort of a mix between a Demon and a human as well, but instead of a Dog type, he’s a cat type.

But the only major difference now is that the main male protagonist is no longer acting like a male tsundere.
He’s still shy about expressing his feelings towards the female protagonist as the story goes.

Which leads us to Nanoka, another character who looks similar to her previous iteration, Kagome, just with shorter hair.
Nanoka, similar to Kagome, can time-travel from modern-day Japan to the past.
This time, she can travel to the Taisho era through a gate on a very specific street.

She also possesses special powers much like Kagome; however, this time she shares similar powers as our male MC, Mao, instead of her rival, Sana.
That’s right, Kikyo also got reimagined in Mao.
Sana wears a Miko outfit and possesses special powers, and has also been resurrected, like Kikyo (more or less).

Finally, the last character that got reimagined was Hojo the simp, now known as Shiraha.
Nanoka is as oblivious as her previous iterations to the affection of the simp.

Note! Mao isn’t like Inuyasha!

Before I get into theorising about Rumiko Takahashi’s life through her work, I have to say something.
Takahashi is not lazy at all in her work.

Each series is vastly different than the previous one.
Mao is especially different from Inuyasha.

Inuyasha had the main 3 sides, which are the good guys (Kagome, Inuyasha, Miroku, Shippo, and Sango)
The bad guys who are mainly led or manipulated by Naraku, and Sesshomaru, who does whatever he wants.

Mao, on the other hand, had many factions that sometimes worked together or alone.
In addition to that, there’s no obvious plot device like the Shikon no Tama from Inuyasha.
Some characters wish to achieve personal goals, while some don’t care as much.

I highly suggest you check the Mao manga or pray for an anime release, since it’s quite good and keeps you wanting more chapters to reveal the mystery behind the main event that started the story of Mao and its characters

Now that we’ve covered the stories themselves, let’s step beyond them and dive into the world of theory. Or in other words, Rumic’s world.

Rumiko’s world

As I wrote this script/post, I started researching a little bit about her history, only to find that, for privacy reasons, not much is revealed to the public.

But, I did stumble upon a YouTube video that shows panels from a manga that describes Takahashi’s early life, along with another manga artist.
That manga is called “My Sweet Sunday,” I believe, and sadly, I don’t have the option to buy it.
Luckily for me, it seems like the manga is focused on her career rather than something personal and/or social.

This leads to speculation that she, like many other manga artists, might fall on the spectrum of being a shy, introverted geek, much like the manga artist character introduced in Oshi no Ko Season 2, who also happens to be writing a romantic story inspired by Japanese folklore.

But, looking at the 4 main series we mentioned, we can see that there are 3 main characters.

The 1st one is the male protagonist, who started off as an obnoxious, athletic horny teenage as Ataru.
Then, reimaged still as athletic and obnoxious on a tsundere level.
And then, reimaged as a half-demon dog and rougher on the edges.
And lastly, Rumiko’s final adjustment was to remove the rough edges, make him calmer, but retain his demon powers.

The 2nd is the female protagonist, who originally was supposed to start with Shinobu but was passed to Lum instead.
Shinobu had a mix of appearing like a gentle, kind girl on the outside, but being explosive on the inside.
She then reprised the role of a female main character in Ranma as Akane, who shared many traits with Shinobu
Then, reimaged as Kagome, who was less explosive, and was designed as a self-insert character surrounded by a male Harem.
Finally, she was reimaged as Nanoka, who’s not that different from Kagome without the harem part.

Both Nanoka & Kagome are trying to seek affection from the male protagonist, who’s not interested in them in the first place.
Not only that, but both insist on throwing themselves on the MC despite knowing that their past lover is alive (more or less)

The 3rd character is tricky to locate, since he’s constantly changing his persona and attributes.
It started off with Mendo, who’s a rich boy that was horny much like the MC.
He didn’t particularly set his eyes on Lum or Shinobu only, but he never quite made any meaningful relationships in the series.
He was tossed aside by the female cast as soon as his usefulness was no longer needed.

Then, Mendo was reimaged as Ryoga, who was poor in comparison to his initial version.
But, in exchange for “money”, Ryoga is often considered a capable fighter who can even rival Ranma in some episodes.
Not only that, he was more dramatic and had less flaws than Mendo. Even when he turns into a pig, he uses it to his advantage to curl up on the female protagonist’s chest.
But Akane never realized Ryoga’s affection.

In Inuyasha, Ryoga was split into 2 characters.
The first one being Koga, who can rival the MC and has no shame about wifing Kagome whenever he gets the chance.
The other part is Hojo, who is trying desperately to make Kagome notice his affection, only to get completely ignored.

And at last, in Mao, Hojo was reimaged as Shiraha, who’s not that different from Hojo.
Koga, I assume, is reimagined as the new character called Hyakka, who has 0 interest in the female MC.

Losing interest in real men during early life

Manga artists tend to fall into a lifestyle similar to that of an Otaku.
They’re often very busy with their hobby as a mangaka, and have little time to experience the real world.

Whatever Takahashi’s early life was like, it certainly revolved around honry teenage boys looking to catch some skirt.
But despite that, she was most likely attracted to the bad boys while ignoring the nice guys.
The most prominent example is Urusei Yatsura’s MC.

Right after that, I believe that Rumiko Takahashi was starting her career as a full-time manga artist.
And whatever was left from her early social life was dumped into Ranma ½.
However, Ranma himself was more of the fantasized bad boy archetype that Takahashi might be into.

As time passed, so did Rumiko Takahashi’s understanding of men and women start to fade away into pure fantasy.
Both Inuyasha & Mao are the same type of characters young girls are into.
The same type of girls who might have watched Twilight, which just so happens to feature beautiful demon boys.

The hardship of being a woman in Japan

This is probably the saddest part about this post/video.
If you don’t know this, Japan’s work culture is what I consider a modern-day enslavement.
It demands that the Japanese people work many hours, discourages self-expression in terms of what they can wear and say, and destroys family bonding in favor of after-work meetings like going into an Izakaya bar with bosses.

It especially has no integration with women who would like to work and be a mother.
Something makes many women sacrifice their motherhood in favor of enslavement/career.

It’s good to have a hobby, but when the hobby enslaves a person to the degree of becoming an Otaku, we have a serious problem with the birthrate.
Not only that, but the influence of Western culture on Japan makes the Japanese people seek shallow & casual relationships rather than calling a matchmaker to establish a healthy, stable family.

Rumiko was obviously influenced during the golden age of Japan, and her primary love stories are always about dreamy guys forming a “natural” bonding with the female MC.

For Rumiko Takahashi, the best option was to stick to her hobby and become a manga artist.

Current Day Japan

In the end, I do not know exactly what Takahashi’s social life where like, nor do I plan on snooping around Japanese articles and websites to get a clue about it.

But I am… sad about her.
While I do not know her personally, I think it’s safe to assume she was a kind and lovable person.
To bear no fruits in this world is something I cannot accept to believe.

It’s not about duty, but it’s about experiencing life as how it was meant to be.
If Rumiko had been married, I can assume that Mao wouldn’t have existed, and instead, a slice-of-life heart-warming family manga would have been published.

Thousands of Japanese women to this day are trapped in the Western & Kawai culture era, along with a sick work culture, which forces many women to sacrifice their best part of their life – motherhood.

Rumiko Takashi is a cautionary tale about a woman who reached god-like status in the manga world as “The Princess of Manga” in exchange for her social life.
You get the fame & you’re popularly loved by many fans of your work.
But… you have no close relatives outside your work.

No one to share your mundane life with.
No kids to raise.

Just you, the 4 walls that surround you, and your hobby that became you coping mechanism.

To solve coping, one must reconnect with the 🌏

While making this post, I watched a short video I have to share here:

Coping mechanisms can be many things.
The popular ones spread in mainstream media are drugs, alcohol & pornography (usually referred to as “women” when speaking about men).

But, coping mechanisms can be many different things.
Such a case of a coping mechanism can be found in workaholic people, like many famous manga artists.

And it is no wonder that anime, a Japanese cartoon animation, has become synonymous with fan-service and softcore porn, even without attaching hentai into the equation.

Ususei Yatsura, Ranma ½ & Inuyasha all share that common trait.
Yes, Takahashi is not known as an Otaku and definitely not a Doujin manga artist, but as a woman, her work always gravitates towards appealing to the female audience.

In all of Takahashi’s stories, the female cast is surrounded by boys who flirt with them.
Boys & men who are beautiful and charming, the same type of boys that girls can find in male host clubs.

And that’s my main concern with today’s anime & manga.

Outro

Although Inuyasha & Mao have these sorts of fan service, I can’t help but still enjoy them as my guilty pleasure.
Behind all the RomCon is genuine comedy & authentic Japanese folklore.

But it should be known for anime lovers out there, that anime can also become your coping mechanism rather than a hobby.
Remember to always connect with reality and especially with your close ones.

Anime & video game fantasies should not be an escape from reality!

And with that, I hope you have a great day while getting inspired by the world we live in.
Sometimes the world can seem harsh, but in the end, it will be okay.
Just like the ending of Inuyasha.