[1][2] Her works are known worldwide, where they have been translated into a variety of languages, with over 230 million copies in circulation;[3] making Takahashi one of the best-selling authors of all time.
[7] Although she showed little interest in manga during her childhood, she was said to occasionally doodle in the margins of her papers while attending Niigata Chūō High School [ja].
[10] During her university years, she enrolled in Gekiga Sonjuku, a manga school founded by Kazuo Koike, author of Crying Freeman and Lone Wolf and Cub.
Koike often urged his students to create well-thought out, interesting characters, and this influence would greatly impact Rumiko Takahashi's works throughout her career.
Her first published work was the one-shot Katte na Yatsura [jp] (Those Selfish Aliens), which garnered her an honorable mention at that year's Shogakukan New Comics Contest.
[citation needed] In 1980, Takahashi started her second major series, Maison Ikkoku, in Big Comic Spirits magazine, which had an older target audience than her previous work.
In 1984, during the writing of Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku, Takahashi began a series published sporadically in Weekly Shōnen Sunday called Mermaid Saga which ran for 10 years, until 1994.
Following the late 1980s and early 1990s trend of shōnen martial arts manga, Ranma ½ features a gender-bending twist.
[20] During the latter half of the 1990s, Rumiko Takahashi continued with short stories and her installments of Mermaid Saga and One-Pound Gospel until beginning her fourth major work, Inuyasha.
Unlike the majority of her works, Inuyasha has a darker tone more akin to Mermaid Saga and, having been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1996 to 2008, is her longest to date.
On March 16, 2009, she collaborated with Mitsuru Adachi, creator of Touch and Cross Game, to release a one-shot called My Sweet Sunday.
[citation needed] Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma ½, Inuyasha, and RIN-NE are all published in English in the United States by Viz Comics.
[21] Rumiko Takahashi started a new manga series entitled Mao in Weekly Shōnen Sunday issue #23 released on May 8, 2019.
Rumiko Takahashi's manga work was honoured in It's a Rumic World, a special exhibition held from July 30 to August 11 at the Matsuya Ginza department store in Tokyo.
It features her stories The Tragedy of P, The Merchant of Romance, Middle-Aged Teen, Hidden in the Pottery, Aberrant Family F, As Long As You Are Here, One Hundred Years of Love, In Lieu of Thanks, Living Room Lovesong, House of Garbage, One Day Dream, Extra-Large Size Happiness, and The Executive's Dog.
"[10] Artists that have cited Takahashi and her work as an influence include Canadian Bryan Lee O'Malley on his series Scott Pilgrim,[23] American Colleen Coover on her erotic series Small Favors,[24] Japanese Chihiro Tamaki on her manga Walkin' Butterfly,[25] Chinese-Australian Queenie Chan,[26] and Thai Wisut Ponnimit.
[28] Matt Bozon, creator of the Shantae video game series, cited Ranma ½ as a big influence on his work.
[32] In 2016, ComicsAlliance listed Takahashi as one of twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition, stating that "Any one of her projects would be the career highlight of another talent.
[31][35] In January 2019, Takahashi won the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, becoming the second woman and second manga artist to win the award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.