Takahashi was born on September 18th, 1953, in Higashinaruse, Akita, a village in the Tōhoku region of Japan.

He was very interested in drawing coming of age-related themes and, in the 1960s, started publishing small comics in several newspapers and magazines.

[clarification needed] His first manga was Shitamachi Benkei, published in 1971, but his breakthrough came in 1984 when he published the popular manga Silver Fang, a story following a young Akita puppy, who goes in search of other dogs to fight the bear haunting his hometown.

[1] Takahashi started to publish Silver Fang's sequel, Weed, in 1999, and it soon became a hit as well, after the airing of the anime adaptation on September 17th, 2005.

[2] Takahashi was the guest of honour at the Finnish role-playing and anime fan convention Tracon, which took place from the 3rd to the 4th of September, 2011, in Tampere.