Everyone knows Rumiko Takahashi, the legendary mangaka that has been active for decades and has brought time series to readers. From Lamù to Rinne, from Maison Ikkoku to the recent MAO which will debut in Italy, Takahashi has focused on stories from the always different but familiar genre. One of the most important published works is certainly Ranma 1/2.
Ranma 1/2 was published on Weekly Shonen Sunday, children’s magazine of the Shogakukan publishing house, from 5 August 1987 to 21 February 1995. A very long work, in fact, with 8 years behind it, 407 chapters were published collected in 38 volumes. But what was the birth of this legendary story that for years has fascinated generations of Japanese and Italians?
Rumiko Takahashi tells the story in an interview released on the occasion of the Angouleme festival for which he prepared a poster with Ranma. Immediately after completing Lamù, Takahashi concentrated on combining a school setting but with martial arts, following the wake prepared by Haruki Yuzuki (mangaka of “Cosi fan tutte” from 1982 also published in Italy by Star Comics) who had written one such a scenario in a self-contained chapter a few years earlier.
While focusing on the characters, Takahashi revealed that Ranma 1/2 is “a story I always wanted to draw”. The result is a historical series, as demonstrated by longevity, and which has remained stably in the collective imagination of anime and manga.
