This year, Urusei Yatsura was given a brand-new anime series which aired in the Fall 2022 anime season. Despite the popularity of Rumiko Takahashi’s work, this new series was likely the first time many new fans had the chance to experience her first major hit, since the series ended decades ago in the mid-80s. While it’s great to see Urusei Yatsura reach new eyes, there are a lot of older Takahashi works that surely deserve the same treatment. The success of the Urusei Yatsura reboot series may encourage remakes of those older works, bringing Takahashi’s classic catalogue to the modern anime audience.
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Rumiko Takahashi’s Legacy and Career
Rumiko Takahashi’s first major work, Urusei Yatsura, debuted in the magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1978, where it would eventually run for almost nine years, ending in 1987 with 34 volumes. The series would gain popularity quite quickly, allowing it to spawn an equally popular anime series as well as several movies. The character of Lum is considered iconic to this day, and many credit her for being a major influence on many future rom-com heroines in manga.
Rumiko Takahashi would publish many stories and series throughout the years afterward, with the most famous being the gender-bending romantic comedy Ranma 1/2 and the demon-hunting feudal adventure Inuyasha. Both series were massive and vital to manga’s popularity in the west during its early days, and are still beloved to this day. Despite her massive successes, Takahashi continues to create new manga series, with her most recent effort, Mao, having run in Weekly Shonen Sunday since 2019. With so many popular series under her belt, it’s easy to see why Rumiko Takahashi is hailed as one of the best mangaka of all time.
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The Resurgence Of Takahashi’s Works
Many of Takahashi’s most famous works have been over for a while; Urusei Yatsura ended in 1987, Ranma 1/2 ended in 1996, and Inuyasha ended in 2008. While these series are still remembered fondly by fans and older audiences, younger fans of anime tend to flock to the newer hits like Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen over series that have been over for more than a decade. Even Takahashi’s newer works cannot hope to reach the heights that her most classic works have reached, and it’s hard to deny that Takahashi’s works no longer have a dominant presence in the anime and manga community.
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However, that all changed in 2020 when a sequel to Inuyasha was announced. Dubbed Yashahime, the series follows the daughters of the main characters as they go on new adventures of their own. Though Yashahime has minimal input from Takahashi herself, the series did much to bring Inuyasha and her works back into the mainstream. This was followed up by the Urusei Yatsura reboot in 2022, which revived her most classic series in a form more palatable to modern anime fans. With multiple series based on Rumiko Takahashi’s works seeing a fair amount of success, it’s not too much of a stretch for fans to wonder if remakes for some of her other series might be possible down the line.
What Takahashi Works Deserve A Remake?
Ranma 1/2 is one of Rumiko Takahashi’s most famous works, featuring the gender-bending protagonist Ranma Saotome, who changes into a girl when splashed with cold water and changes back into a boy when splashed with hot water. The series was pivotal to manga and anime’s popularity in the west, but it hasn’t received much of note since the manga ended in 1996. For that reason, Ranma 1/2 might have the best chance out of all of Takahashi’s works to get a new anime series. Its episodic nature means it could also do well if its reboot series is approached the same way as Urusei Yatsura’s is, although Ranma 1/2 has more structured, longer stories compared to the former, which largely consists of goofy one-chapter shenanigans.
While Ranma 1/2 has the best chance for it, it is not the only Takahashi series that could do with a remake. Maison Ikkoku is a series that Takahashi worked on alongside Urusei Yatsura’s run, and it is also quite old, having ended in 1987 just like Urusei Yatsura. A grounded romantic comedy series about an aspiring college student in love with his apartment manager, Maison Ikkoku would be a great option were it to be chosen for an anime remake, as while it is not as famous as some of Takahashi’s other works, it is certainly one of her best. While there’s no indication that another reboot for a Takahashi series is on the way, fans of Rumiko Takahashi’s works would surely appreciate it, and these classic series surely deserve it.
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