Holiday Review #7: MISS RUKI

 I continue to be pleased that there are a precious few publishers out there willing to delve further back into josei's past to uncover acclaimed creators in need of an international spotlight.

MISS RUKI (Ruki-san), by Fumiko Takano.  First published in 1988 and first published in North America in 2025.

PLOT:

Ruki is a young Tokyo-area woman who spends most of her days enjoying the simple pleasures of life.  She doesn't aspire to the sort of glamour and sophistication that her office lady friend Ecchan does, but Ruki is more than content to enjoy her company and lend a sympathetic (if sometimes unfocused) ear.

STORY:

In the earliest days of josei, back when it was all called "ladicomi," most of the stories fell into two camps.  The first were the sort of searing dramas that focus either on social issues or the inner struggles of ordinary women, the sort we might associate with creators like Kyoko Okazaki or Yamada Murasaki.  The other is what is still called ladicomi these days, tales of torrid romance that could get downright pornographic at times.  Miss Ruki fits into neither camp, being a mildly humorous, slice-of-life 4-koma from a general ladies' magazine that's as content as its title character to just do its own thing.

In the 1980s, the image of what a young urban Japanese lady was supposed to be like was drastically changing.  With a booming economy and shifting laws allowing more women to enter the workforce, more young women were spending their 20s and beyond pursuing designer clothes, high-class food, and leisure time in the most stylish districts in Tokyo instead of just marriage and motherhood.  Ruki could not care less about such things, despite the efforts of Ecchan.  Her taste is decidedly provincial (even childish), her decor is as scattershot as her thought process, and she spends much of her free time just moseying around the neighborhood.  In some ways it must be a reflection of her creator, a well-respected mangaka who doesn't make manga terribly often, never really confines herself to a single genre, but somehow managed to amass a fandom that includes some of the biggest names in manga as a whole.

The humor in this series is gentle, and much of it comes from the contrast between Ruki and Ecchan, who is a more self-conscious, neurotic person who is actively trying (if not always succeeding) at trying to keep up with the times and the trends. For the most part they are the only characters we see, as Takano's early attempts to introduce a couple of love interests for the two of them fade away after a while.  She must have figured out quickly that this comic's greatest appeal is in the lived-in nature of the ladies' friendship, the sort that comes from knowing someone so long that any sense of formality is long gone.

Miss Ruki also serves as something of a snapshot of the era in which it was made.  It began at the peak of the Japanese economic bubble, and you see this reflected in the fleeting references to trendy foods and all the shopping trips Ecchan takes with and without Ruki for notable designer brands like Laura Ashley.  It's only in the last year that the realities of the 1990s recession begin to gradually bleed in, as the two deal with rising food prices, stagnant wages, and even pawning off some of their goods for extra cash.  Even then, Takano concludes it not in a decisive manner, but one that feels suitably hopeful and whimsical.

ART:

Among Takano's influences is the Year 24 artist Yumiko Ooshima, and it's her influence in particular that feels most evident here.  The characters here are very lightly and simply sketched, with a tendency towards simple shapes, tiny features, and solid blocks of color.  She takes a similar approach to the backgrounds, with just enough detail to distinguish distinct locations (Ruki's apartment, the local library, a train station, etc) but most of it left uncolored.  This keeps the focus on Ruki and the rest of the minimal cast, and overall lends this manga a very timeless sort of look.

PRESENTATION:

Aside from a single single strip Takano made a decade after this manga's original run (about libraries, of all things), the only other extra feature is an essay by the translator, Alexa Frank.  In it she not only provides a basic biography and CV of Fumiko Takano but also provides a lot of context about the times it was created, the magazine it was published in, and even some of her own thoughts and how she came across the series in the first place.  

RATING:

Miss Ruki is not the sort of manga that will appeal to most manga readers or even most josei fans.  Its gag seldom rise above a sensible chuckle, and a lot of them require a bit of background knowledge about the time and place in which it was made.  That doesn't mean that it wasn't a pleasant read or that I'm glad that through it we can gain a slightly wider view of the depth and breath of josei manga as a whole.

This book is published by New York Review Comics.  It is currently in print.

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