The History of Ranma ½

Ranma ½ began in Weekly Shonen Sunday on August 19, 1987, the same year Urusei Yatsura ended, and ran to March 6, 1996: 407 chapters collected in 38 tankobon. The construction is pure Takahashi, a permanent comic machine: the cursed springs of Jusenkyo, an arranged engagement at the Tendo dojo, and a Nerima full of rivals, fiancées and martial-arts versions of every ordinary activity, generating stories without ever exhausting itself.

The setting is autobiographical geography: Ranma’s Nerima is Takahashi’s own Tokyo ward, and places in the series are modeled on real locations there. The reception made history of a different kind: Ranma ½ and its anime are cited among the first manga and anime to become popular in the United States, and with 55 million copies in circulation it remains her best-selling single series.