Miss Ruki

by Fumiko Takano, Alexa Frank (translator)

A young woman rejects the fast-paced consumer culture of 1980s Japan in favor of a slower, more carefree lifestyle in this tenderhearted, sweetly funny classic of slice-of-life manga.

A classic of Japanese manga, Miss Ruki is a warm and vivid portrait of the lives of two young women in Tokyo during Japan’s 1980s bubble economy. The titular Miss Ruki spurns the fast-paced consumer culture of the era in favor of a lighthearted life dedicated to her hobbies, her books, and spending time with her anxious but far more pragmatic friend, Ecchan.

Takano’s art moves with all the warmth, grace, and clarity of the everyday moments it depicts. Sweet and funny, these vignettes of a long-gone time still resonate today with readers and authors in Japan, with famed contemporary manga artist Keigo Shinzo noting, “To read it is to grasp something of the essence of Japan.... This is the kind of manga I want to draw.”

Miss Ruki is a vertical comic strip meant to be read right to left; each story begins in the top right panel and continues down the column before moving leftward.

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Japan, Fiction, Comics, Bande Dessinée, Josei

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Fumiko Takano (高野文子, Takano Fumiko) is a Japanese cartoonist. She is considered an important figure of the manga 'New Wave' of the late 70's and early 80's.
Takano got interested in making manga in high school, when she discovered the influential work of Moto Hagio. She later moved to Tokyo, where she studied to become a nurse and worked as such for a couple of years. During that time, she continued drawing amateur manga (doujinshi).
Her professional debut happened in 1979, when her story Zettai Anzen Kamisori was published in 'June', an alternative manga magazine coming out of the doujinshi scene. She also collaborated with more mainstream shōjo manga magazines, like 'Petit Flower' and 'Seventeen', while working as a secretary at the small publisher Kitansha.
Starting from the late 80's, Takano became a full time cartoonist. Her most notable works from this period are the series Lucky Jō-chan no Atarashii Shigoto (1986–1987) and Ruki-san (1988–1992). In the following decade she only produced short stories, collected in the books Bō ga Ippon (1995) and Kiiroi Hon (2002). After a long hiatus, Takano came back to manga with the web comic Dimitri Tomkins (2014).
Well known in Japan as a pioneer of literary manga from a female perspective, Takano is relatively unknown abroad, with only a few of her books having appeared in Western languages.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slice-of-life look at the friendship between two single working women in 1980s/1990s Japan. One is all about consumerism and the pursuit of romance, while the titular character is quirkier and happier, willing to pursue whims and act on notions that make her happy without much thought as to what others think.

There isn't much of a story here as this is a collection of two-page gag comics of delicate humor and mild punchlines underlining a personal philosophy.

Too delicate and mild for me.


(Best of 2025 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:

• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2025
• Publishers Weekly 2025 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
• NPR's Books We Love 2025: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels

This book made the WaPo and PW lists.)


FOR REFERENCE:

Collects material originally serialized in the weekly women's magazine Hanako from June 2, 1988, to December 17, 1992, with a bonus strip from January 2003.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I am trying to be!!
Really delightful-- I'm so glad that I chose to buy this book (as a bday present for myself) because I can see myself coming back to it for comfort and re-orientation in the future, as well as lending this to others!

[marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming collection of comic strips following the daily lives of one Miss Ruki and her best friend. While light on plot, they are so full of joy and whimsy. Both Miss Ruki and Ecchan feel like actual women you might know in real life. I also enjoyed how gestural the art is as well as the muted color palettes used, which evolve over the course of the strip's run yet remain incredibly cohesive. Perfect for when you need something lighthearted to unwind.

[khaz. · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty cute and funny, little strips about ruki and her best friend, their life and so- simple, but good

[Dan P · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kind of hidden classic I'm grateful to NYRC for bringing to English readers. This comic strip feels spiritually connected with the Murasaki Yamada manga that's made a splash here in the last few years. I really hope we get the chance to read more of Fumiko Takano's work soon!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Ruki was a comic strip with a sit-com premise: vignettes about two women in their late 20s, working and living in Tokyo in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. Appearing monthly in a Japanese lifestyle magazine for women, Miss Ruki depicted a contemporary odd couple, the strip has the attributes of conventional comedies based on buddies in close quarters: Opposites in temperament and physique, yet ultimately supportive of each other.

And they face the same “dilemma” for many single women of the time: Where will I find a husband? That said, neither seems particularly driven in dress or behavior to find a mate—they dress conservatively and only think of men only as long one is within their range of vision. Miss Ruki, the taller of the two, is genial and winsome, given to impulse but restrained by practicality. Ecchan, her friend, is shorter and curvier than the heron-like Ruki, with a short bob rather than Ruki’s shoulder-length hair. She is freer with her money than Ruki, especially when it comes to buying clothes, and she is shyer than Ruki, another of the book’s ironies, as Ruki can do her work at home while the less socially graceful Ecchan must go to an office. Although they take meals together and sleep on different tatamis in the same apartment, the apartment they sleep and take meals in may be Ruki’s or Ecchan’s, depending. There isn’t an undercurrent of suppressed sapphic attraction here that I can sense; the arrangement just seems to be a component of (at least female) Japanese friendships.

Ruki and Ecchan discuss work, men, shopping, saving, and dressing, but no boyfriends threaten the relationship, and their lives remain remain unaffected by national and world events until the very end, when Ruki sells her stamp collection to travel to Naples, thus ending the series. Takano works in the manga genre but it’s not the fantasy end of manga with large-eyed characters imbued with magical powers and the ability to transform shape. The strip has a static format: equally sized panels across two pages, which Takano makes visually interesting by changing the point of view of each panel. Miss Ruki is a convivial introduction to real-life-based manga and a reminder of what American Sunday-supplement comics used to be like.

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Petite lecture trop mignonne !

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was me but a decade later! I loved Miss Ruki and her Tokyo. Her whimsy, her tribulations and her adventures.

[Cubierocks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming and lively depiction of a unique woman's daily life in 1980s Japan.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 c'était tout doux

[Anuraag Godavari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once heard a phrase that some of you who follow me know I love: "Cringe but Free," someone who is unapologetically weird and noncomformist and thus is freer than most of us normies. That's Miss Ruki. She's weird, off-kilter and aggressively unstylish, and that makes her so entertaining to read. Very cozy read, too, like a Calvin and Hobbes volume about yuppies.

[Tachan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Retrouvailles réussies avec Fumiko Takano. Je n'avais pas aimé Le Livre Jaune, je me suis régalée avec la fraîcheur truculente de Miss Ruki. Son joli format tout en couleur, sa plongée dans les années 80-90 de mon enfance, ses héroïnes universelles et savoureuses, tout cela en a fait une lecture qui m'a mis le sourire aux lèvres de bout en bout. Rien d'extraordinaire mais une autrice qui sait capturer l'essence d'un quotidien plein de joie de vivre et de surprise à deux avec une meilleure amie. On dit oui !

Avis complet : https://lesblablasdetachan.wordpress....

[James Weddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Miss Ruki an effective antidote - if only temporarily - to the cacophony and discord of the moment. Miss Ruki - and her bestie Ecchan - flow through life with complications and rewards which are both trivial and, when examined, existential. The illustrations are wistful and entangling, Miss Ruki put me in mind of the best moments of 1970 US situation comedies especially The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhonda. The ending of Miss Ruki took me to a contemporary work to those products of mass culture, those of Italo Calvino.

[isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love women.

Obviously yes in the way that you're thinking, but I also just love women. I love the way they think, and I love seeing how they live their lives. This book is gives you a glimpse of just that - how young women in Japan in the early 90's lived. It's a short, quiet book, made all the more interesting by the fact that it really isn't interested in anything.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to lean in to every drawing, every gesture. So much just outside my understanding, but I think that is some of the pleasure -- seeing another life. I never did understand their friendship! Maybe because it was so assumed. Or maybe it too, is outside my cultural experience.

Thank you, Daniel, for this gift.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cute manga about a quirky lady and her friend—it has cottagecore vibes even though she lives in an apartment. I think quite a bit of this was lost in translation for me. Like… it’s kind of vignettes about daily life, a bit like a unconsumeristic version of “Cathy” mixed with Amelia Bedelia, but with less humor and more just… life?

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant collection of somewhat humorous slice-of-life comic strips following two women who are friends in the late 80s/early 90s. A part of me enjoyed it, though there were times I felt I didn't quite "get it." The library stuff was cute though.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*
Avec un trait simple, l’autrice capture et partage les petits plaisirs du quotidien de ses 2 héroïnes.
Très sympa !

[Averna Keuj · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit boring

[Leland Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

my first fumiko takano, but certainly not my last. i want to do what she does so badly

[Kitsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha encantado el dibujo y lo fresquita de su historia.

[Jacob Brogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfectly carved gem of daffy sweetness. I wish it were fifteen thousand pages long. (Read in New York Review Comics’s 2025 English translation.)

[Marietta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet and funky, a little love poem to independent, single girls and their lives' day-to-day challenges and pleasures. The friendship between Ruki and Ec-Chan will ring true to you and your BFF.

[Joe Isler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slices of life of a young eccentric woman and her "practical" friend in late 80's/early '90's Japan. Delightful drawings and dialogue.

[Grg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about friendship and the absolutely tiny moments that make it so valuable.

[Spudpuppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

charming and breezy and I LOVED the epilogue especially... Tama-chan you will ALWAYS be famous

[KatieKatArt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple and sweet vignettes about two late 20 year olds Japanese women in Tokyo in the 80s. The artstyle is so clean. Ah to be as free as Miss Ruki is.