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Fumiko Takano is a Japanese manga artist. Influential among the ""New Wave"" manga artists in the late 70s and early 80s, Takano was one of the first women manga artists to publish in outlets not explicitly aimed at a female readership. She won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2003, and in 2015 she was the second-ever manga artist to win the Iwaya Sazanami Literary Award. She lives in Tokyo. Alexa Frank is an editor and translator of Japanese. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Fulbright program, she has translated over twenty volumes of manga, most recently Nazuna Saito's Offshore Lightning (nominated for the 2024 Ignatz Awards), Kyoko Okazaki's River's Edge (nominated for the 2024 Eisner Awards), and Shirakawa Gin's A Story of Seven Lives. She lives in New York.
""Ruki’s gently funny adventures have the appeal of iyashikei (“healing”) manga, but Takano’s exceptional cartooning skills and attention to human detail elevate them to a category all their own. Like the café drinks that Ruki and Ecchan commiserate over, it’s a small, perfect treat."" —Publishers Weekly ""Miss Ruki is an unconventional manga by a master of the art less known outside of Japan . . . The refreshing simplicity of the storytelling makes for light, liberating reading . . . [Miss Ruki] is a treat for anyone interested in Japanese daily life or simply looking for a calm, relaxing read."" —Ashley Hawkins, Booklist ""Fumiko Takano is one of those artists who becomes everyone’s little secret. You stumble across one of her gorgeous, hard-to-find manga. You share it with a close friend. Before you know it, you’re both on the lookout for more . . . Now at last, the wait’s over, the secret’s out. Fumiko Takano, manga poet and pioneer, has reached our shores. One of her most daring, delightful manga, acclaimed in Japan and Europe, is here, thanks to Alexa Frank’s sparkling translation of Miss Ruki."" —Daniel Meyerowitz, The Comics Journal
