Miss Ruki [Paperback]

CHOSEN BY THE WASHINGTON POST AS ONE OF THE BEST COMICS OF 2025

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. 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