Miss Ruki

This fizzy series of short comics by alt-manga artist Takano first ran in a Japanese women’s lifestyle magazine in the 1980s and ’90s and remain a delight. Ruki, a cheerful, childlike Tokyo woman, skips through her days oblivious to the hyper-capitalist Japanese bubble economy around her. She works from home and spends most of her time enjoying small, simple pleasures: reading children’s books at the library, napping on the train, cooking on an old-fashioned hibachi grill. “I don’t mind if people see me having fun!” she asserts. Her friend, Ecchan, who blows her paychecks on fashion and gets flustered around good-looking men, tries to introduce Ruki to high living, without success; when Ecchan dresses Ruki up for a classy soirée, Ruki complains, “I look just like my dead grandmother.” Takano captures her charming characters in impeccably posed body language, and a style suggestive of European clear-line cartooning. She takes full advantage of the opportunity to work in color, giving each two-page installment its own palette. 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. (Sept.)