Rumic World fun facts!
It seems widely known that the short story Those Selfish Aliens is essentially the pilot for Urusei Yatsura (aka Those Obnoxious Aliens), but reading some more Rumic World & Rumic Theater short stories and comparing them to the Furinkan.com publishing timeline, a few other stories seem to be pilots for—or early versions of the ideas that would later become—other Rumiko Takahashi series.
Wedded Bliss was published in the same magazine (or a spinoff title) as Maison Ikkoku, within a month of Ikkoku's debut, though the order in which they were created is unclear since either one could've been written/drawn earlier and been held for publication at a later date. The tone of the story and the couple's dynamic is more reminiscent of Ataru & Lum than Godai & Kyoko, but the wife even has Kyoko's hairstyle and apron!
[these stories were published so long ago they read left-to-right!]
In 1985, again in the same magazine as Ranma 1/2 but this time 2 years before Ranma came out, we have Excuse Me For Being A Dog!, a romantic comedy featuring martial arts, involuntary transformations, and early prototypes of Akane, Ranma, Kuno, and even the Akane/P-chan dynamic! I have to wonder if the gag in Ranma where Ranma briefly thinks Ryoga's turned into a dog is a meta reference to this story.
Also of note: 1983's Fire Tripper and Sleep And Forget also contain ideas that wound up in Inuyasha. The former is a story of time travel between the modern age and the Warring States era, the latter is a story of reincarnation and mystical demon dogs, and both contain the Takahashi-typical dynamic of an average schoolgirl drawn into romance with a mysterious wild boy.
All the stories were originally published in English in Rumic World and Rumic Theater, but as of this writing they're all unfortunately long out of print.
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Car tu es
mon amour, et donc
toute ma vie…
V. H. SCORP
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