Rin-ne

Many years ago, the first exposure that I and many budding otaku my age had to manga was through Rumiko Takahashi in the form of Ranma 1/2. It was one of the first widely distributed manga series in the United States and whether they loved it or hated it, just about everyone had read Ranma. Later, Inu-Yasha would become a smash hit, and her other series such as Maison Ikkoku, Mermaid Saga and One-Pound Gospel also did well. There’s only one problem as far as I’m concerned – these days she doesn’t know when to quit.

What I mean by that is that Ranma ran for 38 volumes (36 in the US) and Inu-Yasha a staggering 56. In Ranma‘s case, a good half of the series felt like filler episodes; a battle in a hot spring water park for a soap that could cure their curses, a cursed mushroom that turns the eater into a child and Martial Arts Tea Ceremony, just to name a few. In a forum post, a newcomer said that they’d fallen out of the habit of reading Ranma around volume 20 and wanted to know if it was absolutely essential to read the rest of them or if they could skip ahead. The answer was a resounding “unless you’re a completist, skip to volume 35 and don’t look back.” Though Inu-Yasha doesn’t suffer from as much of the same malady, there are still areas in the series where it feels like certain arcs could have been condensed without losing the story. Because of this tendency to drag out her storylines, I was planning to resist reading Rin-ne unless something about it really got my attention. And then I read the synopsis.

Rin-ne (境界のRINNE; RINNE of the Boundary) is about a high school girl called Sakura Mamiya, who is able to see ghosts after being spirited away when she was a child and her classmate Rinne Rokudo who is half-shinigami and helps souls break their attachments to this world so they may be reincarnated. Unfortunately for me, I have this weak spot where Shinigami are concerned. Horrific, adorable, hot and sexy…if there’s a shinigami involved, I’ll give it a shot.

Another notable thing about Rin-ne is that, much like Funimation’s decision to sub/stream Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood mere days after its airing in Japan, Viz has chosen to release the manga chapters online weekly at the same time they are printed in Shonen Sunday as well as the tankoubon. This is a manga first in the United States and it’s almost a sure thing that Rin-ne will do well with the shonen action-adventure set, but does it have real merit? Or is it going to be another Takahashi series that lingers long past its welcome?

After reading the first few chapters online it looked like Rin-ne was going to be more of an episodic manga, where the protagonists solve mysteries and send spirits to the next life, a la Yurara. However, starting with the second volume it looks like there might be more of an ongoing story in the works. Which scenario is better? Either way, it could end up being drawn out for years so I’m still reserving my judgment until I’ve read a few more volumes.