Customer Reviews

Maison Ikkoku: Volume 1 (2nd edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rumiko Takahashi is the grandma of manga. She's made many great books, and they're still some of the best in my opinion.

This is one of my favorites. I actually read this in the library but it's the same copy as here. The librarian working there said that Maison Ikkoku was one of the best mangas ever written and that it inspired a lot of manga artists after, probably all of them and it's easy to see why! I love this series. It was one of the first mangas I read after I graduated up from my other more current books.

The art style is a little plain and messy, but that just adds to the charm. It just looks honest and sweet, and the character's emotions come across so much better than a lot of mangas I've read. There's real depth to all the people in the story. The only thing is this series makes you want to keep reading and reading and there's a LOT of books in it and there always seems to be a cliff hanger. But that's okay because you love the characters so much and you want them all to do okay in life.

This isn't just a great manga, it's one that laid the ground for a lot of others. This one is a very good story to read even if you aren't that interested in manga but just want to learn about what it's like to live in Japan.

Love!

This is quickly becoming my favorite series, the plot is excellent, the characters are wonderful (it seems like I know a few of them), and the artwork is wonderful too. This is an absolutly FLAWLESS manga. But one thing that I noticed, dosen't it seem like in all of Rumiko Takahashi's mangas that there is a character that is a dopy guy? ex: Ranma, Yusaku, Inuyasha, and that guy from Lum. I'm just saying...

There are generally romantic plots in Rumiko Takahashi's works, but never more so than in "Maison Ikkoku." More sedate than "Ranma 1/2," less fantastical than "Inu-Yasha," this is a straightforward romantic comedy with a hysterical cast.

Yusaku is a struggling young student in a shabby apartment, with possibly the worst neighbors in the world (a pervert, a hard-drinking gossip, and a sexy waittress). Nobody takes him seriously; his nickname is "flunk-out." He's about to storm out, claiming that nobody could study in Maison Ikkoku, when the beautiful Kyoko walks in the door, announcing that she's the new manager. Yusaku immediately is smitten with her.

Unfortunately their relationship gets off to a rough start, though Kyoko is kind and supportive of him. First his neighbor claims he's peeking into her room. Then Yusaku accidently gets into a few compromising situations with Kyoko -- and suspects that she has a boyfriend named Soichiro (which is also her dog's name). When the landlord comes to visit, Yusaku finds out who Kyoko's mystery man is, and why she still thinks about him.

Takahashi's artwork is a little rougher and smudgier here than in her later series, but closer to how people actually look. And, in keeping with that, they act very much like real people. Some of the supporting characters, in the first volume, border on caricature, but the primary people are 3-D. And while there's plenty of humor, Takahashi tugs at the heartstrings in all the right places (such as Yusaku wondering how he can ace his test without Kyoko encouraging him, or Kyoko thinking that Yusaku didn't mean it when he said he loved her).

Without Chinese curses or rampaging demons to deal with, the inhabitants of Maison Ikkoku can themselves be formidable problems. Misunderstandings, teen crushes, drunken proclaimations of love in the streets, domineering relatives and lost "perfect" spouses make it a lot harder to fall in love. You know what's got to happen, but somehow the Real World always intrudes.

Yusaku is a lovable naif. The poor guy wants desperately to tell Kyoko how he feels, but there's always something in his way -- especially his own financial shortcomings. Kyoko is a fantastic portrait of a woman who, while determined to stay faithful to her dead husband, is starting to appreciate her hapless tenant.

Those who enjoy a funny, sad, almost-squeaky-clean almost-romance (like most of Takahashi's other works) will definitely like "Maison Ikkoku." Move in and join the ruckus.

Just after I posted my previous review (which I wrote before reading it in that format) I went through the book--and my god! they didn't change anything! While that may sound good, it isn't at all! The episodes that appeared in the original run still refer to Godai as a flunk-out instead of a ronin, which wouldn't be so bad if they had a least changed his situation--he still says that he's trying to pass mid-term exams, and not college entrance exams. To compound things, the four inserted episodes that appeared in Animerica Extra do say Ronin and entrance exams, and then it switches back again after them. I had to mark up my book to make the corrections that it would flow right. Horrible,lazy editing job, I must say. Shame on you Viz!

That said, the series is still very good, though there are certainly some quibbles with some other translation choices (the scene where young Kentaro should be saying "I know what it takes to make a woman happy. The most important thing a man can have is a big. . ." and gets stopped by Godai [only to find out that he was going to say "house"] isn't as funny or that sensical in its current form). Even in this form, Maison Ikkoku is a classic manga worth reading.

Finally, Viz has released an updated tankoban of Maison ikkoku. This first volume is the important one, as it collects the four episodes previously skipped in the original American run and the first version of the collected volume. This is a great comic, written with a sexual humor that would likely embarrass the Farrally brothers, yet with ten times the heart and a hundred times the intelligence. While later on, in some of the middle episodes of the series entire, there are some unnecessary characters added (especially Nozomu, the new tenant who starts off as brazen and a troublemaker but quickly turns into some kind of male version of uber-innocent Kozue), and the love triangle *almost* wears out its welcome on a couple of occasions, the final two-to-three dozen chapters create one of the great endings of manga, resolving the major conflicts beautifully, after some very sad and cathartic scenes involving the leads, Kyoko and Godai. Truly Rumiko Takahashi's most perfect series.