Maison Ikkoku, Volume 1

by Rumiko Takahashi

Book Overview

Here comes a new edition from one of the most popular manga series in the romantic comedy genre. Bashful college student Yusaku is madly in love with gorgeous Kyoko, the widowed manager of his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591160545
• ISBN13: 9781591160540
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Viz Media
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Romantic Comedy "Maison Ikkoku": Best Comic of Rumiko Takahashi

It is a bit unfortunate that outside Japan the name of manga creator Rumiko Takahashi is often associated with the long-running series "Inuyasha." Don't get me wrong. "Inuyasha" is good; it is just overlong. Rumiko Takahashi's best work is, and will be, "Maison Ikkoku," a romantic comedy with a lot of crazy and adorable characters. [STORY of VOLUME 1] Yusaku Godai cannot take it anymore. He is a high school graduate preparing for the upcoming university entrance examination, but he is living in the worst apartment, where eccentric residents never stop annoying him. Yusaku decides to leave the place immediately when a new manager of this old, rundown apartment arrives. Her name is Kyoko Otonashi and she is a beautiful, mild-mannered young woman. Yusaku, naturally, changes his mind. But there is one secret that Yusaku doesn't know about her. Through the following episodes we are introduced to the characters surrounding Yusaku and Kyoko, and most of them are quite unique and some very weird, for example, Mr. Yotsuya, strange "gentleman" who likes on his neighbors more than anything; incredibly officious middle-aged woman Ichinose-san; and ever-drunken bar hostess, scantily clad Akemi-san. Originally serialized in weekly comic magazine "Big Comic Spirits" from 1980-87, "Maison Ikkoku" is Rumiko Takahashi at her best. The artwork may look old-fashioned for younger readers, but this is a comic some generation in Japan including me grew up with. As the story goes on, these characters, for all (and because of) their flaws, become more and more endearing, and the romantic relation between Yusaku and Kyoko becomes engrossing. [TRANSLATION] Viz Media edition's translation itself is not bad, but as another reviewer has pointed out, some words are misleading. Yusaku Godai, a high school graduate, is not a college student yet when he first appears, but he is often called "Mr. Flunk-out" ("ronin san" in Japanese original") which may sound strange to some readers. (A "ronin" in fact means someone who graduated from high school, but failed to pass the entrance exam of college.) Some jokes are changed or removed. The little boy Kentaro's line "You can go!" on p. 54 is a good example. Actually Kentaro says literally, "(Girls) like a big...." and later adds "house." The terribly embarrassed faces of other guests including Yusaku and Kyoko cannot be understood without this sexual nuance. [TRIVIA] The comic's story is set in somewhere around Tokyo and it is said the station in the comic is based on Higashi-Kurume Station of Seibu Railway, in the city of Higashi-Kurume where Rumiko Takahashi once lived. The comic series has 15 volumes in all. The characters will grow up as the story continues, until the finale that is moving. Don't miss it.

Need some warmth? Read this rom-com classic.

Maison Ikkoku. The name of the popular romantic comedy (rom-com) that started its serialization back in 1980. Its success caused there to be a flood of manga out there about a college loser falling in love with the girl of his dreams and, after many oh-so-comical hardships, getting his girl. By todays standards, if it were to be released it would be something that nearly everyone has seen already, but you have to go into the series understanding that Maison Ikkoku is the reason all those college romantic comedies were created in the first place. The story is about a group of individuals who live at a boarding house, the boarding house being called Maison Ikkoku. Kyoko Otonashi, a 22 year old widow still trying to come to terms with the death of her husband, moves into Maison Ikkoku as the manager in an attempt to take her mind off her problems. One of her the tenants, Yusaku Godai, was just about to leave in order to find a more peaceful study environment when she walked into the building. He was quick to change his mind about escaping once he looked at her and fell in love at first sight. But, as Godai soon discovered, winning the heart of a woman still in love with her dead husband isn't an easy task... How to a rate a series that's so heart-warming yet has many bothersome flaws. Reading the series filled me with a warmth I haven't felt since I read Love Hina, another rom-com that copied a lot from Maison and improved a lot. But, during the middle sections of the story in particular, nothing advanced at all in 80% of the chapters. In fact, because the main characters were so indecisive, it took six years for four people to sort out relationship issues that could, and should, have been sorted out in under half the time. ...But I'm not going to get into the negative right from the get-go. That would give readers the wrong impression about the series. I have a habit of going on forever about the negative when something irks me, even when I actually like what I'm talking about. And as you'll see as you read on, that's true in the case of Maison Ikkoku. Even though Maison Ikkoku may appear to be more of the same to fairly experienced manga readers because many people have seen a rom-com involving college by now, before going into the series you have to understand that it started its serialization back in 1980 - we're now in 2009 and it has been copied to death. And even by todays standards, Maison Ikkoku is still a worthy rival for any other rom-com in existence, it being far more funny and touching than a lot of attempts that have been made at copying it. Mainson Ikkoku, despite its age, has something many rom-com stories lack: charm and respectability. In this day and age, it's rare to see a comedy manga that doesn't involve much nudity/panty shots - it's almost a requirement these days. But, to its credit, Maison Ikkoku isn't like that, and that adds a mature feel to the relationships of the character that just isn't there in most of th

THESE PEOPLE DRIVE ME CRAZY

Yusaku is a college student who never seems to do good on his exams. Does he blame himself? No, he blames the apartment house he lives in, named Masion Ikkoku. More to the point, he thinks that his fellow residents are ruining his life! Akemi, the bar-maiden who likes to walk around in her see-through nightie, becomes infuriated when Mr. Yotsuya, the enigmatic man with no job, is obsessed with her and peeps on her through a hole in Yusaku's room. Mrs. Inchinose's main job seems to be getting drunk and she also likes to join in with her kid son Kentaro in running down Yusaku as a failure and calling him "Mr. Flunk-out"! He's fed up with all this and decides to move out, but just at that moment in walks the new manager, the beautiful Ms. Kyoko Otonashi, and Yusaku is a complete goner, losing his heart at first sight. Maison Ikkoku is a brillant piece of comedy from the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi. The great thing about this series is that it appeals to an older audience. It's treatment of romantic entanglement, slapstick humor, and mature innuendo appeals to men and women readers. Takahashi's main strength here as elsewhere is the creation of appealing characters and stylish design. Never an inauthentic moment. Classic.

Funny and very sweet.

Maison Ikkoku is sweet. Honestly. It's not a typical romance story-- the characters are funny, the plot is flawless-- even the art is just perfect. Here is the story... Godai Yusaku is a hopless flunk-out that lives at the run-down boarding house maison Ikkoku (hence the title of the series.)THe neighbors there are completely annoying and entirely hopeless- there's the annoying, gossipy Mrs.Ichinose and her equally annoying son, kentaro, there's the sassy, calm, and entirely sexy barhostess, Akemi, and there's also the annoying and mooching peeping tom, Mr.Yotsuya. The manager has just quit, leaving the goofy tenants to torture poor Godai over and over with their late night partying and endless gossiping. Jsut as Yusaku has decided that he's had enough, he meets the new manager, the lovely (and recently widowed) Ms.Kyoko Otonashi. Of course he falls head-over-heels in love with her, but erh love for her late husband, Sochiro, and their nosy and insane neighbors keep them from tying the knot. Both charming and heartfelt, this series is absolutely flawless-- no Rumiko Takahashi fan should be without it in their collection.

About time!

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.