Maison Ikkoku - Anime Review
Maison Ikkoku is an animated series that aired in Japan during the 1980's. The series has 96 episodes, and each episode is 25 minutes long. The time period covered is roughly 4-5 years.
This is a sweet little series. As soon as I watched it, I was instantly hooked. I think this is a great series for anyone who's interested in Japanese animation (i.e., anime), because it's both hilariously funny and genuinely touching. A lot of anime is total fantasy where people practice martial arts, or fly around in space with robots and aliens. But Maison Ikkoku is a human drama with no supernatural elements, which makes it very accessible to everyone, including those new to anime. Much of it is essentially a romantic farce, and each episode features a central misunderstanding that leads to people getting angry for no reason, accompanied by stammered and desperate explanations, and everyone always missing each other by just that much.
But above all, Maison Ikkoku is a great love story of surprising depth and emotion. In fact, the last three episodes of the series never fail to make me cry. It's kind of embarrassing to admit, since I rarely cry over a book or a movie, but this story is so cute and moving, I can't help it. I always bawl like a baby, and it hurts so good. In fact, I'm choking up now, just thinking about it.
The story begins with Yusaku Godai (most everyone just calls him Godai), who, in the beginning of the series, is a student studying for his college entrance exams, and living in a run-down rooming house in Tokyo called Maison Ikkoku. His neighbors are loud alcoholics, who are so unruly that the manager of Ikkoku quits. Godai himself is on the verge of moving out when the new manager arrives.
The new manager of Maison Ikkoku is a beautiful young woman named Kyoko Otonashi. The Maison Ikkoku series is about the love story between Godai and Kyoko.
The heart of this story is Godai & Kyoko's relationship, as he transforms from a drooling teenage boy into a mature adult, and she lets go of her first husband and learns to find love again. There is a lot of meddling (from the drunken neighbors and family members) as well as jealousy and misunderstandings (due to other romantic interests) that get in their way.
Notable Characters:
~ Kyoko Otonashi – She is a young widow, who is only about 20 years old at the beginning of the series. She married her high school student-teacher, Soichiro, who died just six months after their wedding. She was deeply in love with her husband, and her continued love and grief for him keeps her from moving on with her life. Maison Ikkoku belongs to her former husband's family, and she remains very affectionate with them.
Despite appearing to have a very somber personality, Kyoko can also be very stubborn and jealous, and devolves into a tantrum-throwing child when dealing with her loving but meddlesome parents.
~ Yusaku Godai – He is a young college student. He's somewhat scatter-brained, but very kind and soft-hearted. Not to mention, he's a bit of a doormat – he is frequently taken advantage of by his moocher-neighbors, among others.
During the course of the series, Godai evolves from a goofy, love-struck teenager to a responsible, honorable young man. Aside from his love for Kyoko, the series is really about Godai’s coming of age, as he learns the value of honesty, doing the right thing, and not giving into temptation or taking the easy way out. Not to make it sound as if the series is all about moral life lessons (it’s not), but Godai really grows up during the course of the series.
~ Shun Mitaka – Mitaka is the tennis coach at Kyoko’s tennis club. He is also smitten with Kyoko and become Godai’s rival for her love. He’s rich, handsome, well-educated, and dashing, and appears to be superior to Godai in every way, since Godai is poor, clumsy, and attends a second-rate university. He pursues Kyoko relentlessly.
Despite their bitter rivalry, Mitaka and Godai do have some begrudging respect for each other. Sometimes guys just get drunk together and punch each other a few times over the same girl, and then they become like best friends. I’ve seen it many times, both in media and in life, and I can’t figure it out. But you get the idea.
~ Kozue Nanao – Godai’s former co-worker who becomes his kind-of girlfriend due to a series of coincidences, her obliviousness, and his reluctance to hurt her feelings.
It’s hard to believe that anyone can be someone’s girlfriend simply through sheer inertia, and that she would never wonder why he doesn’t even try to kiss her after "dating” him for years. But I bought this relationship, because the point of it was that both Kozue and Godai are very shy and inexperienced – so inexperienced that they are scared to hold hands. And after all, this is a farce – where would it be without huge misunderstandings?
~ Ibuki Yagami – She is a high school student who attends Kyoko’s former high school, and falls in love with Godai when he is a student-teacher there. At first, her infatuation with Godai appears to parallel Kyoko and Soichiro’s relationship (Ibuki even looks like the young Kyoko). But she turns out to be Kyoko’s doppelgänger, as she is much more manipulative and obsessive than Kyoko ever was.
I found Ibuki’s pushiness a little creepy – for example, at some point she runs away from home to live with Godai – scandalous! But her aggressive qualities result in at least two great scenes when she forces Kyoko to admit her feelings about Godai. And despite behaving like a brat most of the time, there is one fantastic episode which shows that even young Ibuki’s little-girl infatuation is more knowing and deep than we ever thought. This kind of revelation is what sets this series apart from other cartoons, in my opinion.
~ There are many more characters in the series, each contributing plenty of both comic relief and pathos. But these are the pivotal characters – a love-pentagon, so to speak.
~ The last "character” worth mentioning is the trio of Godai’s neighbors, the other denizens of Maison Ikkoku: Mr. Yotsuya, Mrs. Ichinose, and Miss Akemi. These constantly drunk neighbors leech off Godai every chance they get, tease him constantly, and gossip relentlessly, especially about his crush on Kyoko. They often get in the way by always barging in on Godai and Kyoko at always the worst possible moment, and generally make huge nuisances of themselves. But they also have a lot of affection for both Godai and Kyoko, and are instrumental in the relationship between them.
Cultural Differences:
I think cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. are more glaringly obvious in Maison Ikkoku than it might be in other kinds of anime series, because Ikkoku is primarily a domestic drama. (The differences would be less significant for, say, the Pokemon series.) So, here are a few that I found worth noting:
~ The nosy neighbors drink a lot. And by a lot, I mean, A LOT. They are almost constantly drunk. Although this kind of thing would be considered anti-social behavior in an American TV series and would likely result in some serious consequences, it’s treated mostly as a character quirk.
In fact, alcohol actually plays a major role. I suppose that is inevitable in a country where you can buy beer from vending machines, but people in this series drink for grief, drink for joy, and drink for boredom.
~ Another practice is the “omiai” – a kind of marriage meeting where you circulate a “resume” with your picture enclosed, and go scouting for a potential spouse. It’s something unimaginable in America, but a pretty common practice in Asia. (In America, you can go on a TV show to find your future spouse. Ha.) Some people confuse this with arranged marriages, but although parents are involved in the decision process, it is not quite the same thing.
~ The residents of Maison Ikkoku bathe in public baths, because Ikkoku has no in-house bathing facility. This is a common living arrangement in Japan.
Misc.
Another great thing about this series, and anime in general, is the beautiful music and artwork that accompanies the opening and credit sequences. Most American series feature a signature song (if that), a simple title sequence introducing the lead actors, and a basic black credit sequence at the end, which all tend to remain pretty much the same throughout the run of the series.
But Maison Ikkoku in particular has different sets of opening and credit sequences for each season that are exquisite little music videos that stand of their own. They are so darn pretty and entertaining that you will feel compelled to sit and watch every second of it until the screen goes black.
Maison Ikkoku is one of my most favorite anime series of all time. I would recommend Maison Ikkoku to anyone who’s interested in something a little off the beaten path. And with the growing popularity of anime movies & series (e.g., by Hayao Miyazaki) more people seem to be interested in anime all the time.