Manga Notes: Maison Ikkoku 4
Aug. 29th, 2021 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen I started into the fourth volume of the new Viz release of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, it was with a sort of “things can only get better from here” satisfaction. I’d run into critical comments about the second and third volumes just before beginning to read them, but managed to think that once again I was uncritical enough to not be bothered.
One of my first impressions was that the artwork was making me think back to the first volume, but only because of the thought it had worked its way well past those early peculiarities to match a sense, however vague, of “how it was supposed to look.” The story that artwork was in service of, though, did get me wondering if it had really “advanced” past the criticisms of the volumes just previous. I was ready to tell myself “imperceptible steps forward, so long as each small misadventure stays entertaining, until all of a sudden the romantic development’s obvious even to me” were just fine, though. Maybe Kyoko still showing flashes of temper continued to “seem more complex than I’d supposed before the very beginning,” anyway.
Something did change midway through, though, when Godai’s grandmother showed up and refused to leave. I’d noted before how the characters in Maison Ikkoku are a little older than “manga characters as expected,” and the diminutive, grotesque caricature (drawing, anyway) might push that a good bit further. Two young women introduced as one-shot characters in two separate chapters at least got my attention in a different way, and for some reason I quite enjoyed one late chapter offering a different spin on “getting trapped together out of the way.” The very last chapter being listed in the table of contents as “Side Story” had me wondering until I got to it, at which point I wondered about it amounting to “an imaginary story,” but by its end I could see that interpretation wasn’t quite necessary.
One of my first impressions was that the artwork was making me think back to the first volume, but only because of the thought it had worked its way well past those early peculiarities to match a sense, however vague, of “how it was supposed to look.” The story that artwork was in service of, though, did get me wondering if it had really “advanced” past the criticisms of the volumes just previous. I was ready to tell myself “imperceptible steps forward, so long as each small misadventure stays entertaining, until all of a sudden the romantic development’s obvious even to me” were just fine, though. Maybe Kyoko still showing flashes of temper continued to “seem more complex than I’d supposed before the very beginning,” anyway.
Something did change midway through, though, when Godai’s grandmother showed up and refused to leave. I’d noted before how the characters in Maison Ikkoku are a little older than “manga characters as expected,” and the diminutive, grotesque caricature (drawing, anyway) might push that a good bit further. Two young women introduced as one-shot characters in two separate chapters at least got my attention in a different way, and for some reason I quite enjoyed one late chapter offering a different spin on “getting trapped together out of the way.” The very last chapter being listed in the table of contents as “Side Story” had me wondering until I got to it, at which point I wondered about it amounting to “an imaginary story,” but by its end I could see that interpretation wasn’t quite necessary.