Manga Thoughts: Maison Ikkoku 8
Sep. 20th, 2022 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAs I got around to the eighth volume of the new release of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, I was conscious all over again of how I’d managed to say something here about each of the previous volumes, and how that sometimes felt more of a struggle than with other manga I’ve made multiple posts about. From the start I’ve supposed Maison Ikkoku to be a “romantic comedy” rather than a “situation comedy” (which can get me thinking of Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura, reading the manga of which depends more on thinking “I’ve seen that much more of its anime adaptation now, and can chance going back to its inspiration without ‘seeing something for the first time but in unadjusted form...’”) That impression leaves me convinced Maison Ikkoku’s story is going somewhere, but it’s forever “one little bit at a time.” Pretty much from the start, the thought that at some point that impression of momentum will dissipate altogether has raised concerns of running out of things to say at last.
As the eight volume got under way, though, the high school student Ibuki Yagami returned, intent on wrangling more time together with Godai. (It did take getting to the end of the volume with its list of explanations for the Japanese numbers worked into character names to realize she wasn’t the only “young woman who might come between Godai and Kyoko...”) As she bounced off all the residents of Maison Ikkoku, I did get to considering both her and Kyoko’s character designs and thinking that while they might be thought “simple,” there was something appealing about them, perhaps especially because they were in winter-weight outfits. Of course, that led straight on to all the usual issues attached to “liking manga and anime character designs too much.” There was in any case a moment between Godai and Kyoko with intimations of significance (it took up a splash page), and Kyoko hasn’t altogether abandoned the prickly edge that got my attention by upending one of my very first suppositions.
Just to make things more complicated, Coach Mitaka the tennis instructor returns, having got over his comedic fear of dogs through raising a tiny canine named “McEnroe.” He’d done this so that he wouldn’t be intimidated by Kyoko’s odd-eyed dog Soichiro, but as it turns out the multiple dogs of the wealthy young woman Asuna don’t get in the way of her remaining the “maybe that’s how he’s taken care of” character.
From there, Godai managed to lose his toe-in-the-door job at a nursery school. Sad comments from the people there about “the economy” had me wondering about all the assumptions in English-language commentaries over the years about just how good the 1980s had been in Japan. I then remembered I’d had that thought reading earlier volumes; I still don’t know if it’s all a matter-of-fact glimpse of how things really could be, or if it’s a more pointed take on “Godai is a lovable loser stuck among layabouts” than I’d supposed. Godai does manage to get another job, but it’s in sleazier surroundings (including pointedly unattractive female character designs). His fellow tenants at Maison Ikkoku are quite willing to take advantage of this, even so. This does stretch out further Kyoko learning just what’s happened, but before the end of the volume things have just about been taken care of there, with another sort of complication turning up at the very end to make thinking ahead a little more interesting.
As the eight volume got under way, though, the high school student Ibuki Yagami returned, intent on wrangling more time together with Godai. (It did take getting to the end of the volume with its list of explanations for the Japanese numbers worked into character names to realize she wasn’t the only “young woman who might come between Godai and Kyoko...”) As she bounced off all the residents of Maison Ikkoku, I did get to considering both her and Kyoko’s character designs and thinking that while they might be thought “simple,” there was something appealing about them, perhaps especially because they were in winter-weight outfits. Of course, that led straight on to all the usual issues attached to “liking manga and anime character designs too much.” There was in any case a moment between Godai and Kyoko with intimations of significance (it took up a splash page), and Kyoko hasn’t altogether abandoned the prickly edge that got my attention by upending one of my very first suppositions.
Just to make things more complicated, Coach Mitaka the tennis instructor returns, having got over his comedic fear of dogs through raising a tiny canine named “McEnroe.” He’d done this so that he wouldn’t be intimidated by Kyoko’s odd-eyed dog Soichiro, but as it turns out the multiple dogs of the wealthy young woman Asuna don’t get in the way of her remaining the “maybe that’s how he’s taken care of” character.
From there, Godai managed to lose his toe-in-the-door job at a nursery school. Sad comments from the people there about “the economy” had me wondering about all the assumptions in English-language commentaries over the years about just how good the 1980s had been in Japan. I then remembered I’d had that thought reading earlier volumes; I still don’t know if it’s all a matter-of-fact glimpse of how things really could be, or if it’s a more pointed take on “Godai is a lovable loser stuck among layabouts” than I’d supposed. Godai does manage to get another job, but it’s in sleazier surroundings (including pointedly unattractive female character designs). His fellow tenants at Maison Ikkoku are quite willing to take advantage of this, even so. This does stretch out further Kyoko learning just what’s happened, but before the end of the volume things have just about been taken care of there, with another sort of complication turning up at the very end to make thinking ahead a little more interesting.