Manga Notes: Maison Ikkoku 9
Dec. 22nd, 2022 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAs I headed into the ninth volume of the new release of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku I already had an impression of what the tenth volume’s cover would be, and that was enough to get me thinking things just might not run on that much longer. I suppose there’s a tension between “the promise of a conclusion; this is a relatively realistic romantic comedy” and “when you’ve got a good thing going...” The question did come to mind “when the reputation of this series was building among English-language manga and anime fans, what else was it being compared to?”, but that might be shading towards unfairness.
As for “unfairnesss” within the story itself, Godai had managed to turn a lemon into at least sour lemonade by starting to take care of the multiple young children of the hostesses at the club he’d wound up working at in the previous volume. The jacket copy of this volume mentions him having to get a bit more involved with a little boy and a baby girl after their mother goes missing, which gets the other residents of Maison Ikkoku involved. This storyline ran for a while without overstaying its welcome, but on emerging from it I did notice Coach Mitaka and the tentative, part-of-a-well-off-family young woman Asuna (I am thinking back now to the “good wife material” I’d been ready to suppose Kyoko being before actually starting to read the manga, but that’s unfair to Asuna’s character as well) getting involved again.
This manages to lead to Godai and Mitaka deciding at last to “settle things like men,” but the park they go to is too crowded with romantic couples to have a fistfight and then they’re noticed by a suspicious cop (which I fear to admit raised a thought about “what might not have been thought about back then, save by certain fans”) who follows them around for the rest of the night. A little later on, there’s a misunderstanding to end all misunderstandings, but when the dust has settled Mitaka’s role in the story just might be settled. Before I could quite settle into thoughts of a clear run forward from there, Godai’s own first “she might amount to something” acquaintance Kozue shows up again in a somewhat new role that did have me thinking of time having passed in the story. (Before the end of the volume, though, I was convinced there’d been a proofreading error in a date...) She manages to lead to still more misunderstandings, a big step forward so far as this story goes, and a cliffhanger ending. I suppose now I’ve got wait and see what might actually happen in the tenth volume.
As for “unfairnesss” within the story itself, Godai had managed to turn a lemon into at least sour lemonade by starting to take care of the multiple young children of the hostesses at the club he’d wound up working at in the previous volume. The jacket copy of this volume mentions him having to get a bit more involved with a little boy and a baby girl after their mother goes missing, which gets the other residents of Maison Ikkoku involved. This storyline ran for a while without overstaying its welcome, but on emerging from it I did notice Coach Mitaka and the tentative, part-of-a-well-off-family young woman Asuna (I am thinking back now to the “good wife material” I’d been ready to suppose Kyoko being before actually starting to read the manga, but that’s unfair to Asuna’s character as well) getting involved again.
This manages to lead to Godai and Mitaka deciding at last to “settle things like men,” but the park they go to is too crowded with romantic couples to have a fistfight and then they’re noticed by a suspicious cop (which I fear to admit raised a thought about “what might not have been thought about back then, save by certain fans”) who follows them around for the rest of the night. A little later on, there’s a misunderstanding to end all misunderstandings, but when the dust has settled Mitaka’s role in the story just might be settled. Before I could quite settle into thoughts of a clear run forward from there, Godai’s own first “she might amount to something” acquaintance Kozue shows up again in a somewhat new role that did have me thinking of time having passed in the story. (Before the end of the volume, though, I was convinced there’d been a proofreading error in a date...) She manages to lead to still more misunderstandings, a big step forward so far as this story goes, and a cliffhanger ending. I suppose now I’ve got wait and see what might actually happen in the tenth volume.