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Friday, March 24, 2006

Ikkoku Kan (一刻館)






Just now I'd spent over 40 hours to conclude a feeling left hanging more than 15 years ago. I rushed through the entire series of 96 half-hour episodes of Maison Ikkoku (めぞん一刻) in a week. First aired on Fuji TV in 1986, MI is one of those animes that the protagonist is a guy you root for from the get-go all the while wanting to punch in the neck*, especially when a story is as long as this one (spanning seven years).

I've waited since 1989 for Kyoko Otonashi (音無 響子) and Yusaku Godai (五代 裕作) to finally be together. (yume ja... nai...)


Some fans are crazy enough to come up with the floor plans for the house. And here are some pics of possible real locations illustrated in MI.


*such found in Kimagure Orange Road (きまぐれオレンジ☆ロード) 1987-88, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (超時空要塞マクロス) 1982-83, etc.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember reading the Maison Ikkoku series a few years back and being oddly moved by its realism and depth. I was kind of hoping that my apartment in Niihama would be like MI, but no such luck =)

I know Inuyasha is very popular with the anime crowd, but I wish Takahashi Rumiko would go back to writing more adult-oriented material.

todd said...

Sarah, Noein seems like a very interesting anime. But I usually find comics/anime that I grew up reading/watching more soul-stirring. The years add so much more to it.

Charlie, too bad you didn't get an aparto like Ikkoku-Kan in Niihama but it was old, remember? And we did have the alcoholism and some fairly distinct personalities in the group. Takahashi Rumiko has had four really successful long comics (Urusei Yatsura 79-86, Maison Ikkoku 82-87, Ranma 1/2 88-96, Inu-Yasha 97-), like you said MI is the only adult-oriented one that resembles a good novel.

Anonymous said...

And imagine if we'd all lived under one roof! We'd have probably all been too drunk/hungover/tired to go to work or even leave the apartment =) Sometimes our adventures were stranger than fiction!

todd said...

I'll drink to that thought!

todd said...

the Smurfs and Jem and the Holograms were great. Jem being more of a girly cartoon tho. the other two I have no idea.

this is probably unfair but anime and manga have been around in the asian communities for more than three decades. that's quite a headstart.