Manga Review: Maison Ikkoku

I can't believe I read the whole thing.

Maison Ikkoku, written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. Fifteen volumes (second edition). Translated by Gerard Jones and Matt Thorn. Viz Media (2003-2006). $9.95 each.

...These rents are the same kind you might still find today around many universities--although in Tokyo you would probably pay at least a third more.... All of these units demand two months' rent for shikkin, but that's fair enough.... But the second number is the disgusting practice of reikin, the so-called "remuneration" which is basically a bribe--or obligatory gift if you like--given to your landlord for the privilege of being allowed to pay rent to live there!... Nor is there any guarantee your landlord will look like Kyoko Otonashi.

--Carl Gustav Horn, editor's notes to Oh My Goddess! Volume 1, p. 190

I have to make a full confession. While I was dusting the apartment the other day, I spotted a book that had fallen from a shelf in Snuffles's room. I picked it up and happened to notice the synopsis on the back. Thinking it looked interesting, I opened it, and, well, one thing led to another. Snuffles barged in an hour later and found me sitting on the floor eagerly reading through a stack of his manga. He called a family meeting, and Frederick, Phenny, and Lucky agreed that, as punishment, I should read an entire manga series and review it. Snuffles gave me a list of titles he thought I'd find embarrassing; I chose Maison Ikkoku. (He really wanted me to review Fushigi Yûgi or Boys Over Flowers, but there's no way that's gonna happen.) I feel like a fish out of water here, but Snuffles has been gracious enough to lend me some resources and advice.

Although I usually let Snuffles handle the manga and anime, I have passing knowledge of some of Takahashi's other work. Some months ago, Snuffles convinced me to read a few volumes of Ranma 1/2. The first volume is nearly perfect as a romantic action comedy; the proceeding volumes I couldn't stand. When trespassing in Snuffles's room, the book I picked up happened to be volume 4 of InuYasha. Maison Ikkoku is a break from these other works: set in Japan in the 1980s, it has no fantasy elements or action sequences. It is a romantic comedy about an indecisive slacker college student, Yusaku, who falls instantly in love with the young widow, Kyoko, who becomes the new manager of his run-down boarding house. Yusaku struggles to get through school while skipping as many classes as possible, trying to woo his manager, and dealing with his several nosy, eccentric, alcoholic housemates. For her part, Kyoko, for reasons known only to Takahashi, feels affection for Yusaku's but remains unwilling to reveal it because she is still working through the emotional aftermath of her late husband's death. She shows this by simultaneously repelling Yusaku's advances and by getting violently jealous of any rivals. In that, she's a typical Takahashi heroine.

Filling fifteen volumes and stretching longer than some epics, Maison Ikkoku covers six years, during which Yusaku progresses through school and into real life, gradually developing from an immature, wishy-washy boy into a mature, slightly less wishy-washy man, all the while having a roller-coaster relationship with Kyoko, who is dating another man but is nonetheless jealous of all Yusaku's female friends. Naturally, to keep the comedy going, Kyoko frequently finds Yusaku in compromising situations, only some of which are of his making.

According to some Internet sources, Takahashi originally planned this series to be open-ended, perpetuated by constant introductions of characters and subplots that would move the focus away from Yusaku's infatuation with Kyoko, but was convinced by responses to the series to retool it as a romance. This shows in the first several chapters: Yusaku's love for Kyoko is instantaneous, her confused response almost as fast, too fast to be the setup for a series that spans 15 volumes. But by the end of the first volume, it is apparent that Takahashi intends to slow things down as she develops the characters and introduces complications, particularly in the form of rivals: Yusaku begins dating the sweet, naïve, and unintentionally manipulative Kozue while Kyoko begins seeing the handsome, wealthy, and extremely pushy tennis coach Mitaka.

In volume 5, the story begins to drag. Several of the chapters are extraneous if humorous romps, especially the "Lost Chapter" at the end of volume 6, which implausibly features the entire Maison Ikkoku gang stranded on a desert island. Fortunately, the chapters are still reasonably entertaining and some gradual development does take place. Things heat up again in volume 7, grow almost unbearably angst-ridden in the first half of volume 8, and remain intense right up through volume 14, immediately after which, as I'll explain shortly, the story resolves and then drags on through volume 15 where it reaches an overlong yet satisfactory conclusion.

In my encounters with Ranma 1/2 and InuYasha, I suspected Takahashi had more skill than she was letting on. Ranma 1/2 is too focused on silliness, InuYasha on violence, to really show what she's capable of. In Maison Ikkoku, however, she delivers the full brunt. I cannot recall any other books over which I have laughed out loud or cried out loud so frequently. Once, I had to drop the book because I was laughing so hard I couldn't read. Another time, I had to drop the book because I was sobbing so hard I couldn't read. Takahashi's artistic skill is marginal; she tends to overuse certain formulas; her work features frequent low humor and fanservice; yet for all that, or because of it, Rumiko Takahashi has an almost freakish ability to convey powerful emotion. By the middle of volume 8, my nerves were frazzled and remained so until the end. I haven't recovered from reading this series and don't expect to for a few days. It is, simply put, the second-best love story I have ever read (Bone is still number 1 and I'm not budging).

Six years and fifteen volumes may sound like a lot of time and space for one simple love story. Indeed, manga have a tendency to take one-shot ideas and stretch them out into never-ending sagas. This may not be entirely the creators' fault: according to Frederick L. Schodt in Dreamland Japan, publishers often push creators to keep popular stories going long after the quality has dropped. However, though Maison Ikkoku could probably shed several early chapters and a few sections at the end without detriment, I will not complain about its length.

To understand why, compare it to the movie Titanic. While watching films like Titanic, I tend to sympathize with the wrong characters: sure, the stereotypical evil fiancé is a creep, but he's not as bad as his betrothed, who has sex in a car with some guy she just met the day before. So when Evil Fiancé is chasing his bride-to-be with a gun, I find myself hoping he puts her in the ground. The problem with Titanic is that it isn't really a romance but a fling, and it's sad that the filmmakers can't tell the difference. Anybody with a lick of sense knows that if the ship had made it to port, that charcoal-sketching bastard would have gone on to the next town and the next girl. Maison Ikkoku may be too long for a love story, but at least it isn't too short: the characters have plenty of time to get to know each other, to become better people, and to have conflicts beyond counting before the story draws to a close. Besides, if it were much shorter, it probably wouldn't be able to produce that delectable agony in the reader, as I described above.

You can probably guess how Maison Ikkoku ends, but for courtesy's sake, I must insert a spoiler alert before I continue.

Maison Ikkoku offers some mixed messages. Although the story indulges in frequent lowbrow humor, most of those messages are good. Early on, Yusaku's college buddies offer him some stupid advice of the sort I've heard from real college students, encouraging him to take advantage of his girlfriend Kozue: "Your manager's an older woman. She's got experience. If you don't get in some practice beforehand, she'll think you're a total geek" (vol. 4, p. 124). The next couple of panels skewer this: in Yusaku's imagination, he sees himself grasping Kozue and saying, "Yes, my dear, I need some prac--er, I mean--'I love you.'" Later, when Yusaku is a student teacher at an all-girls' high school, one of his students tries to seduce him and he shouts at her, "Dammit, Yagami! You should be saving yourself for marriage!" (vol. 9, p. 102). Near the end, when Mitaka finds he has put a young woman in a compromising situation, he does the manly thing and marries her (vol. 14, p. 13). The series on the whole appears to have a positive and serious view of marriage.

Yet after all that, the story climaxes with a premarital sex scene (vol 15, pp. 40-44). The story makes an issue of the virginity of a number of female characters and at the same time makes an issue of Kyoko's widowhood. After all that, the sex scene suggests that, though other women in the story must be treated honorably, Kyoko is somehow unworthy of such respect because she isn't a virgin, a most unfortunate and dismal message, however unintentional it may be.

I could pull out a lengthy Catholic definition of chastity and all its implications, but I'm disinclined at the moment. Discussing today's literature and film inevitably means frequently discussing sex, so the topic grows tiresome. Rather than addressing the scene from a moral angle, I prefer to address it from an artistic one. A love story, to be effective, must manipulate the reader's emotions; a good love story ratchets up the emotional intensity with a steady pace until the audience feels ready to explode, something Maison Ikkoku does with unusual virtuosity. The love story inevitably builds to either a death or a marriage, which releases this emotional tension. At this point, the story must end as swiftly as possible because its hold over the audience is gone.

Although there may be cause for sex scenes in a romantic tragedy, which builds to death, a romantic comedy is different because it builds to marriage. Inserting a sex scene into a romantic comedy disrupts the tension and dissipates it prematurely. If you doubt, consider whether a sex scene or a marriage ceremony is more intense. After sex, the wedding can only be anticlimactic.

To understand how this works, think of horror films. The Shining gradually builds tension, increasing it at a steady pace, resisting the temptation to jump out at the viewer until the climax. For that reason, it is an extremely frightening film. Compare that to something like Candyman. That film has so many jump scenes, the initial tension is quickly gone and the viewer can potentially feel relaxed by the time the actual villain shows up. Romances, like horror, must build tension, though of a different kind. It amazes me how many writers mess this up when they don't have to.

Furthermore, though Maison Ikkoku spends a lot of time maturing Yusaku into an adult, when he spends most of volume 15 waffling about proposing to Kyoko after he has slept with her, he appears to be a cad, especially since we have watched Mitaka dutifully marry a woman because he might have slept with her while drunk. Maison Ikkoku is much too powerful to be wrecked by this, but it, like its characters, is cheapened and compromised.

But enough of that. Maison Ikkoku, though its scenarios are frequently over-the-top, is nonetheless adept at displaying relationships between believable, flawed people, and for that reason has many good things to say about romantic love. Yusaku is not a perfect man by any stretch, but neither is Kyoko an ideal woman. Though their chemistry is definite and palpable, it's often hard to figure out what they see in each other. In the early chapters, Yusaku's behavior is of the sort more likely to win a restraining order than a woman's heart, and even by the end he hasn't completely overcome his penchant for delay and indecision. For her part, Kyoko is frequently angry and chilly and shows almost nothing that can be called affection. Are they destined for each other--or do they deserve each other? Perhaps Yusaku himself states it best in one of the story's most powerful lines: "The woman I love burns with jealousy, leaps to conclusions, cries, and turns to ice, but when she laughs, the world is mine" (vol. 15, p. 22).

So be it. Amen.

The Sci Fi Catholic's Rating for Maison Ikkoku:

Myth Level: N/A (different from the material we usually handle here; contains an excellent love story with universal themes)

Quality: Medium-High (marginal art, some sagging in the middle, effective humor, powerful telling, highly emotional)

Ethics/Religion: Medium-Low (mixed messages I find confusing, occasional nudity, frequent fanservice, sexual humor, one non-graphic premarital sex scene)