I try to write this review because some friends asked me "why do you consider Maison Ikkoku as a masterpiece ?". Indeed we can have some prejudices : It's an old anime, the graphic style is really different from the actual, the anime is very long (96 épisodes for a romantic show, never see it) and worse than everything, in France the name was quite ridiculous and people who saw it during their childhood have sometimes difficulties to be objective. So let's talk a little about the contents and the qualities of Maison Ikkoku.
The central theme is of course "love" but it is not approached no mather how. The development is really adult, very thoughtful. It could to be led only by an author who already has a real experience of life and who thought in depth of the subject. With the two main protagonists Godai and Kyoko, it shows a relationship built on a long term (seven years). A love where each learn to know the other one, to admire him, with its faults and its qualities. A love where we learn to feel the life for two. The anime has a great deal of things to say, to communicate. It deals as well with the mourning, the forced mariage, the customs and the social constraints. But it always tries to approach things under a profoundly human vision and filled with hope. It tends to show the beauty hidden behind this ocean of feelings which constitute a human life.
Everything is not so simple, the series asks good questions, evokes the real problems which prevent people from being lucky in love and even happy in general. Every minor character: Mikata, Kozue, Ibuki, brings an additional and necessary contrast. Right in the middle of that, we catch living really the adventure in the side of Godai, seeing him growing up, wanting that he success its life and that he becomes deserving of the woman he loves. So much to say to you that from a certain stage, we are totally touched by the beauty of the things which are presented. It is a brick-built happiness, everything is magnificent. Intense romantic scenes, scenes where we simply see characters enjoying life, getting drunk in a student room. Scenes where we see children laughing and playing and blooming in streets. Scenes which speak to us simply about life. Because it's really that, I don't lie, everything is in the concrete, there is NO superficiality, it touches directly the televiewer permanently with sometimes totally insignificant scenes but which are already magnificent. It is an ode for the happiness, for the joy of being alife, an invitation to enjoy this short time, to fill it the best as possible.
I am not going to write a book about the artistic side, everything is just fucking perfect. The music sublimates always the atmosphere, the landscapes are poetic, delicate. The direction has benn extremely worked. Everything is rhythmic and brought at the right time, we are never bored during the 96 episodes. There is a permanent intelligence at the level of all which takes place, examples to be given is far too important. I shall quote the episode 24, the dialogue with the father-in-law, the episode 52 where even the words are not necessary any more, you look at the image, you understand and you roar with enjoyment. The episode 92 where Akemi-san is badass as fuck.
But besides all these sentimental moments, let us speak about the humor ! After 80 episodes I thought I knew everything about the author's funny register, all her quiproquos, etc... Nevertheless she still managed to surprise me ! Better : All the recurring jokes remain effective till the end : Ichinose-san with her fans, Shun and his "shine-teeth" family, the best oba-chan of the world (all her episodes are epic), Asuna and "pot-au-feu", and last but not least Yotsuya-San and his "Godai-kun !" I'm sure you will laugh to roll on the ground at least three times during each episode.
Finally I'll say two words about the end, without spoiling. I guess all my street heard my shout as an asshole. The last words show that ALL which passed before was meaningful, that everything is held, that everything was thought, that every episode, so commonplace it can seem, brought irreparably to this sublimate end, which transcends everything. I really said myself that the author had understood everything, that she managed to gather all that we could produce of best to inject it to us by package of 20 minutes. That this anime, was the ultimate anime, all what an anime should be. I repeat that I never saw a similar end, where we condense in 15 words all the beauty of the human feelings in their ideal shape and all the complexity which was treated in 96 episodes. It was the most beautiful end for the most beautiful anime of the world.
So go watch this show, you won't regret it !
