__ / English Maison Ikkoku Guidebook __/ Release 8 : 1995.08.08 Created by the Misery Loves Company ____ _ _ / __ _ _______ ___ _| |_ _ | | | \ \__| |_ |____ |_ _ / / |_ __|| || | | / __ \ ___/ _/|_|_| | |___ __ ___________ / // \| || | / _\/ /\ | |___ _____| | _ \| | |___________| /__ /_| || | | |/ _/_/ | / /____ | | | | | / _/ /|_|| | \___/ \__/ \_______| /__/ \___/ /_/ / ___| | | \_/\_\\____| | ____/ This Release of the MI Guidebook is dedicated to Yagami Ibuki. __________________ .--.'::::::::::::;;::::\_ _/:\\:___.:::::::::::::::::\_ /:::.88 _/.:::::::::::::::: ..\ /:::'./8 \ :::::... .:::\ |:::'//\/\/.::::::::::::::::::::::| .'::'//\.($)..:::::::::::::::::::::| |::: \//:.($)..::::::::::::::::::::/ .'::'//\.::..($).:::::: |:::::.::::/ |:::.\//.::._ (,--------|::.::.|:/ |:::.|||::., || ,'e8"' ,'e".' |:::.`|'::.(O|| ` 88 '88 | |:::::.:::.`\|| 88 88 | \'::::::::.\|' --' _`- | |::::::::::, / | |::::::::::| ____ '\ |::::::::::. `-./ /::\ |:::::::::::| __ -- _/::::\ |::::::::::| `----.__/::::/-' |::::: ::::| |::::::/ `----`----| |----' __/.| .------._ __/....\\ __/ _/''''' \_ __/:\ ....\\/ __/'''' _/:\_ __/...::\_ ...\_/ )' __/::...\__ /........::\ ._/ ) _/:::....._/ \ /..........::\_/__,-_'==/_________/__\|\ /.|./.......__/-----' _.'---------(__|_o_\ /..|/......./'''''' __/:::..........(_|/|\\\ |..:|......./'''' __/:::..........._/\_||| \| |..:|......|_____/___ ............((___|e/\/_\ /...::\..../xxXXXXXxxx`--------.____\__/'| \_|:\ /.....::\__/`--.__ xxxxXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxx|_\_/:::\ \ \ || | / /\XXXx.'`----------.___________|:.\:. :| \ _.-':|-, :::::::::::::/ :\_ ::|..:.\:...\ \ --'..:.:|-: ::::::::::::| :::::\ :|::.:.\:...\ \ \......::|-: ::::::::::::` ::::| :|:::.:.\:...\ - - ...:.:|-/.:::::::::::::\_/:::| ;|.:::::.\:..| - \...:.::|/ \::::_::::::::::::,==="|..::..:.\:..\ - -:.:.:.:' \==8=)==========="/ ::|.__ :.:.\::.\ \.:.:.:| \_/|||\_\.:::::::/ .:::|-.\_ :.:..\:.\ / -.:.::| |\\||///\\.:::::/ ::::|. \:\ .::.\.| / \:.:::' \---O----)).:::/ ::::/|.. \:\ ...:.\.\ \::::| |//||\\//.:::/ ::;-' |.. |:| :...:.\.\ / \:::::| ---------------' /|.. |:| ::...:.\.\ / \::::::' \ . . . ___.-' |\/::/ ..::...:.\| / __::::|| \--------------' /| \\ |:\:/ ....:....:.\\ \..`---'| :::::\ : : : :/(_\|/_)|:.\::.....::...:.\\ / \::;;:::;| ::::;--\_.-.__(___`@'__|::|\_:......:...:.\\ \:: \: | \::/ . (_\ /__)(, /|\\_|::| |\:.........___\| / .:| . .`| \::| . /__\|/___\\/_|_\\|_/ |.\:.......|\\\\\ / \: . . .| ::| .(___`@'___ ) _ | _/...\:......|\\\\/ / \:| . . | \ \:\ .\ _/|\__ /_/|_|\_|-':::...\:......\--' | |\::|. . .|\ . . . .(_/|\__)/.`| /\/|::::::...\:.....| SPOILER WARNING: No effort has been spared to conceal MAJOR PLOT DETAILS. ******* ******* Avert your eyes if you abhor unwanted knowledge! -= FREE! This Guidebook may not be sold! FREE! =- You may re-use any part of this Guidebook if you follow the restrictions described in the Copyright Notice (see further below). I also request (but not require) that you give me something back in return: more text & information to add to this Guidebook! Send your synopses, reviews, comments, annotations, and so on to the Project Coordinator: Glenn Tarigan. Glenn's Internet address is ATTENTION: There is a Maison Ikkoku Mailing List (MI ML). If you want to subscribe, send a request to : "subscribe MI ML. firstname lastname" Refer to Appendix L for a full description of the MI ML. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents: ================== Notes: This Guidebook has been split up into eight parts (instead of being one big file) so that some of the less capable computers can load it more easily. Official filenames: "mi-guide-r8a" : 259 K : Title -> Background Info "mi-guide-r8b" : 268 K : Manga-Anime relation -> Short Summaries "mi-guide-r8c" : 241 K : Chapter Synopses -> Short Anime Summaries "mi-guide-r8d" : 256 K : Anime Synopses #1 -> #20 "mi-guide-r8e" : 236 K : Anime Synopses #21 -> #41 "mi-guide-r8f" : 222 K : Anime Synopses #42 -> #96 "mi-guide-r8g" : 282 K : Story Discussion -> MI Around the World "mi-guide-r8h" : 195 K : Commentary -> End. ------- Total size : 1959 K Percentage completed overall : 41% Percentage of anime done : 31% (30 out of 96 episodes) Which ones completed : #1, 8-9, 12, 15-22, 25-33, 35, 38, 48, 81-82, 84, 89-91 Percentage of manga done : 8.6% (14 out of 162 chapters) Which ones completed : v1c9, v1c10, v2c5, v2c6, v2c7, v2c8, v2c9, v2c10, v2c11, v3c1, v3c2, v3c4, v4c4, v4c5 The Table of Contents is organized to show which sections are in which files (they go in sequence). Most sections have a keyword so that you can easily jump to them. Before you use a keyword, you should add a "@" to the front of it. For example, the keyword to locate the Copyright Notice is "copyright"; to jump to that section of the guidebook, use your wordprocessor's search function: type in "@" + "copyright" for the search string. The "@" character is used to make the keyword unique-- for instance, the word "copyright" occurs several times in the Guidebook, but the combination of "@" + "copyright" occurs only once: exactly where the Copyright Notice is located. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -1) Opening Text: Title Page 0) Table of Contents Keyword List: 1) Essentials: ------------ Aids to Navigation nav_aids Introductory Messages Copyright Notice copyright Central Bulletin bulletin And a list of our other MI files files Main Credits and Thanks credits Release Notes release Vital Statistics vitals 2) Introduction and Compiler's Notes intro 3) Miscellaneous Info to Help Your Understanding: Conventions conventions Abbreviations abbreviations Language Notes language_notes 4) The Main Theme of this Guidebook: Introduction to Maison Ikkoku mi_intro About the Author: Rumiko Takahashi rumiko Rumiko's 1994 Visit to the San Diego Comic-Con : Including an article by Joe Rispoli. 5) Maison Ikkoku Inventory: inventory Books in print Videos on tap Music Albums : You'd be better off refering : to the "CD Cyclopedia", though : (it's available on some large FTP sites). 6) Background Info: People: Summary of the Names name_summary chigusa godai ichinose kujou mitaka nanao otonashi yagami Discussion about the Cast of Maison Ikkoku cast_talk Numerology numerology Summary of the Romantic Relations relations Family Relationships Places: Residences residences Businesses, Institutions and similar things Other Places General Discussion About the Settings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keywords: 7) The Manga to Anime Relationship: Correspondence Between Manga and Anime manga_to_anime Correspondence Between Anime and Manga anime_to_manga Comparing the Manga and Anime Versions comparison 8) The Manga: Basic Info on the Manga manga Manga Time Line manga_timeline Detailed TimeLine Summary of Chapter Appearances List of Chapter Titles chapter_titles : JIS codes and a single translation : are given for each chapter. Annotated List of Chapter Titles annot_titles : For each chapter, the Japanese title : is shown. Then follows a discussion : of the possible translations, most of : which are courtesy of Yutaka Sasagawa. Short Chapter Summaries manga_summaries : There is a large section here by -------------- : Bob Carragher in which he describes almost : all the chapters and their title pages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Manga Chapter Synopses: Keyword: Title: Alternate Keywords: -------- ------ ------------------ v1c09 Alcohol Love Call viz1_3 v1c10 Don't Fence Me Out! v2c05 One Entangled Evening viz1_6 v2c06 Pink Telephone v2c07 With a Little Nonchalance viz1_7 v2c08 Campus Doll v2c09 A Lucky Hit viz2_1 v2c10 Shadows on the Heart v2c11 Knit-Picking viz2_2 v3c01 By Your Side v3c02 He Who Does Not Return viz2_3 v3c04 Kyoko & Souichiro v4c04 Shocking Mug viz3_3 v4c05 The One That Got Away -------- ------------------ Keywords: --------------- Manga Annotation manga_annotation Manga Notes and Comments manga_commentary : This section is for miscellaneous : manga discussion that didn't seem : to belong anywhere else in the Guidebook. 9) The Anime on Television: Basic Info on the Anime anime Songs songs Cast List cast_list : Includes the live-action movie actors. Voice Notes : Comments about the voice actors Episode Airdates airdates List of TV Episode Titles episode_titles Basic List Annotated List Time Line anime_timeline Episode Appearances Character Appearances Short Episode Summaries anime_summaries : Very incomplete, though... --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Prefatory Section: Description of the Format for the Synopses. Complete Episode Synopses: (The episode title is only shown if the synopsis is mostly completed.) Keyword: Title: -------- ------ ep01 Nice to meet you! I'm Kyoko Otonashi. .... ep08 Godai-kun mustn't shout. The time to do it has come ep09 The Mysterious Tennis Coach is the Rival of Love! .... ep12 Love scramble! I thought you said you loved me... .... ep15 Dangerous Two's Puppet Play! Can't Stand It Anymore ep16 Visiting panic! Injured but beloved. ep17 Kyoko-san's First Love Story. The Rainy Day is Always... ep18 Kyoko-san's Gift. Oh, This's for Me!? ep19 Godai and Kyoko. Two's Night is Full of Danger ep20 Frustrated Kyoko-san. Mystery of the Unreturning Godai! -------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Complete Episode Synopses: (Continued...) Keyword: Title: -------- ------ ep21 Godai-kun Panic! Ikkoku-kan's Kitten Tale. ep22 Shocked Godai-kun! Kyoko-san's Resignation. .... ep25 Crash! Godai vs. Mitaka proposal battle ep26 Stunned Godai. Kyoko's jealousy exploding ep27 Disappeared Souichiro-san. Scent of yakitori is the memory ep28 Kyoko surprised. I'm Kentaro's father ep29 Slapstick autumn fest. Inside a well with Kyoko-san ep30 Kyoko-san getting married? Tearful Godai-kun moving away ep31 Ikkoku-kan scandal. Godai-kun living with a woman? ep32 Egg is mystery. Yotsuya's dangerous gift ep33 Shock in diary! Souichiro had a lover!? ep35 Operation chase! After Kyoko and Godai's date .... ep38 Godai-kun's lost love? Kozue approaching Mitaka? .... -------- This file ends at episode 41, which has not been synopsized. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Complete Episode Synopses: (Continued...) This file begins at episode 42, which has not been synopsized. Keyword: Title: -------- ------ ep48 Godai's revelation. I wish you understood how I feel .... ep81 Devotion of love. Asuna never gives up after all ep82 Perfect dad! Godai-kun's child care story .... ep84 1000% suspicion. Kyoko's scandal night .... ep89 Unrequited Love! Godai and Kyoko, It's Over Today? ep90 Kyoko-san Quitting! Ikkoku-kan's Memory Far Away? ep91 Kyoko in shock! Akemi and Godai's unexpected relation! -------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10) Discussion About the Story Keyword: discussion : Comments on the overall story. : Not specific to either the anime or the manga. 11) The Live-Action Movie Keyword: live_action 12) The Anime Movie: Kanketsuhen Keyword: kanketsuhen : Synopsis plus Discussion 13) MI OAV -- Through the Passing Seasons 14) Miscellaneous Lists: A speculative list of who Yotsuya really is. When, where, and by whom Godai has been kissed. Physical Abuse against Godai. Physical abuse the other way! Daydreams in which Godai hurts himself. 15) Maison Ikkoku References and In-jokes Keyword: references or The Sincerest Forms of Flattery (Will Take You Everywhere) 16) Maison Ikkoku Around the World Keyword: apocrypha Section Subsection Keywords: Keywords: --------- ------------- chinese : Has a summary of Hong Kong's situation. spanish : A song, a comment. french : Character List fr_chars Episode Title List fr_titles Opening Song fr_op esperanto english : General Viz Credits for Maison Ikkoku --------- Viz Press Corps Arrival Dates of the English MI Comics viz_arrivals Correspondence Between English viz_corresp Translation and Original Manga Description of Viz's Cover Pages viz_covers General Commentary on Viz's Version viz_comments ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ === File Number 8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17) Commentary Keyword: general_comments 1) From Glenn Tarigan 2) From Clifford Caoile Keywords: ------------------ 18) Appendices: appendices A) Anachronisms anachronisms B) The Yotsuya Ghost Story ghost C) Tanuki tanuki E) Exchange Rates exchange K) MI - KOR parallels L) Maison Ikkoku Mailing List Charter mailing_list L2) Maison Ikkoku Mailing List Cookies R) Maison Ikkoku ASCII Art ascii_art 19) Bibliography bibliography 20) Bibliography of Secondary Sources secondaries 21) Glossary glossary 22) Index index : Includes many of the Keywords : (but not as many as the Table of Contents...). : I'm working to make this section more complete. 23) Revision Notes: Minor Revision Notes General Revision History ------------------- End. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @nav_aids Aids to Navigation: =================== Keywords: --------- In order to make string searches more efficient, many of the major articles have been marked off with a keyword. The keyword that is at the article itself has a "@" right before it. But whenever that keyword is mentioned anywhere else in the document, it will not have the "@" character. This is so that there is only one occurrence of the official keyword, thus making only one match-- it avoids false finds. Notes: I've made sure that the letters in every keyword are in lowercase. I hate having to worry about the letter's case when I have to type in a search string. In order to avoid embedded duplicates, I have made all references to single digits into the format "0" + digit. For example: instead of "@" + "ep" + "1", I used "@" + "ep" + "01". If I didn't do that, then searching for "@" + "ep" + "1" will also yield "@" + "ep" + "11" because the first string is a subset of the latter. Change Indicators: ------------------ Starting from Release 5, most of the noteworthy changes to the Guidebook are indicated by these kind of markers: .#.> [...new/changed text...] <.#. In place of the # is a number that corresponds with the Release in which that change came about. For example, in Release 5, each new section starts with .5.> and ends with <.5. Those markers are used to indicate any material that didn't appear in a previous release. So if you have read Releases 1 through 4 of this Guidebook, and just want to jump to the new articles within Release 5, all you have to do is use your wordprocessor's "search" command to locate the ".5.>" wherever it appears. If you know about the documentation convention called a "change line", then you can see how the method used here has an advantage: you can locate which changes were made in different releases. For instance, in Release 6, you can easily locate the text that didn't appear in Release 5 by searching for a ".6."; and if you want to see what appeared in Release 5 but not in the other Releases, you can search for all occurrences of ".5.". As for the disadvantage of this method: Because you need to use a "search" command to be able to locate the change symbols within the vastness of the text, it's not very useful if you aren't reading the Guidebook on a computer. I'm one of those people who prefers to read it on a computer screen rather than printing it out, so that disadvantage doesn't bother me in the least. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introductory Messages: --------------------- Disclaimer: A lot of work has gone into this guidebook, but there are still many little errors (e.g., spelling, grammar) and a few big errors here (e.g., we've got some misinformation). Eventually we'll fix them, but since this project has several years more to go before completion, we'll need all those years to tidy up this guidebook. Please send corrections, suggestions, synopses, reviews, comments, etc., to the Project Coordinator: Glenn TARIGAN . Major spoiler warning: The authors have cumulatively seen the entire ***** ******* ******* series and manga, and they'll prove it. Please send e-mail to let us know how widely distributed this guidebook has been. Also take a look at the list of questions right below, and if you can answer yes to any of them, then send an e-mail greeting to the Project Coordinator: Glenn Tarigan . Don't delay! - Do you have a copy of this file? - Do you know someone who has a copy of this file? - Which releases of this guidebook do you have? - Have you read any part of this file? - Have you read this sentence? - Have you seen any part of this guidebook reprinted anywhere? - Have you seen this file publicly available anywhere on computer? - Do you have any interest at all in Maison Ikkoku? I'll be hearing from you! We want this document to be as accessible as possible. So pass this guidebook around to anybody who wants it and especially to anyone who's a fan of Rumiko Takahashi's works. Upload it to any place where fans can access it. Computer Notes: 80-columns is the recommended screen-width for reading this file. Use a non-proportional screen font because there are several ASCII graphics and diagrams here that depend on a mono-spaced font. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @copyright Copyright Notice: ============================================================== == Maison Ikkoku is == == Copyright 1995 by TAKAHASHI Rumiko and Shogakukan Inc. == == MI anime is a production of Kitty Films and Fuji TV. == == == == The MI Guidebook is == == Copyright 1995 by the Misery Loves Company. == == All Rights Reserved. == == == == Original Copyrights to the articles written are == == reserved by their respective authors. == == == == Distribute the electronic version of this == == document everywhere (without charging any fees, == == apart from the usual costs of using an online == == service) provided that it is not altered, added to, == == or subtracted from in any way. The only exception == == is that the archival or compression method used == == upon these files may be changed. == == == == Permission is granted to reproduce any part of == == this document for NOT-FOR-SALE NON-COMMERCIAL == == DISTRIBUTION (for example, in a free fanzine, == == newsletter or Usenet newsgroup) provided that == == the following restrictions are followed: == == 1) The authors, whose text is to be == == reproduced, are notified beforehand. == == (see the Main Credits further below) == == 2) Proper credit to the authors is given by == == including a byline such as == == "Written by Glenn Tarigan". == == If a different author deserves credit, == == then substitute "Glenn Tarigan" with == == the appropriate name(s). == == and == == 3) The copyright notice == == `Copyright 1995 by the Misery Loves Company' == == is clearly shown. == == == == Permission is granted to use any part of this == == Copyright Notice in other documents without == == having to obey the above restrictions. == == (You too can have a big and silly copyright notice!) == == == == This document may NOT be altered, packaged into, == == or reprinted in any FOR-SALE publication or == == product unless written-and-signed permission is == == given by the respective copyright holders. == == == == To reiterate: you may not sell any part of this == == document without the permission of the authors. == == All of this is for free. If you paid money == == for this document, I feel sorry for you... == == == == Thank you for your cooperation. == ============================================================== End of Copyright Notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @bulletin The Misery Loves Company Central Bulletin: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Posted by Glenn Tarigan About our company name: Credit goes to Jeff Williamson for suggesting the great, loony name of "Misery Loves Company" (after all, MI is about angst- ridden relationships, or "misery loves" :-). It's an homage to Rumiko Takahashi, who has a penchant for using lots of puns. The "Misery Loves Company" is a team of Maison Ikkoku enthusiasts (1) who have joined together to produce a package that will satisfy your every desire for information about Maison Ikkoku. At least, we hope it will. The members of this company are from all over the world (well, the First World ^_^;; ), and most of us have never even met each other face-to-face; for example, most of the people who have helped me are 3000 km away, on average. This sort of cooperation has been made possible by the existence of computer networks such as the Internet. The Deluxe Manga Translation series: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The "Deluxe Manga Translation" file series is an adjunct to this Guidebook. Each file in the series translates only one chapter from the Maison Ikkoku manga, but does it exhaustively. These are some of the features that make it "deluxe": - it includes all original text (transcribed to romaji) - explains sound effects and background sign-boards - describes the scenery and action - is loaded with with annotations and comments - in summary, the translation of one 20 page chapter results in a text file that is more than 100 kilobytes in size. A deluxe translation has similarities to a translation from Mangajin Magazine (an instruction oriented magazine). One page of manga becomes one page or more of text when it is translated this way. For comparison, an average fan-translation of a 20 page story is 8 pages or less, if the translation only has dialogue and a few scene setting descriptions; the first deluxe translation that we did (vol3,1) required 40 pages to translate the same 20 pages--a five-fold increase over the ordinary translation. In more detail: Q: Can someone let me know what exactly is involved in being a compiler for the MI 'Deluxe Manga Translations' (TM)? Depending on the required level of Japanese language skill, etc., I might be willing to take this on for one of the upcoming chapters. A: (provided by Gary Kacmarcik) basically, you archive the messages as they come out (hopefully sorting them as you go along). and then you assemble the final pages from the original translation and all of the comments. english translations are located romanized japanese text is in the on the left hand side. in the right-most 39 columns. using column left-most 40 columns. 80 causes some text-editors to wrap. if multiple translations are suggested pick the one that is the best (usually you can tell from consensus on the ML). you may want to include the alternate translations also. that's the Deluxe format. there's also an abbreviated format where the japanese is removed and the english translation takes up all 79 columns of the page. that's all. the japanese skill that's required is mostly checking for romanization typos, et al. the english skill that's required is to make sure that the sentences are coherent and make sense. as an added note. if anyone wants to take these translations and bring them into other languages besides english, please do so. ** ** ** ** @files This is the Multi-Lingual "Misery Loves Company" File Library: mi-guide-r8a = The English Guidebook, part 1 mi-guide-r8b = The English Guidebook, part 2 mi-guide-r8c = The English Guidebook, part 3 mi-guide-r8d = The English Guidebook, part 4 mi-guide-r8e = The English Guidebook, part 5 mi-guide-r8f = The English Guidebook, part 6 mi-guide-r8g = The English Guidebook, part 7 mi-guide-r8h = The English Guidebook, part 8 v3c1 = Volume 3 Part 1 Manga Translation v7c4 = Volume 7 Part 4 Manga Translation v7c5 = Volume 7 Part 5 Manga Translation v7c7 = Volume 7 Part 7 Manga Translation v7c8 = Volume 7 Part 8 Manga Translation v7c9 = Volume 7 Part 9 Manga Translation v8c1 = Volume 8 Part 1 Manga Translation v10c6 = Volume 10 Part 6 Manga Translation v10c7 = Volume 10 Part 7 Manga Translation v10c8 = Volume 10 Part 8 Manga Translation v10c9 = Volume 10 Part 9 Manga Translation v11c1 = Volume 11 Part 1 Manga Translation v11c2 = Volume 11 Part 2 Manga Translation v11c3 = Volume 11 Part 3 Manga Translation v11c4 = Volume 11 Part 4 Manga Translation v15c4 = Volume 15 Part 4 Manga Translation mi-gvido-e3a = La Esperanta Gvidlibro, parto 1 mi-gvido-e3b = La Esperanta Gvidlibro, parto 2 mi-gvido-e3c = La Esperanta Gvidlibro, parto 3 mi-gvido-e3d = La Esperanta Gvidlibro, parto 4 mi-gvido-e3e = La Esperanta Gvidlibro, parto 5 _________________________________________________________________________ <.8. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// --------------------------------------------------------------------- @credits M A I N C R E D I T S : The staff involved in the English MI Guidebook ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary: Project Coordinator: Glenn TARIGAN Major Contributors: Jeff WILLIAMSON Robert CARRAGHER Clifford CAOILE Andy JOHNSON Joseph A. GRAU Michael STUDTE Pascal JANIN Joe RISPOLI Gary KACMARCIK Steven Miale Sylvain RHEAULT Yutaka SASAGAWA Ben C. CHENG Dat NGUYEN Contributors of minor articles, comments and various other things: Harold ANCELL Harold MELANSON Jack DIETZ David OAKEY Quincy S. HUOH Adam SCHROEDER ITO Takayuki C Sue SHAMBAUGH Patrick JONES Huang Yung Tai Stephen KRIETZ Howard TOM Samuel LYSINGER Vickie WEST C.H. YUNG Indirect contributors who probably could be in the bibliography instead: Walter AMOS Tam HA Nobuhiro NAKAMURA Song Ouk BANG Mitch HAGMAIER Soo H. NAM Hayden BROWN Hiromi HASEGAWA Tetsuya NISHIMURA Thomas CHAN Darold HIGA Ta NIU R Mark CHILENSKAS Curtis HOFFMAN Christopher J. NOE Sam P CHUNG HOTTA Hirohiko Jay ONGG Enrique CONTY ITOU Hikaru Sandro C. SARANG Mark CRISPIN Theodore HUA Wes SHULL Richard DIAZ Masataka KADO Yat SIU Chuck DOUGLAS Roy KAMIMURA Dennis SUPACHANA Michael DUGGAN Eugene LEE Alan TAKAHASHI Doug ECKHART Jae Hyuk LEE Hiro TAKEDA Edwin Michael LIU Gordon TAM J Juhana ENQVIST Tony Danh Cong LUU Sammy TEO Timo Ettanen KATAYAMA Masaaki C. Tom WILKES Scot GARDNER Charles McCARTER Ming-Fan Winston WU Ryan P. GAVIGAN Shigemi MINETAKA (Apologies if I left out any deserving names, but it's hard to keep track of them all!) Note: Indirect contributors are those who haven't ever specifically indicated that they want to add something to this Guidebook -- rather, I found something they wrote (usually in a Usenet newsgroup) and decided it would be a useful addition to this Guidebook. I decided not to put these names in the bibliography because their contributions came in the form of informal public messages. Such public messages are not typically available on any public file archives (i.e. FTP) once they've expired within their newsgroups. The bibliography is reserved for readily accessible text files and, of course, books. ======================== == Detailed credits == ======================== Major Contributors: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Glenn Tarigan : Project Coordinator Internet Address : Snail-mail Address : Glenn Tarigan 1362 Charter Hill Drive Coquitlam, British Columbia V3E 1R6 Canada - Articles : Introduction and Compiler's Notes Background Info Manga Timeline Synopses for Episodes 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 Commentary Jeff Williamson : Writer Internet Address : Snail-mail Address : Jeff Williamson 1409 W. Albion, Apt. #1 Chicago, IL 60626 Phone : (312) 764-3805 eves/weekends (usually) - Articles : Synopses for Episodes 9, 89, 90 and 91 Viz MI Cover and Title Page Descriptions Robert Carragher : Writer (La Jolla, California, USA) Internet Address : - Articles : Manga Chapter Summaries for Widebans 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Clifford Caoile : Writer Internet Address : (Chula Vista, California, USA) - Articles : Synopses for Episodes 12, 25, 28, 33, 35, 38 and 48 Commentary Andy Johnson : Writer Internet Address : (Detroit, Michigan, USA) - Articles : Correspondence Between Manga and Anime Time Line of Episode Appearances Character Appearances The Live-Action Movie synopsis The Anime Movie: Kanketsuhen synopsis Joseph A. Grau : Writer Internet Address : Snail-mail Address : Joseph A. Grau 1249 L Gaskins Road Richmond, VA 23233 USA - Articles : Synopses for Chapters v1c9, v1c10, v2c5, v2c6, v2c7, v2c8, v2c9, v2c10, v2c11, v3c1, v3c2, and v3c4 Michael Studte : Writer Internet Address : Snail-mail Address : Michael Studte 46 Hackbridge Way Bayswater 6053 Australia - Articles : Synopses for Episodes 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Pascal Janin : Writer Internet Address : - Articles : Information about the French version of MI Joe Rispoli : Writer Internet Address : - Article : A Brief Report of Rumiko Takahashi's Appearance Gary Kacmarcik : Writer Internet Address : - Articles : Synopses for v4c4, v4c5 Steven Miale : Writer Internet Address : - Articles : Synopses for Episodes 1, 82, 84 Yutaka Sasagawa : Translator Internet Address : - Contributed translations and comments for most of the manga titles Sylvain Rheault : Translator Internet Address : - Contributed translations and comments for several of the manga titles Ben C. Cheng : Writer Internet Address : - Articles : Synopsis for Episode 8 Dat Nguyen : Writer Internet Address : - Articles : Synopsis for Episode 81 Note: Credit for the writing of any section is given by showing at least the author's last name (at the beginning or the end of that section). ** ** ** ** Contributors of help and minor articles: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Notes: I cannot guarantee the accuracy of these e-mail addresses. Internet accounts frequently change, and I am not in regular correspondence with many of the people here. This list serves two purposes: 1) It lists the e-mail addresses for the non-major contributors, and 2) It lists contributions which don't have a name given at the place where they occur (e.g. minor corrections). Walter Amos Harold Ancell Thomas Chan Sam Chung Richard Diaz Jack Dietz Chuck DOUGLAS -93.07.02, provided some stats on the manga Doug Eckhart Edwin Timo Ettanen Scot Gardner Ryan Gavigan Tam Ha Mitch Hagmaier Hiromi Hasegawa Theodore Hua Quincy S. Huoh Takayuki ITO Andy JOHNSON -93.10.03, translated Souichiro's name as `only-one-husband'. John Jones -94.04.23: "I noticed a few inaccuracies in the cast list: Mitaka-coach was played by KAMIYA Akira (I can understand KAMITANI, but KANDA??), and Sakamoto was played by Furukawa Toshio (not Toshiro)." Also re-drew the ASCII rendition of Yotsuya's name (in the BG section) Patrick JONES Masataka Kado Roy Kamimura Stephen KRIETZ -93.11.11, provided the proper English title for episode 3 -93.11.24, translated title for episode 5 Eugene Lee Jae Hyuk Lee KATAYAMA Masaaki -93.05.18, see footnote of episode 3: teru-teru-bozu Charles McCarter Harold MELANSON -93.09.01, corrected names: Potofu -> Pot-au-feu; Salt -> Sugar ep.#16 -change: plum pit spit out from riceball, not sesame seed -add:Yotsuya & Akemi give takoyaki & taiyaki (see glossary) -93.10.18, remarked that `Otonashi' puns with `no husband' Nobuhiro Nakamura Ta Niu Christopher J. Noe David OAKEY -93.07.02, provided some stats on the manga -93.09.16, proofread episode #17 -93.09.29, add: 8-fold path of Buddhism;grammar correction for Yagami's Jay Ongg Adam Schroeder <74242.2150@compuserve.com> -94.10.25: notes that Godai has been called "oniichan" and "best friend" Sandro Sarang Wes Shull Dennis Supachana Huang Yung Tai Gordon Tam "Heart KOR Kimagure! (Sammy Teo)" Howard TOM -93.09.10, helped with some translations in the character summary Vickie West C. T. (Tom) Wilkes Ming-Fan Winston Wu C.H. Yung, or known as CuSO4 <100267.306@compuserve.com> 94.08.13 - about Godai, 'BUCHO' means Department Head, in which Yusaku is the Head of Health and Welfare Department. - Mr. Ichinose's unreachable woman's name is Tsuruko - Ikkoku-kan: all those closets are located on the *right* side (not left) of all the rooms upon entering the room. - the voice actor of ICHINOSE Kentaro should be SAKAMOTO Chika, not SAKAMOTO Chinatsu. These two names share the same Kanji but this voice actor should be called Chika. - Ichinose Hanae, the third kanji was written wrongly in the middle part. - In the character list you missed out Godai Haruka Note: The last name is usually shown in the section where someone made a contribution. Contributions of less than a sentence in length are probably not marked off in the document. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to: ~~~~~~~~~ _ _ ___,--, ____ _____ __ __ __________ ____| |____ _| |_ \__ / | __\|_ | __\ \_/ /__ |________ | |___________| |_ _|/ /_\ \ | |/\ | || | |____ ____| _/ _/ | _____ | / \ \/_-_\/ | |> \_| || | |___ ___| _____/ _/___ _|_______|_ <_. ._> | _ | /___/_>_/ \/ |____ ____| |____ _____| | _______ | | | _|___|_ .-----------. .---' `---. | | | | _____ | | | | | ___ | | -- -- | `--. _ .--' | | | |_______| | | | | |_| | | __ __ | /' _/ \_ `\ __| | |_| /__| |_| |_|_/_| |___________| |__/ \__| \___| TAKA HASHI RU MI KO ... TAKAHASHI Rumiko : Creator of the original art and story of Maison Ikkoku Needless to say, if it weren't for her creative output, this guidebook would never have existed. ... Kitty Films and Fuji Television, for turning Ms.Takahashi's manga into a great anime series. ... the Vancouver Japanese Animation Club (Arctic Animation), for creating almost all the subtitles which some of us used when writing the synopses. Daisuke Suzuki was the translator, and William Chow was the subtitler, with Daisuke filling in as subtitler for some episodes. ... NT Anime, for starting anew and doing the subtitling job that Arctic Animation isn't capable of. ... the Ranma Project (of Berkeley, California), for the use of their subtitles for episodes #53-56 and #96. ... Viz Comics, for translating the manga into English. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @release Release Notes: ============== .8.> Release 8: 95.08.08 Notes: Not much new as far as synopses go, but there are lots of new comments from people of the MI Mailing List. I still haven't caught up with the backlog of messages collected from the MI ML, though. Document size has increased by 4835 lines = 34 000 words = 233 K. Total = 42668 lines = 288000 words = 1959 K The New Stuff: - 3 New anime synopses: 1, 82, 84 - More comments sorted by topic - More ASCII art <.8. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- .7.> Release 7: 94.12.29 This time, the date for this release was chosen because... 96 TV episodes + 15 manga volumes + 10 WB manga volumes = 121 By the time Release 7 is out, the Viz translation of Maison Ikkoku will (still) be in Part 3. 121 units * 3 Viz parts equals the 363rd day of the year which is December 29th. ^_^ 363 + 29 = 392, which is divisible by 7 twice: 392 = 7 * 7 * 8 (Thanks to Sam Lysinger for the equations.) Summary: Relatively speaking, this release is a minor upgrade-- it is approximately 225 K larger than the previous release. In other words, this version is only 15% larger than before. Document size has increased by 4683 lines = 33 500 words = 225 K. Total = 37833 lines = 254000 words = 1726 K. (Uh, please note that the numbers above are only accurate to within 3%...) The New Stuff: - A report on the SDC Takahashi visit. - The manga title list is completely translated (with one exception). - New wideban summaries for volumes 9 and 10. - 2 New manga synopses: v4c4 and v4c5 - More information about CDs (including some title translations.) - A section of miscellaneous lists. - An appendix for miscellaneous comments from the MI mailing list. - An appendix for ASCII art (there isn't much there right now...). - Many comments interspersed throughout the guidebook... - And several small additions by various people. Just use your wordprocessor to search for any instances of ".7." (it is an indicator to show which articles are new in this release). <.7. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- .6.> Release 6: 94.09.09 The date for this release was chosen because September 9th is the 252nd day of the year. 252 equals 6 * 6 * 7. Plus, if you look at 94.09.09 upsidedown, those 9's look like 6's. ^_^ - Total size = 33150 lines = 220500 words = 1498 K - Document size has increased by: 9150 lines = 56 500 words = 401 K New synopses: 7 TV Episodes: #8, 28 (re-done), 29, 30, 31, 32, 81 2 Manga Chapters: v3c2, v3c4 Other new stuff: - short summaries for almost every manga chapter - title translations for almost all the manga chapters (the translations of which have detailed annotations) - a much bigger and more complete Manga Timeline - some discussion about the final movie - a discussion about who are our favorite MI characters - a short bio on Rumiko Takahashi - news on Rumiko's appearance at the SanDiego Comic-con - a bit more info about Chinese versions of the manga Other updates: - Deluxe Translations for v7c4, v7c5 are available now - Updated Translations (Release 2) came out for v3c1 and v8c1 - In total, this release contains synopses for: Anime episodes: #8-9, 12, 15-22, 25-33, 35, 38, 48, 81, 89-91 Average length = 217 lines (27 out of 96 episodes; 3 episodes have 2 synopses each) Manga chapters: v1c9, v1c10, v2c5, v2c6, v2c7, v2c8, v2c9, v2c10, v2c11, v3c1, v3c2, v3c4 Average length = 88 lines (12 out of 162 chapters; 1 chapter has 2 synopses) plus the Live-action Movie and the Final Anime Movie. <.6. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- .5.> Release 5: 94.05.25 - Release 5 is MORE THAN TWICE the size of Release 4. Total size = 24 000 lines = 164 000 words = 1118 K (give or take 2%). - Contains synopses for: Anime episodes: #9, 12, 15-22, 25-28, 33, 35, 38, 48, 89-91 Average length = 245 lines (21 out of 96 episodes) Manga chapters: v1c9, v1c10, v2c5, v2c6, v2c7, v2c8, v2c9, v2c10, v2c11 and v3c1. Average length = 85 lines (10 out of 162 chapters) plus the Live-action Movie and the Final Anime Movie. - Document size has increased by: 14 700 lines = 103 000 words = 691 KB New synopses: 15 TV Episodes: #12, 20-22, 25-28, 33, 35, 38, 48 and 89-91. 9 Manga Chapters: v1c9-10, v2c5-11, and v3c1 Other updates: Newly available are Deluxe Manga Translations for Volume 7, Part 4 and Volume 8, Part 1. Pascal Janin added many details for the French version of MI. <.5. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Release 4: 94.02.14 - Contains complete synopses for: Episodes #9, 15 - 19. (6 of 96 episodes) Manga chapter v3,1. (1 out of 162 chapters) plus the Live-action Movie and the Final Anime Movie. - Document size has increased by: 3060 lines = 19200 words = 142 KB Updates: The Deluxe Manga Translation Vol3,1 is now available Cast List filled out Anime Time Line revised Character Appearances rewritten Manga-Anime Correspondence filled out Various footnotes added throughout New synopses: TV Episodes #9 & 19 (the episode guide is 6.2% complete) New sections added: Central Bulletin An Introduction to Maison Ikkoku Maison Ikkoku Inventory Maison Ikkoku Around the World Appendices: Exchange Rates, Yotsuya Ghost Story, Tanuki, Translation Notes ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Release 3: 93.11.20 - Contains complete synopses for episodes #15 - 18. (4 out of 96 episodes) - What's changed: Document size has increased by: 1440 lines = 10180 words = 68 KB New synopses: TV Episode #18 The Live-Action Movie The Anime Movie: Kanketsuhen - Notables: One episode synopsis (the 17th) has finally smashed through the 400-line length--now that's loooong. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Release 2: 93.09.21 - Changes made by Glenn Tarigan - NOTE: Some sections are over 90% incomplete. It will take at least two years before this guide is even half complete. - What's changed: Document size has increased by: 1745 lines = 10260 words = 74 KB No new synopses -- still only 3 out of 96 episodes synopsized. Synopses #15-17 were further edited and augmented. New sections added: The Manga-to-Anime Relationship The Manga ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Release 1: 93.08.15 - Original version by Glenn Tarigan. - This release is a draft version. Over the life of this project I'll polish up the text and make additions and corrections. At least a month will pass from one release to the next. - Has most of the major sections that the Eo version has, but in miniature or incompletely. - Has complete synopses for episodes #15-17 (3 out of 96 episodes). There are 93 episodes left to synopsize. - Here are the other episodes for which something has been written (usually footnotes): #3,29,32,38,41,70,96. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- New releases of this document will have everything from previous releases. These updates, most of the time, should be far from trivial. Each new version will have a good deal of new text with many changes and improvements -- at least 200 kilobytes' worth. If you delete your copies of the old releases you won't lose any valuable information, in my opinion. However, I may have changed or even deleted some sections from one release to the next. So if it matters to you, then by all means keep the old releases. These release notes only record the large scale changes. Smaller changes are sometimes noted in the revision notes for each major section. Please refer to the "Minor Revision Notes" section for information about the smaller changes. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @vitals Vital Statistics: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Raw data: .6.> -------- In the line-counts, no comments or footnotes are included. When more than one number is given, that means there is more than one synopsis. Any episode that has less than 50 lines of synopsis is still up for grabs: a longer synopsis should be written up. Any synopsis that is less than about 20 lines isn't even mentioned here. All the numbers are accurate as of 94.09.05. Abbreviations of the authors names: cc - Clifford Escobar Caoile bc - Ben C. Cheng rc - Robert Carragher dn - Dat Nguyen jg - Joseph Grau aj - Andy Johnson gk - Gary Kacmarcik sm - Steven Miale ms - Michael Studte gt - Glenn Tarigan jw - Jeff Williamson Anime: Ep: #of Lines: Title: 1- 121 sm Sorry to keep you waiting! I'm Otonashi Kyoko 8- 503 bc Godai-kun mustn't shout. The time to do it has come 9- 323 jw The mysterious tennis coach is the rival of love! 12- 356 cc Love scramble. I thought you said you loved me... 15- 271 gt Dangerous two's puppet play! Can't stand it anymore 16- 294 gt Get-Well Visit Panic! Injured but Beloved. 17- 332 gt Kyoko-san's first love story. The rainy day is always... 18- 327 gt Kyoko-san's gift. Oh, this's for me!? 19- 38 gt Godai and Kyoko. Two's night is full of danger 20- 561 gt Frustrated Kyoko-san!? Mystery of the unreturning Godai-kun 21- 96 ms Godai-kun in panic. Ikkoku-kan's kitten tale 22- 90 ms Shocked Godai-kun. Kyoko-san's resignation 25- 27 cc Crash! Godai vs. Mitaka proposal battle 26- 50cc 99 ms Stunned Godai. Kyoko's jealousy exploding 27- 40cc 97 ms Disappeared Souichiro-san. Scent of yakitori is the memory 28- 38cc 121ms Kyoko surprised. I'm Kentaro's father 29- 123 ms Madcap Autumn Festivities. Kyouko's in a well. 30- 118 ms Kyoko-san getting married? Tearful Godai-kun moving away 31- 116 ms Ikkoku-kan scandal. Godai-kun living with a woman? 32- 153 ms Egg is mystery. Yotsuya's dangerous gift 33- 265 cc Shock in diary! Souichiro had a lover!? 35- 356 cc Operation chase! After Kyoko and Godai's date 38- 362 cc Godai-kun's lost love? Kozue approaching Mitaka? 48- 420 cc Godai's revelation. I wish you understood how I feel 81- 102 dn Devotion of love. Asuna never gives up after all 82- 237 sm Perfect dad! Godai-kun's child care story 84- 159 sm 1000% suspicion. Kyoko's scandal night 89- 264 jw Unrequited love! Godai and Kyoko, it's over today? 90- 288 jw Kyoko-san quitting! Ikkoku-kan's memory far away? 91- 282 jw Kyoko in shock! Akemi and Godai's unexpected relation! Live-Action Movie: 208 lines aj Kanketsuhen: 193 lines aj Manga: Chapter: # of Lines: Title: v1c9 - 92 jg Alcohol Love Call v1c10 - 55 jg Don't Fence Me Out! v2c5 - 111 jg One Entangled Evening v2c6 - 101 jg Pink Telephone v2c7 - 76 jg With a Little Nonchalance v2c8 - 88 jg Campus Doll v2c9 - 56 jg A Lucky Hit v2c10 - 101 jg Shadows on the Heart v2c11 - 87 jg Shadows on the Heart v3c1 - 37gt 78jg By Your Side v3c2 - 80 jg He Who Does Not Return v3c4 - 94 jg Kyoko & Souichiro v4c4 - 67 gk Shocking Mug v4c5 - 70 gk The One That Got Away Summaries of the data: --------------------- Video synopses that are 25 lines or longer: - = longer than 50 lines LM = Live-action Movie + = longer than 100 lines AM = Anime Movie: Kanketsuhen ! = longer than 200 lines ! OV = Original Video (OAV) # = longer than 400 lines !!! 1) Note: This chart is accurate as of 94.09.05. This chart shows the line-count just for the synopses themselves. It does not include the comments and footnotes. 1+, , , , , , , 8#, 9!, ,12!, , ,15!,16!,17!,18!,19 ,20# 21-,22-, , ,25 ,26-,27-,28+,29+,30+ 31+,32+,33!, ,35!, , ,38!, , , , , , , , ,48#, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 81+,82!, ,84+, , , , ,89!,90! 91!, , , , , ,LM!,AM+, . In general, any synopsis here that is less than 100 lines should be enlarged at least TWOFOLD. 2) For comparison, this is the status of the Esperanto MI Guidebook: (This chart shows the line-count just for the synopses themselves.) 1+, 2!, 3+, 4+, , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9+,10+ 11 ,12-,13 ,14 ,15+,16+,17+,18!,19-,20# 21-,22+,23+,24+,25-,26-,27-,28-, ,30+ 31+, ,33-,34-,35 ,36-,37 ,38-,39-,40- 41+,42+,43+,44-,45 ,46-,47 ,48 ,49-,50+ 51+,52+,53 ,54 ,55 ,56 ,57+,58+,59+,60+ 61+,62+,63-,64+,65-,66+, , ,69!,70! 71!,72+,73 ,74 ,75 ,76 ,77 ,78 , , 81-,82-,83-,84-,85-,86-, , ,89+,90- 91-,92+,93+,94!,95+,96+. The synopses add up to about 9300 lines. ** ** ** ** Chapter Synopses that are longer than 25 lines: These line-counts also include any commentary and footnotes. Note: This chart is accurate as of 94.12.28. - = longer than 50 lines + = longer than 100 lines Chapter: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Volume: 1 , , , , , , , , 9-,10- 2 , , , , 5+, 6+, 7-, 8-, 9-,10+,11- 3 1-, 2-, , 4-, , , , , , , 4 , , , 4-, 5-, , , , , , 5 , , , , , , , , , 6 , , , , , , , , , , 7 , , , , , , , , , 8 , , , , , , , , , , 9 , , , , , , , , , , 10 , , , , , , , , , , 11 , , , , , , , , , , 12 , , , , , , , , , , , 13 , , , , , , , , , , 14 , , , , , , , , , , 15 , , , , , , , , , Obviously, severely incomplete. Estimated file-size: ------------------- Here is a guess as to what size this Guidebook might end up as: (Extrapolated from fairly current file sizes.) Introductory info: 120 K = = 40 pages Background info: 70 K = = 23 pages Manga synopses: 162 chapters * 7 KB each = 1134 K = = 378 pages Short episode summaries: 96 * 0.50 KB each = 48 K = = 16 pages Episode synopses: 96 * 20 KB each = 1920 K = = 640 pages Other video synopses: (OAV+2 Movies)*10 KB = 30 K = = 10 pages Miscellaneous ending texts: 200 K = = 67 pages --------- ------------- 3522 K = 3.44 MB = 1174 pages Notes: My assumption is that 60 lines equals one page. And 3 kilobytes of text also equals one page. 3522 K = ~75,600 lines of text or ~516,000 words The episode synopses will make up 54% of the Guidebook's total length. At 94.05.25, with the document being 1118 K long: 1118 / 3522 = 32% completed Estimated Completion Date: (calculated on 94.06.11) ------------------------- There are two major sections in this Guidebook: 1) The Manga Synopses 2) The Anime Synopses For the manga, I want to end up with synopses for all 162 chapters, and each synopsis should be at least 50 lines long. For the anime, I want to end up with synopses for all 96 episodes, and each synopsis should be at least 100 lines long. If we finish those two sections, we'll have completed 87% of the Guidebook. So I will just calculate how long it will take to finish those two sections. Let's start with the anime synopses section, since it's the bigger of the two. At 94.06.11, we have finished synopses for 22 episodes. (22 synopses in 10 months) = 2.2 synopses per month (2.2 synopses per month) * (12 months) = 26.4 synopses per year (74 episodes left) / (26.4 synopses per year) = 2.8 years So the Anime Episode Guide should be finished by the middle of 1997, if things go on at the same rate. There are at least five people writing anime synopses for this Guidebook, so it looks like there's no danger of our slowing down very much. On the other hand, the manga synopses section has been going along at a slower pace. One obvious reason is that only one person so far has written the majority of the manga synopses. At 94.06.11, we have finished synopses for 12 chapters. (12 synopses in 5 months) = 2.4 synopses per month (2.4 synopses per month) * (12 months) = 28.8 synopses per year (150 chapters left) / (28.8 synopses per year) = 5.2 years Note: One manga synopsis is equivalent to HALF an anime synopsis; It usually takes two manga chapters to make one anime episode. It looks like the Manga Episode Guide will define the Guidebook's completion date. Based on the above calculations, we'll finish it by the middle of 1999. But wouldn't you like to increase the rate? I'm looking for collaborators who can contribute synopses for this guidebook. Please help out if you can. Revisions of this and other estimates will be provided as this project progresses. <.6. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ==================================================== @intro == == == A Few (Thousand) Words From the Project Coordinator == == == =========================================================== Table of contents for this section: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction The History of this Guidebook What is this document? Any help is much appreciated Miscellaneous comments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introduction: .6.> ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to the biggest free-of-charge MI Guidebook on the Internet! If you happen to know Esperanto (Eo), then check out the Eo version of this Guidebook. The one-megabyte+ 3rd Release was published on May 3rd, 1994. (When I say "publish", I only mean that I uploaded the files to an FTP site.) The Eo MI Guidebook Release 3 is available on this FTP site: ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl And should be in this sub-directory: pub2/esperanto/esperanto-texts.dir/ The filenames are "mi-gvido-e3a.Z", "mi-gvido-e3b.Z", "mi-gvido-e3c.Z", "mi-gvido-e3d.Z" and "mi-gvido-e3e.Z" which add up to a total of 1103 kilobytes when they're uncompressed. I have named the English version of the MI Guidebook (the document you are reading right now) as "mi-guide-r??" where the `r' stands for `release', the first `?' is the release number, and the second `?' is a letter indicating the part number. My goal in coordinating this guidebook is to create the ultimate reference work for Maison Ikkoku. If I, for instance, want to find out what the story is for an episode, who one of the characters is, how a certain scene was played out, or what is the meaning of a particular background detail, then I should be able to find out about it just by searching in this guidebook or one of the other text files that are available to me. Unfortunately, there aren't that many Maison Ikkoku text files other than this Guidebook. So it falls upon our shoulders to make this Guidebook as complete as possible. <.6. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The History of this Guidebook: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sometime in the latter half of 1992 when I became addicted to Maison Ikkoku, I started searching through all the anime FTP sites that I could think of and even tried out the local BBSs. This turned out to be a less than fruitful operation, and the most that I would ever find would be in the Venice FTP site, which is not exactly enough to satisfy a really ravenous MI fan. So I started to consider writing my own text files to augment what was available on FTP. But wait! Aren't there synopses for MI already written? Where are they? After all, I had seen someone post three synopses (Dan Durkin's) to RAA in the spring. There had to be more where that came from. Eventually, I found out that C Sue Shambaugh had also written several MI synopses. Okay... so that means that any work that I do on MI would be thrice redundant. So I decided not to bother. By November, my skills in Esperanto began to reach a level sufficient to read (albeit slowly) full-fledged Esperanto publications. I was pretty sure that nobody in the history of mankind had written Maison Ikkoku synopses in Esperanto, so there would be no problem of redundancy if I were to write my Guidebook in Esperanto. There continued to be nothing new in FTP, so there was no point waiting. On December 21st, the Esperanto MI Guidebook, if ever so humbly, began. For a couple of hours I struggled with trying to translate from English to Esperanto the titles for the first 40 episodes. This was not good. So I stopped and wrote some Esperanto fluff about Ranma 1/2. On January 20th, I remembered that I had written something about Maison Ikkoku; I loaded up the file and started writing. Lo and behold, my Esperanto skills were improved enough to write in full paragraphs. Now I could start churning out synopses in earnest. In March I looked around the Internet again and asked about those other English synopses that had eluded my grasp--they still weren't publicly available. Well, that's okay, because the first release of my guidebook was now available, which was good if you could understand Esperanto... June: I finally contacted Jareth Hein, who had helped Dan Durkin with his synopses, and I found out for sure that those synopses would not be freely available for a while (i.e., don't count on it). Later, C Sue Shambaugh, replied to my inquiry and said that her synopses were likewise unavailable for electronic distribution--but if I were to ask for it by snail-mail... No thanks! Something had to be done about this lack of English synopses. Besides that, after going merrily along for almost half a year with my Eo text, I realized that I was suffocating from a lack of feedback. It seems that while there are Esperantists on the network, very few of them are acquainted with Maison Ikkoku (for that matter, not many English speakers know Maison Ikkoku...)--so they can't help me with the finer details, besides grammar and writing style. All this means is that the chance that a Maison Ikkoku fan will read my Eo version is almost nil. Almost nil, except for the amazing coincidence that Vickie West's brother, Andy, is an Esperantist who is also interested in Maison Ikkoku (but I'm getting ahead of myself here). In late July, Michael Studte e-mailed me and said that my synopses wouldn't really be that redundant. Man, did I know it: hard-to-get synopses are as good as if they didn't exist. And his comment was the final nudge that made me decide to start writing an English MI Guidebook. In August I uploaded the first release of the English Guidebook. I posted announcements on the anime newsgroup of Usenet. And waited. Then, Release 2 came out in September. Someone finally sent me feedback: Andy Johnson. It sure was great to find a contributor that had actually seen the whole anime series and the manga. At the same time, I was also writing a translation of a manga chapter. When I posted a request for help in rec.arts.manga, Vickie West answered. My translation wasn't quite ready, so I asked her to edit some of my synopses. In November, Release 3 was out. This time, Jeff Williamson answered my calls. We were doing pretty good. Synopsis writing got to be less interesting than translating. So in January 1994, I started on a new Deluxe Manga Translation. I posted a call for help in the newsgroups, and e-mailed everybody I had called in the previous translation. For a while, I tried acting as a relay between almost a dozen people as we translated a chapter of the manga. On February 21st, I got permission from the system administrator at my university to open a Maison Ikkoku mailing list. From that point on, the text has been flowing in. Clifford Caoile started writing a large amount of anime synopses in March. Meanwhile, other Deluxe Manga Translations were in progress. So watch these pages for the continuing story of this MI Guidebook Project! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What is this document?: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I imagine that the majority of this Guidebook will continue to be loads and loads of synopses for the Maison Ikkoku anime. While I also want a complete package of manga synopses, I prefer to have the anime synopses totally finished before the manga is totally synopsized. I'm concentrating on the anime version rather than the manga because video is much less of a random-access medium than paper; I want to be able to find out about any particular event of the anime without having to deal with bulky and slow audio-video equipment. One other advantage of having text descriptions of the video is that I can skim/speed-read the story; you can't do that very well with a videotape or laserdisk. But the manga is already speed-readable, and that's why I won't be writing detailed synopses for it. Then again, there is a good reason for making detailed notes, synopses or translations of the manga: I don't want to get my manga volumes dirty by handling them with my hands too much--if I can use a computer file as a substitute, then I only have to open up the manga to refresh my memory of the pictures. (Yes, I treat my MI Manga books very preciously. I always wash my hands before touching the books. Maybe I should buy reading-gloves...) I'm trying to fill in the gaps that have been left by the MI files that are already available on FTP. Here are some of the parts of this document that help to fill in the blanks: - detailed list of the entire cast - timeline of the anime - detailed information on the manga: summaries and annotations - comparisons between the anime and manga versions - synopses and summaries of all the anime episodes It turns out that there is little that this guidebook doesn't cover. There weren't that many MI files to begin with. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Any help is much appreciated: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you'd like to see this guidebook done faster, then e-mail me with your offers for help. I think the best way to help would be to contribute your own synopses or other major articles for inclusion in this document. Or you could provide me with additional information to add to the various sections of this document. Existing sections which need contributions: - Manga Annotation (Anything that's worth noting.) - Summary of the names (We may have missed some of the names and kanji.) - Manga Synopses (Especially needed are synopses of chapters not animated.) - Short Episode Summaries (Between six and ten lines of text per episode.) - Complete Episode Synopses (This is the biggest section, and we'll need all the help we can get to finish this off. You can contribute entire synopses or footnotes and comments.) - Maison Ikkoku Around the World (I want descriptions and stats for all legitimate or pirated translations, re-broadcastings or reprintings) Future section requiring submissions: - Desert Island OAV: synopsis, commentary, etc. Miscellaneous help: - corrections to any part of the document - further comments, opinions and insights - cultural explanations - fairly unobvious references and allusions - sight-gags - did-you-notice's - further descriptions and details and so on... All contributors will receive proper credit in this guidebook. If I get more than one synopsis for one story (e.g., two people give me a synopsis for episode 1), then I will include both of them in this Guidebook; I love comparing how different people write these things. Suggestions: ----------- I'm trying to put in as much variety as I can into this guidebook. If you can think of other subsections that could be created for this document, feel free to let me know. Even better would be for you to create some text to help fill in that new section. Corrections: ----------- If you have access to Maison Ikkoku anime or manga and can use it to confirm inaccuracies in my synopses or anywhere else, then send me a list of things that need to be corrected. In the large, detailed synopses there is bound to be a lot of small mismatches between what was written and what actually happened--especially in the dialogue. I want this Guide to be as accurate as possible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Miscellaneous comments: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A comment on commenting: I prize comments in the synopses almost as much as the synopses themselves. It's too bad that most of the synopses that I read from other people are just straight description. Well, if my comments are silly, at least I've put them outside of the main text of each synopsis so that they're easier to ignore. I also love footnotes and annotations, in part, because they're harder to come up with than descriptive prose. In closing, it was quite interesting and enjoyable to make this guide so far. Doing all this research is sure to help me get all I can get out of Maison Ikkoku. I hope you enjoy MI even more with this guide in hand. amike, Glenn Tarigan ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ====================================================== == Miscellaneous Info to Help Your Understanding == ====================================================== @conventions Conventions: ~~~~~~~~~~~ `___' = Ordinary quotes. I use these characters rather than the double quotes. The single quote style is more common to books from the UK, I think. "___" = Used interchangeably with the single quotes. `(___)' = Encloses a character's thoughts. Ex. Godai rides his bicycle: `(That slave-driver...) Kanrinin-san... tomorrow I'll see you...' name: (___) = When dialogue is in script-like format, I don't use single-quotes. Ex. Mitaka: (Dogs are cute... Dogs are the friendliest animals in the world...) [He looks nervously at the door] Oi, MacKenroe! [___] = All-purpose brackets. Used to enclose comments, footnotes, scene descriptions, etc. Ex. [this is a [[multiple] nesting is also allowed] comment] (___) = Sometimes used in the same way as the square brackets. (I don't claim to be consistent!) <___> = Phrase translation or definition. Ex. omamori baka (x) where x is a number = A footnoting method. Minimal conventions for manga references: v??,?? - volume number, chapter number Ex. v1,1 = volume 1, chapter 1 p??,?? - page number, panel number Ex. p1,1 = page 1, panel 1 Refer to "mi-v3-1.r1.txt" for the rest of the details. .5.> Romaji Conventions: ------------------ Note: This is an unconventional transcription style because, for learning purposes, it is useful to be able to differentiate between kanji, katakana, hiragana, furigana, and all sorts of other things within the romaji. Short of using JIS or Unicode, this is as detailed a system as I can come up with. UPPERCASE TEXT = Kanji. Kanji is used less frequently than hiragana (in Maison Ikkoku manga, at least), so we represent it with uppercase letters (which require more work to type-- you have to use the SHIFT or CAPS-LOCK key). E.g., TAKAHASHI RUMIKO lowercase text = Hiragana. Using straight lowercase to represent hiragana (as opposed to using uppercase, or any other markings) is the most efficient way because hiragana is the most frequently used character set in Japanese; lowercase text is the easiest to type. E.g., Kentaro: dekakerya iin daro_!! ____ .... or [....] = Katakana. The first method (an "overline") is preferred because it takes the same amount of horizontal space as the hiragana would. However, the second method may be necessary if you want to confine the transcription to a single line (for instance, within a paragraph of annotations). ______ __ E.g., puropo--zu = [puropo--zu] _________ yakimochi = [yakimochi] _...._ = Furigana. This should be placed directly above the romaji to which it applies. For example: _kanrininsan_ Godai: boku ni wa SUki na ONNA ga iru kara. I love woman is because In the above example, Godai actually says "kanrininsan", but the implied meaning is "lover" or "woman I love". #....# = Roman letters. Quite infrequent. This is usually used for signboards, which are oftentimes printed in English. E.g., #BEER# #Coca-Cola# `....' = Kana sound effects. (stuff that doesn't appear in speech bubbles) ___ ___ ____ E.g., `kon kon', `gikuu', `kara', `picha' -- = Single vowel extension. ____ E.g., suki-- --- or more = Longer vowel extension. E.g., Godai: KYOUKO no bakkyaro-----_!! ~~ or more = Squiggly-line vowel extension. E.g., Akemi: sa~~ bi~~ shi~~ i~~ zo~~~~~. Yotsuya: se~~ tsu~~ na~~ i~~ de~~ su~~ yo~~~~~. _ (one underscore) = Small `tsu' (usually at the end of a word). This makes possible the precise transcription of really emphatic expressions like: Godai: umai desu yo_!! ' or - = Usually separates components within a compound kanji phrase. (Only used when it may be helpful.) E.g., GODAI-san, kanrinin-san, IKKOKU-TOU [nanpa] SHI'MATSU'KI <.5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @abbreviations Abbreviations, Symbols and a bit of Vocabulary: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ( ) = these are called the Left PARENTHESIS and the Right PARENTHESIS, respectively. { } = these are called the Left BRACE and the Right BRACE, respectively. [ ] = these are called the Left BRACKET and the Right BRACKET, respectively. :) ^_^ - smilies which have found favor with this author. --G.Tarigan ~ = approximately Ex. ~4 years = approximately 4 years x^y = x to the power of y Ex. 2^3 = 8 2^20 bytes = one megabyte 10^9 = 1 000 000 000 = one billion 10^-9 meters = one nanometer approx. = approximately ASCII = American Standard for Communication and Information Interchange BC = British Columbia, a province in Canada BG = background BTW = By The Way cf. = compare cm = centimeters DOA = Dead On Arrival DYN = Did You Notice? EBCDIC = Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code ED = Ending song and animation e.g. = Latin: (abbreviation for) exempli gratia = for example Eo = Esperanto esp. = especially ex. = for example: FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions FTP = file transfer protocol GT = Glenn Tarigan GST = Glenn Singgalang Tarigan ICBM = InterContinental Ballistic Missile i.e. = Latin: (abbreviation for) id est = that is; in other words IMHO = In My Humble Opinion IRA = Irish Republican Army JNR = Japan National Railway K = kilobytes km = kilometers km2 = square kilometers KOR = Kimagure Orange Road laser = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation m = meters m2 = square meters MB = megabytes MI = Maison Ikkoku min = minutes MIRV = Multiple Impact Re-entry Vehicle ML = Mailing List (As in "MI ML" = "Maison Ikkoku Mailing List") mm = millimeters NB = Latin: Nota Bene = NHK = Nippon Hoso Kyokai NORAD = NORth american Air Defense OAV = Original Animated Video OP = Opening song and animation p = page(s) RAA = A newsgroup of Usenet: rec.arts.anime RACM = A newsgroup of Usenet: rec.arts.comics.misc radar = RAdio Detecting And Ranging RAM = A newsgroup of Usenet: rec.arts.manga RSVP = re'pondez s'il vous plai^t = SCUBA = Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus sec = second (time unit) secs = seconds (time unit) SNOBOL = StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language TV = television UK = United Kingdom, on an island near to France UN = United Nations UNICEF = United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund USA = United States of America: big neighbor south of us Canucks UY = Urusei Yatsura viz = Latin: (abbreviation for) videlicet = VJAC = Vancouver Japanese Animation Club ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @language_notes Language Notes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dates and Times: I use the following format: Gregorian Year.Month.Day Hour:Minute.Seconds.Tenths Ex. 93.08.06 17:16 (I use the 24-hour system) I sometimes shorten the date when I want to be vague: Ex. 93.06 = June, 1993 Japanese - Episode Titles: If I was able to obtain the title in Japanese I've arranged the words so that they appear in the arrangement that they originally appeared onscreen. I.e., if the Japanese writing appeared on two separate lines, then in this document it will appear on two separate lines. Plus, for any parts of the title that were written with kanji, I've totally capitalized the letters. The parts of the title which were written with either one of the kanas are in lower-case. This makes it slightly easier to figure out which parts of the title may be incorrectly transcribed: the words which were in kanji are the ones to suspect (if at all), while the kana transcription is probably 100% correct. Ex. Episode 15 abunai FUTARI no NINGYO GEKI! BOKU mou dame desu The exact punctuation has also been noted in those titles. Some of the changes incurred during translation can be rather interesting. At times, the one who did the subtitles saw fit to change a bit of the punctuation. Ex. Episode 96 kono AI aru KAGIri! IKKOKU-KAN wa EIEN ni...!! changes to As long as this love lasts. Ikkoku-kan forever I did the titles like this for interest's sake since I'm trying to learn Japanese. Also, the way that I've typed in the titles may make it a bit easier for others to spot my mistakes: I had a bit of trouble trying to copy down the titles sometimes, as some of the kanji were unfamiliar and I can barely keep up with the spoken Japanese. See Appendix T for detailed explanations for some of the title translations (and other stuff). Measurements: I use the metric system and for temperatures I use Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Since Japan uses metric, it should be pretty easy to avoid the use of the English system. Paragraph formatting: There is no set pattern that I follow when it comes to including dialogue in the synopses. There are several formats I may use, and since I like having a variety of indentations and spacings within a text, I'll mix things up to make the arrangement more interesting (i.e., chaotic) to my eyes. Compared to some other texts, my documents on average have fewer words per line. I have more blank lines and I frame the bulk of my text in the area between the 5th and the 75th column. Personal Names: For the first appearance of anybody's full name, I may capitalize the entire family name so that you know which one it is. This is necessary because the family name doesn't always come last. Then from that point, I may or may not fully capitalize the family names. When it comes to Japanese names, I use the Japanese order for showing names--family name followed by the given name. However, I won't be totally consistent about it. At least, if you have any confusions about the names for the characters of Maison Ikkoku, you can consult the character summary section. Ex. GODAI Yuhsaku Takahashi Rumiko For names from other cultures, I'll use their usual sequence. Ex. Glenn TARIGAN Ford Prefect Transliteration of Japanese Names: I chose to use the transliterations that I've become used to when reading the other MI text files. Ex. I know that Kyoko's real name is Kyouko or something like that, but I'm more used to seeing it spelled as `Kyoko'. Same goes for other names like `Toukyou'. I just use the name I'm most familiar with. E.g., `Tokyo' Furthermore, I will not be bothered with trying to be consistent with name spellings. For instance, if you see me spell Mitaka's dog's name as `MacKenroe' in one sentence, don't bug me if you see it spelled as `McEnroe' in the next sentence, and then `McKenroe' after that. However, the most preferred or the *official* variant spelling will be shown in the `Summary of the names' section. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ .6.> Introduction to Maison Ikkoku: @mi_intro =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Here are some introductory blurbs (or whatever I could scrounge up) : ** ** ** ** This is an entry from Alan Takahashi's "Anime Pocket Guide": Title: Maison Ikkoku (FILM,OAV,TV) gRC tMAI Cast: tMAI Yusaku Godai ............................. Issei Futamata vIFu tMAI Kyoko Otonashi ........................... Sumi Shimamoto vSSh2 tMAI Hanae Ichinose .............................. Kazuyo Aoki vKAo tMAI Yotsuya ................................... Shigeru Chiba vSCh tMAI Akemi Roppongi ............................... Yuhko Mita vYMi1 tMAI Yagami Ibuki ........................... Yuriko Fuchizaki vYFu1 tMAI Sayoko Kuroki ............................. Saeko Shimazu vSSh1 tMAI Asuna Kujo ................................. Hiromi Tsuru vHTs tMAI Shun Mitaka ................................ Akira Kamiya vAKa tMAI Kozue Nanao ............................... Mina Tominaga vMTo2 tMAI Yousuke Nanao ........................ Megumi Hayashibara vMHa1 tMAI Sakamoto ................................ Toshio Furukawa vTFu2 tMAI Sayuko Kuroki (MI movie) ............. Yoshiko Sakakibara vYSa tMAI Description: tMAI Godai is a ronin (i.e. someone who's failed university entrance tMAI exams) living in room #5 of a run down apartment house called tMAI Maison Ikkoku. Among the other residents are the nosy Ichinose tMAI (room #1), the sexy Akemi Roppongi (#6), and the mysterious tMAI Yotsuya (#4). The others are given to having wild parties which tMAI makes it difficult for Godai to study. Into this mayhem comes tMAI the recently widowed Kyoko as the new live-in manager. Godai tMAI falls for her, but doesn't have the nerve to tell her. The show tMAI follows their developing relationship amid the crazy goings on tMAI at Maison Ikkoku. A romantic comedy by Rumiko Takahashi. tMAI Rating: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED tMAI ** ** ** ** Mitch Hagmaier on 92.11.25 posted this message in rec.arts.anime: [ Note: I made a few corrections in the facts and grammar. Ed. ] MI is shorthand for Maison Ikkoku, a TV series that ran in 1986-1988 in Japan. It replaced Urusei Yatsura, the runaway sitcom hit based on Rumiko Takahashi's popular manga of the same name. MI also was based on a Takahashi manga, that ran in the phonebook weeklies about the same time as Urusei Yatsura. Rumiko Takahashi's work has also been animated in the 89-92 tv series Ranma 1/2, and the OAVs Mermaid's Forest, One Pound Gospel, Firetripper, Laughing Target, and the Supergal. MI is, essentially, a romantic comedy soap opera. It is set in roughly contemporary Japan, possibly in the late 70's [Early 80's. Ed.]. The main characters either live in, or associate with the inhabitants, of a battered, ancient appartment building/boarding house known as Maison Ikkoku, or the Ikkoku-kan. The plot generally revolves around the romantic problems and development around the two main characters, Yuusaku Godai and Kyoko Otonashi. Godai is a ronin/college student, of less than forceful personality, and a bit of a muddle-head. Kyoko is a young widow, who runs the Ikkoku-kan for her father-in-law, as kanrinin (manager/building super/chaos containment specialist). She is in the uncertain process of learning to live without her recently deceased husband. The central conflict revolves about Kyoko learning to love again, and whether or not it will be Godai that she learns to love. There are numerous secondary love interests for both characters, including the local tennis Coach, Shun Mitaka, and Godai's inadvertant "girlfriend" Kozue Nanao. Of course, this is a comedy, as well as a soap, and no description of MI is complete without a mention of the obnoxious and silly inhabitants of Ikkoku-kan. Ichinose, in room 1, is an alcoholic housewife, and a hopeless gossip. She often takes the emotional role of "mother" to Kyoko and Godai. Her son Kentaro begins as a cynical 10-year-old, who is eternally embarrassed by his mother's drunken public displays. He is, essentially, Ikkoku-kan's little brother. Akemi, in room 6, is a somewhat loose and loud type, the second of the drunken trinity of pests that keep Godai and Kyoko on thier toes, and Godai sleepless and irate. She works at the local bar, and is, functionally, the big sister. Yotsuya is the strange and obnoxious inhabitant of room 4. He has a bad habit of burrowing through walls and making horrible puns, in the forms of song-fragments. No one can figure out what he does for a living. He is the strange Uncle figure. Together, the inhabitants of Ikkoku-kan make it a practice to party loudly at least once a day in Godai's room, no matter what he is doing (like, say, studying?). They also make a habit of dreaming up embarrassing and alarming scenarios for Kyoko and Godai, producing horribly complicated messes and misunderstandings. There is a great deal to recommend MI as a show to follow, among other things the slapstick, the romance, and the rather interesting and clever psychological insights spouted by the pests of Ikkoku-kan. I recommend it thoroughly. ** ** ** ** Here's an introductory blurb to the first episode: Walter Amos in 1993 wrote in rec.arts.anime: MAISON IKKOKU episode 1 (subtitled in English) - the first episode of the hilarious yet touching love story by Rumiko Takahashi. Young student Godai Yusaku is having trouble passing his college entrance exams - and no wonder when he is surrounded by a buncy of psychotic neighbors determined to make his life hell! He is ready to walk out of his boarding house... until the beautiful new manager Kyoko Otonashi arrives! =========================================================================== About the Author: Rumiko Takahashi: @rumiko =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Glenn on 94.07.07: From the inside back cover of Issue #1 of Viz's 1989 English translation of Urusei Yatsura: (which was worth it at half the price :) Above the text is a small photo of Ms.Takahashi: She's wearing glasses and a t-shirt. Her hair is shoulder length and looks slightly curly. "Rumiko Takahashi was born in 1957 in Niigata, Japan. She attended a women's college in Tokyo, where she began studying comics with Kazuo Koike, the writer of _Lone Wolf and Cub_. In 1978, she won a prize in Shogakukan's annual New Comic Artist Contest, and in that same year her _Lum*Urusei Yatsura_ began appearing in the weekly manga magazine _Shonen Sunday_. This phenomenally successful series ran for nine years. Takahashi is currently the most popular comic writer-artist in Japan. Her other titles include _Maison Ikkoku_, _Ranma 1/2_, and _One-Pound Gospel_." I doubt that she is still the most popular comic writer-artist in Japan; but who knows... The way that Viz is pushing her works nowadays, it would seem that way. ** ** ** ** Ming-Fan Winston Wu on 94.07.30: Here's a bio blurb from the cover jacket of DARAN's Chinese translation of Ranma 1/2 (they hold the rights to Ranma in Taiwan): o Birthplace: Niigata Prefecture, Niigata City (which is the capital city of that prefecture) o First started using quill drawing pens in the second semester of sixth grade. o Began to participate in manga study groups in high school. o During 11th grade, began sending her own works to Shonen magazine in hopes of getting published. o The trigger for becoming a manga artist: she liked the works of IKEGAMI Ryouichi and emulated his style when she first started out. o She made a name for herself as a manga artist when she was a junior in college. (It's not clear through which titles) Immediately afterwards she began the weekly series Urusei Yatsura. "Shonen Sunday" was the magazine which serialized "Urusei Yatsura" and "Ranma 1/2". o In her fourteen years as a manga artist, the most painful days were when she began the series Ranma1/2 and encountered the rejection of UY readers. ** ** ** ** Miscellaneous info: She smokes cigarettes (as does the majority of the Japanese population). Many fans found this out first hand (or should I say second hand? ^_^) during the 1994 San Diego Comic-con. Ikegami Ryouichi collaborated with Kariya Tetsu on a manga called "Otokogumi" ("Male Gang") which was serialized from 1974 to 1979 in Shonen Sunday. --"Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics" .8.> From: Yutaka Sasagawa Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 23:06:50 -0600 (CST) Subject: A little something by Takahashi Rumiko Here's something my brother gave me when I went back for the break. It's a little 4"x 6" booklet that looks like it came from either of the Sunday magazines (Shonen and Young), or from one of their comic books. It seems to be from last July. It features a little article written by Adachi Mitsuru and Takahashi Rumiko (probably the two biggest Sunday artists). At the bottom of her article is her picture of, along with her biography. Some new facts that didn't seem to be in the Guidebook was her exact birthday, October 10, 1957. BTW, that's a national holiday in Japan (although it's not because it's her birthday ^_^). Her Blood Type's A, and the college that she went to was Nihon Joshi Daigaku, which is a pretty prestigious school, I've heard. She likes seafood, naturally, since she's from Niigata ^_^; Below is my quick translation of Takahashi Rumiko's article. It features mainly Ranma, but I thought it still may be of interest to some MI people (and also, I'm not on the Ranma ML). Sorry if you don't think it belongs here ^_^. ============================================================ Thank you for reading "Ranma 1/2". It just surpassed the 300th episode. Of course, I sometimes have trouble coming up with ideas, but I don't think it's that hard, since I only have to think of one each week. It's really nothing once you get used to it. Usually, I approach my desk, ready to go, but sometimes I just can't make my self sit down. At those times, I have the editor assigned to me come over and make me sit at my desk. But that's not really what I'd call a slump. It's too early for me to call it a slump. I think the moment you think of failure is when failure comes, so I try not to think of those things. I'm making a living doing what I love, drawing manga, so it's fun and I'm happy. There are a lot of characters and and animals in "Ranma 1/2". When I come up with characters, I just think of the generalities, because if I decide on the specifics, it limits my ability to draw. For example, in the case of Hinako sensei, I first just wanted to create a teacher. I thought of a child-like teacher, but then she'd be too weak, so I made her turn into an adult. And I wanted her transformation to be easy, and not by water, so I made her absorb "ki". And like that, I came up with Hinako. I tend to draw short characters, maybe because I'm short myself. I like all characters I create because they're cute. But if I had to choose one, it'd have to be Ranma. I also like Ryoga, since he's easy to draw. Speaking of characters, I watch sumo on TV a lot, and I'm a fan of Akebono. I like his attitude of coming from abroad into the world of sumo, and how he's really working hard. And most of all, I like his character. Besides sumo, I take breaks by watching plays rather than movies. I watch all kinds of plays, but I tend to watch a lot of Takarazuka plays. It's really good for a chenge. But I'm not watching plays to incorporate it into my manga, it's purely for relaxation. Knowledge and experience from everyday life is more useful in creating manga, especially since I'm the type that does things by instinct. And I intend to continue "Ranma 1/2" in the same way. My biggest pleasure as a manga artist comes from having people read and enjoy my work. Please continue reading my manga. ============================================================ Two little things: Akebono is a sumo wrestler either from Hawaii or the South Pacific. He's one of the two "Yokozuna", the "Grand Champion" in sumo. It's the top position in the sumo world, and I think he's one of the only firty or so in the last 100 years. Takarazuka is a city in Hyogo, near Kobe (yes, *that* Kobe, of recent news). It has a dramatic company, as well as a drama school. Takarazuka plays are famous for having only female actresses. All parts, including male parts, are played by females. Hope you enjoyed this, and I hope it was somewhat relevant to the ML. Like I said, the translation was done as it was typed in, so it may not be the best job. It's not always literal, but I tried to keep the same meaning and connotations. <.8. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Rumiko's 1994 Visit to the San Diego Comic-Con: =============================================== Joe Rispoli has graciously given me permission to include in the MI Guidebook the following article: .7.> FOUR FUNERALS AND A WEDDING? A Brief Report of Rumiko Takahashi's Appearance at the '94 San Diego Comicon By Joe Rispoli (Dayton Animation Club Newsletter Supplement for Aug 27, 1994) As soon as I heard the Rumiko Takahashi was scheduled to make her first official American appearance at the San Diego Comicon, I knew where I wanted to spend my summer vacation. And although our original plans to drive cross-country didn't work out, Nate Ebersole (also of the DAC) and I got to meet and talk with the author we both admire and respect so much... Saturday Aug 6th was a day I'll never forget... Arriving a few hours too late to get into the limited (to 75!) autograph line outside the Convention Center, we consoled ourselves with the hope of running into other USA YATSURA APA members (which we did, including Michael Susko, editor of the same), as well as looking forward to seeing Miss Takahashi in person. [Next time, I'm bringing a sleeping bag and/or showing up very, very early...] We had originally planned to stay in the room scheduled for her appearance, but we were notified by the VIZ people co- ordinating the event that the room would be cleared out so the her fans could be allowed into the room in an orderly manner. We quickly asked where the line was forming, and headed for it. After spending nearly an hour and a half as part of a group of friendly and anxious fans and semi-pros, we were let back into the room passing by at least a dozen of the con's security people, who were stationed there to keep people from jumping in line (which would probably have gotten the jumper killed in many various quick and painful means...) It was estimated that the room's capacity was approximately 1500 people, and as far as I could see, there were few empty seats in the room. Then the moment (and the person) we had all waited so anxiously for arrived. It was announced that Miss Takahashi would be present for an awards presentation, then return for a question and answer session after the showing of the dubbed 2nd Ranma Movie. Miss Takahashi appeared, wearing a black and gold silk Chinese style dress, escorted by her translator and bodyguards (?) and the room went wild with applause. She shyly accepted our accolades of welcome and then sat down in the center of a multi- seat podium in the front of the room, where she was presented with one of American Comicdom's most prestigious awards, the Inkpot, for all the ground-breaking work she had done as well as her technical excellence in comic story-telling. Then she was presented with a special award by Capital City Distributors (who had arranged her appearance in America) in honor of how well her Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, Mermaid and Lum books had done in our country. She then thanked the presenters and the audience for allowing her to be there, and for buying her books. Then the VIZ spokesperson announced the premiere of the dubbed 2nd Ranma Movie, and it was almost as much fun watching the fans who quite obviously had never seen it before as it was watching the movie itself. Eyes were bulging out and jaws were nearly hitting the floor almost consistently. A little Nakajima goes a long way, and we know that Atsuko Nakajima doesn't do things in a small way... Shortly after the movie ended, we awaited the return of Miss Takahashi to the room, and we were invited to an open Question and Answer session with her. We were reminded that she was the creator of Manga (Comic) Series, and to limit our questions to that topic, since she had little to do with the Anime series spun off from her stories. Did I mention that I was sitting in a aisle seat, only 5 feet away from the questioner's microphone? (and sitting only 10 to 15 feet away from Miss Takahashi herself...) Out of sheer courtesy (and not wanting to appear too anxious), I didn't rush the microphone when the announcement was made, but I let one other fan get in front of the mike before I was up there. While we were waiting for Miss Takahashi to return >from taking care of some personal business, some other people came up, and asked to move ahead for various reasons, (editor of a magazine, personal favors, etc.) I figured let them go ahead, and if they asked what I was planning to ask, then I'd ask something else. Plenty of questions had been churning in my mind that I could ask her. A few of the questions that were asked (Please bear with me, I wasn't quite all there, and may not be 100% accurate on the wording of the questions and answers that follow: Q: What's your favorite series? A: Whatever I'm working on at the time. Q: Being a woman, how can you see so accurately into the male mind when you do your male characters? A: Well, women are human beings, too. (Touche') Q: What sort of materials do you use to draw your manga? A: Oh, quite ordinary things for the trade, artists board, inks, various types of pens and brushes... Q: Miss Takahashi, you are well known for your wacky and romantic stories. Why are you writing a horror series like the 'Mermaid' stories? A: (with a grin) It's my hobby. Then the moment of infamy arrived... It was my turn at the microphone, and I vowed to do my best to remain calm, cool and collected (need I say I failed?) But I did have one of the longest talks with her (if not the longest) during the Q & A session! I broke up a few of my statements with minor pauses so that her translator could ensure that she understood my comments to her. Me: Miss Takahashi, first I'd like to state that I consider it quite an honor to be able to be here, to meet you in person and to be able to actually talk with you. A: Thank you. Me: I have been a member of the USA YATSURA APA fanzine for many years. It is a fanzine that covers many aspects of Anime and Manga, focusing mainly on your works, since they are the best on the market to many of us. A: Thank you again. Me: I am sure I speak for everyone in this room (I should have added 'and thousands of your other American fans who couldn't be here') when I say, 'Doomo arigatoo gozaimaishita.' (At this point, Miss Takahashi's face lit up...) Me: (Turning to the members of the audience, and then back to Miss Takahashi) For those of you who don't know what I just said, I'll translate: "Thank you so very much for all you have done!" (At this point, everyone in the room stood, cheering and clapping, expressing their agreement with what I had said, and their heart-felt admiration for Miss Takahashi. After a few moments to let things calm down, I then asked the question I had selected.) Me: Miss Takahashi, do you ever plan to write the Urusei Yatsura story where Lum actually marries her (my voice cracked and my eyes started watering) ...Darling? A: No, I do not plan to go back to Urusei Yatsura... I ended the story the way I wanted to, and I see no need to go back anymore... (I was devastated, and tried hard not to let it show.) A: (continuing) However, if you can see their future in your imagination, feel free to write it down. (I didn't have the gall to tell her I had been doing just that for over 4 years now, the FUYS [Final Urusei Yatsura Season] Fan-fiction stories have become a hobby unto itself...) Me: 'Doomo arigato.' (Thank you very much.) I stumbled back to my seat, mumbling to Nate, Mike and James 'Kitsune' Staley that Takahashi didn't know the can of worms she had just re-opened, and that the APA members better look out... ******* Ranma 1/2 SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! ****** Then we got hit with a medium-sized nuke... Q: Miss Takahashi, rumor has it you will be ending your Ranma 1/2 manga series soon. Is it true? A: Yes. Q: Could you tell us anything about your plans to end it? A: By the time the series is ended, Ranma and Akane will have settled all their differences and difficulties between them. (The audience went stark, raving bonkers!!! After a cooling off period, the questioning went on.) Q: Do you mean Ranma will marry Akane? A: (smiling) Yes! (The previous reaction was nothing compared to the uproar that now took place. A few obvious Shampoo/Ukkyo/Kodachi fans were looking around for long, sharp pointy things to throw themselves on... But on second thought, they should have been rejoicing, since their dream girls are now free to look for someone else... Quick, what's a ticket to Furinken cost? Better yet, how much to get to Tomobiki? There's a certain biker goddess I'd love to get better acquainted with...) After that blockbuster, I was pretty much out of it. I'm sure that VIZ will print a full/edited version of the Q & A session in a future issue of Animerica, and I look forward to it. And the title of this article is what I suggest VIZ use for the dubbed version of the "Final Ranma Movie", whenever that comes out... "FOUR FUNERALS AND A WEDDING" seems to fit both VIZ's naming tendencies and the spirit of the Ranma Finale as well... [You heard it here first, folks!] My final comment is: "2 out of 3 isn't bad, Miss Takahashi, how about trying to bat .1000? Please!" Mata ne, Joe Rispoli, aka The Takaholic <.7. --------------------------- Note: The following texts are postings from the MI mailing list. From: ccaoile@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Clifford "Tenchi-Kun" Caoile) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 18:21:29 +0500 For all you netters (MI ML or otherwise) lucky enough to be within 200 miles of San Diego, join me in welcoming Rumiko Takahashi to our shores! The "con", San Diego Comic Convention, will last till Sunday, August 7, but you can only see RT-sensei on Saturday.... *** CEC-kun is not responsible for misinformation. *** Here's an official news-blurb from the SDCC daily update (Thur Aug 4 94): | *** Viz and Capital City Team Up For Rumiko Signing *** | Viz Communications and Capital City Distribution are proud to announce | that location of Rumiko Takahashi's autograph session has been moved to | Capital City Booth, #918. This autograph session will be limited to 100 | autographs and will be a ticketed event. Twenty-five tickets will be | distributed each day on Thursday and Friday at the Capital City Booth | at 11:00 AM, and the remaining 50 tickets will be distributed on Saturday | at 11:00 AM. | [end blurb] This is Booth #918 inside the dealer's room/art/everything, instead of autograph room #3 upstairs. This booth is in between the Marvel and DC comics setups, which you really can't miss. Lucky for me, I got a ticket! And it's not the orange tickets that DC comics gives out for its free "platinum" comic for the first 1,500 attendees. ("Platinum" is a catagory of a special, limited-edition comic book which may feature a different color or style on the cover, in an effort to make it more valuable. Personally, last year's freebee, a "gold" Batman: Sword of Asrael, isn't worth the time I waited in line...If you want it, I'll be glad to part with it, for money, of course!) The ticket that Capital City gives you looks like the cover of Animerica's Ranma 1/2 issue for August 1994, from one of the movies. (Plug not intended...) An evil-looking dude grasps Akane (what's new?), with the dude's minion carrying off a helpless Shampoo. Ranma-kun glares while the background characters do their thing. It's about postcard size, with a white border. The corner contains the logo of Capital City. On the back is the ticket number and the date. ( In my case, it's #22, 8/4/94. Sorry, can't sell mine... ^_^ ) ( Maybe for a Apple Macintosh PowerBook 520c? Interested? JK!) BUT, WATCH OUT for Friday and Saturday's ticket lines. Today, pretty much 25 people showed up and not much more. A couple of high school kids who were in front of me jumped out, when I showed them Maison Ikkoku Wideban #1. (Bunch of Image kids...huh..JK!) It didn't seem like it was well known, but then again, they gave the tickets out at around 10:30 AM. You: "Ten #$%$%#$ thirty????" Me : "Yeah... Lucky me...." The reason why there were so few in the line on Thursday was b/c the updated info was pretty much distributed only at the free-bee table and the info-desk, and not in the regular bundle which you recieve at Exhibit Hall C, where they give ya con-badges. Also, the period between 10-11 AM was reserved for those who mail-reg'ed their 4 day passes, so those coming to site-reg would have to wait 10:45 to get in... (I could be wrong.) I jumped in early Thursday b/c I was a volunteer, which was too cool. The right place at the right time. It pays to be a volunteer, especially when you're distributing the info! I met a fellow MI ML lurker, Chris Noe (or Roe?). I think he got ticket #24. (Howdy, ya lurker!) Here's the other program with RT-sensei (1994 SDCC Events Guide, p22): | 12:30 [Saturday] *** Spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi *** | Meet the creator of Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura, as she shows the new | Ranma 1/2 movie in its entirety. A question and answer session will | follow. Room 6C/F | [end info] Which movie, I don't know... This will be upstairs in Room 6C/F from 12:30 to 2:30. The signing will begin @ 4:00, which gives ticket holders plenty of time to go downstairs and get in line. Why she will sign at the booth in the middle of America's two main sources of comics and not at the special autograph booths is a mystery. Then again, you know why... BTW, who/what is the Capital City Team? Next stop for RT-sensei will be in Oakland on August 7 94 Sun... You folks there know about it more than I do, right? For more info, go to the SDCC's Information Desk ("Hi" to all the people I helped there.). But don't be surprised if they don't know RT-sensei. (Those #$&#$ volunteers!) Please repeat this to other relevant news.groups if you deem it necessary. I cannot reply to follow-up emails, since I'm not an expert (of course!) and I'll be at work or the Con til Saturday. But if you'd like, send me emails. Just wanted to pass this info on to you. My way of gloating, I guess. (Sorry, flame me, if you really want to...) See ya there! Tenchi-kun. --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bc15@midway.uchicago.edu (Yuhsaku Godai [Ronin]) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 94 21:21:11 CDT Clifford had previously written: >| 12:30 [Saturday] *** Spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi *** >| Meet the creator of Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura, as she shows the new >| Ranma 1/2 movie in its entirety. A question and answer session will >| follow. Room 6C/F >| [end info] > >Which movie, I don't know... Pretty sure it's the "Nihao My Concubine" movie. >Just wanted to pass this info on to you. My way of gloating, I guess. >(Sorry, flame me, if you really want to...) Lessee.... where'd I put my can of Lysol and lighter? ;) Have fun ya lucky dawg. =) Ben C. Cheng --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Christopher J. Noe" Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 13:05:07 -0700 (PDT) MI people: Yes, that was me that Clifford met while we were getting tickets to the signing. Since I have found the manga volumes rather difficult to locate in Idaho, I brought a copy of the Viz translation of issue no. 1 of MI for her to sign. She not only signed it, but did a doodle of that famous design on Kyoko's apron. PIYO PIYO ^_^ She did sketches of various characters from her works for random ticket-holders, and was very kind to everyone, from what I heard. I heard the usual rumors that dealers and exhibitors were getting in line early, and trying various sleazy tricks to get something signed so they could sell it for big $$$. Somebody (to remain nameless) actually offered me over $100 for my ticket. . . Security was very tight, and apart from her appearance at the Q/A session after the screening, she was pretty well hidden (literally, given her petite stature) behind her handlers & security people. Some folks did get photos during the Q/A session or during the obligatory photo sessions in front of the Capital booth and the Viz booth. I imagine photos and a story or three will appear in Animerica soon. During the Q/A session there were a couple of MI related questions that were asked. I will attempt to summarize the questions and the answers, at least until someone whose Japanese and recall are better than mine posts something more accurate. 1. Q. Where did you get the inspiration for MI? A. When I was in college, there was a rooming house located behind the place where I was living. It was rather run down, and there seemed to be a number of strange/interesting people who lived there. I wondered about what their lives might be like, and the story grew from that. 2. Q. Does Yotsuya have a job, and what is it? A. Nobody knows. I encourage anyone else who was at the program to post their recollections or thoughts. By the way, for you Ranma 1/2 fans, she didn't say when the series would end, but she did say that Ranma and Akane would end up together. Of course, she didn't say how this would come about. . . Christopher Noe College of Law Library; University of Idaho noe@uidaho.edu (after the movie screening, and before the Q/A session) Announcement by VIZ suit: "Ms. Takahashi will be right back. She ahh...had to go the the ladies' room." Response by anonymous fan in audience: "Gosh - SHE does that too?" [cheers, hoots, applause] ^_- --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dark Phoenix Date: Tue, 09 Aug 1994 09:53:25 -0700 (MST) Here's the skinny from someone else who was there from beginning to end. The day before the con, I talked to one of my "Viz Contacts" and was told that the autograph tickets were being given out over a period of several days. Of course, I figured the first day'd be the the best, so after getting into the dealer's room, a friend and I flew over to the Viz table, which had a sign saying that tickets were being distributed at Captial City's booth. So we flew over there (I had expected this, so I had already looked up their booth location) and asked when the line would start. They said 10:30, and it was nearly 10, so we just hovered around their booth and soon we were joined by more people until there was a clot of people standing in the line. So, by 10:30, since there were more than 25 people in the line, they handed us the tickets. My friend got #1 and I got #3. We were happy and life was good. The next day, however, a lot more people knew about it, and so, when the dealers room opened at 9:45 the next day, the people who were expecting to stand in line discovered that the tickets had already been given out to dealers (people with pink badges). People were FURIOUS because it wasn't fair--no one else could get into the dealer's room early. Both Viz and Cap City had mobs of irate fanboys at their booths. One guy actually threatened to sue (can you believe it?) So the NEXT day, the tickets were on a first-come first-serve basis as soon as the dealer's room opened. I had friends who got up and camped out in the line at 5:00 in the morning in attempts to get tickets. Meanwhile, I was standing in line to see the Gargoyles panel, which was pretty full. Then they announced they would be clearing the room between this panel and the next one (which was Takahashi's), and several people got up and left--not as many as I would have thought, though. After getting out of the Gargoyles panel, we went to stand in line for the Takahashi panel. It was a HUGE line--they had to do "traffic control" to herd us all into the room and make sure that no one cut in line. All in all, everyone was very well behaved. The panel was standing room only. Takahashi accepted the Inkpot Award from SDCC for her "outstanding contributions to the Comics Industry." (This is a VERY PRESTIGOUS AWARD). Then, she accepted her SPJA/Anime Expo Award for "Favorite Male Character: Ranma-kun." They ran the viz dub of Nihao my Concubine. It wasn't bad...not great, but at least more bearable than the last viz dub I saw...probably because there was so little of Ranma-kun. (I really HATE his voice). It went over well, and Takahashi seemed a little overwhelmed by the turnout and audience response. The following Q&A session was mostly typical fanboy questions. Takahashi when asked about why most of her work is about male-female relationships said that the stories were easier to write that way and there was no deep meaning in her work. (I think this is mostly modesty on her part). So the panel ended and I and the other AX people went downstairs to kill time and wait for the autograph line to form. We hovered around capital and they kept trying to drive us away, so most of us wound up hovering right outside the big marvel booth (very cool, btw). So they FINALLY let us in line, and everyone is jostling and pushing and it's getting a little nasty (I got elbowed in the side three times by this one guy and finally told him that if he tried to push me one more time I'd push him back, hard. We waited in line playing Anime Pictionary(tm) (A game we created in the Ops room at AX), which turned out to be a good way to pass the time. Meanwhile, while we were standing in line, the rumors were still flying. "She's autographing two items." "No, Just one." "She's sketching." "She's not sketching." We didn't care at that point. Then my friend came out and around and held up her sign board, now decorated with a very stylized signature and *gasp* Kyoko. "I hate you!" I shouted, and so did another friend of mine, Darold. When it came to be my turn, I walked into the little booth, which had her seated behind the desk Toshi (Yoshida) from Viz next to her and various "Viz Goons" and her entourage scattered about the small room. I greeted her very respectfully, my voice wavering, and handed her my signboard, saying "Ano...Kyoko onegaishimasu, sensei." She nodded and began drawing. It was magical. I realized that she was drawing this FOR ME and I was moved almost to tears. It was very quiet in the booth, and while she talked, I chatted quietly with Toshi, who told me that she had said just doing autographs was boring. She finished, and I thanked her and left. I swear that my feet were not touching the floor. It was truly a magic moment--one that I will never forget. Then I headed back to the Anime Wink booth so I could compare sketches with the other AX staffers that were there. It was truly incredible...that alone made the whole trip worth it. Charles McCarter --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Kay Date: Tue, 09 Aug 1994 20:40:11 -0700 > During the Q/A session there were a couple of MI related questions that > were asked. > 1. Q. Where did you get the inspiration for MI? > 2. Q. Does Yotsuya have a job, and what is it? I am notoriously devoid of both accurate recall and understanding of Japanese. But I thought there were a couple of other questions that bore on MI. One was something along the lines of: 3. Q. How do you manage such an accurate depiction of male characters? A. (laughter) Men and women are much the same. Well, that's half an answer - I'd guess she uses the same algorithm (how she would feel) to decide what a given character feels. But deciding what the character's going to do about it seems like a different ballgame. After all, Godai-kun glares and yells at Mitaka when he's feeling especially jealous; meanwhile, Kyoko-san is largely nice to Kozue-san (except for a couple of two-faced comments that she thinks are going to fly over Kozue-san's head...). It seems likely that Kyoko-san's actions are largely whatever Takahashi-sensei would have done. I wonder, though, if Godai is modelled after whatever poor soul was dating Takahashi-sensei at the time.... Some evidence to support my view about Kyoko is that her creator also seemed to be a clever practitioner of subtly two-faced comments. Takahashi-sensei seemed to respond with such to particularly clueless questions. The fourth question relevant to MI (1st or 2nd question asked, actually) was: 4. Q. A lot of your works have to do with male/female relationships. Do you have any comments on how this has affected your work? A. I use the Boy Meets Girl theme a lot in my work. Positive spin: Negative spin: Romantic themes are only the most common in theme there is. Would you prefer giant robots? Actually, at first I thought it was a polite nonanswer, with perhaps a little bit of translation difficulty. Then came the following question, one of the more disappointing of the session: Q. I run a fanzine with readers in all of Latin America. How do you feel about the wide distribution of eager fans? A. People everywhere have problems. My goal is to distract as many Japanese as possible from their problems. I watched the audience watching the movie [the second Ranma movie] and being distracted. I am glad that so many people outside Japan are distracted by my work as well. At first this seemed like a very polite answer (I gotta admit, it still is a polite answer). Then it occurred to me that it was odd for her to compliment the second Ranma movie, and you realize that in fact the answer is probably both very clever and very sulphuric - she must've been extremely annoyed by this question. The second Ranma movie, of course, is pretty bad, although it is an accurate claim that a largely male audience is likely to be distracted (the jiggle factor is seriously out of control, perhaps in a bid to distract viewers from the nearly complete lack of plot or characterization). So, then my "translations": Positive spin: I'm glad to see so many people enjoying my work. Negative spin: What a stupid question! Of *course* I think it's great. An expectable question for an audience that was just *distracted* by the jiggling in this turkey of a movie. One can even speculate that the answer to Q3 ("men and women are the same") might well have a bit of the same quality in a sexist society? Or am I seeing things? Jon --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Christopher J. Noe" Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 08:55:41 -0700 (PDT) MI people: It is interesting to read how other people interpreted her remarks. I think it would have been a courtesy both to Takahashi-san and to the audience if Viz (or whoever) had arranged for someone who could do simultaneous English/Japanese translation to be present for the program. I suspect that both she and we missed some things in the double translation process. I did get the sense that she was annoyed somewhat by some of the more predictable questions. She seemed particularly annoyed at the question about whether she would ever revisit the Urusei Yatsura characters. She said that they are doing what they are doing, and it is up to you to imagine what they are up to. She definitely seems to prefer to keep the focus on what she is doing currently, rather than on past or future works. I imagine there are some cultural differences operating here, as well. Most of the interviews I have read or heard with Japanese manga or anime personalities seem to indicate an unwillingness to give direct answers to "difficult" questions. Perhaps some of her annoyance was due also to her discomfort with making a public appearance, and in a foreign country, as well. Christopher Noe College of Law Library; University of Idaho noe@uidaho.edu Neighbor - "Well, I guess you got to meet her." Me - "How can you tell?" Neighbor - "Cuz your feet aren't touching the ground. You probably could have floated home, and saved your return ticket..." <.6. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @inventory =============================== == Maison Ikkoku Inventory == =============================== Books in print: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Mezon Ikkoku" Art and Story by TAKAHASHI Rumiko Shogakukan Publishing 15 normal width volumes. 500 yen each. 10 wideban volumes. 1100 yen each. "Ikkoku-kan no omoide -- Aru ai no monogatari" Price 1000yen ISBN#-4-8470-3097-4 wani bukksu (Wani Books) Japan 1993 By: Maison Ikkoku juumin kaigi On 94.01.06, Andy Johnson wrote to me: Here is something you will be interested in. I received a Maison Ikkoku book from Japan today. It appears to be a guidebook to the series ... timelines, floorplans, maps, and lots, lots, lots of text. I did some flipping through the book last night. It is the comics series. It's about the same size as an American (and I suppose Canadian) paperback book ...approx 220 pages. Nothing glossy, no colour except the cover (a watercolour of the clock tower). I don't think Rumiko Takahashi had anything to do with it. Lots of the pages have references to page numbers in the comics. Things it includes: - Timeline 1980-1987 - Drawings of Kyoko's room, Godai's room - Map of the town (my guess is that this is pretty much made up) - A typical day in the life of Kyoko - Drawing of Mitaka's apartment and Chachamaru (the drawings are sort of 3d cutaway views) - Small floorplans of Ikkoku-kan (including clock tower) - Some kind of alcohol list showing who drank what when - List of all of Godai's part time jobs - Another timeline - And about 180 pages of pretty solid Japanese text. On 94.02.05, Ito Takayuki added: This is a "study" book on MI and contains interesting observations and reasonings about MI manga. Videos on tap: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Television Anime: 96 Episodes Produced by Kitty Films and Fuji Television Occasionally available as a 24 laserdisc collection from Kitty Animation Circle. "Live Action MI Movie: Apartment Fantasy Maison Ikkoku" ========================================================================= "Maison Ikkoku: Final Movie" In the Urusei Yatsura ML, on 93.05.28, ITO, Takayuki posted: Subject: MI movie (kanketsuhen) LD announced I posted this article in r.a.a., but I'll also post here for those who can't read news. Latest news from the ad in Shonen Sunday #25. Maison Ikkoku movie LD BOX Pony Canyon LD PCLA-00013 (93.9.1), Y14,800 CAV / 2 disks, 4 sided Privileges: Voice actors' discussion recorded in the sub-audio track Preview films recorded TV series OP/ED animations recorded ("TV titles") Booklet included "e-konte" included Poster included Telephone card (that was bundled with tickets) included Reservation should be made until June 20. It is quite natural that it contains many privileges; the movie was so terrible both in the scenario and in the artwork that few people would buy it without such privileges. :-< ========================================================================= "Maison Ikkoku Ikkoku-tou Nanpa Shimatsuki" OAV .5.> "Prelude Maison Ikkoku - meguru haru no sakura no you ni..." (from the CD Sound Theater Extra Version) Music Albums: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sorry, this section is rather disorganized. I'll try to figure out a way to arrange its contents into something more coherent. Someday. For more information, please look up Steve Pearl's CD Cyclopedia; there's a very nice, large entry that lists and describes most, if not all, of the available MI CDs. ------------------- Charles McCarter on 94.05.10 says: I am the blissfully happy owner of the MI CD Single Memorial File. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it is a collection of 13 cd singles in a beautiful deluxe box set. Each single has an opening, closing or image song on it, plus whatever the B side was when it was originally released. It's the only way to get *all* of the opening and closing themes, because some of them (Hidamari, for example) were not ever put on any of the other CD's. Two drawbacks: It's expensive and difficult to find, since they made a limited number. I lucked out and got mine at Anime Expo last year...It was my first and greatest purchase. I think that Laser Perceptions (that's where I got it) still has one or two of them left... <.5. .7.> From: scotth@hoshi.corp.sgi.com (Scott Henry) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 09:55:48 -0800 Subject: Re: Scans of new CD Box Set >>>>> "S" == Steven Miale writes: >> Dammit, where's my boxed set!!!! S> I know how you feel. Mine should be in any day now. Mine got here a couple of weeks before I expected it. Hikaru Kudo was *very* surprised how quickly mine arrived... S> Is there an official contents list somewhere? I don't think the CD list S> has the box set listed. It's going to take somebody quite a while -- there are 8 CDs, with a total of 232 tracks to type in. I'm on my third pass through listening to them. There's very little art, but it's all a new style. You've probably all seen the references to the scans of "Kasumi, err.. Kyoko"? Here's a *really* brief rundown: The box is blue, and only writing on the top: a big "M" and "Maison Ikkoku Complete Music Box" (in English), and in Japanese on the spine. Disc 1, 52 tracks, Ichinosei-san Disc 2, 47 tracks, Nikaido-kun Disc 3, 38 tracks, Yotsuya-san Disc 4, 37 tracks, Godai-san Disc 5, 16 tracks, Akemi-san (this appears to be the Movie soundtrack) Disc 6, 8 tracks, Kyoko-san (this appears to be the songs sung by Sumi Shimamoto, Kyoko's seiyuu) Disc 7, 17 tracks, "Extra Songs, Vol. 1" Disc 8, 17 tracks, "Extra Songs, Vol. 2" The booklet has a picture of the "new" Kyoko on the front, and the table of contents: CROSS INTERVIEW (I don't recognize the names) [ Steve Miale writes: #1 is Sugiyama Takuo #2 is Kawai Kenji #3 is Mori Eigi I have no idea who the fourth fellow is. I can't find anything resembling his name in the MI section of the CD catalog. ] Perfect Discography (all the other CDs released, with cover pictures) EXTRA SONGS MENU (with x-ref into the LD box set disk/side/time) mezon ikkoku (song lyrics for discs 1-6) mezon ikkoku #TV#[series music cast] (xref of OP/EP/BGM to ep#) CD CONTENTS (a listing of the CD track titles) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: bc15@midway.uchicago.edu (Yuhsaku Godai [Ronin]) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 94 15:54:42 CST Subject: Question about Extra Songs Vol. 1 & 2 Disks Are most of these songs in the series??? I can only place a few of 'em. Some of the songs sung in English are really nice I think and that Mambo No.5 song in Vol. 1 made me burst out laughing for quite some time as I remembered where the song came in in the series. ;) From: scotth@hoshi.corp.sgi.com (Scott Henry) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 14:37:13 -0800 It looks like all the songs are listed with an episode & time offset into the episode (well, really the LD box set: LD#/side/time). I presume that means that they were all actually used... From: Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 18:13:26 -0600 (CST) In-Reply-To: <199411172258.OAA24278@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Steven Miale" at Nov 17, 94 05:58:17 pm Subject: [MI] CD boxed set > I just got mine today. Very nice - the box has a large "M" on it (and > "Maison Ikkoku" written underneath. > > The first four CDs seem to be chronological; the first starts with 'Hello > Sadness', and second with 'Alone Again', the third with 'Sunny Shiny Morning', > and the last with 'Hidamari'. Not only that (and I'm not sure if this has been covered before) but the last half of the booklet included with the set is a listing of episodes of the anime, in order, 1-96, with titles in Japanese, and a list of OP, BGM, and ED, as well as which CD and track number they correspond to! For the BGM, they list "Disc X-Y", meaning disc X, track Y. All in all, a VERY nifty guide! I was considering doing a multimedia fanfiction (yes, MI2 for those of you who have been paying attention) by listing CDs and track numbers to be played as you read along. This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking at doing. ^_^ The box set is HIGHLY recommended for the serious MI fan. --Jeff From: Subject: [MI] Complete Music Box Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 00:45:04 -0600 (CST) Some more info on that internal booklet... p.2-5: CROSS INTERVIEW. Looks like in-depth talk with composers. p.6-9: Perfect Discography. Brief descriptions, track listings, and color cover reproductions of all MI CD and LD releases, including Music Calendar 1990-1994, and the LD24 boxed set. *Distinct* character design differences when you can do a side-by-side comparison; naturally, Kyoko is the primary focus of 98% of the covers, so.... p.10-11: Extra Songs Menu. Discs 5 and 6, I believe, including specific references to Episode Number, Track Number, Side and Time Reference for those lucky enough to own LD24. In the sidebars of each page are stills from several of the episodes; identify and place the scenes, episodes and characters for true otakudom! (Frighteningly, I can make a decent go at doing so.) p.12: Takada Akemi "pin-up": characters in their appropriate room order...brief diagram below: Ichinose Nikkaido Yotsuya Room #1 Room #2 Room #4 fan-dancing smoking donning hat indigo circle dk. green circle lt. green circle Title: "Maison Ikkoku" Godai Akemi Kyoko Room #5 Room #6 Kanrinin smiling sultry Kasumi orange circle pink circle red circle (how appropriate) p.13-19: Lyrics for all vocal tracks, including English for "Alone Again" and "Get Down". "Hidamari", that elusive OP, graces Disc 4, Track #1. p.20-35: Maison Ikkoku TV Series Music Cue Sheet. As mentioned in my earlier message, this has OP/BGM/ED for each of the 96 episodes, in order, including a reference to disc and track number, and length of the music clip. Most useful is the full episode title, which (once I learn my kanji) will come in handy for the Guide. p.36-39: CD Contents. Discs 1-4 are TV OP/BGM/ED, pretty much in total chronological order. Sounds more complete than Music Blend 1 and 2 as I listen to it, too. Disc 5 is Kanketsuhen Soundtrack, Disc 6 is "Ai Suru Ki-mo-chi", which seems to be eight vocal tracks, including "Kanashimi Yo Konnichiwa" and "Sunny Shiny Morning". This seems to be a repeat of one of the discs in the Perfect Discography. Discs 7 and 8 are Extra Songs Vols. 1 and 2, and contain a LOT of songs by CINDY, Mark Goldenberg, and some folks whose names I can't read. That should cover it for now. Disc 1, Track 23 is playing--the instrumental version of "Ashita Hareruka", which always brings a lump to my throat... Wow, I'm glad I sprang for this. From: Subject: [MI] CMB, addendum Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 01:14:48 -0600 (CST) One more addendum before I pack it in for the night, just to torture Bob (seriously though, gambatte kudasai, ne? hope you can get your hands on a box): The six Takada Akemi character designs from the booklet also grace the covers for Discs 1-6. Discs 7 and 8 are done in a basic, primary color with text style. Anyway, no big thing, but just one of the nifty touches I love about stuff like this. Oyasumi, mina-san! -------------- From: jdietz@cs.ucsd.edu (Jack Dietz) Subject: MI CD Boxed Set Song Titles Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 04:54:52 -0800 (PST) Well, I was feeling mellow this evening, and had access to a copy of the new CD boxed set, so I transcribed and then translated the song titles of the first 6 discs. If anyone else was working on it, I apologize and hope I didn't ruin their work. The formatting's not great, but I left in the romaaji in order to allow others to correct my translations -- in a couple of cases I simply couldn't find a kanji, and in others I couldn't tell what the point of the phrase was. I'd appreciate any corrections I can get, but I'm not sure the general mailing list is the place to hold them. Please send any comments or corrections on the song title translations themselves to mi-trans@nimbus.som.cwru.edu. If there's interest, I'll enter the last two discs, the track timings, and take out the romaaji for those who aren't interested. Jack Dietz // jdietz@ucsd.edu -- MI CD Boxed Set Titles v 1.0 Jack Dietz Each disc is listed with the tracks in order, with each track as follows: 1. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa / Hello Sadness [OP1 Saitou Yuki] Before the slash is the romanization of the Japanese title, with KANJI in capitals, -katakana- between dashes, "roman letters" in double quotes. Hiragana are all other text. Arabic numerals are left alone. Punctuation is my best effort at imitating the original. After the slash is my try at a translation. For the theme song titles I've usually borrowed someone else's rendition. In [square brackets] is which theme song it is (OP means opening, ED means ending, IS means insert song) and who sang it. Disc 1: Theme Songs and Music by Sugiyama Takuo 1 1. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa / Hello Sadness [OP1 Saitou Yuki] 2. HARU / Spring 3. YUUGUre / Evening 4. CHIDORI ASHI / Uncertain Steps 5. NATSU no KUMO / Summer Clouds 6. NATSU no KUMO sono 2 / Summer Clouds #2 7. FUYU / Winter 8. FUYU sono 2 / Winter #2 9. KANAshimi / Sadness 10. AME yadori / Taking Shelter from the Rain 11. AME yadori sono 2 / Taking Shelter from the Rain #2 12. hitori no YORU / An Evening Alone 13. -burijji- sono 11 / Bridge #11 14. YUME no NAKA / In A Dream 15. -burijji- "K"1 / Bridge K1 16. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa (-insuto-) / Hello Sadness (instrumental) 17. -burijji- "K"2 / Bridge K2 18. oGENKI desu yo / I'm fine! 19. FUKIMI na KEHAI / A Ominous Sign 20. FUKIMI na KEHAI sono 2 / An Ominous Sign #2 21. FUKIMI na KEHAI sono 2"B" / An Ominous Sign #2B 22. mono OMOi / Memories 23. mono OMOi (BETSU -teiku-) / Memories (Outtake) 24. -burijji- sono 1 / Bridge #1 25. FUAN na ROUNIN SEKAI / The Uneasy Life of a Ronin 26. INROU no -teema- / Theme of the Pillbox 27. MIAgete goran YOZORA no TSUKI wo / Take a Look Up at the Moon in the Night Sky 28. -burijji sono 2- / Bridge #2 29. KYOUKOsan, oTE wo douzo / Kyoko-san, Give Me Your Hand 30. KONDO mo CHIKOKU da... / Late again... 31. YUME no NAKA no YUME / Dream Within A Dream 32. -burijji- sono 3 / Bridge #3 33. FUSHIGI na KIBUN / A Wondrous Mood 34. TANOshii oSANPOU / An Enjoyable Walk 35. -burijji- "K"3 / Bridge K3 36. ashita HAREru ka / Will It Be Sunny Tomorrow [ED1 Kisugi Takao] 37. -burijji- sono 6 / Bridge #6 38. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa (-insuto-2) / Hello Sadness (instrumental 2) 39. ISOge KYOUKO e / Hurry to Kyoko 40. mabushii NAMI shibuki / Dazzling Ocean Spray 41. YOTSUYA no WARUfuzake / Yotsuya's Practical Joke. 42. kake ASHI / Run 43. KAke ASHI sono 2 / Run #2 44. kake ASHI sono 3 / Run #3 45. ENKAI -baka- TOUri / Like a Deranged Banquet 46. MUNE ZAWAgi / Noisy Heart 47. KYOUKO no KIMOchi wo TASHIkametakute / I Want To Make Certain of Kyoko's Feelings 48. -burijji- sono 7 / Bridge #7 49. SOUICHIROU wo WASUretakute / I Want To Forget About Souichirou 50. TAIYOU no kokero / Sink Into The Sun 51. UchiYOseru FUAN / The Uncertainy Before The Attack 52. -shi * ne * ma- / Cinema [ED2 Picasso] Disc 2: Theme Songs and Music by Sugiyama Takuo 2 1. -aroon * agein- / Alone Again [OP2 Gilbert O'Sullivan] 2. AKI / Autumn 3. AKI sono 2 / Autumn #2 4. FUSHIGI na oKYAKU / A Wondrous Guest 5. FUSHIGI na oKYAKU sono 2 / A Wondrous Guest #2 6. AME agari / Just After The Rain 7. KAEri MICHI / The Road Back 8. YORU no AME / Rain at Night 9. NIJI / Rainbow 10. MAYONAKA no HOUMONSHA / Midnight Visitor 11. -getto * daun- / Get Down [ED3 Gilbert O'Sullivan] 12. a~~ NASAke naya / ?? 13. SOUHEN de hitori / Alone By The Window 14. -burijji- sono 4 / Bridge #4 15. SHOUDASSOU no -teema- / Theme of a Little Escape 16. mou! HARU desu ne / It's Spring Already 17. KATAOMOi / One Sided Love 18. -burijji- sono 5 / Bridge #5 19. -burijji- sono 5"B" / Bridge #5B 20. SAGAshi MONO wa nan deshou ne / What Is It You're Looking For? 21. FUSHIGI na KOUSHIN / A Mysterious March 22. KAwatta BOUSOU / Redirected Recklessness 23. MAYONAKA no oSANPOU / Midnight Walk 24. -burijji- "A" / Bridge A 25. IKKOKUKAN no -teema- / Ikkoku-kan Theme 26. -fantajiaa- / Fantasia [ED4 Picasso] 27. tokimeki futari no yoru / Exciting Night for Two 28. -puuru- ni SAkuBANA / Blooming Flowers in the Pool 29. ashita HARERU ka intoro / Will It Be Sunny Tomorrow -- Introduction 30. MITAKA no -sumasshu- / Mitaka's Smash 31. -burijji- sono 8 / Bridge #8 32. OTOME no -rajio- TAISOU / Young Womens' Radio Workout 33. -burijji ~~ buriki no rappa- / Bridge ~~ Tin Plate Wrapper 34. HIRU SAgari no YUME / Dream in the Afternoon 35. -haato biito- / Heartbeat 36. GODAI no SHINObi ASHI / Godai's Enduring Legs 37. -burijji- sono 9 / Bridge #9 38. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa (-insuto-3) / Hello Sadness (instrumental 3) 39. -burijji- sono 10 / Bridge #10 40. IKKOKUKAN ni -obake- ga DEru -zo-! / There's a monster in Ikkoku-kan! 41. ARASHI no MAEbure / Harbinger of a Storm 42. honobono shita GOGO / Darkened Afternoon 43. SHIAWAse na hitotoki / One Happy Time 44. -happii suteppu- / Happy Step 45. -burijji- sono 11 / Bridge #11 46. KAEri MICHI 'II' / The Road Back II 47. SUki sa / I Love You [OP3 Anzen Chitai] Disc 3: Theme Songs and Music by Kawai Kenji 1 1. -sanii shainii mooningu- / Sunny Shiny Morning [OP4 Matsuo Kiyonori] 2. AKATSUKI ni KANE wa NOru / A Bell Ringing in the Dawn 3. SOUICHIROUsan_!! / Souichiro-san! 4. oBENTOU to -houki- / Box Lunch and Broomstick 5. AKEMI no -haburashi- / Akemi's Hairbrush 6. HIdamari no KOKUHAKU / Sun-warmed Confession 7. ICHInoSEsan wa KYOU mo Iku / Ichinose's Going Along Today 8. ICHInoSEsan wa ASHITA mo Iku / Ichinose's Going Along Tomorrow 9. -tenisubooru- to UWASABANASHI / Tennis Ball and Gossip 10. JIKEN / Incident 11. TOKEIZAKA wo ??reba / If Tokeizaka ?? 12. YUME ICHIYA / One Night's Dream 13. YUME ICHIYA sono 2 / One Night's Dream #2 14. zamaa miro?! / I told you so?! 15. ENKAI wa GENKAN de / The Party is at the Entryway 16. shiawase KYOKUSEN / Enjoyable Curve 17. NIKAI TAte no AKI / A Two Story Building's Autumn 18. -uesutan * agewantan- / Western ?? 19. ASHITA ?? no HITOMI / Tomorrow ?? 's Eyes 20. TOMADOi -romansu- / Confused Romance 21. YOTSUYA no OMOWAKU / Yotsuya's Intentions 22. YOTSUYA no OMOWAKU FUTATAbi / Yotsuya's Intentions, Again 23. GODAI no SHUUSHOKU / Godai's Job Search 24. MOCHUU no -fantashii- / Fantasy in a Dream 25. MOCHUU no -fantashii- sono 2 / Fantasy in a Dream #2 26. YOKAN (-insuto-) / Premonition (instrumental) 27. GODAI ga KYOUKO wo OMOu TOKI / When Godai is Thinking of Kyoko 28. KYOUKO no KANAshimi / Kyoko's Sadness 29. kozue no -teema- / Kozue's Theme 30. YOTSUYA no WARUdakumi / Yotsuya's Wicked Plot 31. -burijji- / Bridge 32. TAIHEN da / Oh no! 33. YOKAN (-insuto-2) / Premonition (instrumental 2) 34. KYOU wa -supootsu- HIYORI / Today is Sports Weather 35. SAKURA no HANA SAku KISETSU / The Season when Cherry Blossoms Bloom 36. KAREHA MAi CHIru KISETSU / The Season of Dancing Falling Leaves 37. HARUKAZE no YUUWAKU / Spring Breezes' Temptation 38. -sayonara- no -dessan- / Pattern of a Goodbye [ED5 Piccaso] Disc 4: Theme Songs and Music by Kawai Kenji 2 1. HIdamari / Sun-Warmed [OP5 Murashita Kouzo] 2. SAKA no TOCHUU no ICHIBAN HOSHI / The First Star on the Climb Up the Hill 3. MITAKA * GODAI!! / Mitaka, Godai! 4. NEGAi / Request 5. -kissu- no aru JOUKEI / Scene of a Kiss 6. UMESHU BABAA / Plum Brandy Grandmother 7. Ikigake no DAKEN / Stupid Runaway Dog 8. YOWAMUSHI / Coward 9. YOWAMUSHI sono 2 / Coward #2 10. KAErazaru KARE / He Who Was Made To Return 11. ENKAI SHAZETSU / Party Refusal 12. FUKUZATSU YORU / Complicated Night 13. KYOUKOsan...!! / Kyoko-san! 14. AI * YOAke MAE / Love -- Before Daybreak 15. KAISEI de -gomen ne- / Sorry About The Nice Weather 16. ikinari KANRININ / Suddenly, Kanrinin 17. -rettsu * kissu- / Let's Kiss 18. HOIKU wa -supootsu- / Childrearing is a Sport 19. SOUICHIROU to -hai- / 'Yes' with Souichiro 20. AKEMI HAJImaru / Akemi Starts 21. REN'AIKYOU JIDAI / When I Was Madly In Love 22. KITA no IKKOKUKAN wa... AME / Ikkoku-kan's North is... Rain 23. MITAKA no -sayonara- / Mitaka's Goodbye 24. KYOUKO MAchimasu / Kyoko Waits 25. -puropoozu- / Propose 26. SHIZUka ni TASHIka ni HARU ga kita / Quietly, Certainly, Spring Has Come 27. -fantajii- (-insuto-) / Fantasy (instrumental) 28. YUUHO MICHI / Strolling Street 29. HIKAru KAZE / Sparkling Wind 30. KONAYUKU FUru KISETSU / The Season When the Powdery Snow Falls 31. SOUICHIROU to KAKEkko / Run Along With Souichiro 32. KAZE no -shinfonii- / Wind Symphony 33. KAZE no -shinfonii- sono 2 / Wind Symphony #2 34. HASHIre ICHInoSE FUUFU / Run, Mr and Mrs Ichinose! 35. FUAN / Unease 36. YOKAN (-insuto-3) / Premonition (instrumental 3) 37. -bigin * za * naito- / Begin The Night [ED6 Picasso] Disc 5: (Music by Mori Eiji) Theatrical Release "Maison Ikkoku Final Chapter" Soundtrack 1. "I LOVE YOU" 2. "WIDOW'S LOVER" 3. "A BREATH OF AIR" 4. "AMERICAN WOMAN" 5. "IN THE MOONLIGHT" 6. "CRYSTAL HEART" 7. 6 * 6 * 6 8. KAMI FUBUKI / Paper Blizzard 9. "WEDDING DRESS" 10. KANPAI!! / Cheers! 11. "GRANDMOTHER" 12. TSUKI to -gitaa- / Moon and Guitar 13. "SHE-INN" 14. "I NEED HER" 15. -merii goo raundo- no futari / Two on a Merry Go Round 16. GARASU no -kissu- / Kiss of Glass [ED Himenogi Rika] Disc 6: Shimamoto Sumi | Feeling of Love [all songs IS Shimamoto Sumi] 1. KANAshimi yo konnichi wa / Hello Sadness 2. -merodii- / Melody 3. YOKAN / Premonition 4. -foroo * yuu- / Follow You 5. YUME no IRIGUCHI e / To the Entrance to a Dream 6. tokimeki / Excited 7. -sanii shhainii mooningu- / Sunny Shiny Morning 8. -endoresu- / Endless ------------- From: Ta Niu Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 09:21:48 GMT-8 Subject: Chachamaru Karaoke Battle [query] Err..I was just wondering, when exactly in the MI timeline did the Chachamaru Karaoke Battle took place? I have the CD party album, but I have no idea what actually happened in it. Anybody? Also, can anybody identify the song that was playing in the background in the scene where Godai-kun was drinking with Sakamoto, prior to his very loud public confession of his love for Kyoko? Sounded like a Picasso piece, but I might be wrong. Thanks. From: Sam Chung Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 02:33:36 -0800 Subject: Re: Chachamaru Karaoke Battle [query] Apparently, the CD starts with Yotsuya, Ichinose, and Akemi following Godai and Kyoko wherever they went... communicating by Transceivers or Handy-Talkies or whatever. Godai is apparently followed to a mall or record store or sometjhing and is found buying a Karaoke CD... It's all rather crazy. Somewhere along the line, Godai gets freaked out by the presence of Yotsuya and takes off in a hurry, leaving without his chanzge... but of course, Yotsuya being the generous fellow he is... takes off with the change. The Dialogue is quite elaborate... and it's probably too much for me to discuss off the top of my head... I'll havze to listen to it again. I probably havzen't heard it in over a year now... ^_^ As far as a ti.me line... It's probably someti.me near the end of the series... if it actually exists in the same time-scale of the TV Series or Manga... I'm theorizing this because Kozue-chan is still in the picture... and the choice of musical programming is already way at the end... near the 60's to 70's in the series as far as OP and ED... The other factor is that Godai and Kyoko were planning to spend the evening togetjher alone.. which means that Mitaka is out of the picture at this point... sigh.. who knows... I think there was some fellow who actually wrote an extensive description of the CD over RAA over a year ago.. I'll go and see if I can dig it up... I might even hazve a copy of it on my compu`ter somewhere. I"ll upload it as soon as I find the chance. <.7. ------------------- .8.> MI CD Guide: Chachamaru Karaoke Battle Glen Kawano Text Copyright (c) 1994 Glen Kawano Party Album: Chachamaru Karaoke Battle * * * Kitty Records KTCR-1197 1992 Y2500 As fans of the series know, the various songs of Maison Ikkoku are just as fun to sing as they are to listen to. Fortunately for us, there is the Party Album. This is a CD with a combination of drama and karaoke versions of many of the opening and ending themes of the TV series. It contains sixteen tracks: The first nine are integrated into a drama, and the last six are karaoke versions of various songs. The full color CD booklet contains the complete lyrics of the songs on the CD along with sheet music. The lyrics are printed on the sheet music in kana so that you can tell when each word should be sung. The words are repeated again alongside the music for easier reading once you know the timing. Each song is accompanied by a character or two with a dialog bubble containing a witty and/or cheerful comment. All the main players are there, including Yukari-baachan (Godai's grandmother). The first two pages of the booklet contain scenes from various episodes that to some extent match the drama in the beginning of the story. Included is an interesting picture of Yukari-baachan in a Cabaret Bunny outfit. ^_^ Souichiro-san the dog outlines the situation in a dialog bubble. The back features Godai and Kyoko encircled by a heart with Godai putting his arms around a reluctant (but not *truly* reluctant) Kyoko. It's a scene from one of Godai's fantasies. Part of the drama is each of the characters singing one of the songs on the CD. Each one does it in his or her own style, and the cheering and comments of the other characters in the background keep things interesting. Ichinose-san sings "Cinema;" Yotsuya sings "Ashita Hareru Ka;" Kozue-chan sings "Sunny Shiny Morning;" Akemi sings "Suki Sa;" Yukari-baachan sings "Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa;" and Kyoko and Godai sing "Fantasy" as a duet. It's very hard to judge a CD that is meant for karaoke. However, Kitty did a good job in broadening the CD's appeal by adding extra value in the form of the drama segments. I think those extra segments were probably the most entertaining part of the CD (no one, including me, wants to hear me sing! ^_^;). Since there are no "standard" musical selections, I would recommend this CD only to those who understand Japanese, those who want to sing the songs, and die-hard fans (me). I was (again) disappointed in the omission of songs such as "Sayonara no Dessin" and "Hidamari." Three stars. The Tracks: 01. Opening Drama 02. Yume no Iriguchi e "Entrance to a Dream" (Opening Theme) 03. Chachamaru Karaoke Battle 04. Cinema (Ichinose Hanae) 05. Ashita Hareru ka "Will Tomorrow be Bright" (Yotsuya and Godai) 06. Sunny Shiny Morning (Nanao Kozue) 07. Suki Sa "I Love You" (Akemi) 08. Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa "Hello, it's Sadness" (Godai Yukari) 09. Fantasy (Otonashi Kyoko and Godai Yusaku) 10. Begin the Night (Ending Theme) 11. Cinema (Karaoke Version) 12. Ashita Hareru Ka (Karaoke Version) 13. Sunny Shiny Morning (Karaoke Version) 14. Suki Sa (Karaoke Version) 15. Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa (Karaoke Version) 16. Fantasy (Karaoke Version) Drama Synopsis Yotsuya-san is tailing Godai as he enters a department store. Akemi is tailing Kyoko as she buys groceries. Ichinose-san coordinates the two of them from Ikkoku-kan, through handheld radios. Yotsuya reports as Godai buys a CD at a record store. As Godai is paying for a CD, Yotsuya-san suddenly sneaks up on Godai and surprises him. Godai hides the CD he just bought and walks out, leaving his change. Yotsuya takes the change as a "favor." On the subway, Godai meets Kozue-chan. Kozue-chan invites him to a karaoke place. Suddenly, the decellerating train causes Kozue-chan to bump into his chest, getting lipstick on his shirt. Meanwhile, a call comes into Ikkoku-kan--it's Akemi inviting the gang over to a party at Chachamaru's. Kyoko comes home, and asks Ichinose-san if Godai-san is home. Ichinose-san asks if Kyoko was busy that night. Kyoko hems and haws, and Ichinose-san is glad to hear that she'll be free. Akemi answers the phone. It's Master, and he won't make it tonight since he's taking care of his sick uncle. It looks like Akemi will have to stay late tonight. Godai comes home and greets Souichiro-san. Ichinose-san welcomes him home, then jokes about Godai losing his job again. She notices the lipstick on Godai's shirt. Then Yotsuya-san comes home (pops out of nowhere). Ichinose-san and Yotsuya-san start reciting Godai's exact actions during the afternoon, including the incident with Kozue-chan: Godai is spooked. They hypothesize that Godai went to a love hotel with Kozue-chan. Kyoko, meanwhile, overhearing the gang's joking, now thinks that Godai went to a love hotel with Kozue. She gives him the cold sholder, and decides to go the Chachamaru party instead of spending the evening with Godai as they had planned. Just in time, Kozue-chan comes to Ikkoku-kan and returns the CD that she accidentally kept after looking at it on the train. Kyoko, hearing this, learns that Godai wasn't on a date with Kozue-chan after all. The gang decides that Godai and Kyoko shouldn't spend the evening singing Karaoke together--such things should be done at Chachamaru! Kyoko had cooked dinner already, so the gang piles in and eats their fill. Right after that, they all go over to Chachamaru for some drinks and Karaoke. After a round of drinks, it's time! <.8. ______________________________________________________________________________ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ======================= == Background Info == ======================= People: ~~~~~~ @name_summary Summary of the names: -------------------- Some of the data presented here are based on a combination of facts gleaned from both the anime and the manga. When I could, I translated the names to English. If the name doesn't form a known word, I just translate the individual kanji that are used in the name. The size of the ASCII drawing is sometimes not indicative of the importance of the name. A complex kanji may require more screen space since I can't shrink the size of the ASCII characters. Note: There is also a nice article, written by Daisuke Suzuki, that describes the major characters of Maison Ikkoku. His article can be found on the venice.tcp.com FTP site: /pub/anime-manga/sorted/MaisonIkkoku. In fact, the "Background Info" section of the MI Guidebook avoids repeating much of what Daisuke's article says. You really should read his article to get a complete description of the cast. ========================= == F A M I L I E S == ========================= Chigusa Family: @chigusa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ____--- --+-+-- | ----| | |---| = CHI'GUSA ----+---- |-+-| (1000 grasses) | ---|--- | | (grass) Ritsuko-san - a schemer, but becomes more pleasant towards the end of the series. Actually, she also becomes better looking at the same time (character design changes...). / -|+ _______ // --+|- _/ /| -|+ _/ | -|- ---|--- = RITSU'KO | --|-- | | | | (law) Mr. Chigusa - Kyoko's father v13c2 p31,4 - His birthday is in September. Godai Family: @godai ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------ / | \ | /| -+-- = GO'DAI -+---+ | | (five generations) | | | | ------- | \| GODAI Yuusaku - the protagonist. Lives in room 5 of Ikkoku-kan until the end of the series, when he marries Kyoko and moves into her room. His daughter, Haruka, is born in 1988. During his stint as a student teacher, he taught Japanese literature. Kenny Toh: Godai did teach English for a while, but only to Ikuko, and if I'm not mistaken, only at the middle-school level. A couple of times in the manga, reference is made to Godai's reluctance to teach English at the high-school level, e.g. he stopped tutoring Ikuko once she got into high school. Born: 1962 Zodiac sign: Tiger Blood type: A Variant spellings: Yuhsaku, Yusaku Addressed as: `Godai-kun' by Mitaka, loon squad & employees of Shiinomi daycare `Godai-san' by Kyoko, Kozue and Nikaido `Godai-sensei' by Yagami and other students `Oniichan' (brother) by Kentaro. (Note: Viz substitutes this with "best friend") `Yuhsaku' by other family members `Bucho' by the Cabaret Bunnies and their children ("Bucho" means means Department Head, in which Yusaku is the Head of Health and Welfare Department.) __|___ / \ _/ /_____ _// /\ \ /| / | ___/ _/ \_ / | / |--- = YUU'SAKU |Y / ____ \ | |___ | \ | | | | | | | | | | |____| | | (prosperity) (make) Sylvain-san: Godai's given name means "The one who makes prosperity", which is very funny considering Godai is always out of cash. .6.> Thomas Mattman says: I just saw this in another list [see the quoted text below]. It's a bit far fetched but maybe another kind of pun for Godai's name. Does anyone know if the kanji are the same? ----begin quote---- > The tiers of another five-tiered stone pagoda from the Kamakura Era > are said to represent *Mikyou no Godai Shisou*--*chirin, suirin, ^^^^^ > karin, fuurin, and kuurin*. I was going to go with: "the five > elements of esoteric Buddhism--Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Air" > Maybe there are more precise terms for "Elements" and the elements > themselves? GODAI is also sometimes called the "Five Greats" ... but looking at the -rin suffixes, it might even be OK to put the "Five Rings" (a la Musashi); but there's nothing wrong with Five Elements, unless you specifically want to distinguish it from Gogyou etc. Kuu is often put as Void or Emptiness, but this is a slightly different meaning from that within the Godai; its meaning there (before Buddhism, in the Sankhya etc.) would be closer to Space or Ether. The five elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space (sky) in esoteric Buddhism are the physical manifestation or garbhadhatu. The Gorin are the five evolvers which give rise to all phenomena. Their phonetic embryos [J.shushi=seeds] are those of the Five Dhyani Buddhas (cf. previous posts) or Buddhas of the Five Directions. The five elements are symbolized as follows: earth=square, water=circle, fire=triangle, wind=half-moon, and space=a combination of the other four. Earth is yellow; water is white; fire=red; wind=black; and space=azure (for the heavens). ----end quote---- <.6. GODAI Haruka - Yuhsaku and Kyoko's baby girl. Born in 1988. ____|____ ___-- ___|___ ____|____ ____/_\____ __/|\__ = HARU'KA _/ ___ \_ / __|__ \ (Scent of Spring) / |___| \ |_____| |___| |_____| (spring) (scent) GODAI Yukari - Yuhsaku's grandma. Has an account at the Fifth Bank. Addressed as: `Baachan' by everybody Grandpa GODAI - I've never seen him Mr & Ms GODAI - Yuhsaku's parents Ichinose Family: @ichinose ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _____ _----_ \ __|__ /__ / \ \ \ _|_ |___| = ICHI'NO'SE -------- | | | |_|_||___| (first rapids) | | | /|\ |___| \__/ / / / | \ / \ (rapids) .5.> Sue Shambaugh: Hey :-) A small contribution to the names analysis... Yes, Ichinose is a place in Tokyo; like Yotsuya, I believe it is a subway stop! :-) Look on any good subway map of the Tokyo metro area. <.5. ICHINOSE Hanae - A middle-aged woman and member of the loon squad. She and her family live in room 1 of Ikkoku-kan. Addressed as: `Ichinose-san' by almost everybody `Obasan' by Godai and a few others occasionally `Hanae' by her husband --+-+-- _|_ -|- / | /|\ --- = HANA'E /| |/ | \_/ | |_, | / \ (flower) (branch) ICHINOSE Kentarou - son Variant spelling: Kentaro Addressed as: `Kentaro-kun' by almost everybody --+-- ----/ __\___ _____ |=== \_/ | | | | | --+-- / \ _____|_____ |----| | / --------- / \ |____| | \ = KEN'TA'ROU |-------| / \ \ | | _ | |-------| / \ \ | | \| --------- / \ | \ | / \ / \ |__/ \ | (wise) (thick) (son) Mr. ICHINOSE - father Kasumi's Family: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kasumi - A hostess of the Cabaret. Addressed as: `Kasumi-san' _|__ > --|-- -. [all hiragana] | | o| |__|_ = KA'SU'MI | | / <| | (mist) Hanako - daughter -+-+- ---, / |/ ___/_ = HANA'KO /| | | | \_, | (flower) Tarou - son Variant spelling: Taro Addressed as: `Taro-kun' ___|___ _\_ ___ /\\ |=| | / = TA'ROU / \ | , |_\ / \ |/` | (thick) (son) Kujou Family: @kujou ~~~~~~~~~~~~ | /____ __|____ ./\_ _/ | | _X_ = KU'JOU | | __/ . \__ (nine articles/ nine items) | | ----|---- | | _/|\_ / \__\ / | \ Sylvain-san: The sound KUJOU also means grievance, complaint, and KUJO means extermination, destruction, which is very funny considering the feeble nature of miss KUJOU. It also refers to the movie KUJO (starring a mad St.Bernard) (note from Hikaru Itou, a friend on the net). .6.> Quincy S. Huoh (94.05.25): You all know who Kujou Asuna is...the rich shy daughter of an old noble family who everyone's favorite tennis coach, Mitaka, ends up marrying. The Kujou family is a real one. The family descended from the Fujiwara clan, from Fujiwara Michiie (1192-1252) in particular. The Kujou family was imperial nobility, or kuge. This nobility was distinct from the daimyo, or military nobility, and had precedent over their military counterparts at Court. The family was one of five from which the empress and the Kwampaku were traditionally chosen. The Kwampaku, from 882 to 1868, was the highest dignity at the Imperial Court. All powerful, he represented the emperor and took his place at times during certain occasions. He served as an imtermediary between the emperor and the numerous officials of the Court. Originally called the Azukari-mousu. Kujou Norizane (1210-1235), son of Michiie, became Kwampaku in his father's place in 1231. He also became Regent of the Empire (Sesshou) upon the succession of Shijou-tennou in 1233. Kujou Sukezane (1669-1729) himself the son of a Kwampaku, became one and Daijou-daijin(Prime Minister and President of the Supreme Council) as well. He was also a distinguished painter. Before World War II's occupation when MacArthur abolished all nobility, the Kujou family held the title of Marquis. For those of you unfamiliar with noble titles, from low to high... Knight Baronet Baron Viscount Count/Earl Marquis Duke Prince etc. Naturally the Japanese didn't originally have these titles, they were conferred after the Westernization and Restoration in the mid-late 1800's. Modelled after the British, I believe. At any rate, you can see that the Kujou family was a fairly old one in an important position with some interesting ancestors. Reference material: "A Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan" by E. Papinot, publisher Charles Tuttle Inc. <.6. ** ** ** ** KUJOU Asuna - Omiai opposite of Mitaka. In 1988 she has two children with Mitaka, and a third one is on the way. Born: 1963 Zodiac sign: Hare Addressed as: `Asuna-san' ___ --+-+-- ___ | | ----- ___/ |_| |-| |___| \ \ / = ASU'NA |_| |_| | | ----+---- (tomorrow's vegetables) | | ----- / | \ (greens) Mei and Moe - Asuna's twins. (These are the names that appear on each baby's bibs in one panel of the manga.) Mei is a girl's name. Is Moe a boy's name in Japanese? On the other hand, I may have been misled-- maybe the words on their bibs are mere decoration and aren't their names. Asuna's pack: Salad - Pomeranian who got heavily involved in the plot. Romaji version: sarada Addressed as: `Salad-chan' by Asuna Sugar, Ginger, Pepper - Salad's children with McEnroe. Pot-au-feu - Harlequin Great Dane. Romaji version: potofu Foie Gras - Brown Spitz. Romaji version: foa gura Terrine - long-eared with brown & white coloring. Cocker Spaniel. Romaji version: teri--nu Stroganoff - St Bernard. "Stroganoff" was never mentioned in the manga. This name is strictly an invention of the anime scripters. unnamed - Dobermann Pinscher. (In the anime, Asuna probably has six dogs in total.) Notes: Asuna's family is full of food related names. Pot-au-feu is a boiled dinner of meat and vegetables. Foie Gras is liver (esp. of goose) usually in the form of a pate. Terrine is a dish used for cooking casserole. All three of the above names are from French. Stroganoff is an adjective for cooking in which the main ingredient (ex. beef) is sliced thinly and cooked in a sauce of consomme, sour cream, mustard, onions and condiments. Spitz is the name of an entire family; the Pomeranian and the Samoyed breeds are part of the Spitz family. Mr & Ms KUJOU - Live together with Asuna. Kimida-san - The chauffeur. There's one housemaid, maybe more. Mitaka Family: @mitaka ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ---------------- +----------------- | / /---+--- | /| /|---|-- | | |---|-- ------------ | | |------- | / = MI'TAKA | |====# (three hawks) | |====+ ------------------ | +--------+ / / \ \ \ .| .5.> Mitaka is the name of a high class district in Tokyo. Sue Shambaugh says: It might interest you to know that there is an animation studio in Mitaka...! <.5. MITAKA Shun - Godai's rival of love. Lives alone on the sixth floor of a "mansion" in a highrise, until he moves into a single-home with Asuna after marriage. (See the Residences section further below for more info about his apartment building.) He has an intense fear of dogs, which he finally conquers in episode 71. In 1988 he has two children, and one more is on the way; see Asuna. Born: 1955 Zodiac sign: Sheep Addressed as: `Mitaka-san' `Shun' by family members __/ +--+ \ \ / | |+-------+ |--|| +- | | = SHUN |__| /\/ ++- | | / -++- +--+ / | (wink/ twinkle) McEnroe - Mitaka's dog. A breed from the Spitz family. Has three children - see Salad Variant spellings: MacKenroe, MacEnroe, McKenroe Mr & Ms MITAKA - Shun's parents Either one is addressed as: `Mitaka-san' Uncle MITAKA - pushed Shun into a relationship with Asuna Addressed as: `Ojisan' by Shun Shun's sister - her teeth also shine Nanao Family: @nanao ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ________ | |________| ___|______ | ___-- | | __+-- = NA'NAO | | __|____ (seven tails) | | | \____, ./ \___, NANAO Kozue - Godai's second most important girlfriend Addressed as: `Kozue-chan' by Godai `Kozue-san' or `Nanao-san' ,, . ---/ --|-- ----/ [all hiragana] ' o| _/ = KO'ZU'E \--- / / \-- (tree-top) NANAO Yousuke - Kozue's younger brother Addressed as: `Yousuke' by Kozue . . ---+-+--- _/\_ -+-+-+- _/ \_ | |_| / | | \ |---- | | = YOU'SUKE ----+---- | | / | \ / | (foliage) (come between) .5.> Bob Carragher says: The first kanji means "leaf, plane, lobe, needle, blade, spear," and I believe is a counter for flat things. The second kanji means "jammed in, shellfish, mediate, concern oneself with." However, I couldn't find these two together in my dictionary. "You" is the on-yomi (Chinese reading) for the first kanji, "kai" is the normal on-yomi for the second. "Youkai" can also mean "ghost, apparition, phantom, specter, solution" (the last one being a different set of kanji). I'd guess Takahashi is making a pun here. ("Suke" seems to be a common reading for the last kanji when used in names.) <.5. Mr & Ms NANAO - live together with their two kids OTONASHI Family: @otonashi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ___|___ /________ \ / / | | | | = OTO'NASHI ---+-+--- -|-|-|-|-- (Literal translation: silence. ----- _|_|_|_|_ True meaning: gentle, obedient, quiet.) |---| / \ \ \ ----- (sound) (nothing/zero) Sylvain-san: "Otonashi-san" sounds like "Miss Gentle" if you don't see the kanji. If you twist the pronunciation of Otonashi a little, you end up with `otto nashi' = `no husband'--an appropriate pun for Kyoko-san. OTONASHI Kyouko - the second protagonist. Maiden name: Chigusa. Lives in the kanrinin's room (room "0") of Ikkoku-kan. John Jones says (on 95.02.13): As far as I can tell, in the manga (according to the few color pages at the front of the wideban volumes) Kyoko's hair and eyes are both brown, while in the anime she has blue-black hair and either blue or violet eyes (I can't be overly sure, as my MI copies are recorded off someone else's Arctic Animation subs). Of course, she looks good either way ^_^ Born: 1960 Zodiac sign: Rat Variant spelling: Kyoko Addressed as: `Kanrinin-san' by members of Ikkoku-kan `Kyoko-san' by Godai, Mitaka, and some others `Otonashi-san' by Mitaka and some others `Chigusa-san' by Kamiogi-sensei by mistake `Chigusa-kun' by Souichiro when she was in highschool `Obasama' by Ikuko `Kyoko' by her parents .6.> Doug Eckhart says (94.06.04): [ in reference to a line of dialogue from v7c5 in which Kozue addressed Kyoko as "kanrinin-san" ] I'm somewhat confused. In this line, Kozue calls Kyoko "Kanrinin-san". I was just curious as to why she would not refer to her as "Kyoko-san" or "Otonashi-san", since she is not really Kozue's Kanrinin. Sakamoto does it too, on occasion. I suppose the obvious answer is that Godai always calls her "kanrinin-san" so they do the same thing to keep things consistant.... I guess it could also be because that is Kyoko's profession, etc. Anyway, I was just curious. Bob Carragher says: I'm not sure that Godai ever introduced Kyoko to Kozue as anything besides Ikkoku-kan's "kanrinin." He might have said "Kyoko," but I find that highly unlikely. So that doesn't really give Kozue anything else to call Kyoko by. But the other answer is that you usually call someone by the name you first used (or set of names you first used) unless a radical change takes place (e.g. the person changes jobs; your relationship with that person changes). At least, this was the basic answer given by my sensei when I asked her whether a person who addresses a second person, "sempai," could ever see the situation reversed. (The short answer was, "no.") Comments? <.6. / ---- ---- ____________ /-- |--| | / _/ / |--- | \ _/ /-- | | _/ _/ _/ |--\ | | ______|______ ------+------- = KYOU'KO ___|_____|___ | --------- | |-------| | --------- | (echo) Souichiro - Kyoko's dog. Breed: Samoyed. Addressed as: `Souichiro-san' OTONASHI Souichirou - Kyoko's husband. Died in 1980. As a substitute teacher, he taught geology. Born: 1950 Zodiac sign: Tiger Variant spellings: Souichiro, Soichiro Addressed as: `Souichiro-san' `Otonashi-sensei' by Kyoko and her classmates when they were in high-school /_|_ /--| _\_ ___ _|- ///| |=| | / | // ------- | |_\ = SOU'ICHI'ROU | | \ \ | , | (only one husband) / \---- |/` | OTONASHI Ikuko - Kyoko's niece Addressed as: `Ikuko-chan' . ___ _____ --+- | / _/ /-- |_\ __|__ = IKU'KO /|-| | | |-| | | (fragrant/ culturally- advanced) Grandfather OTONASHI - landlord of Ikkoku-kan Addressed as: `Otousan' - by Kyoko and Godai `Otousama' - by Kyoko `Ojiichan' - by Ikuko Sister-in-law of Kyoko - lives in the same house as the Grandpa YAGAMI Family: @yagami ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | | | | | --- --|-- | | __/ |-+-| = YA'GAMI / \ |\ --|-- (eight gods) / \ | | The second part of the name is appropriate since the number 8 figures importantly in religion. In Shinto there were 8 gods who existed before the creators of Japan were born; 8 female demons chased Izanagi when he escaped from the underworld; 800 gods waited outside Amano Iwato to encourage Amaterasu to come out; the mirror that was used to bring out Amaterasu was 8 hands high; Susanoo slew an 8-headed dragon [MYTH75]. Furthermore, Buddhism emphasizes an eight-fold path to goodness. YAGAMI Ibuki - A student who wooed Godai. Lives with her parents, but spent quite a few days and nights at Ikkoku-kan. Blood type: AB Addressed as: `Yagami-san' `Ibuki' by parents \ \`` -\- [all hiragana] \ ' \ | / _-\- = I'BU'KI ` |/ \__/ .5.> Bob Carragher says: The only match I got for "ibuki" was a 2-kanji personal name. The first kanji meant "Italy, that one" while the second meant "blow, breathe, puff, emit, smoke." You should probably take all these guesses with a grain of salt. Takahashi-san loves to make puns out of names, so who know what she really meant with these. (Probably just throwaway names, since they were only given in kana; however, I'm surprised Yagami's name wasn't rendered in kanji, since she was, for a little while, a major pawn. B-) Michael Liu says: In the Chinese edition, her personal name had three Kanji which could be interpreted as "Nine Tailed Child". I don't know if there was any basis for that name. However, assuming there is, "Nine Tailed Child" gives an impression of someone very devious. Furthermore, since her surname can mean "Eight Gods" (actually, it's the only meaning I see. I don't know if Japanese have another meaning that's non-literal), 8 x 9 = 72, which is the number of magical tricks Son Goku possesses. :) <.5. Mr & Ms YAGAMI - Mr.Yagami is chief of personnel at Mitsutomo ================================= == O T H E R G R O U P S == ================================= Bunny Cabaret: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Iioka - one of the chiefs Kasumi - a Cabaret bunny Akemi - a large Cabaret bunny and: Godai Yuhsaku Sakamoto (for not very long) The Girl's Highschool: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kamiogi-sensei - home-room teacher Etsuko - friend of Yagami Three other friends of Yagami - all unnamed and: Yagami Ibuki Otonashi Kyoko (alumna) The Loon Squad of Ikkoku-kan: (There are three members) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ YOTSUYA - A mystery man. Lives in room 4 of Ikkoku-kan. Apparently, three generations of his family have, at one time or another, lived in Ikkoku-kan (according to the anime version). Addressed as: `Yotsuya-san' by everyone -------- /_/\_\ | | | | /____\ = YOTSUYA |/ \_|| | | (four valleys) |------| |--| "Yotsuya" is the family-name; he has no known given-name. In the anime version he did pass off several names: Episode 36: written as Kennosuke, but pronounced as Gorobe: "They call me honest Goro-chan." (Note: a kanji name can have two or more pronunciations: 1) what you'd expect, based on the pronunciation of the individual characters 2) something totally unrelated and unexpected) 44: written as Kamekichi, but pronounced as Tsuruii 44: written as Fuji, but pronounced as Kawada-cho 50: written as Kikuchiyo, but pronounced as Tamezou: "I'm known as Tame-san the kind-hearted" 65: "My real name is Chandler Yotsuya, but you can call me Phillip Yotsuya-maro" Hikaru Itou says: YOTSUYA is a place in Tokyo, and it is famous for the kabuki play `YOTSUYA KAIDAN' (Kaidan = ghost story), which helps explain the "fluid" and mysterious nature of Yotsuya. He appears and disappears at will. He might be a ghost after all. A hentai ghost. Refer to Appendix B for a synopsis of `Yotsuya Kaidan'. ROPPONGI Akemi - Red-haired beauty. Works as a hostess at ChaChaMaru. Lives in room 6 of Ikkoku-kan until she marries Master of ChaChaMaru and moves into the 2nd floor of that bar. Addressed as: `Akemi-san' `Akemi-chan' by Master of ChaChaMaru /__|__ \ / \ ___|___ ___|___ / | ----+---- ________ /|\ /|\ ____|____ --|-- /-+-\ / | \ /|\ -----+----- / \ / | \ / | \ / | \ -----+----- (tree) / | \ / \ (vermilion) (beautiful) = ROP'PON'GI (six trees) = AKE'MI Roppongi is a popular entertainment district in Tokyo, where the nightclubs and bars are very plentiful. and last, but certainly not the least of Godai's troubles: ICHINOSE Hanae Puppet Club of Sanryu Daigaku: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Saotome - a big guy. The club president. Addressed as: `Buchou' ___ _____ , |___| __/ __/___ |___| / < / = SA'OTO'ME ---|--- | . \/ | `---' / \ (early) (maiden) KUROKI Sayuko - organizer Addressed as: `Kuroki-san' +-+-+ | |-+-| ____|____ +-+-+ /|\ = KU'ROKI -+- / | \ (black tree) --+-- / | \ / \ \ \ / | \ Kamisaka - frontline actress Addressed as: `Kamisaka-san' _|_ _|_ _|_ ---- __/|_|_| | |-- = KAMI'SAKA |\|_|_| |/ |\/ | | / / /\ (god) (hill) Koizumi - frontline actress Addressed as: `Koizumi-san' and: Godai Yuhsaku Tokeizaka Merchants: (I still can't tell which one is which) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hasegawa (C.H.Yung says it should be "Toshizo", instead) Mito Teruhiko Takeshi The Others: (in decreasing frequency of appearance) ~~~~~~~~~~ Master - owner of ChaChaMaru, and is the bartender. The second floor of ChaChaMaru is his living quarters. Addressed as: `Master' - this is the word for someone who owns a bar, or is the bartender. Sakamoto - Godai's best friend Addressed as: `Sakamoto-san' _|_ ---- | | |-- --|-- = SAKA'MOTO |/ |\/ /+\ / / /\ / | \ (hill) (origin) Kyouko - Sakamoto's cat (has the same kanji as those in Otonashi Kyoko's name) Alternate spelling: Kyoko Addressed as: `Kyoko' `Kyoko-chan' KOBAYASHI - One of Godai's classmates. Wears glasses; slim. He hangs around with Godai and Sakamoto from time to time. | | | / | \ __|__ __|__ / | \ /|\ /|\ = KO'BAYASHI | / | \ / | \ (small forest-grove) \| | | NIKAIDO Nozomu - resident of room #2. Only appeared in the manga version. _ ______ | \ |/ |- _\_|_/_ | / |_ |_ | ___ | | \ _/___ |___| = NI'KAI'DO -------- | /|_____| __|__ (two-storied shrine) | |_____| ___|___ __|_ ---| | |--| `--- |--| = NOZOMU ------- __|__ ____|____ (to desire, to see) GODAI Akira - Yuhsaku's cousin. She visits him in the hospital when he has a broken leg. Only appeared in the manga version. _____ |_____| |_____| = AKIRA ___ ___ (bright, crystal) |___| |___| [this kanji is usually pronounced `SHOU'] |___| |___| MITSUKOSHI Zenzaburo - mysterious middle-aged man who lived in room 3 for a couple episodes. Did not appear in the manga. Addressed as: `Mitsukoshi-san' | | \ --------- -|- |-|-- __|__| \ / ------- ,| | X = MITSUKOSHI /\|- |// \| ----------- ` `------- (three) (cross over) Mitsukoshi also is the name of a successful department store. One of its stores can be found in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Kyoko-chan - a little girl at the Shiinomi nursery nickname - `Kyon-Kyon' Hiroshi - Akemi's one-time lover __ _____ . / \ ___/ | [all hiragana] | | / \ | = HI'RO'SHI \__/ __/ \__/ .5.> Very common male name. Could mean almost anything. -- Carragher Hirosuke - son of the man who was interviewed at Wakaba Daycare in episode 93. . ____ | , .---. _/ /---- [all katakana] |/ | | /\ / = HI'RO'SU'KE `--' `---' / \ / Maybe the kanji for "doctor, command, esteem, win acclaim," along with the "suke" from "Yousuke." Or "peaceful, calm, peace, easy" with "help," (another 2-kanji name). -- Carragher <.5. Unnamed characters of note: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Three kids - One girl, two boys. They appear several times in the series (but by far not nearly as frequently as Ushiko-san and Umao-san of KOR). Apparently they're little versions of Ataru, Shinobu, and Megane (three of the characters from Urusei Yatsura). Two neighbors (women) - These members of the tennis club know Kyoko and Ichinose. The one who wears glasses appears more frequently (in the anime) than the other. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- .6.> Discussion about the Cast of Maison Ikkoku @cast_talk ========================================== Favorite Characters: -------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 16:01:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Yutaka Sasagawa Subject: Short opinion poll! To: Maison Ikkoku Mailing List Hi everyone, Well, I'm procrastinating from doing my homework, and thought I'd be able to (hopefully) create a little discussion in the ML. Especially since the volume's gone down quite a bit in the past few weeks (remember: volume is good! ^_^) These are just short questions I have for everyone. I won't be processing the results or anything (tho if anyone wants to, they're more than welcome). I'm just curious as to what other people think about the characters. I haven't read/seen nearly as much of MI as others on this ML (as Bob already knows ^_^). I've only read 1-14 of the manga volumes once in a real hurry, and just saw Ep.1 of the anime last Friday at the UT Anime Club meeting. So I'd also like to get the opinions of the 'more experienced' ^_^ Well, here it is. Short opinion poll: ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this name better)? 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? ------------------------------------------------------------ I'll post my own opinions in a few days. Glenn just posted that there's 95 subscribers, so I wanna see 95 opinions (or more)! ^_^ Thanx. Sorry if these questions have been brought up already on the ML. ---Yutaka ============================================================================= From: jdietz@sdcc15.UCSD.EDU (Jack Dietz) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 14:48:12 -0700 (PDT) Hi, Yutaka! Yeesh -- you haven't read volume 15? I thought volume 14 ended on a real cliffhanger... > 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? Umm, Godai. ^_^ I think he was intended as a character who would be easy to identify with -- a nice guy with his head in the clouds who keeps running into problems. I often feel like I have trouble saying 'no' to people as well... > If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, > 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? That's hard to choose. I guess it would be Kentarou-kun. He's an innocent, serious kid who feels embarrassed by his family. His emotions are always on the surface, making him likeable. > 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this > name better)? Ichinose-san and Akemi-san can be nice as individuals, and are often well-meaning. The three of them together, however, can be just terrible! > 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? I'd have to say Yotsuya. I find him incredibly annoying at times. In contrast to what Bob Carragher said about anime episodes 50-51, I particularly enjoyed the spot where Yotsuya apologized for being rude; it seemed like a personal come-uppance for his usual behavior. > 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? Kyoko's sudden attraction for Souichirou was paralleled by Yagami's development of similar feelings for Godai in volume 9 (episodes 53-56). My impression is that her initial impression was that Souichirou was too nice a man to tell the class to quiet down, followed by Souichirou's boyish enthusiasm for his subject, geology. Considering how kind the rest of Souichirou's family seems, especially his father, I think Souichirou was much like Godai (although less plagued with misfortune), and that similarity is played up at several points in the story. Hope you get a good response! Jack Dietz // jdietz@ucsd.edu ============================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 18:00:01 -0700 From: carraghe@cs.ucsd.edu (Robert Carragher) Bob-> 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? This is tough. My first answer is Kyoko, for obvious reasons. It's not Godai, 'cause I find him really frustrating sometimes. (I'm sure he finds himself frustrating, too. B-) Maybe I should try to do this by figuring out which characters I like. Mitaka -- I feel a little sorry for him. He's obviously a good choice for Kyoko, but he has no chance because Godai just has too many advantages over him, not the least of which is the fact that he *lives* with her. But he's very confident of himself without necessarily being arrogant (except around Godai B-). If it weren't for his phobia, it's conceivable that he could have won Kyoko's heart as early as the third volume (around the time they were supposed to meet at that cafe near the dog-grooming studio). Yotsuya -- such a mysterious character, but used *very* well for comedic effect at times. He could never be the favorite, but I'd like to live at Ikkoku-kan just to see him torture Godai. ;-) Kozue -- another one I have sympathy for. When you look at how Godai dealt with her, you can hardly help feeling sorry for her. Part of the problem is with her own personality, but Godai just mishandled the situation early on, and ended up stringing her along for several years. Well, that didn't help. I'd still go with Kyoko. She's obviously a well-developed character. (Yes, that way too. ;-) It's hard to separate what I like about the character Kyoko from what I would like about a woman with Kyoko's personality. Maybe I shouldn't. Good characteristics I can see: cute B-), independent, not reserved (especially when she drinks B-), loving, devoted to her man. Of course, you have to be careful because: nasty streak of jealousy, impetuous, often thick-skulled. I'll stick with Kyoko. Bob-> If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, Bob-> 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? Mitaka. See above. Bob-> 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this Bob-> name better)? I prefer "loon squad." B-) Throwaway characters. Fun to be around, though I don't think I could live there with all the partying. Just don't give them any money. B-) Bob-> 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? Hm, possibly Ichinose. I don't feel one way or the other for Akemi or Kentarou, or Master or Asuza. I have no real impression of Nikaido, since he was clearly a throwaway character. I don't hate Yagami, even though she was a pain for awhile. Ichinose gets my vote 'cause she's such a prying, nosy obasan who stirs up so much trouble. You could say the same about the rest of the loon squad, but she sticks out in my mind. I don't hate her, but I like her the least. Bob-> 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? Obviously IMHO, but.... Young love. Pure and simple. She saw the gentle personality there, and fell in love with it. In her own words, she could care less for the class, or Geology, though it's possible she could have come to like it, depending on how Souichirou presented it to her. If he weren't her first love, it's possible he would have been "just another teacher." Bob Carragher ============================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 16:50:47 -0600 From: bc15@midway.uchicago.edu (Lestat) Ben C. Cheng >1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? Ooo, this is tough. I like both Godai and Kyoko. Godai because I can relate to him in a lot of ways and Kyoko because she's just SOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!! Even when she's jealous. Especially when she's jealous. =) >If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, >2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? Souichiro-san. No, not the dead husband. Because he makes the weirdest dog noises and is just pretty hilarious in general. >3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this >name better)? They're really REALLY cruel sometimes. Or most times. But they seem like an interesting bunch to hang around with. Sorta like my old roommate. Fun to party with but not particularly ideal person to live with. >4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? Yagami. I don't really dislike anyone in the show but she was just really annoying for a while. >5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? His clumsiness and general pathetic aura about him. Well maybe pathetic is a bit strong. More like his usual bumbling self brought out the 'mothering instinct' in Kyoko. Hmmm.... actually, at her age back then, would she even have a mothering instinct? But I just remember reading a few weeks back on the Tokyo Offtime (at least I think that's what it's called. Something close to it.) WWW page an article where the author wrote that it seemed like one of the better ways to attract the attention of a Japanese woman was to act completely lost, clueless and pitiful. But I digress. Kyoko-san just seems to like sorta dopey but well-meaning men. Oh, and I just wanna make a comment on a previous post by Robert Carragher. Some spoilers here in case you haven't seen the last 10 or so episodes. >Mitaka -- I feel a little sorry for him. He's obviously a good >choice for Kyoko, but he has no chance because Godai just has >too many advantages over him, not the least of which is the fact >that he *lives* with her. But he's very confident of himself >without necessarily being arrogant (except around Godai B-). If >it weren't for his phobia, it's conceivable that he could have >won Kyoko's heart as early as the third volume (around the time >they were supposed to meet at that cafe near the dog-grooming >studio). Just wanted to add that Mitaka would have been a good choice for ANYBODY. Geez, what in the world did he NOT have? Besides Kyoko-san. =) Or was not good at? Besides that dog-phobia which he did finally get over later anyway. There was one point during the latter episodes where he started getting pushy trying to get Kyoko to make a decision where I disliked him for doing so but I guess he had good reason to and I can't really blame for it. But I do feel sorry for him just for the way things turned out. I mean to have your life veer off in a totally new direction (one that he didn't really want) over that dog incident is just too... I dunno, weird. It's almost comical in a ways but just plain pathetic in another sense. Oh, and finally, one question. That whole idea that Godai got to propose to Kyoko-san by asking her if she'd make him miso soup.... was that brought about by his dumb imagination while looking at the miso soup ad or is there some kind of cultural reference behind it? It was pretty absurd overall. ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 10:24:10 -0400 From: "Scot M. Gardner" | 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? Kyoko. Its probably because I'm male. Why I like Kyoko is a good question. Maybe I like the "mothering" and "fateful" type. In some ways I am like Godai, so I guess I want to be scolded! I think the real reason is she's so cute. | If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, | 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? This is hard. Probably Mitaka. Sure, he is rich and good looking, but thats not why I like him. He has a good character despite having tons of money and evey woman after him. He seems to act with good intentions. He provided a good rival for Godai. Besides, used to love seeing him react with dogs. | 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this | name better)? Mean, mean. Too mean sometimes. I REALLY hated some of them at times for the nasty things they did to poor helpless Godai. But I have to admit, they added a lot to the story. I think what frustrated me is that if I was Godai, I would not have taken it! | 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? Another hard one. It would be easy to pick a member of the loon squad (or, excuse me, the party posse), but I would have to say... Kyoko's Mother!!! Ouch! She was so manipulative and did not seem to care for Kyoko's feelings. | 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? | ------------------------------------------------------------ Innocence? Gentleness? He was sometimes a bumbler like Godai, maybe Kyoko likes that in a man. Its probably a combination of all the above. Scot ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:25:02 EDT From: Roy Kamimura Well, here goes my answers.... >> 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? Hmmmm. do you really have to ask this???? I mean isn't it obvious that it could only be Otonashi Kyoko...... ^_^ For me, I like her gentleness/kindness the most. When Kyoko made those bentous for Godai, that pretty much did it for me. The woman is the epitome of yasashi. Not to mention she ain't bad-looking either. (I think I've been working on the terminal too long). >> If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, >> 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? Hmmm... Tough question. I would have to say Yagami. Don't know why considering that she can be a pain at times, but I guess I like her "spunkiness." The girl knows what she wants and goes after it. Most of the other characters with the exception of Mitaka seem wishy-washy one way or another. >> 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this >> name better)? Party posse, aka neigbors from Hell........ There are times in the series where I wish Godai simply had the backbone to shoot these people. Although I do admit they add a substantial element to the story, I find them to be irritating a lot of times. >> 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? Right now, I remember more of the anime than the manga. I would say that Yotsuya bugs me the most from the point of view that I think I could stand living next to everyone in Ikkoku-kan, except him. The guy is rude, manipulative, annoying, and most of all, how would you like someone barging into your place when he feels like it and stealing your food/booze- not to mention freaking you out by telling you some erroneous story about the girl you're interested in...... >> 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? I think Souichirou's gentleness (innocence/naivity- he is somewhat clueless like Godai) triggered some mothering instinct in Kyoko. She does like to mother people a lot and I think Souichirou/Godai's lack of direction and overall helpless, somehow appeals to her. RK ============================================================================= From: Roy Kamimura Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:35:10 EDT >> From: bc15@midway.uchicago.edu (Lestat) >> Subject: Re: Short Opinion Poll! [stuff deleted] >> >5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? >> >> His clumsiness and general pathetic aura about him. Well maybe pathetic is >> a bit strong. More like his usual bumbling self brought out the 'mothering >> instinct' in Kyoko. Hmmm.... actually, at her age back then, would she Yup I agree with ya. >> even have a mothering instinct? But I just remember reading a few weeks >> back on the Tokyo Offtime (at least I think that's what it's called. >> Something close to it.) WWW page an article where the author wrote that it >> seemed like one of the better ways to attract the attention of a Japanese >> woman was to act completely lost, clueless and pitiful. But I digress. >> Kyoko-san just seems to like sorta dopey but well-meaning men. Hmmmm, be careful when you read Jame's Tokyo Offtime articles. Some Japanese women like to mother men, but the general trend seems to be that they can't tolerate guys who don't know how to take care of themselves..... I think Godai's chances of getting a girl now would be pretty slim... >> Oh, and finally, one question. That whole idea that Godai got to propose >> to Kyoko-san by asking her if she'd make him miso soup.... was that >> brought about by his dumb imagination while looking at the miso soup ad or >> is there some kind of cultural reference behind it? It was pretty absurd >> overall. Ahhhh, we are experiencing a cultural gap here.... Miso soup is one of the items traditionally served at a Japanese breakfast (not limited to though since you can have it at lunch/dinner as well). To ask a girl to make miso soup is an indirect way of proposing to her (as far as I know, people don't usually say this). There really isn't an American analogy, short of something corny like "Will you make breakfast for me for the rest of my life." In this day and age, such a comment will probably get you slapped or a comment like "Why don't you make your own breakfast?" RK ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 11:01:25 -0700 (PDT) From: "Christopher J. Noe" MI fans: For a comic example of this type of marriage proposal, also written by Takahashi-sensei, see one of the early episodes/stories in Urusei Yatsura. Lum's former fiance, Rei, attempts to propose to Lum by asking her to cook for him for the rest of his life. Of course, she flies away, and in the course of chasing her, he ends up proposing to dozens of women, including Shinobu, and Mrs. Moroboshi. By the way, even though I don't own all of the manga (yet), and haven't seen any of the anime (sigh), I really enjoy reading all of the mail and translations on this list. I don't feel cheated, since it isn't hard to guess how things will eventually turn out. As the saying goes - the destination isn't as important as the people you meet along the way (and all of the side trips and detours in Godai's case...) Christopher Noe noe@uidaho.edu ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:36:21 -0500 From: kado@lorien.creol.ucf.edu (Masataka Kado) Sasagawa>1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? Souichirou He is cute. Sasagawa>4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? Akemi She is not cute. Sasagawa>5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? I guess he was dull. ============================================================================= From: rheault@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Rheault Sylvain) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 1994 20:08:09 -0400 (EDT) I've never seen the anime myself, because I'm too lazy to look out for those tapes. Besides, it was much more easier to read a manga than watch a video while I had to get aboard the dreaded Yamanote-sen. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? I like equally both Godai and Kyoko. You can't think about one without thinking about the other. They form a quite modern couple and I like them as such. If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? Haruka-chan ^_^. She's so cute. 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this name better)? They are the loud-speakers of Ikkoku-kan. They shout out every single word that is mumble within the mansion's walls, mainly to make Godai look like a fool. Unlike normal citizens, they don't mind their own business. 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? I think there are none I particularly dislike. 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? Takahashi sensei's plot ^_^. Sorry, but I couldn't come out with something better. Yes, I know about this "maza-kon" stuff, but all I have to know is that Kyoko was in love with someone before Godai, someone whose face we'll never see. --- Sylvain ============================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 15:50:25 -0700 (PDT) From: "Christopher J. Noe" Here are my answers to the poll. Please bear in mind that I have not seen the anime, and have not read the entire manga. In any case, here they are. . . > 1. Who's your favorite character overall? Why? > Godai. He is a likeable, straightforward guy. While he sometimes does the right thing for the wrong reasons, he is also capable of doing the right thing for the right reasons, even when he knows that the consequences may not be good. He is also someone who at least occasionally plans for the future, and is willing to sacrifice in the short term in order to reach his goals. From a more literary (?) standpoint, I like Godai because Rumiko Takahashi has done such a wonderful job of getting into the head of a male college student. His thoughts, his daydreams, his speech, and his actions are almost never out of character. Of course, as has been mentioned before, she IS a genius. Her ability to reveal interesting, complex characters is one of the reasons I really like MI. MI showcases this talent very well, because much of the story involves learning about Kyoko and Godai, while they learn about themselves and each other. > > If you answered Godai or Kyoko for 1, > 2. Excluding Godai and Kyoko, who's your favorite character? Why? > (Darn, I wanted to write about Kyoko here. After all, in addition to being a real sweetheart, she plays 'guess what I'm thinking' much better than Godai... ^_^ ) I guess I'd pick Kozue and/or Mitaka. They are both essentially likeable people, but they have the misfortune of loving someone who is destined for another. They are also well realized characters who go beyond the stereotypical behavior and motivations one might expect. Everyone is used to seeing bad folks lose, but it is much more interesting when nice people lose... > 3. What's your opinion on the 'loon squad' (or party posse, I like this > name better)? > (or the nasty nabes...) These folks remind me of some of my former roommates/housemates - double and triple meanings, free association word games, and probing for the best way to push those buttons! I wouldn't like to live in the same house with these folks, but spending time with them would surely keep your mind and your wits sharpened to a razor edge.(if you survived) Ichinose is particularly adept at using her 'psychic can opener' on Kyoko. This lets the reader have a better idea of what Kyoko may be thinking or feeling. Some folks may be critical of Godai for not telling these folks off, but of course that is exactly the response they are looking for. The only effective way to deal with them would be to beat them at their own game, but Godai has a number of disadvantages: he is more vulnerable than they are; he has a face that can be read like a book; and he just doesn't have the personality to serve up humor with razorblades mixed in. He's just an amateur playing with professionals. (Don't try this at home, folks...) > > 4. Who's your least favorite character overall? Why? > > I haven't 'met' all of the characters yet, but personality wise, Kyoko's mother gets my tentative vote. Her transparently manipulative behavior reminds me of Lum, from the manga version of UY, when she was embarked on yet another scheme to remake Ataru's personality. [I agree - Lum is nastier and more manipulative in the manga.] > 5. What was it about Souichirou that made Kyoko fall in love with him? > ------------------------------------------------------------ I suspect it was his honesty, and his kind heart. With someone like him, Kyoko would never have to wonder about what he was really up to, or worry about his fidelity. I suspect that it was very clear to her that he loved her very much. I think he also made her feel needed. Kyoko probably found that his obvious love, and his implicit trustworthiness, made it easy for her to deal with his absentmindedness, and any other minor negative character traits. No wonder Godai (and Mitaka) found the competition so tough, given the tendency of memory to soften the bad and unpleasant, and highlight the good. Christopher Noe "The lurking law librarian" noe@uidaho.edu So little time, so many kanji. . . <.6. .8.> Kyoko: ------ Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 19:33:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken Vong Subject: Don't have a clue Have you guys ever wondered why Kyoko, Belldandy, and Kasumi are some what similar? I mean they're both sort of "clueless" :) They don't know what's going on. Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 23:32:58 -0400 (EDT) From: "Yung (William) Wong" To: maison-ikkoku@sfu.ca Subject: Re: Don't have a clue On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Ken Vong wrote: > Have you guys ever wondered why Kyoko, Belldandy, and Kasumi are some > what similar? I mean they're both sort of "clueless" :) They don't > know what's going on. What?!? Kyoko "clueless"?!? How could you even... ^_^;;; How do you mean clueless? If you mean that she is just uncaring of what's going on around her, then I disagree. She cares plenty. Just ask Godai. ^_^ But if you mean that she blindy goes with her emotions in a misunderstanding, I would say that that is just artistic interpretation of a character. That and Takahashi's setting-up of a situation. As for Belldandy and Kasumi, they both have the same voice actress in japanese...so make your own conclusions. From: Ken Vong Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 22:46:16 -0700 (PDT) To: "Yung (William) Wong" On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Yung (William) Wong wrote: > On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Ken Vong wrote: > How do you mean clueless? If you mean that she is just uncaring of > what's going on around her, then I disagree. She cares plenty. Just ask > Godai. ^_^ Not that kind of cluelessness. > But if you mean that she blindy goes with her emotions in a > misunderstanding, I would say that that is just artistic interpretation > of a character. That and Takahashi's setting-up of a situation. Yah something like that. You know how in the beginning she didn't even know that Godai was in love with him. Remember the scene when Godai yells "I Love you KYOKO!!" (while he was drunk). She thought it was a joke. > As for Belldandy and Kasumi, they both have the same voice actress in > japanese...so make your own conclusions. Kasumi especially, I mean she doesn't even have a clue that Tofu-sensei is in love with her. When it's sooo obvious. Now that's cluelessness! But it would be the same if she wasn't like that I guess. From: John Jones Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 09:52:13 -0600 (CDT) > Have you guys ever wondered why Kyoko, Belldandy, and Kasumi are some > what similar? I mean they're both sort of "clueless" :) They don't > know what's going on. > [readying hyperdimensional hammer] WHAM!!!!!!! POW!!!!!!! BLAM!!!!!!!!! [draws wave-motion gun] ZAP!!!!!!!!!!!!! *ahen* Excuse me? Kyoko seems to know EXACTLY what's going on a lot of the time. She merely has a habit of "ignoring" some things for a time, then letting her temper and pride keep her mouth shut until she's ready to explode. As for Belldandy and Kasumi (off-topic, I know), neither one (in the anime and manga I've seen) appears to have a bad temper (unlike a certain kanrinin), and both try to keep their own little worlds intact using kindness/sweetness as the glue. Belldandy is _definitely_ aware of circumstances, but tries to make the best of them, guided by her love for Keiichi. Kasumi, on the other hand, acts the way she does because SOMEONE has to be normal in the Tendou household, and she tries to overcompensate. NONE of them are clueless!!!! > Yah something like that. You know how in the beginning she didn't even > know that Godai was in love with him. Remember the scene when Godai > yells "I Love you KYOKO!!" (while he was drunk). She thought it was a > joke. I beg to differ. She thought he was SERIOUS, and that worried her throughout the episode. Which is why Godai gets slapped so hard at the end of the episode. > > As for Belldandy and Kasumi, they both have the same voice actress in > > japanese...so make your own conclusions. > > Kasumi especially, I mean she doesn't even have a clue that Tofu-sensei > is in love with her. When it's sooo obvious. Now that's cluelessness! > But it would be the same if she wasn't like that I guess. > Kasumi's never seen Tofu-sensei when he wasn't acting like a complete idiot because she was in the same room, so she doesn't know that he doesn't normally behave like that. Besides, if you've seen the Tendou Family Christmas Scramble OAV, you'd know that Kasumi defused two potentially dangerous situations--1. Kodachi, Ukyou, and Shampoo sitting in the same room with nothing to do but kill each other, which Kasumi resolved by getting them to help in the kitchen. 2. Ryouga and Mousse were both planning on going after their various loves, but Kasumi prevented any major problems by getting them to go with her to the store--and letting Ryouga navigate, so there'd be PLENTY of time for things to cool off. [steps down from soapbox, Tendou Kasumi Fan Club banner flapping in "anime wind"] Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 10:01:16 -0700 (PDT) From: "Christopher J. Noe" I have to agree with those who suggest that none of these three women are clueless, but I would certainly be happy to have any of them cook dinner for me! Now if it were Lum or Akane, on the other hand. . . Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 18:32:15 -0400 (EDT) From: "J. Smith" "johnj@umr.edu" "John Jones" writes: [stuff snipped] >She merely has a habit of "ignoring" some things for a time, then letting >her temper and pride keep her mouth shut until she's ready to explode. As [more stuff snipped] >NONE of them are clueless!!!! Well, to be fair, while I don't think Kyoko is clueless, there have been times when she just doesn't get it. The best example of this is when Mikita makes his first serious proposal on the tennis court (they were playing mixed doubles at the time). He says something to the effect of wanting to be her partner for the rest of his life, which she interprets as an offer to turn tennis pro. Later on, Mikita takes her to the beach to try proposing again. She understands him, but doesn't say anything, which leads to Mikita's classic line, "I'm not saying 'I want your dog'!" J.S. From: Dennis Supachana Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 18:18:29 -0700 (PDT) On Fri, 21 Apr 1995, J. Smith wrote: > >NONE of them are clueless!!!! > > Well, to be fair, while I don't think Kyoko is clueless, there > have been times when she just doesn't get it. The best example > of this is when Mikita makes his first serious proposal on the > tennis court (they were playing mixed doubles at the time). He > says something to the effect of wanting to be her partner for > the rest of his life, which she interprets as an offer to turn > tennis pro. Actually she, IMHO, knew exactly what Mitaka was asking but decided to avoid the question by making it seem as if she misinterprets it. Later on, Mikita takes her to the beach to try > proposing again. She understands him, but doesn't say > anything, which leads to Mikita's classic line, "I'm not saying > 'I want your dog'!" > > J.S. > Eh? Did he say that? I must have been asleep when he did :( All I remember is that she tells him that she's not ready yet and he responds that he can wait 2-3 years if he has to. Oh well, just thought I'd toss my two yen in. ^_- <.8. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- @numerology Numerology: ----------- Due to the appearance of numbers in many of the character's names, there are several jokes or coincidences related to those numbers. The first major coincidence is that for the majority of the series there are seven people in Ikkoku-kan (Mr. and Mrs. Ichinose, Kentaro, Godai and Kyoko, Yotsuya and Akemi). Seven is a lucky number, but for Godai this isn't the case. Maybe that's because there is an unlucky subset: four tormenters (Ichinose, Yotsuya, Akemi and Kentaro)--four is an unlucky number. Later on in the manga, an eighth person joins the mayhem at Ikkoku-kan: Nikaido Nozomu. You could say eight is a holy number, but in the case of Nikaido, nothing is sacred. In the anime version, Nikaido didn't appear. Because of that, there's an even better coincidence: when Yagami ("Eight Gods") moves into Ikkoku-kan, she becomes that eighth person. At the end of the series, the residents of Ikkoku-kan shuffle around. All that are left are Yotsuya, the three people in Ichinose's family, Godai, Kyoko, and Haruka. So the total goes back to the number seven--this time, a lucky number for Godai. Now for some individual statistics: In Ikkoku-kan, as you should know by now, every character's family name is associated with their room number: Otonashi = 0 Ichinose = 1 Nikaido = 2 Mitsukoshi = 3 Yotsuya = 4 Godai = 5 Akemi = 6 Mitaka lives on the sixth floor of his apartment building, six being a multiple of three. Kyouko (1000) is divisible by Godai (5), and Asuna (9) is divisible by Mitaka (3). -- Ito-san In addition, with Akemi (6), who was attracted to Mitaka (3), her number is also divisible by three. Grandma Yukari has an account at a 5th Bank of Japan. Mitaka graduated from a 1st Class University. Godai graduates from a 3rd Class College Irrelevant, but Godai (5) minus 2 = 3rd class, and Mitaka (3) minus 2 = 1st class. .5.> Yagami was referred to as an "otome" (a maiden/ virgin); this coincides with the horoscope: "otome-za" is the same as "virgo", and applies for people born between August 23rd and September 22nd. The numerology comes into it in that August is called 8-gatsu (pronounced as "hachi-gatsu"). Get it? Yagami is written as 8-gami (pronounced as "ya-gami"). <.5. .6.> Harold Melanson (94.08.11): I was reading one of the later volumes last night, 11 or 12 probably, and noticed something: the design on Kyoko's kakebuton (top cover of futon). She doesn't have a room number on her door, but the design on her futon sure looks like a zero to me. I haven't checked to see if this occurs in a lot of other places or not; it's several concentric dark and light rectangles, but the effect is similar to the room numbers. <.6. I'm sure there are others, so if you can come up with any more, please send them to the Project Coordinator for inclusion in this section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- @relations Summary of the Romantic Relations: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anime Version I only put here the ones that I consider important or interesting. Every two-way arrow indicates a marriage. [ Notes: Kasumi was only fawning all over Yotsuya in one episode because he happened to be in the cabaret. Then in another episode she acted as if she wanted Godai, but that was only to get him to look after her kids for a while. Kyoko-chan, a toddler, was infatuated with Godai in one episode, and this lead to an unfortunate incident later on. ] Yotsuya ^ | unnamed man <----> Kasumi unnamed woman | ^ Kyoko-chan | | | | Sakamoto and various others unnamed | | | | | | | | | man <----> Kozue ------\ | | +------+-+-+- ... -+-+-/ | | | | v v v v Yagami ------> Godai <----> Kyoko <----> Souichiro ^ | Asuna <----> Mitaka --------/ ^ ^ | | Master <----> Akemi ----/ +-+-+-+- ... -+-+-\ ^ | | | | | | | | a mass of tennis club members Hiroshi -----/ Grandma Yukari <-> Grandpa Godai ^ rich man -/ Hanae <-> Mr. Ichinose -> Tsuruko Kentaro -> Ikuko Kuroki <-> Saotome -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Family Relationships: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (only those families that have more than one generation) The dates used here are taken from the manga version. If there is a partner missing in what should be a pair, then that's because I don't know if that person is still alive, and it seems that that one is never mentioned in the series. Note: In v8c3 we find out that Grandpa Otonashi's wife is deceased. There's a picture of her in the butsudan. Yukari & Godai Chigusa Mr & Ritsuko Grandpa Otonashi | | | | | /------+-----\ | | | | one of Mr & Ms Godai Kyoko & Souichiro Sister & Husband | /------ (1979) | | | Ikuko | (1987) <-----/ Godai Yuhsaku & Kyoko | (1988) Haruka Uncle ---- Mr & Ms Mitaka Mr & Ms Kujou | | The Dogs: /------+--\ /-----/ McEnroe & Salad | | (1986) | | Sister Shun & Asuna /------+-------\ | | | | +-----------\ (1987) Sugar Ginger Pepper | | (1987) two girls one upcoming Ichinose Hanae & Mr Mr & Ms Nanao | | -?- Kentaro +---------\ | | | | Yousuke Kozue & co-worker Mr & Ms Yagami Kasumi (at Wakaba Daycare) | | interviewee Yagami Ibuki +------\ | | | Hirosuke Taro Hanako -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Places: ~~~~~~ @residences Residences ---------- Ikkoku-kan - _-_ . /\ _|_ / | | //_\|__ | ------ // | | |-| |_| = IK'KOKU-KAN // | | |-' |-. (one-moment house) /\ _| |_\ |_| Sylvain-san: Ikkoku-kan means the house of one moment, which is weird considering how long the story lasted (more than seven years). Nobuhiro Nakamura: In Japan, it is very popular to call their apartment as "maison", "mansion", "palace" etc. etc. Japanese feel these are "modernized", "sophisticated" or "trendy" ways to call their own living place. ITO Takayuki: The funny thing is Ikkoku-kan doesn't at all match such a sophisticated name as "Maison something." ANIME VERSION: The information here is based on the anime version because the manga has somewhat different architecture. Notable is that the rooms in the manga are larger than in the anime--for instance, in the manga, Godai has 8 or so tatami, while in the anime he has only 4.5 tatami. Ikkoku-kan is a pre-WWII building owned by the Otonashi family and located in Tokeizaka, a suburb of Tokyo. There are seven rentable rooms. The kanrinin's room has no label on its window, but it can be named as room #0. All the other rooms are labelled from 1 to 6. Everyone's family-name has a number that matches up with their room number. Ex. Otonashi (zero sound) lives in the kanrinin's room, Ichinose (first rapids) lives in room #1, and Godai (five generations) lives in room #5. All the lodging rooms have a certain number of tatami, a small kitchenette, one oshiire (all these closets are located on the right side upon entering the room) and a balcony or balconette. There is no bathtub. Floorplan, roughly: #1-6 - rooms E - entrance C - clock D - dog house G - getabako K - kanrinin's room B - benjo . These are Japanese style (squat). L - clothes line S - staircase T - public telephone W - washing basin +--------------+ attic | S | | C | +--------------+ +---+ <- balcony +S+---+---+--+---+ 2nd floor | | 4 | 5 | 6| |S| | +---+---+--+ |B| +-----+-W-+----+-+ +---+ <- semi-balcony ________________________________ | L | | | | +--+ <- balcony | | |--++ | | | K |---+---+---+--+ | 1st floor | ++--+ 1 | 2 | 3 | S| | | |T +---+---+---+ B| | | +---W--+GE-+--W---+ | | +---+ | | tree D | | | ___|___________| |__________|___ <- street -> C.H.Yung says: For the floor plan of 1st floor, I am not sure if that place should be called 'balcony' Repairs or maintenance work that was done/shown: episode: 1 - Kyoko boards up a hole in Godai's closet. 2 - The roof tiles above Godai's room; fixed by Kyoko. 3 - Kyoko goes to fix chewed out electrical wire in attic. 22 - Kyoko tries to fix the floor of the balcony. - Fumigator targets termites in wall to left of entrance. - Two carpenters repair the upper balcony. 36 - Kyoko replaces light bulb at entrance. 42 - Kyoko repairs roof tiles above Akemi's room. - Repairman fixes the balconette of Godai's room. 62 - Plumber comes over for the periodic maintenance. - For water pipe which burst in wash basin next to the pink telephone Eternal repairs/ maintenance work: Almost every episode: Kyoko sweeps the entrance way. 1 - Godai boards up the hole in the wall. Yotsuya soon breaks through it. 22 - Kyoko contracts out to plaster up the hole 24 - Yotsuya finally decides to break through it To get to the roof, you climb out the window that's above the second floor wash basin, and then use a ladder. At the left side of the entrance (when you face the inside) at about chest height, is a red mailbox. It has the following symbol in white which is used on all mailboxes: _________ |_________| _________ |___ ___| | | | | |_| The format of the tatami has been standardized to be 0.9m x 1.8m (which equals 1.62 m2) and about 6cm thick. The tatami is a measuring unit for indicating the size of a room. However, tatami in the city are sometimes smaller in order to cram in more housing units, while using the same number of tatami. A Japanese room with tatami mats usually consists of the following number of tatami mats: 3, 4.5, 6, 8, 10, or 12. Only the 4.5 and the 8 tatami room can be perfectly square, as far as I can tell. ( As an aside, there is rarely a 4 tatami room because the number 4 is bad luck. Four is usually pronounced as `shi' which is a homonym for `death'. Come to think of it, that's an appropriate number for Yotsuya, isn't it? [Yotsuya = *four* valleys] ) Arrangement of the tatami in Kyoko's room: (see episode 23) +-------+-------+ | | | There are 8 tatami = 12.96 m2 |---+---+---+---| | | | | | |-------| | | | | | |---+---+---+---| | | | +-------+-------+ door On entering the room, the rotary-dial telephone is on the left by the wall. The kitchenette is on the right. Exiting by the balcony, you can see the washing machine on the right. Arrangement of the tatami in room #1: (see episode 11 for a clear view) +-------+---+ | | | |---+---| | There are 6 tatami = 9.72 m2 | | | | | | |---| | | | | |---+---+ | | | | +-------+---+ door Arrangement of the tatami in rooms 3 and 5: (see episodes 20 and 50) +-------+---+ | | | There are 4.5 tatami = 7.29 m2 |-------| | | | | |---+---+---| | | | +---+-------+ door [ hmm... a penniless student like Godai has to pay for a bigger room than Akemi's and Yotsuya's ] Arrangement of the tatami in rooms 4 and 6: (see episode 65) +-------+ | | |-------| There are 3 tatami = 4.86 m2 | | |-------| | | +-------+ door Akemi sleeps in a western style bed, rather than in futon. .8.> Jae Hyuk Lee says: Is the inside of his room ever shown in the TV series? I've only seen 1-32. In one episode, Godai looks inside the hole in the hole, and sees some jars, garbage, and stuff. There are no doors. Godai wonders if Yotsuya lives there. It must be his home away from home... umm... whatever. Can someone enlighten me? John Jones on Fri, 21 Apr 1995: Yotsuya's room is seen in ep. 65, when Yagami Ibuki comes to visit. I've only seen part of the episode, but he does have a (fairly) normal room (not to mention a white tux--could he really be James Bond?). <.8. MANGA SUPPLEMENTAL INFO Kyoko's room has at least 10 tatami. The phone is next to the kitchenette, instead of on the other side of the door. Godai's room has at least 8 tatami. Okay, it's fill-in-the-blank time! Someone, please write up some good descriptions for the locations that follow: Other Residences ---------------- Chigusa's apartment - Kasumi's apartment - Kujou estate - Mitaka's apartment - .7.> There is no proof in the manga of which floor Mitaka lives on, so I turned to my memory of the anime version. [ Whips out a few videotapes, fast-forwards... I found it! Proof! ] Episode #60: "Saw them! Kyoko and Mitaka's "B". Out of the blue?!" Kyoko enters the elevator of Mitaka's building and we see explicitly that it stops on the sixth floor, whereupon she exits. Unfortunately, I can't be sure about how high is the building. Try this on for size: Episode #34: Be pushy for love! Grandma Yukari with gold teeth We see an elevator panel that shows the following: R 10 9 8 : [etc.] R = Roof. But in Episode 56 ("Yagami decides! I won't give up my first love!"), we're treated to a full pan from top to bottom of Mitaka's building... and I can see only SEVEN stories. So it looks like the pictures aren't quite trustworthy. But when I see actual numbers, I might as well go with them. <.7. Nanao home - Otonashi home - Sakamoto home - Yagami home - Businesses, Institutions and similar things ------------------------------------------- ChaChaMaru - .5.> The meaning of the name: Ah, an easy one. First character is the kanji for green tea (cha), second character is the repeater character (i.e. "repeat previous kanji"), which is how you get the second "cha," and the last is the kanji for circle. Usually when you repeat a kanji, the two together mean "lots of ." E.g. hitobito = lots of people, yamayama = very much, great deal. However (and I was surprised by this), "chacha" means "disruption." So, the name could be taken as "circle of disruption." B-) -- Carragher Pascal: Other people here have deeply studied the 3 kanji for "ChaChaMaru", but I have not seen written so far that "-maru" is also a kanji used as a suffix for most (if not all) of Japanese boats names. This was my little contribution :) <.5. Cabalet Bunny - Girl's Highschool - Godai's Restaurant - Ma Maison - .8.> Mamezou - A pub/cafe in Tokeizaka. "Mamezou" is composed of two kanji: MAME = bean, and ZOU = storehouse. So you could basically translate the name as "bean shed", but there might be some extra meaning; Rumiko Takahashi usually chooses interesting names. <.8. Sanryu Daigaku - Shiinomi Ho'iku'en - Tokeizaka Tennis Club - Other Places ------------ Kanazawa - Local playground - Nishi Tokeizaka - Tokeizaka - Yamashita Park - Yokohama - Yunomachi - This name is a pun. "Yu" sounds like the first syllable of "Yuusaku" (Godai's given name). So this town's name sounds like "Yuu's town", a short form for "Yuusaku's town". Note: The kanji for "yu" in Yunomachi actually means "hot water"; so the real meaning of Yunomachi is "Hot Water Town." ______________________________________________________________________________ Notes: Ikkoku and Tokeizaka are part of a time-related name theme. Maybe there are more examples. ______________________________________________________________________________ .5.> General Discussion About the Settings: ====================================== Tarigan: Does the name "Ichinose" refer to any place in Tokyo? After all, Yotsuya, Roppongi (Akemi) and Mitaka are districts of Tokyo. Pascal: You're right. The last 3 correspond to 3 subway stations in Tokyo district. The subway map I brought from Japan is too small, but I think I've seen Ichinose and Godai once. And I had a pub called "Chigusa" in a small town (Fujigaoka) :) Some other anime names, such as Kasuga and Chiba, can be found too.. <.5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- End of part 1 of 8 Maison Ikkoku Guidebook Release 8 Copyright 1995 by the Misery Loves Company