Maison Ikkoku, Volume 10

Godai just can't get a break. On the way to his interview with Mitsutomo Enterprises, one of the biggest and most prestigious companies in Japan, he had to help out a woman who was going into labor. He misses the interview, which infuriates Mr. Yagami, the father of Ibuki, the girl who had a crush on Godai when he was student teaching. Yagami refuses to give Godai a second chance, so Ibuki pulls a crazy stunt. She moves into Maison Ikkoku, specifically Godai's room, and refuses to budge until her dad does something to help Godai. You know who all the other residents are so it doesn't take long for tongues to start wagging. And it doesn't really help Godai and Kyoko's relationship...or whatever it is. Having Ibuki living with him is sure to start a scandal, but if it can somehow help him get work, he'll finally be able to ask Kyoko to marry him! Coach Mitaka isn't laying down for all this either. He point-blank asks Kyoko to make a decision about a future with him, so he can move on one way or the other. He has his own arranged marriage to think about! After ten volumes, it's very easy to love these characters, imperfections and all...because they're so human. I sometimes wish Godai or Kyoko would be more forceful about what they feel, or at least decide WHAT they feel for each other. But then they wouldn't be Godai or Kyoko if they did! Rumiko Takahashi does a good job of keeping your interest and creating great comic moments from what should be a boring topic: namely, real life. Even though this series is now around 20 years old, it doesn't age at all. The character designs and situations are timeless. This is one of the best manga ever made. We'll be all the poorer when Takahashi stops drawing and writing one of these days.

Maison Ikkoku is a long, sometimes cheesy, yet very often endearing, romantic comedy from one of Japan's most popular authors/artists, Rumiko Takahashi. Over the years (volumes) of story, we've seen the two main protagonists, Yusaku and Kyoko, fall into the same cycles of 'almost-but-not-quite-there' romance. With volume 10, things take a change in a fairly large way. For one thing, Yusaku's graduating college and entering professinal life. That may not seem to have much to do with love, but from the standpoint of Yusaku and everyone involved, it is a big turning point. His rival for Kyoko's affections realizes this and sets up his own ultimatum. Unfortunately for Shun (the rival), he has his own marital issues to work out. All of this builds and builds over the chapters to the final few panels in the book where... well, I'd better not spoil it for you. To sum things up, volume ten is a wonderful book of building suspence (the happy kind) with a wonderful climax that left me salivating for volume eleven to be (re)release(d) immediately.