I found a copy of Maison Ikkoku #8 at a local store and have since gone
through the whole series except for #11. It is very good, but I think
Godai would have been better off with Koze. But Godai lives too much
in a world of dreams to be happy with someone so practical.
My review of the whole thing is I
think it approaches great literature, even if it is a cartoon.
The story is about manipulation and dreams vs reality, and how
dreams alter reality.
Yusuku dreams of getting into
college and getting a good job. This is tough in Japan. The Japanese
version of the ![]()
SATs are really fierce, and the the door you have to go through before
you can even apply for college, and after you pass the Japanese version
of the SATs, you still have to sit for application exams at any college
you wish to attend. When the story begins he is what is called a
"Ronin" or a flunk-out. He failed the exams, and he is studying another
year to try and pass the next time. This is very hard for him, as he is
living in a real pest hole of a hostel in the Clock Hill part of Tokyo.
The other tenants use his apartment as the general party room for the
whole complex, and so while he tries to study they have fun at his
expense. Because of the way the Japanese do rental law, it is very hard
to get a tenant out, which also means it is very hard for a tenant to
get in. Move in deposits of six months in advance are common, so moving
house in Japan is difficult for most, and impossible for a poor ronin
just getting by by living in a hostel like Maison Ikkoku.
When the story opens Maison Ikkoku gets a new resident manager, the
beautiful Otonashi Kyoko. And Godai has a new dream, which is love with
the manager. All through the story, Godai is a day dreamer full of
amazing dreams of super success, crowned by the love of his manager.
His dreams interfere with his goals, and he has a tendency to daydream
as he walks, which means he walks into puddles, doors and telephone
poles. His goal is adjusted, but never really lost, and his dreams are
always are aimed at a better reality.
Kyoko is a dreamer too, but not a daydreamed. From an outside
perspective, her dream is a nightmare. She does not think that to be
the case. And her dream, as opposed to Godai's dream is an inversion of
reality.
The back story is that Kyoko married one of the teachers at her high
school The guy seems to have been a total cypher. (Most of the family
names of the important characters in the story have number based
names. Godai's name comes from the number five, Otonashi includes the
number 0) His family was not that impressed with him. Kyoko seems to
have built the romance herself, and then manipulated him into marrying
her. Since he seems to have been so passive, it must not have been that
hard to do. Very shortly after the marriage, he died of a burst
appendix or something. Kyoko took the weak clay of her husband, and
made a tremendous tragic romance of her husband and their life
together. Her fantasy of her dead husband seems to have been so
grandiose and intense that very early on is obvious that it is not the
poor man she married that she loves, but her dream that she loves.
Kyoko has very bad relations with her parents. They did not like the
idea of their daughter marrying right out of school, and marrying such
a week reed as Otonashi must have been even worse for them. I am sure
they were relieved when he died. Maybe when she recovered, she could
find someone better. By that time, however, it seems she was not
available for college anymore, so the only job she could have a chance
of getting was manager of her father in law's apartment house.
Kyoko is not a sympathetic character by the end. She has a short fuse
and a hot temper, she is jealous and unfair. She is obtuse and jumps to
wild conclusions. She is manipulative and pig headed. She can also be
very kind, very helpful, very caring. She is a sweet and double
picante sour dish. Godai knows all this, understands all this, and
loves her anyway. Unlike Kyoko's relationship with Otonashi, which is
based on Kyoko's dreams of what love should be like, he loves
the real girl, firecracker that she is.
The second theme of the books is manipulation. That Kyoko is
manipulative and pigheaded is honestly come by. Her mom could give
lessons to Lady McBeth. The train wreck that is Kyoko's (Meaning Echo)
love life might conveniently left at her mom's door. It seems obvious
to
me that rather than have a girl to girl chat about the reality of
marriage when Kyoko expressed interest in Otonashi, instead she
schemed and pressured and manipulated Kyoko into a corner where the
choices were surrender of her spirit, or eloping with Otonashi. This
last choice seems to be along the same kind of level as spiritual hari
kari..
Godai's competition is coach Mitaka. The coach has everything Godai
lacks: A good job, a confident manner, a down to earth attitude.
However Mitaka is as manipulative as Kyoko's mom, and she can't help
but resent it. This is where Godai, as weak as he is in many regards
way outshines Mitaka. He gives Kyoko what she badly wants: respect.
Mitaka seems to see Kyoko as an engineering problem. Somehow to make
her bend without breaking. I think it is fitting that in the end Mitaka
is broken to the will of a girl who is otherwise very weak and a little
silly. She doesn't deliberately manipulate him, but he instead paints
himself into a corner, and unlike Kyoko, he surrenders when escape is
not an option.
Like Otonashi, Godai is also an education major. And like Otonashi,
he
puts in a month of student teaching at the same school where Kyoko had
caught Otonashi, and like Otonashi he meets up with an machiavellian
little brat who is in love with romance, rather than her teacher. It is
worth noting that Otonashi brat caught and trussed him relatively
easily despite major sources of protection, Godai is poor and has no
real effective way of slowing his brat down. That he does shows he is a
great deal more than Otonashi.
--
Wherever there is a jackboot stepping on a human face, there will be a well-heeled Western liberal there to assure us that the face enjoys free health care and a high degree of literacy.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
John Derbyshire
http://www.aracnet.com/~reynard/blogbog.htm
