Maison Ikkoku

[shooraijin]

Well, I picked up the first 12 episode box set this weekend, and while I'm only through the first episode, I rather like it. It's another typical Takahashi Rumiko romance/comedy, more towards Urusei Yatsura than Ranma 1/2 in style but without space aliens, electric shocks and demented Buddhist priests. (For example, Godai reminds me of a kindler, gentler, less hormone-frenzied Moroboshi Ataru.)

It's much more serious, but there's enough slapstick and light comedy in there to keep me amused (let's face it, I like anime that makes me laugh, which drove The Silence up the wall when she was trying to come up with suggestions).

Ironically, Kyoko looks very similar to Ariko, one of the characters I'm developing for my anime game, but I swear I've never seen the series previously

Viz did a nice job with the conversion. The English voice actors are appropriately cast and quite good (and *shocked* are not refugees from the Ranma voice cast! Ohmigosh!), and the subs and dubs match reasonably well, although we'll see how this holds up.

Anyway, it seems pretty good!

[Gypsy]

Nice. That's a box set that sort of jumps out and sticks to my hand everytime I go into Best Buy. It's never made it as far as the register, though. Let me know how it is, ok?

[shooraijin]

*grin* Still jumping in and out of your hands, eh?

I'll try to finish off the first disc tomorrow, er, today, I guess. (12:45 am ...)

[Gypsy]

[quote="shooraijin"]*grin* Still jumping in and out of your hands, eh? ]

I had it in my hands again today. Then that nagging thing called responsibility brought things like car payment, rent, and food to mind. Unless I want to be eating Ramen noodles for the rest of this week, I'll have to wait until next week. I also saw an Irresponsible Captain Tyler box set as well. *whines*

[Nia-chan]

Man, I always thought adults could buy whatever they want, whenever they want it....*thinks of ways to get rich quick* ^_^

[Gypsy]

Man, I always thought adults could buy whatever they want, whenever they want it....*thinks of ways to get rich quick* ^_^

*LAUGHS!*
Good luck!

[shooraijin]

Okay, a little more on this. I got through almost all of disc 1 yesterday.

I reiterate Godai = lighter Moroboshi Ataru (anyone who's seen Urusei Yatsura will immediately understand). He's not quite a loser (though he's close), and he does seem to have some trouble keeping his hands/eyes where they should be (but he actually does have some sense of propriety and responsibility ... there's that ugly word again ). There's quite a bit of low-brow humour in the style of UY and R-0.5 in it, which pretty much is standard fare for a Takahashi feature (particularly the other residents, who have their own quirks). If you liked/didn't like the level of those shows, you will/won't like the content level of this, because it's roughly the same.

Some dub-sub differences started to show (specific examples available upon request) but on the whole the translation is true, and the dub is much better written (Trish LeDoux also did the dub script for R-0.5).

One irritation is that the title and closing tracks seem to have been mastered at Amazingly Distorted Volume(tm), which all but ruins them.

Despite these concerns, I'm rather getting into it.