Review of
previous issueStory and Art: Rumiko Takahashi
$3.25 ($4.40 Can.), 40 pages, B&W, no ads
Viz Comics
Synopsis: Godai jumps to the wrong conclusions about Kyoko and Mitaka, and lies to her about his feelings because he does not want her to feel sorry for him.
Takahashi's storytelling in Maison Ikkoku is nothing short of masterful. Every issue I am awed by the way she has the pictures (and the words, and even the background noises, but mostly the pictures) tell the story. Highlights this issue are the whole-page panel on p. 18, Godai reminiscing about Kyoko on p. 26, the whole conversation through the door with the shifting camera points of view, including the unusual but very effective shot of Godai's hands at the end of p. 37, and generally the way Godai's posture and body language conveys so thoroughly his feelings of pain and desperation throughout the second episode. Anybody teaching a course on comic book art who does not include samples from Maison Ikkoku is cheating the next generation of artists. This is what comics as sequential art is supposed to be.
Where this issue is weak is in the plotting. True, impossible coincidences are nothing new around here, but the series of coincidences in the first episode (Asuna arriving at the same time as Kyoko, the dog slipping in unnoticed, Asuna and Godai opening the door at that precise moment) is just too unlikely to be used believably as the starting point of a dramatic sequence, as it is here. (It does, of course, make for great comedy, which is what the first episode is for the most part.) And there is a large degree of arbitrariness in the way Takahashi stacks the deck against Godai in the second episode as well. We have no clue as to where Kozue gets the notion that Kyoko and Mitaka are engaged--all the more unlikely since that's the opposite of what the gossip at the tennis club has been for weeks now. Godai's selective amnesia is also contrived, as he somehow manages to forget the many times that Kyoko has hinted at her feelings for him--mostly, but not exclusively, through her jealousy spells, which he does not seem to remember until p. 30, and then casually dismisses in one panel. This is one place where the less-than-airtight continuity of the series works against it. We do not even know what to make of the consequences, or lack thereof, of the tape mix-up last issue, since it has never been referred to again since.
This aside, Godai's feelings are portrayed with remarkable, even painful, accuracy--nobody who's lived through a similar experience will be left unmoved after reading this story. But Takahashi's usually excellent grasp on male psychology seems to slip at a crucial moment, on p. 37. We are supposed to believe that Godai tells Kyoko that he doesn't feel anything for her anymore because he doesn't want her to feel sorry for him, but I submit (guys, bear me out here!) that no man would ever say such a thing to a woman he loves, no matter what the circumstances.
Page 37 is strange anyway. Reading it the first time I was, like Kyoko herself, puzzled, and under the impression that yet another misunderstanding had taken place somewhere between the first and fourth panels. Maybe there is some subtlety in the dialog that was lost in the translation? Can anybody out there help?
Altogether, a somewhat flawed (and, in the end, extremely sad) issue, although even a flawed issue of Maison Ikkoku is still heads and shoulders above just about anything else out there...
Review of
previous issue