I already had a lot of notes for most of these episodes, which I originally posted to Usenet when the stories were first published in comic-book form. Most of the translation notes are nitpicking, but I am putting them here anyway for completeness' sake.
Translation notes:
Kyoko does not say that she needs to "air dry" the dress, only to "air" it (it was hanging in a closet, wasn't it? It's not like she had just gotten it out of the washer.)
When Mitaka arrives and tells them that he has called the engagement off, the translation has Mrs. Ichinose saying "tough luck," although luck clearly has nothing to do with it: didn't Mitaka just say he had severed the relationship himself? What she actually says is something along the lines of "isn't that a waste?" And Mitaka responds, not "I haven't lost anything," but "I have no regrets."
On the next page, where the translation has Mitaka say "I'd like to talk," what the original actually said was "how about dinner?" I think this makes Godai's reply more amusing (pretending he thought he was invited).
A major complaint: I do not like the fact that the translation repeatedly refers to the "cabaret" where Godai works as a "strip club." It's pretty clear that no stripping takes place there. It also seems a tad more respectable than that--after all, not only have Akemi and Mrs. Ichinose gone there repeatedly just for fun, but they have even brought Nozomu (who's probably not 21 yet) along. Basically, it seems to be a sort of bar where patrons are served by girls dressed in bunny suits. A bit sleazy, no doubt, but not quite "a strip joint," IMHO.
Translation notes:
When Mitaka arrives at the Kujo residence, he certainly does not shout out "What are you doing here?" by way of greeting. There is no reason why he should have been that terribly surprised to find his uncle there. What he says is "Gomen kudasai," which in this context might be best translated as "Good evening!" (It's just a greeting, a way to let people in the house know that they have a visitor and ask to be allowed in.) He is yelling because he is trying to appear determined. He doesn't see his uncle until the next panel, when he comes to let him in, and his expression there is certainly not one of shock or great surprise.
A few pages later, when discussing the meeting of Kyoko and Asuna, Mrs. Ichinose does not say "She [Kyoko] looked pretty freaked too, didn't she?" in the original. Kyoko sure did not look THAT freaked out to me. Rather, Ichinose says "looks like Mitaka's being pushed into a corner," and Yotsuya concurs and points out that this might make him more likely to put more pressure on the manager.
At the end of the episode, when Godai's boss at the cabaret says "that Kasumi...running off with a customer AGAIN!" I can't find the word "again" in the original. At this point, to say that she ran off "again" is getting ahead of the story, as seen in the following episode.
Translation notes:
When they arrive at Maison Ikkoku at the beginning of the episode, Godai does not actually refers to it as "your new home sweet home." This is also getting ahead of the story, since at this point there is no indication that Godai intends for the children to stay at Maison Ikkoku beyond this particular night. All Godai says in the original is "We're home, Taro."
Is it possible that Kyoko doesn't know when her father's birthday is? It's probably just a comical exaggeration, but I do believe that, if there is a tradition of celebrating birthdays in Japan, it must be a relatively recent one. According to S. Martin's "Essential Japanese", until the end of the war and the American occupation the custom (which has since changed, of course) was that everybody became officially one year older, not on their birthday, but on New Year's Day. Kyoko was born in 1959; her parents must have been children during the war and probably grew up without ever celebrating their birthdays, or making any big deal out of them, so it's not inconceivable that Kyoko might not be entirely sure about when her father's birthday is.
A couple of translation notes:
Kasumi saying to Kyoko on the phone "I bet you're Godai's manager!" just does not work for me. Why would she bet such a thing? Has she ever even heard of Kyoko before? In the original she just reacts with surprise when Kyoko tells her who she is: "The director's apartment manager!?"
And this is definitely nitpicking, but I wish Jones hadn't had Taro say "*the* star has gone out," at the end of the episode, since that suggests that he is talking about the same star her mother made her promise on. This is not suggested by the original and seems unlikely in several ways: first, if what they see is a shooting star, that would look very different (it would show up already in motion); second, Taro looks too happy to have made a connection between the shooting star's vanishing and her mother's promise. It's Godai who seems to take the thing as an omen, as if the "unreliability" of the "star" was an indication that he should expect Kasumi's promise to be just as unreliable. It was a tough thing to translate and convey properly, though.
Yes, there is a billboard for "Maison Ikkoku: the movie" on the background as Mitaka drives to the hotel. It's a lot less obvious in the original, and I had missed it entirely until I saw it in the Viz translation.
Translation notes:
I have one nit to pick, and that's the top half of page 21. It makes no sense for Kyoko, at this point in the story, to wonder whether Mitaka knew in advance about the setup; he practically told her about it on the way to the hotel last issue, and he was only too obviously at ease throughout the whole thing. In the original, rather, what Kyoko does at this point is to try and express her unhappiness with what Mitaka has done. This is how I would translate those three panels:
Panel 1: Mitaka: You may be feeling tired. So much has
happened...
(The word "surprises" is not used.)
Panel 2: Kyoko: No, I'm not tired... but, somehow, what you did
today... How could you...?
(This is a pretty free translation. What Kyoko says literally, is
"kyoo no Mitaka-san...nante iu ka?" People who know more Japanese
than I do please feel free to suggest alternative translations...)
Panel 3: Leave Mitaka's reply as is, but change Kyoko's thoughts
to:
Kyoko: I'm not getting through (or: he's not getting it; literally,
"wakatte n ja nai no").
A couple of translation notes:
Kyoko's line about "Godai being 100% determined" is a little strange and not quite what the original said. What she really says is that this is a critical (or crucial, or decisive) moment for Godai. ("shounenba" or "shounemba"). The others pick on that and make fun of it, more or less along the lines indicated in the translation.
I suspect there may be a pun involved, since shounen (with different kanji, of course) could mean "boy" or "boys" and "shounenba" could mean "a place for boys" (perhaps even a juvenile institution, I'm not sure). Yotsuya and Akemi appear to say something about "going to a shounenba" in their teasing. In fact, the original title of the story is "100% shounenba" with the word "shounen" written in romaji (western characters) so that one could not tell what the kanji intended was, which reinforces my belief that there is a pun here. Perhaps the idea (or an idea) is that Godai and Mitaka end up acting "100% like boys".
I'm also not very happy with Mitaka referring to himself as a "smooth talker" on the last page of the episode. There is no necessary connection between being a smooth talker and winning verbal fights, and I think that all Mitaka is really saying is that he has always been good with words (ever since he was a kid, in fact), whereas Godai is clumsy with them.