Maison Ikkoku, Volume 1

Poor Yusaku Godai. He's a struggling college student and resident of the dilapidated apartment building Maison Ikkoku. What's more, he's madly in love with the new manager of Maison Ikkoku, the lovely Kyoko Otonashi, who isn't all that unattracted to Godai. It's just that she's trying to deal with the recent death of her husband. This romantic tension sets the stage for all subsequent volumes of Rumiko Takahashi's charming and funny comic book soap opera and is propelled forward by both Godai's and Kyoko's inability to express their honest feelings to one another. In this first volume, readers are introduced to most of the major characters of this series, including Coach Mitaka (Kyoko's would-be boyfriend), Kozue (Godai's would-be girlfriend), and all the crazy, drunken folk who reside in Maison Ikkoku. This is the story of a young man learning to love for the first time, a young widow learning to love again, and the drunks who interfere with them. --Jim Pascoe