Maison Ikkoku

[Space Pirate Roberts]

So, I had bought them all up to 5 as they came out, but was then unable to order stuff online for a year or so for reasons I won't go into, and of course they weren't released at brick and mortars past volume... 3 iirc. Then for a long time it just slipped my mind, until a few days ago when I stumbled across the old sets. I start hunting down the remaining sets, only to find that volume 8 was horribly underprinted and is now something of a holy grail of anime collecting. Nobody seemed to have it except dodgy outfits like AnimeBallZ.com, who list it as region 0 with Chinese subtitles... yeah, not touching that. Finally, I find the last copy in stock at Amazon...
































Canada. Shipping and all, it comes to $63.something after conversion. Oh well, I love what I've seen of this show too much not to see it through. Sorry to any Canuckleheads who still don't have it.

[Scourge]

This is the only near 100 episode show I've seen that has a real whole story arc with a beginning, middle, and end and an amazing lack of filler overall. This is in my top 3 anime shows because of that. I'd say it's definitely the best romantic comedy anime by far.

Wow, I just read my first post in this thread and realized I just repeated myself here. Because it's true of course. I can guaratee you you won't be dissappointed with Volume 8 at all.

[Thief Silver]

I was reading the Manga "When I see you in my dreams" which was a romantic comedy I liked (It's almost done being translated) that had a 26 minisode series. I liked it but a lot of people said it's nothing compared to this show, so I've been thinking of tracking it down.

[wayspooled]

I found my vol 8 at amazon.ca (canada) It said backordered but they did ship it a few days later. I figured the backordered was just a status they hadn't changed to "no longer available" but I was surprised. Just took a chance and ordered it.

By the way, I read the manga first based on the recommendation of a friend a few years ago. This was in the days before it was available on dvd and the "Get MI on DVD" petition was active.

I would not have traded the experience for much of anything. It just pulls you in and like the anime, it's becomes perfection as you get further into it. I agree with the poster that said the anime was just perfect from somewhere in vol 6 onward. I'd say the manga hits that perfection a bit earlier and has some differences from the anime (one char in each that's not in the other, couple extra side stories in the manga), but not really much different in the last 1/4 of the story.

It is my favorite manga and one of my top 4 anime (2 of which prob never be released in US because they're too long) of all time.