Akemi Roppongi

The Maison Ikkoku manga series features characters created by Rumiko Takahashi. Many of the characters live in the series' titular boarding house, including the protagonists Yusaku Godai and Kyoko Otonashi. The boarding house setting and its tenants were inspired from Takahashi's college years; the apartment house behind her own was occupied by many "strange people."

Takahashi stated that she had wanted to draw a story about an apartment complex for some time, inspired by the one she lived in in Nakano, Tokyo during college and the odd actions of the people living in the one next door. She originally only wanted to start the series focusing on Kyoko and Godai's relationship before moving on to include the other tenants to have a "human drama," but said the love story attracted her more and took over.

She said that she adds new characters when she needs new story ideas, but remarked that the apartment setting of Maison Ikkoku limited her from adding too many. Takahashi said that when creating characters she roughly knows their "nature" while designing them, but not the details.

The characters' names involve puns on numbers, with those of the Maison Ikkoku tenants utilizing their room numbers.

(* Not residents of Maison Ikkoku.)

Yusaku Godai (五代 裕作, Godai Yūsaku) is the protagonist of the series. He begins as a poor 20-year-old rōnin studying for his college entrance exams after failing in the past year. He eventually gets into a third-tier college (with Kyoko's support). He is kindhearted and handsome, but indecisive and spacey. Godai is often "played" by the other tenants of Ikkoku, who habitually take advantage of him (e.g. they use his room for frequent drinking binges and steal food from his care packages). He falls in love with Kyoko at first sight, but initially lacks the courage (when sober at least) to tell her how he feels. Instead, he daydreams a lot and does several silly things (for example, he runs into road posts). But Godai is an honorable man who is worthy of Kyoko, as his love for her is a lasting and devoted love. He has, several times, tried making a move on Kyoko, but couldn't bring himself to do so; such actions make Kyoko think of him as a perfect gentleman. At the end, the married Godai and Kyoko finally found happiness and have a daughter, which they give the name Haruka Godai (五代春香, Godai Haruka). He is voiced by Issei Futamata in the Japanese anime, and by Jason Gray-Stanford (eps. 1-36) and Brad Swaile (eps. 37-96) in the English version. He is portrayed by Ken Ishiguro in the 1986 film and Taiki Nakabayashi in a 2007 TV film.

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