Juliette, je t'aime

After watching the series in small bits it will take some time to digest it all. Watch it in slow pace.

Beauty, solid argument and characters, deep emotions, funny and laughable at times, you will also have to wipe away tears. This story will be forever in you.

It came before Please Teacher, before Love Hina, even before Kimagure Orange Road. I might be too young to say for sure, but I'll bet this is the series that started the whole romantic comedy movement. It's also one of the few with a mature enough storyline to keep post-teenagers interested.

Yeah, it's the same plot that exists in every anime of the type: boy meets girl, boy and girl deny their feelings for the entire series (but hook up every few episodes), boy and girl finally get together in the end. As a consequence, the plot moves a bit slowly and is a bit too one-track-minded; more fun plot diversions would have been welcome. Still, it's a pretty funny series, and the characters are colorful enough to care about for 96 straight episodes. If you're into Rumiko Takahashi's stuff, Maison Ikkoku's probably the best place to start.

THIS IS THE BEST ROMANCE ANIME OF ALL TIME and also generally just one of the best anime of all time.

Best story, best animation, best characters, best sound, best music, best atmosphere, best direction, best comedy, best charm, best romance... and the list goes on, think of this anime as the Shawshank Redemption of anime, a piece of entertainment that will go down in history as the greatest of all time and a role model on how to do good anime and an example of why 80s and 90s anime will always be best anime.

This is my favourite cult 80's series.

Of course, the anime has dated, but it's still timeless thanks to the work of Rumiko Takahashi (manga), Yamazaki Kazuo (director) and Akemi Takada (anime).

Any idea of an up-to-date remake would be frightening, since the work has been so horrible with series such as Saint Seiya, Bishoujo Sailor Mon, Dragon Quest Dai no Daiboken or Urusei Yatsura... In other words, beautiful but polished and without soul.

This series, like its mangaka, is subversive, dealing with taboo subjects, goofy, ironic and mature in the subjects it touches on (divorce, mourning, the world of business, single parenthood, desires...).

It's got it all : Humour, drama, comedy, romance, love, sexy with parodic episodes and a real reflection on the feelings of love while keeping an unconventional tone.

96 episodes, 2 specials, 2 OVAs and 2 movies by Deen studio.

Considering the disasters we've seen with the remakes, I hope this series stays as it is.

Maison Ikkoku is one of my favorite rom-com stories ever.

Everything starts with Godai, who is a boy that is studying for important exams, the ones that will lead him to a great or a bad japanese university, that will define his future. His hostel neighbors make his task even more difficult as they keep bothering him. Suddenly, everybody's lives begin to change, essentialy Godai's, as the new manager (kanrinin), Kyoko, starts working in the hostel.

The past of the "kanrinin" is really well thought out and is a perfect obstacle to prevent her from loving Godai. Due to this important fact plus many smart obstacles created by Rumiko, the 96 episodes of the series are amazing.

Kyoko and Godai are very relatable and real. We get to know their thoughts so we know them deep inside and can't help but love them and cheer for them to be together.

The support characters are great and well developed too. The way Takahashi mixed their stories with the main characters one is perfect.

What stands out for me is how well the narrative navigates between drama, comedy and romance. This has everything to do with the lines, sometimes very deep.

About the technical aspects I have only good things to say.

The animation is beautiful and it aged very well to me. The expressions are marvelous and the landscapes are breathtaking.

To end this, something that helps a lot with the genre navigation I mentioned are the scores. They give the perfect feeling of each scene, making the atmosphere more comic, romantic or dramatic. Also, I love the 1980s style in the scores and in the openings and endings, it's perfect for the anime theme, very passionate.