Maison Ikkoku

The story mainly takes place at Maison Ikkoku (一刻館, Ikkoku-kan), a worn and aging boarding house in a fictional Tokyo ward called Tokeizaka (時計坂; "Clock Hill"), where college applicant Yusaku Godai lives. Though honest and good-natured, he is weak-willed and often taken advantage of by the other residents of Maison Ikkoku, each with their offbeat and mischievous personalities: Yotsuya the voyeur, shameless Akemi Roppongi and the Ichinose family, primarily the alcoholic, gossiping stay-at-home mom Hanae Ichinose. As he is about to move out, he is stopped at the door by the beautiful Kyoko Otonashi (née Chigusa), who announces she will be taking over as the resident manager. Godai immediately falls in love with her and decides to stay.

Godai and the other tenants find out that despite her young age, Kyoko is a widow: after she married her high school teacher Soichiro, he died shortly thereafter. Godai empathizes with Kyoko and endeavors to free her from her sadness. He manages to work up enough courage to confess his love to her, and just as their nascent relationship begins to develop, Kyoko meets the rich, handsome and charming tennis coach Shun Mitaka at her neighborhood tennis club. Mitaka quickly declares his intention to court Kyoko and states that he is very patient, and can wait until her heart is ready.

Takahashi created Maison Ikkoku as a love story that could occur in the real world. 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 had wanted to create a story about an apartment complex for some time, as when she lived in an apartment in Nakano during college, there was another decrepit apartment behind it. The strange actions of the people living there served as inspiration.

It was Big Comic Spirits's editor-in-chief Katsuya Shirai who recruited Takahashi for the newly-launching seinen manga magazine. Soichiro Suzuki, Takahashi's third editor on Maison Ikkoku beginning from the eighth or ninth chapter, explained that having a young up-and-coming female artist attracted much attention for the new magazine. Suzuki also said that Takahashi went with the romantic comedy genre for the new series because of the magazine's older reader demographic, but noted it still had the gag-like feel of Urusei Yatsura in the beginning. According to both Shirai and Suzuki, Maison Ikkoku was popular right from the start.

Maison Ikkoku has over 25 million collected volumes in circulation. In 2002, Christopher Macdonald, co-editor-in-chief of Anime News Network, wrote that while far from her most popular, Maison Ikkoku is considered by many to be Rumiko Takahashi's best work. Although all her titles have a romantic angle, he said that with its lack of supernatural elements or aliens, Maison Ikkoku's simple premise of a university student who falls in love with his landlady is mundane in comparison, but it is this excellently crafted romantic story that makes it her greatest work. Macdonald wrote that what it does have in common with most of Takahashi's other works is "absolute, unadulterated hilarity", but this differs still in that it features hilarious situations that actually happen in the real world. Like Macdonald, Comics Beat's Morgana Santilli noted how Maison Ikkoku is an anomaly in Takahashi's bibliography as it contains no fantasy or magical elements, but does include her signature wacky romcom hijinks of "jealous would-be lovers, plenty of pratfalls, and needlessly complicated misunderstandings", which makes it just as charming and fun as more popular works like Ranma ½.

Jason Thompson claimed that while Maison Ikkoku was not the first men's love-com, it is "almost certainly the best" and definitely Takahashi's best work. He also stated that because the main character is a university student, Maison Ikkoku is "slightly more sophisticated" compared to Kimagure Orange Road. Anime News Network (ANN) gave the manga an "A" for its story and an "A−" for its art, stating that the series shows off Takahashi's skill; "with a clear cut and rather simple plot, she is able to concentrate on the characters, using them to drive the story, while at the same time ensuring the proper reader reaction intended for each scene." They remarked that the story focuses on Yusaku and Kyoko's relationship, with the other characters used only "to create conflicts, exposition, and comedic relief."