#Big Comic Spirits

[dailydefunctmangamagazine]

Spirits Zōkan IKKI (スピリッツ増刊IKKI) / Shōgakukan (小学館) / Jul 2001 issue

[haveyoureadthismanga-poll]

[jariten]

東京ラブストーリー (Tokyo Love Story), Fumi Saimon

[thes-hitoverlord]

The official Adult Swim Facebook

[rumicworldweek]

Big Comic Spirits No. 11 November 1980

[ashitakaxsan]

  Men's love-com manga were around long before Rumiko sama.However  Maison Ikkoku is original,cause the main girl is a Widow!

  Godai is frustrated  by his offbeat and mischievous tenants,in the Maison Ikkoku boarding house.Due to them he can’t concentrate to the study and pass the entry exams for university.He’s about to abandon it,but he is stopped at the door by the beautiful Kyoko Otonashi, who announces she will be the new manager.Immediately he’is in love with her,so he decides to stay,and win her heart. Despite the running Sadness(caused of  tragic death of Kyoko’s first husband , Soichiro Otonashi),the persistent  antagonist  Shun Mitaka ,the numerous misunderstandings he was with High Spirit. He bravely tells to Kyoko how he Loves Only her.Thus with honesty she warmly affirms she loves him by quite long ago.Shortly after they get married :)

[chimpoozle]

chimpoozle's Maison Ikkoku Facts #1 - Godai's Remark

Maison Ikkoku by Rumiko Takahashi is one of my favorite manga\anime of all time, if not my #1 favorite. And now that I am here on tumblr I will use it as an outlet to share things I find interesting about this series that I expect most people don't know. Since this is the first post in this series of posts I will start at chapter 1 of the manga, with an examination of a speech bubble whose nuance and context have been lost amid their travels through the barriers of language, culture, and time.

6 pages deep into the very first chapter of Maison Ikkoku, we (and the rest of the cast) have just met Kyoko Otonashi for the first time when she unexpectedly appears and announces that the previous manager of the main setting's boarding house has retired and she will be moving in and taking over as the new manager. It is clear from this first interaction that our protagonist Godai is feeling some kind of way towards Kyoko from the outset.

Below in Japanese is the scene I want to discuss:

Kyoko: 明日管理人室に入りますので.......きょうはこれで失礼します． Yotsuya: は, お待ちしております． Akemi: 土下座することないでしょ!!

Ichinose: まだ若いじゃないの．勤まるのかね？

Godai: いいなー，あれ．

Rough\literal English translation: Kyoko: Tomorrow I'll be moving into the manager's room, so please excuse me for today. Yotsuya and Godai: (extremely formal and polite) We will await your return.

Akemi: "You don't need to get down on your knees over it!!" Ichinose: "Isn't she still quite young? Do you think she's up to it?" Godai (watching Kyoko leave): "Nice...."

The line in question is the last one: Godai's "いいなー，あれ." To break this short utterance down:

いい = "ii" = Good/Nice/Attractive/Something you like なー = "naa" = A sound you stick on the end of a sentence or comment when you are just musing to yourself and not seeking approval or agreement from the listener. あれ" = "are" = "that"

いいなー together is a commonly used expression to indicate that you like something and you wish you had it, especially if you are jealous that somebody else has it. If somebody shows you their new car and you say いいなー！ It means "nice! \ It's so nice! \ Lucky you! \ I wish I had that! \ I'm jealous!"

As you can hopefully see, it is fine to make this statement when you are talking about an object, but when you direct it towards a human it sounds like a crude objectification akin to ogling someone and saying "nice. I want that." In fact he does call her "あれ" which = "that." It isn't a great look for our protagonist Godai whom we have only just met.

Let us look then at the original English translation of this line translated by convicted felon Gerard Jones and see how it was handled:

Here Godai's remark becomes "ain't that nice?" and I suppose it somewhat retains the feeling a skeevy, lecherous, ogle. I don't love this translation, but it's ok based on the Japanese. But there is also a brand new Viz translation of Maison Ikkoku which is so new that it (at the time of writing) still has 1 volume left to be published. So let's see what they went with for this line:

Here Godai's line has been significantly softened to "she's so pretty..." I would say that in this translation he escapes without looking like too much of a perv.

So which of these two English translations better conveys the nuance of the original Japanese? Well it is actually a bit more complicated than just a simple answer, because we are missing important context for this line that was known to the readers who were there when it was first published.

Maison Ikkoku chapter 1 was serialized in the debut issue of Big Comic Spirits (November, 1980 on the cover date, published in mid-October 1980.) If you lived in Japan in October of 1980 and read this chapter, you would be aware that Godai's line, "いいなー，あれ," is a reference to a series of currently-running television commercials advertising the Yamaha Towny Moped.

In these commercials, the owner of a parked Towny would return to find some stranger gawking over their bike who will then enviously get into a conversation with them regarding how いい it is. As the owner hops on the bike and rides away, the on-looker will say to themselves "いいな，あれ" as they watch them drive off into the distance. Just as Godai is watching Kyoko walk off into the distance from behind. Here is one such commercial on youtube:

Looking at this youtube upload now, I notice there is a 2 year old comment from someone mentioning this panel in Maison Ikkoku chapter 1, and how this seems to be the inspiration for that line. Many of the other comments mention how famous or nostalgic these commercials were, with one commenter saying he still uses "いいなー，あれ" to this day. Further down the page someone mentions the ad is parodied in volume 1 of Kariage-kun, a famous gag manga, which is another indication of how well-known this ad campaign was to people living in Japan at the time. You are meant to hear Godai speak this line in your mind with the same intonation as the on-looker in this commercial.

And for that reason, I would rather give Godai the benefit of the doubt for this comment that the new Viz English translation gives him. Perhaps even in-universe he is referencing these moped ads.

Unfortunately for him, even in Japan young people no longer remember this ad campaign, and Godai is doomed for eternity to be condemned by young readers as a lecherous, ogling, womanizing, perv just a handful of pages into reading this manga.

[theruffiansretrorampage]

art by DANMAKUMAN

[sleepless-miles]

Ping Pong, by Taiyo Matsumoto

[becasart]

Fic: Envy is the Enemy of Honor

Here is my second contribution for the @zkbigbang and guau! This scene though! It motivated me to try something new and make a comic in this format. Make sure y'all give everyone who participated on this project some love 😭💕

[ruoyeming]

Spirited Away! AU to heal my sad little heart <3

[dailydefunctmangamagazine]

Big Comic Spirits Casual (ビッグコミックスピリッツCasual) / Shōgakukan (小学館) / Sep 2004 issue

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[jariten]

おたんこナース (Otanko Nurse), Noriko Sasaki & Mitsue Kobayashi

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] Steph and Damian doodle! This taps a bit into their pre-52 dynamic so that's what I was thinking design wise at first but I wanted to draw it w their more recent designs as well to stay hashtag current and topical, so you get both/a fusion, lol

[bobbinalong]

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