Trivia / Maison Ikkoku

• Acclaimed Flop: In North America; while the manga and anime have been widely praised by American anime critics and fans who did read/watch it, it's still had a history of struggling there in terms of sales.
• Acting for Two:
  • Some of the original version's voice actors acted for two or even three or four. Shigeru Chiba did this often, as he's the voice of Yotsuya and Soichiro (Kyoko's dog). Megumi Hayashibara, Gara Takashima, Yoshino Takamori, Tomohiro Nishimura, Fumihiko Tachiki and the late Hiroshi Masuoka also played multiple roles regularly throughout the series' run (such as Hayashibara's Taro and Koizumi, or Takashima's Midori and Hiyoko).
  • The Italian dub had a limited batch of voice actors, so multiple performers had at least two to four roles:
    • For the first 52 episodes, Kyoko and her mother Ritsuko are both voiced by Monica Ward; Hanae, Akemi, Ikuko, Godai's grandmother Yukari and Kozue are all played by Daniela Caroli; Shun and Sakamoto are voiced by Stefano Onofri; and Bruno Cattaneo voices the Chachamaru master, Soichiro and Godai's father.
    • Beginning with episode 53, Godai, the Chachamaru master, Sakamoto and Mr. Chigusa are all voiced by Sergio Luzi; Ludovica Marineo plays Kyoko, Hanae and Akemi; and Kozue, Ikuko, Yukari, Ritsuko, Ibuki and Atsuko are played by Gabriella Andreini.
• Completely Different Title: Juliette, je t'aime^note Juliette, I love you in France, Cara dolce Kyoko^note Dear sweet Kyoko in Italy.
• Cultural Translation: The VIZ dub attempts an anachronistic Woolseyism in the episode where Yusaku fiercly objects to the idea of Yotsuya private tutoring Ibuki. He compares Yotsuya to the "kind of person who would release poison gas in a subway". The real life inspiration for this line, the 1995 Tokyo subway attack, occurred almost ten years after this series' events conclude. This may or may not be the dub writers briefly forgetting that this series is set roughly between 1980 and 1986.
• Fake Brit: Yotsuya's British accent in the Viz English dubs, which is meant to reflect his very formal speech patterns in Japanese. To be fair, his first dub actor, Gerard Plunkett is an Irish born Canadian. Ron Halder, his replacement post episode 36, however, is American but does a very seamless transition from his predecessor.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Many people didn't learn about this series, manga or anime, until it was long out of print. While copies of the manga's first edition (with the flipped artwork) are fairly easy to find secondhand – a lot of people dumped their old books when the series was re-released in the mid-2000's – certain volumes of the second edition, mostly in the middle of the series, are very rare. As for the anime, the last four boxsets are rare, especially the mythical Box 8.
  • Though the state of the anime is still up in the air, Viz has announced that an official re-release and translation of the original manga will go the way of Ranma and Urusei by mid-2020.
• Licensed Game: Two visual novels / adventure games were created in the eighties for Japanese computers and consoles. The PC Engine version of Micro Cabin's game Omoide no Photograph was translated by fans in 2008. Kanketsu Hen ~Sayonara, Soshite...~ remains untranslated.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The English dub, started in the mid-90's (around the same time as Ranma ½'s), was originally cancelled at Episode 36 due to poor sales. After a LONG hiatus, Viz restarted the dub in 2004 for their DVD boxsets. They still used The Ocean Group for recording, but many of the cast had to be replaced – namely Godai (Jason Gray-Stanford to Brad Swaile), Hanae (Daphne Goldrick to Kathy Morse), Yotsuya (Gerard Plunkett to Ron Halder), Kentaro (Saffron Henderson to Sharon Alexander), Ikuko (Andrea Libman to Nicole Bouma), and Kozue (Rochelle Greenwood to Anna Cummer).
    • In one variation, Robert O. Smith filled the role as the master of Chachamaru for two episodes when David Kaye was apparently unavailable. Kaye returned to the role soon after.
    • An even more interesting variation is Toshizo and Mitsuo, two regulars at the Chachamaru. For the first 36 episodes they were voiced by Ward Perry and Terry Klassen respectively. After the hiatus however, the roles were switched for some strange reason with Klassen voicing Toshizo and Perry voicing Mitsuo. It was most likely a mix up.
    • Yuko and Midori, two gossiping members of Mitaka's tennis club, were initially voiced by Cathy Weseluck and Saffron Henderson. After the hiatus and Henderson was no longer available, the two went through several different voices. Sometimes the voices would reverse.
  • In the Japanese version:
    • TARAKO, better known for Kirara in Inuyasha, filled in as Akemi for one episode at the near end of the show.
    • In the series, Kuroki was voiced by Saeko Shimazu but for the final chapter movie she was replaced with Yoshiko Sakakibara.
    • For the CR Maison Ikkoku games, Takahiro Sakurai voices Yusaku Godai instead of Issei Futamata and Satsuki Yukino voices Kyoko Otonashi instead of Sumi Shimamoto.
• Playing Against Type: Norio Wakamoto in one of his earlier roles as Master, the bartender at Cha-Cha Maru.
• Production Posse: Director Kazuo Yamazaki, character designers Yuji Moriyama and Akemi Takada, and composer Kenji Kawai worked as regulars on Urusei Yatsura.
• What Could Have Been: Mami Koyama was originally tagged to play Kyoko in the anime adaptation, but as she had already contracted for Wonder Beat Scramble, an Osamu Tezuka anime which would be running in the same time slot on TBS, the role was given to Sumi Shimamoto instead.
• Write What You Know: The series was inspired by Takahashi's own experience of living in an apartment complex in Nagano, which had a more decrepit apartment behind it. The strange actions of the people living there inspired the characters' antics.

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