Maison Ikkoku

The anime adaptation of Maison Ikkoku was produced by the same team responsible for the previous Rumiko Takahashi anime, Urusei Yatsura (1981 version), including chief director Kazuo Yamazaki and much of the technical staff.

Several voice actors from Urusei Yatsura (1981) were cast in Maison Ikkoku, such as Kazunari Futamata (Yusaku Godai), Sumi Shimamoto (Kyoko Onodera), Shigeru Chiba, Akira Kamiya, Yuko Mita, Toshio Furukawa and Saeko Shimazu.

The production underwent various changes to the main team throughout the series: the chief director changed from Kazuo Yamazaki to Takashi Anno and then to Naoyuki Yoshinaga, and the head screenwriter also changed three times.

Until episode 26, the anime faithfully followed the original manga, including seasonal references that fell out of sync with the actual broadcast date, generating complaints from viewers; from episode 27 onwards, episodes such as a New Year's temple visit were replaced by a summer festival to match the broadcast period.

The personality of heroine Kyoko Onodera was toned down from episode 27 onwards, becoming more reserved and more faithfully in love with Soichiro, unlike the manga where she demonstrates jealousy and is more irritating to Godai.

The character Nozomu Nikaido, who in the manga moves to room number 2 of the Ikkoku-kan, never appears in the TV series, appearing only in the 1988 film 'Maison Ikkoku: The Final Chapter'.

Shun Mitaka's car was a Nissan Silvia in the original manga, but was changed to a Toyota Soarer in the anime, probably because Toyota became one of the sponsors of the series.

In episode 24, the theme songs were temporarily replaced by Gilbert O'Sullivan's songs 'Alone Again' and 'Get Down', to promote the live-action film 'Apartment Fantasy: Maison Ikkoku' starring Mariko Ishihara, but due to copyright issues the previous songs returned by the next episode.

The song 'Alone Again' by Gilbert O'Sullivan ended up being used again as a musical insert in the final scene of episode 27.

Kyoko Onodera's first character single, 'Yokan', was released in September 1986 credited to the character's name (and not to voice actress Sumi Shimamoto), being considered a pioneering milestone of the 'character song' concept in Japan.