Im going to be real with all of you this isnt going to be a review this is going to be a rant. You can already see my score I disliked this movie greatly I felt it spat in not only my face but the masterpiece that is the original series. Before I really get into it I just want to prestate that Maison Ikkoku is my 2nd favorite anime at times being my favorite anime. I love everything about it from its characters its realized setting its hearttouching love story the comedy the drama I love Maison Ikkoku. The series was such a masterpiece I even wrote a review on it but thats besides the point. Im about to rip this movie to shreds possibly spoil it rotten rage like a bitch boy you have been warned. Lets start off simple fuck this artstyle. The original TV series was gorgeous. Its beautiful backgrounds amazing character designs superb shot composition the TV show was a visual treat stayed consistently well made from start to finish. For whatever reason the people who worked on this movie decided to go with a completely unnecessary artstyle change. Yuuji Moriyama is the person I have to blame for taking what once were these absolutely beautiful character designs adapted by both himself eps 126 then later on Takada Akemi eps 2796 and absolutely fuck them up. Moriyama tried taking a more realistic approach to designing the characters in this movie but what Moriyama failed to realize was that the characters already looked about as real as you could believably make anime characters look in the original series so I dont understand why he made the characters so ugly in this movie. Remember earlier that I was praising the excellent backgrounds of the TV series? Yeah those took a hit too. What once where beautiful lush involved backgrounds have now become lifeless dull devoid of soul largely flat. Theres a couple of good looking backgrounds in this movie every once in awhile but theyre outweighed by the amount of bland backgrounds that are devoid of effort. I will give this movie some slight credit the animation quality is actually good. I still like the way the TV show animates better quite honestly the best animated moments of the TV series far surpass the best animated moments of this movie by a longshot. Now we have the story oh my fucking god the story. A point of criticism that often comes up from Maison Ikkoku detractors is that the misunderstandings of the show are far too frequent sometimes farfetched can easily be solved by Godai taking action. While I can understand these complaints they arent ones I agree with for the most part. Until I watched this movie I then saw the complaints about the misunderstandings first hand. First of all why? Why does Godai have such a lacking trust in Kyoko in this movie? We were treated to scenes in the series that clearly established these two shared a mutual trust betwixt oneanother Kyoko never did anything particularly sleezy in the series in the first place Mitaka had already become married why does Godai have any reason to believe Kyoko would be cheating on him? Did this idiot fuckgirl writer called Michiru Shimada go misunderstand Godais character entirely? She shouldnt have she wrote 8 episodes of the series some of them being my personal favorite episodes of the series. Let me be clear on one thing Godai isnt the brightest person out there hes indecisive gullible weak willed but he isnt completely fucking stupid. Now we have Yagamai oh my god why? Ibuki Yagami was one of my least favorite characters in the series but I didnt completely hate her because Yagami was still a realized character contributed to the overall narrative at play. Nearing the end of the series Yagami gives up on Godai coming to the realization that Godai likes Kyoko instead of her while this admittedly concludes anticlimatically in the series sortof plays out in a way to where it feels anticlimatic it was nevertheless a good conclusion to Yagamis arc. SO WHY DID THEY BRING HER BACK? On top of that why did they allow Yagami to be at her absolute worst that shes ever been at this point in the series. Once Yagamis arc concludes in the series she only appears infrequently never around anybody from Maison Ikkoku. Yagami had absolutely no reason to be in this movie. Her arc was concluded she moved on with her life in the series that was that. It was a nice bittersweet ending to a character arc in the series yet in KanketsuHen her she is for absolutely no reason other than to stir up some drama because of course. Theres also a subplot going on this movie about the master from Chachamaru trying to propose to Akemi while this is a somewhat sweet plot its really not explored is only used for a few scenes that add nothing but padding to an already short movie coming in at a runtime of 1 hour 6 minutes what a waste Im sorry you had to be in this terrible movie master. Another disappointing aspect of this movie is that one of the most important characters to Godais development Lioka decides to show up great Id love to see Lioka Godai have a sortof minireunion see how far Godai has come ever since he stopped working at the cabaret because sakamoto fucked him over the tenants of Maison Ikkoku are assholes who keep piling up his tab. But oh wait he gets trapped in a room with Kyokos dad for the whole movie just for 2 3 maybe 4 gags that contain some pretty slick transitions but are otherwise unfunny gags repeating the joke that Mr. Chigusa doesnt want his daughter to remarry especially to someone like Godai a man he finds unworthy of Kyokos heart what a fuckup. Now we have an absolutely pointless character that you would only need to make one minor plotchange he could be entirely useless not contribute a damn thing to this movie. Nikaidou only contributes showing the letter to Kyoko that started this whole dumbass misunderstanding in the first place on accident. Thats all hes barely used for gags he has nothing worth contributing to the story. This guy was actually not in the original TV series but was present in the manga. Im guessing he was cut from the TV series because he contributed nothing of value to the narrative of the original source material too. This movie was anime original why would you include a character from the manga that wasnt even in the fucking anime in the first place? But I digress. All in all the story of KanketsuHen is all the worst aspects of Maison Ikkoku that werent even that bad in the original series to begin with amplified by 20K then had the shitswitch cranked up on top of that god I hated this movie. You wanna talk sound? Because Ill do that too. The voice acting isnt bad but its nothing impressive or special like the original series was. All the voice actors reprise their roles as their respective characters Sumi Shimamoto as Kyoko Issei Futamata as Godai Shigeru Chiba as Yotsuya so on. But the voice actors here all sound like theyre phoning it in and only doing this for a paycheck I guess because the realized how terrible this movie was while they were recording their dialogue for it. The music is pathetic not terrible but an absolutely pathetic effort coming off of Kenji Kawais godlike OST from the original series. The movie didnt even have the decency to open with either a unique OP or a reused OP from the TV series what the fuck gives guys? Maison Ikkoku had some of the best OPs out there why didnt you flex those in this movie? The sound design is actually a salvageable part out of this mess though theres some great SFX used for some actually funny well timed moments in the movie footsteps sound good beer cans sound good Ill give the sound design some honest to god credit here it was byfar the part that had the most effort put into it. So in spite of all the shittalking Ive given to this movie why did I not rate it a 1/10 like I shouldve? Because there were some honest to god really good character moments in this movie. Like the scene between Yagami Kyoko in the attic of Maison ikkoku Yagami asks Kyoko So the princess has two lovers one of which being deceased the other being a young man which one does she choose? Kyoko thinks for a minute answers back with I never thought about comparing Godai to my late husband. The banter between these two the structure both surrounding this scene before after during the dialogue its brilliant actually reminded me that I was watching something related to one of my all time favorite things for a little bit. Another scene I loved was close to the end of this movie when Kyoko actually reads the letter to Godai. She tells a story about how Ikari Godai sent her a photo of Yusaku Godai in his childhood she accidentally ripped the picture wanted to apologize to Ikari for it. After Ikari writes back the contents of the letter were revealed Godai Kyoko have some beautiful dialogue between them again the way this scene the dialogue are structured is what makes it so good once again reminds me that Im actually watching something that can be related to Maison Ikkoku twice throughout this goddamn movie. Another point of praise is that some moments of storyboarding in this movie are actually pretty slick seamless its one of the few good directing moments in this movie as the directing from the TV series that was so insanely awesome in the first place has been stripped gutted. Ill also give credit that in the beginning of this movie I received a few laughs. I didnt have many laughs throughout this movie but hey credit where its due I guess Im already being too easy on this movie as I am. Maison Ikkoku KanketsuHen is absolutely pathetic. Why did this need to exist? What point did this serve to the overall narrative? What value did this add to the series? How much did the people who work on this get paid? Really there was no reason for this series to exist. The story would be a plot point that absolutely nobody wouldve cared about seeing as this wasnt in the the TV series or even the manga to begin with. The story sucks the art sucks the directing sucks the music sucks my favorite characters are a shell of their former selves in this movie devoid of their personality comedic moments except for Yotsuya. This movie is a disgrace to the masterpiece that is Maison Ikkoku. If you have any shred of selfrespect love this series please. Dont watch this terrible movie. It will bring nothing but disappointment anger. Final rating for this one is gonna be a 2/10. This was a shameless cashgrab that was made only to capitalize on Maisons popularity at the time is an absolute disgrace to this series and any everyone who is a fan of this series.