Maison Ikkoku, Volume 1

I started reading this for various reasons, partly because I've been meaning to read this for a while, and partly because the manga came up during the J-Drama series “Blue Blazes”. I really enjoyed the manga, in part because while the story is somewhat serialized (in that there is continuity), it really its in with the “slice of life” genre a lot more than some of the other manga that have read that have been stuck into that genre (like K-On, like Sound of the Sky, etc.)

It's a portion of the ordinary lives of ordinary people, but rather than trying to be “literary” and putting the focus on lives of quiet desperation, as so many more pseudo-serious slice of life dramas and dramedies do, this manga gives these characters feel real without feeling boring or without moving things into the territory of the deliberately awkward family melodrama. Also, I'm pleased by the complete and total lack of (as of this volume) terminally ill people.