Rumiko Takahashi
Maison Ikkoku - Cara dolce Kyoko

Among sentimental/romantic anime, this is perhaps the most complete and poignant.
The characteristic that distinguishes it from other stories of the same narrative line is its being aimed at a young and/or adult audience instead of just teenagers; the story that unfolds over six years sees the physical and psychological maturation of the protagonists.

The story begins with two attempts: Godai tries once again to pass the university entrance exams, and Kyoko, by moving in as the administrator of Maison Ikkoku, attempts to overcome the pain of her husband's death and rebuild her life.
The anime, which quite faithfully mirrors the events of the manga created by Rumiko Takahashi, contains all the characteristic elements of the genre: emotion, comedy, action, misunderstandings, grotesque situations, characters so exaggerated that they paradoxically seem credible and alive.
The simple and sober style is fortunately far from the cubist mishaps of modern anime.

A feature that makes it special is that Takahashi creates with this story a small social and moral universe within a larger universe, which is contemporary Tokyo.
The settings and characters with their stories lead a life where tradition and modern ways coexist on the outskirts of a city in continuous expansion and development.
Their lives are governed by mechanisms to which modernity might pose dangers, yet their recklessness manages to overcome these dangers and incorporate them, living the modern in perfect symbiosis with their simple lives, bound to the rituals and customs of the past.
In the mid-80s, this type of union could still exist in Japan, and Takahashi did not fail to highlight these two worlds; when the characters "invade" modern Tokyo, the buildings seem menacing, and interpersonal relationships in their unfolding feel cold and rigorous, while when the events take place within the dilapidated Maison Ikkoku, the environments are warm and the relationships truer and permeated by a sense of humanity.

I am preemptively apologizing here for the bold comparison, but decades after the death of Mishima (literature) and involuntarily following Oshima's path (cinema), Takahashi continues in a light-hearted and disenchanted manner a small yet significant denunciation of the depersonalization and apathy in the new Japanese society following the Second World War. Her antidote can be found precisely in the stories of Kyoko and Godai and Maison Ikkoku, stories from another time.
Furthermore, the name “Maison Ikkoku,” almost to justify my perhaps overly bold arguments, translates as "the house of a moment" or "the timeless house"; in that house, in that present, in that moment exists the entire meaning of their lives.

Impressively, the drawing, the script, the direction, and the music, all elements entrusted to the sacred monsters of Japanese animation, fit perfectly without detracting anything from the strength and beauty of the corresponding manga in this anime.