MISC. MANGA, *You & Me

Most American otaku from the 90s might be familiar with Hiroshi Aro's manga, Futaba-Kun Change, which was a gender-bending madcap comedy done as an homage to Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2, but one of his other titles managed to briefly appear on American bookshelves that also honored Takahashi's work, You And Me which was his own take on Maison Ikkoku. Hiroshi Aro has had the entirety of Futuba-Kun Change available in English on formats like Kindle, but You And Me only got seven single issues with no collected paperback when Studio Ironcat translated it in 2002 as the company eventually went defunct under the label IC Entertainment. The original Japanese title for this was Yuu And Mii which of course means "you and me", and oddly enough there is an unrelated manga titled You And Me, Etc., but this version is more of a fast-paced gag series filled with a constantly moving parade of mature situations.

Yuu is what's referred to as a ronin which is someone who has troubling getting into a university, so he moves into his own apartment to concentrate on studying, however his apartment building called Yaninarisou is filled with the peak of strange neighbors. For one thing, Yuu discovers he has a roommate named Mii who is the ghost of a sexy girl that doesn't mind randomly getting naked. Among the other spooky inhabitants are a musclebound shojo manga creator, a creepy loner who longing to make friends, another ronin who truly needs a haircut, an ex-masked female wrestler, and the landlord who always wears midieval armor. Mii takes a serious liking to Yuu and makes his life even more hectic than a teenage ronin could normally handle. From here, Yuu tries to keep his sanity while studying for college, fending off his horny dead roomie, and the other weirdos in this supernatural looney bin.

You And Me is on its own a spastic comedy that never slows down to get into anything deep like character backstory, so it's pretty good for today's swipe left generation. Other historical gag manga like Dr. Slump and Crayon Shin-Chan have gained fans over the decades, but they also had popular anime to back it up. You And Me is one of those lost manga that saw a glimpse on the other side of the Pacific which never got a good enough chance to develop a following.