Why does the Maison Ikkoku movie look so different?
For that answer, let’s go straight to the source; character designer Yuji Moriyama. In a 1999 interview at Anime Central Moriyama had this to say: “The reason why is easy: the director specifically requested character designs that were different both from the anime and the television series. Another reason for the drastic difference is that perhaps I had just finished working on WINGS OF HONNEAMISE prior to this, so it may have had a residual bleed over into the MAISON movie. In retrospect, I think it was rather generous of Takahashi-san to accept such radical character designs.
