My all-time favourite manga is Living Game by Hoshisato Mochiru; it is a romantic comedy about two young people in Tokyo, Fuwa and Izumi, and their struggle for a home. It first appeared in the weekly manga magazine Big Comic Spirits in October 1990 and now fills 10 tankoubon.
Fuwa Raizou works in a small, crowded office and lives in a tiny one-room apartment. He longs for open space. His dream seems realized when he finally moves into a bigger apartment and his company prepares to move into a new spacious office.
Neither proves to be what he expected, however. An earthquake damages the new office building just as Fuwa and his co-workers are about to unload the moving van. Fuwa's new apartment is nearby and quickly becomes a temporary office.
Shortly after, the president announces that she has hired the daughter of an old friend. The girl, Hiyama Izumi, is only fifteen years old. Normally she would be in high school, but she has lost all interest in school due to a long history of family problems. Izumi has some trouble finding an apartment because nobody wants to rent to somebody so young, but she finally finds a place of her own. Although it's in a run-down building and in a seedy part of town, she is happy to begin setting up her new home.
Soon after she moves in, however, the building becomes slated for demolition to make way for a new development project, and she is evicted. Having nowhere to go, she is completely distraught -- until Fuwa offers to let her stay temporarily at his apartment/office.
