I’’s vol. 1
They say that the average teenage boy thinks about sex every 7 minutes.
Now you would think that this fact would me more true for some boys then it would for others. If you recall your adolescent and teenage years, you will remember that there were some real perverts and horn-balls back then. You know, the boys that would bring porno magazines to school or spend most of the time talking to others about how hot the girls are around them.
But then at the complete opposite of the spectrum comes the guys like me. Hopeless romantics that spend all daydreaming about finding that perfect girl to call their own. Someone to go out on dates with. Someone to give gifts too. Someone to just simply love. Surely these guys are not at all like the perverts. They’re not thinking all those nasty things, right?
Well, as the hero of our story puts it, “Guys who aren’t interested in naked girls only exist in fairytales!” It’s just a fact of life that from the perverts to the sweethearts, sex is on the mind of every teenaged boy. And this is the idea and inspiration behind Masakazu Katsura’s latest US release, I’’s.
I’’s (pronounced “eyes”) is the story of Ichitaka Seto, a typical high school student and overall a very sweet guy. He has a crush on his fellow classmate Iori Yoshizuki. He experienced a harsh rejection from another girl very early in his adolescence, and so now he’s too shy to show his feelings for her. But as luck would have it, the two of them were chosen to pair up to run a class presentation together. And so she cutely calls the group “I’s” since both of their names both being with the letter I.
But the situation has changed very quickly for “I’s” as Iori was recently featured in a magazine doing a swimsuit photo shoot. The magazine starts circulating among the boys in the class, and they all go crazy for the sexy girl. But of course in every high school, you got a bunch of boys that are complete perverts and have no shame at all when it comes to sex. They end up harassing the poor girl by shouting such things as “Show us what you got!” and chanting, “Strip! Strip! Strip!” to her. Ichitaka sees this and is disgusted at the other boy’s behavior, so he does what he can to protect the girl he cares about.
And this is where the drama and conflicts in the story come in. As disgusted as he is with the perverts, he can’t help but to agree with them to some level. He saw the magazine himself and has been thinking his own little sexual fantasies about Iori ever since. He can’t help himself from staring at her butt as a sudden gust of wind shows her panties to him. So in his head he’s battling with the question, “Just what makes me better then those low-life perverts?”
But Ichitaka is truly a nice guy inside. As he watches Iori acting in her drama club, he’s blown away and wonders, “How could I think those nasty thoughts about her?” He really does care about Iori’s feelings over his own self interest, but it’s just human nature to get carried away sometimes with sex. He doesn’t want to be a pervert, so he does feel guilty when he loses control. As the reader you understand his true intentions, and you cheer him on as he finds is way to showing the girl how he truly feels. It’s this kind of story that paved the way for other great shounen romances in recent years like Love Hina and Ichigo 100%.
But manga is made up of story and art, and this title shines in both. One of the things that makes Katsura so great in my mind is the way he shows the beauty of the female body. His girls are not your typical exaggerated anime babes. They often have petite figures with realistic waste and breast sizes. His proportions are dead on, and his details and shading are incredible. His nudes look as if he had sketched real female models. He proves just how much manga is an art form. In particular, the cover art is amazing. It shows Iori but drawn to look like a photo-realistic Japanese girl. Now while the rest of the comic is not done in this style, is still look very nice.
So not only I did enjoy this series, but so far it’s one of my favorites. And judging by the fact that it lasts for 15 volumes, I’m sure that the quality will not go down for a while. This is the series that the American Love Hina fans have been waiting for. I’’s is a great story of teenage love, sex, and comedy.
