Title: I''s Volume(s): 15 Author(s): Masakazu Katsura Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: Viz Media MSRP: $7.99 Genre(s): Romance/Comedy Rated: Older Teen (16+)

The first wave of Viz's (so-called) new "Shonen Jump Advance" lineup is here (and before you bring up "Ultimate Muscle," apparently that release was a mistake and doesn't count as an official "Shonen Jump Advanced" release). Of the three titles being released under the new label, "I''s" is most especially noticeable because it is the first romance series released under any "Shonen Jump" label...period. If there's one thing Viz has built "Shonen Jump" up to be, it's a label where you are guaranteed to read a series with lots of action in it. Viz may say otherwise, but if you'll look at all the "Shonen Jump" titles they've released so far all of them, even the sports manga, have lots of action in them. As of right now, "I''s" is the only romance series to be released under one of the "Shonen Jump" labels, is the only "Shonen Jump" series that looks like it is going to be marketed at girls (it has a pink cover and everything), and from the looks of things, it's slated to be the only romance series to be released under the "Shonen Jump" label in the near future (especially now that Viz is launching their new "Shojo Beat" lineup). So with that in out of the way the main question you might be asking is "is it any good?"

Well, read and find out. The series revolves around a high school boy named Ichitaka Seto. Ichitaka is a normal boy who gets decent grades, hangs out with his friends, and has a crush on fellow high school student Iori Yoshizuki. Ichitaka loves Iori, but (like all boys in a romance series) he's too scared to ask her out. His reason for being shy though is quite different then what you'd expect; Iori posed for some riske pictures in her bathing suit for a popular magazine, and for weeks she's been hounded by a bunch of creeps, and Ichitaka doesn't want to be viewed as one of those creeps. Fate is kind to Ichitaka though, as one day during school, the teacher gives Ichitaka and Iori an assignment together, which gives Ichitaka and excuse to spend time with Iori. The first meeting doesn't go that well though, as Ichitaka ends up being so shy of her, that he doesn't say much to her, and Iori walks away with the impression that Ichitaka doesn't like her much. What really creates tension though is when someone tells Iori that Ichitaka has been stalking her on campus, and when a friend of Ichitaka's leaves a modified nude photo in his notebook by accident and Iori sees it, she believes that he is not any different from the perverted boys who have been hounding her about the magazine photos, and spends most of the book hating Ichitaka's guts (despite the fact that Ichitaka did nothing wrong).

Ichitaka tries making peace with Iori a couple times, but a big rift has been created, and Iori just doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with Ichitaka, and the lengths Iori goes to to make sure she never apologizes to Ichitaka are frustrating at best, maddening at worst. There is one scene where a bunch of girls (including Iori) are conned by some photo men to take off their cloths and make some riske poses for them. Well, Iori refuses to do this, and one of the photo men pins her to the wall with the intention of raping her. Ichitaka gets to the room and saves Iori right before the guy can do anything, but Iori's way of thanking him is to claim that he is just like the guy who was about to rape her. What the heck?! To add insult to matters, Ichitaka (sensing that there is no way to salvage this friendship) tells Iori he will quite the commission club, and Iori is completely ungrateful to him for trying to make her more comfortable. This scene almost made me throw the book down in frustration, as this girl wasn't just being ungrateful at this point, she was being stupidly ungrateful (and Ichitaka truly deserved to be treated better after what he did for her). The situation gets even more sticky when Ichitaka's American cousin, Itsuki, comes to live with him, and all hell breaks loose (in a way). "I''s" disappointed me, it really did. I had heard such great things about the authors previous manga ("Video Girl Ai"), I loved the cover, and the artwork was beautiful, so I thought I would really get into this. Well, I didn't really get into this series...in fact, there were times when I even despised this series. Ichitaka is a very likable character, but he's truly treated like crap in this series.

In "Love Hina," Keitero was a nice guy who kept getting slapped around because of misunderstandings, but that was okay as "Love Hina's" humor was supposed to be based around slapstick, so the abuse Keitero took upon himself was funny (and it helped that he sometimes made the lives of the Hinata girls just as miserable sometimes). Here Ichitaka is also going through tons of misunderstandings, but the difference is that "I''s" is supposed to be taken seriously (at least, I think it is). Ichitaka is a nice guy, and when I say he's a nice guy, I mean he's a really nice guy. He's considerate, he's kind, he constantly worries about the way he views women, and he goes above and beyond the call of duty to protect someone who doesn't like him. This goes above and beyond the role of a shonen protagonist, as most shonen protagonists who star in shonen romance series are perverts to a certain degree. In this sense, when Iori accuses Ichitaka of being just like the guy who tried to rape her, you can't help but feel pretty bad for Ichitaka, and you hope that he finds another girl to fall in love with real soon. This shouldn't happen. When a story sets up two characters to fall in love with each other, one thing you need to do is make it so that readers believe in the romance and make them want to root for the characters to get together. With "I''s" I'm not rooting for these two characters to get together...in fact, I'm reading this while rooting for Ichitaka to find a better girl to get together with. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty positive that that's NOT supposed to happen!

I wish I could say that there was a great supporting cast that helps move the story along when the tension comes along, but there are barely any supporting characters to speak of. Ichitaka has a best friend by the name of Yasumasa Teratani, who's purpose (at the time anyway) is to stick up for Ichitaka and help him out with the problems he's having with Iori (trust me, he's the only one doing this). There's also, um...well, actually that's it really, unless you consider the teacher (who has no name) who gives Ichitaka and Iroi the school assignment as a supporting character. The lack of supporting characters hurts this series quite a bit, as Ichitaka and Iori are left to their own game, and so far it looks like there should be extra characters to help them out with the narrative and situations these characters find themselves in. Someone to maybe put a situation in perspective for Iori, or someone to get them both into more trouble, or maybe for someone to point out that both party members are acting like complete morons (if the time comes for this that is). Unfortunately, the lack of supporting characters makes the story feel empty sometimes, and the feeling is not very welcome. The artwork in "I''s" is beautiful. Granted, it's nothing outside of the standard shounen romance style artwork, but what is there gets the job done really good, and most of the character designs are very attractive. I am especially caught up in Iori's character design, and she is just cute as a button (and better yet, she LOOKS like a Japanese schoolgirl). The backgrounds are well drawn, and many of the, um...special poses Iori does are drawn extremely well. The artwork is nothing unique, but it's extremely good none-the-less.

However the artwork is where some of this titles controversy comes from. In case you didn't know, either Viz or the author (or both) decided to cover up several breast nipples with black stars on them. Yeah; STARS! I thought it was pretty lame too, but apparently the author did this in book three of the series, so I guess he likes them stars quite a bit. While this does nothing to affect the story of the series, it is frustrating that "I''s" has to be censored in the first place (especially since "I''s" is being released under the "Shonen Jump Advanced" label, which was supposed to be created so that they could avoid censoring titles). What's really strange is that this series contains many panty shots, riske poses, a shot of a girls almost bare butt, and so many other sexual images, that I wonder why someone thought the nipples were offensive enough to cover up. Really strange. Otherwise though, Viz's translation of the book is excellent, with no spelling error's, the paper was excellent (better then usual for some reason), and I give kudos to Vis for making the color of this series cover pink and purple (seeing as how this series is being marketed torwards teenage boys and college students). What really kills this series is not the censorship (which, despite being frustrating, is extremely minor), what kills it is the way Iori treats Ichitaka. There are WAY too many misunderstandings that shouldn't be misunderstandings in the first place, and the way Iori thanks Ichitaka for helping her out of situations is so disgusting that I wanted to slap her sometimes!

Sanatized for your protection...I think.

This series is not terrible, but the way the story plays out, the way the characters get treated (and treat each other), and all the other narrative problems just make the story very unenjoyable most of the time. When you factor the censorship into all of this (which brings the value of the book down just one grade more), it makes it hard for me to really recommend this series to anyone. If you've never read a shounen romance series before then this might be considered to be pretty decent, and the price is right for newcomers (a measly $7.99 per book), but the series itself starts out good only to get bogged down by stupid situations and a very unlikable leading lady. I can think of better romance series to invest in than this one.

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -