I"s
I"s (アイズ) is a teenage romance manga by Masakazu Katsura. Originally serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan from 1997 to 1999, the series was collected into 15 volumes, the first of which was released in America by VIZ Media in March 2005.
I"s was also adapted as an OVA.
Some of the covers of the magazines in which it is serialized feature its lead female character Iori, and are done in water-color to a quality that approaches airbrushed art.
Plot summary
The story's main character is 16-year-old high school student Ichitaka Seto who is in love with his classmate Iori Yoshizuki, but too shy to tell her. Again and again he plans to tell her his true feelings, but each time something (usually a misunderstanding of some kind) gets in the way. Things become even more complicated when Itsuki Akiba, a girl Ichitaka was friends with in their childhood before she moved to the United States and who had a huge crush on him, returns to Japan.
Characters
- Ichitaka Seto (瀬戸 一貴) - A generally shy and reserved nature, and rough times with females when younger, have given Ichitaka a reflexively defensive posture when dealing with women. Thus, he's prone to rude comments when it seems some people are just trying to help, and can place a emotional wall in front of himself when people ask about his feelings. Regardless, he constantly thinks about Iori and it would seem he'd want nothing more than for her to be his girlfriend.
- Iori Yoshizuki (葦月 伊織) - Prim, proper, and friendly, not to mention gorgeous, Iori is a young lady who's easy to like and get along with. This generally positive outlook is put to the test from the beginning of the series, which opens on a magazine article featuring Iori in a swimsuit spread. Suddenly, Iori's the center of attention, and she finds it difficult to differentiate whether people (particularly men) like her for herself or her beauty.
- Itsuki Akiba (秋葉 いつき) - Loud, reckless, and shameless, Itsuki seems the antithesis of Iori. Itsuki and Ichitaka had been friends since grade school, with Itsuki often being an emotional coach to Ichitaka, particularly with women. The two seemed to become closer than friends in their young life, a relationship that was suddenly aborted when Itsuki moved away to America years before the series begins. Itsuki just as abruptly returns to Ichitaka's life soon after the series starts, now a fully grown young lady, but still with real feelings for Ichitaka.
Volumes
- Volume 1 (ISBN 1591169526)
- Volume 2 (ISBN 1591169534)
- Volume 3 (ISBN 1591169690)
Meaning of title
The name of this series nominally comes from the fact that three of its main characters (and later in the series, a fourth character: Izumi) have names which begin with the letter I. However, the slightly different set of characters I's are apparently common in the peculiar adaptations that the Japanese make of words in the English language, a use which they call wasei eigo, which in English-speaking countries is often called Engrish. There's a trivial volume of shōjo manga called I's, which simply features beautiful boys, its name apparently coming from a solecism meaning *of I, hence implying private. But a female manga artist, Youko Shouji, made a more renowned story which she also named I's, which told of a teenage girl abused by her stepfather. In her work, the name refers to the fragmentation of her personality into many selves (I's here not being a solecism) brought out by such abuse. As this preceded Masakazu's work, it appears that he named it such, but with two apostophes in the title to differentiate it, to excite the male readership with premonitions of teenage sex, which to date has not occurred in his manga.
Edits in the English edition
The English volumes of I"s include minor editing (usually of nudity), as VIZ stated "to fit the criteria of audiences in the U.S." [1]. These edits were done with the approval of Katsura.
- In Volume 1, Iori's nipples were covered by stars in one scene
- In Volume 2, when Ichitaka accidentally walks in on Itsuki fresh from the shower, Itsuki's nipple was replaced by a water droplet
- In Volume 3, page 51, Hyoko's exposed breasts are covered with water "bubbles".