Ranked #988

IO (Manga)

IO basically starts of as a distinctive Harem, Romantic, Comedy, but as you go on you’ll discover that there is more to this manga, once the Supernatural, Mystery element surfaces.

It follows the endeavours of your average city boy (Taiyo), who visits Okinawa, only to end up meeting 3 girls. It appears that he once was acquainted with the sisters, some time in the past, yet he can't seem to recall any of it. That’s basically how it all begins and behind what would seem like a typical Rom/Com lies a fantastic story of supernatural mystery, scuba diving and ancient relics. The way in which the story is told is simply amazing because you just don’t know what to expect next. Although you have to get through the first 5 volumes before it becomes interesting. Nonetheless there are plenty of twist and turns, in the story, but somehow everything manages to come together in the end.

The artwork is one of the most outstanding features of this manga and in the beginning you may not think that but gradually the artwork becomes almost flawless, especially the water effects. However there is so much detail put on every page that you’ll begin to notice the little flaws; like the character eye lines and how one of the girls tends to looks like a boy (i.e. Shibuki). The few beautiful, colour pages, of amazing fanservice do help make up for that.

The characters themselves are amazingly well-defined that it is easy to notice their mannerisms and the way they interact with one another. There are also quite of few of them that are rather mysterious and you may begin to wonder ‘who’s trustworthy?’ The only real problem is that some of the things the characters tend to do can be considered foolish or annoying.

I came into this manga thinking it will be just another average manga but IO surprised the heck out of me, because it far surpassed my expectations. The romance was so believable and it merged well with the rest of the story. After the slow start the story begins to unravel itself and becomes so interesting to read. It's able to suck most people into all the mystery, forcing you to read on, to discover more but sadly the ending does still leave a bunch of unanswered questions. So if the story is unable to capture you, then you probably won’t enjoy it as much as this reviewer.

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This was one of the most unique stories that I've had the privileged of witnessing in a long time. This was a cross between harem, mystery, Romance, and sport (if you consider scuba diving a sport that is).
Story:
The story starts out with a class trip down to some tropical islands where our lead protagonist meets a girl who blames him for killing her mom. One thing leads to another and the next thing he knows he's learning how to scuba dive with some long lost, and apparently forgotten friends. Now this story really has two stages to it. It starts off with the very technical stuff: setting character dynamics, relationships, and intro into the main storyline, as well as all the tech of scuba diving. Being a scuba diver, seeing everything that i learned put into this story, and extremely accurate i might add, was really cool. But for those who aren't into that type of stuff this can seem kind of boring.
Then the story cranks it up to the real mystery and plot. Now without giving anything away, this is when the characters really start to change and grow, and for most people this is when it starts to get good.
This story does have it back draws though. The story seems to pull in every which way up until the very end, which can make the story exciting but also confusing as well. But the main thing was the fan service that was in here. While not being overwhelming, there still was a great deal that didn't seem to have any point for the story except being there, as well as also taking away from the pure romance of the story.

In the end, this was one of the most enjoying mangas that I've read so far. It had great and compelling characters that stuck with you, even if they do drive you crazy at times. It also had a plot taht made just want to keep on reading up until the very end. I definitely recommend this for anyone who is looking for a good fun read. read more