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tl;dr: A pretty simple but really well executed shounen romance, though one with a weak final third.

This manga is a classic published from 1997 to 2000. For the most part it’s a really simple shounen romance, but a really well executed one. Like most shounen romance, the protagonist is incredibly indecisive and thus things move incredibly slowly. Usually there isn’t even an explanation for why this is the case, but in this one at least a brief explanation is provided in that the protagonist, Ichitaka, was rejected brutally hard by a girl that found out he liked her, and thus whenever he’s going to do ... something that could reveal to a girl he likes that he likes her, his trauma kicks in and stops him. Still, even with that, I felt Ichitaka was a pretty great protagonist. Even if he’s somewhat lame in that he can’t move forward, his constantly agonizing over everything and trying his utmost best is conveyed really well and makes him really easy to empathize with. The writing also being almost entirely from his perspective with essentially no information given to the reader that he doesn’t also know works really well in that regard as his emotions are conveyed incredibly well. He doesn’t have any particular traits that make him particularly amazing, but how he’s really serious and tries to be nice to very regardless of the circumstances makes him a pretty likable character.

The rest of the cast is also reasonably solid. The main heroine, Iori, is somewhat lacking in depth, but despite that the manga manages to make her pretty likable due to how nice and purehearted she is, and how the writing just always manages to fit her into the perfect place story wise when it counts. And though the relationship development is slow, it’s really sweet. The side heroines, Itsuki and Izumi, also work well in that they’re both pretty likable in their own right due to having really strong personalities, and also because they manage to work really well in terms of how they play into Ichitaka’s character development and his relationship development with Iori. The various other side characters, Teratani, Jun, and Nami were all surprisingly great too, wherein they’re all pretty flat characters, but they play really well into the core character and relationship development. The cast overall also results in a good variety of really good comedy which helps hold the manga up even when things aren’t moving at all.

The biggest problem with this manga is that it dragged on too long as the mangaka simply wasn’t able to write anything relating to the final third well at all. While there are obviously exceptions, most shounen romance end pretty soon after the protagonist starts going out with the heroine. I think this manga is a good case example for why they do so, because it makes clear that being able to write a good build up to a relationship does not mean that one can write a good relationship. In this case, after they start dating the mangaka essentially continues doing what they were doing before wherein despite lots of things happening it doesn’t feel like things are changing much, but instead of slowly moving towards them going out, it’s slowly moving towards them breaking up. There was way more romantic fluff before they started going out then after. After, it’s all just drama and them not getting along and having to work through their issues. This would be okay if it was intermixed with showing more of them actually being happy in their relationship, but as it is considering all the investment into their relationship that was built up in the first two thirds, it’s just kind of unpleasant. The ending conceptually is decent enough, but it was incredibly rushed which combined with how there was a long stretch before it that wasn’t particularly good resulted in the ending overall not being all that satisfying.

The art in the manga is really good. It’s a style that’s very different from most modern manga but it still looks incredibly clean and nice. Faces and expressions especially are really well done. Character designs are grounded but the mangaka is still able to make pretty distinct designs that fit their characters well. Most of the cover illustrations I didn’t really like though. They have shading and much more detail so from a technical perspective I suppose they’re better than the black and white art, but the faces which are often the focus cross into uncanny valley territory for me so I’m much more of a fan of the normal art.

I desperately wanted I"s to be good, considering its reputation amongst the manga community as being a great romance and one written with relatable characters. The problem is that it relies on predictable and repetitive storytelling, turning "real" characters into more annoying ones. I"s repeats this cycle of the main character being in love with his crush, and then falling for another person, 3 times. It doesn't get any better every time, and the end just feels like its set up for another repetition. At the end of the first cycle, however, when he starts to feel for his childhood friend, I had faith in ... his growth as a character and desire to confess. That's when I realised that I had about 100 more chapters to read.

I"s disappointed me, but at least it has stellar artwork. If anything, its always a treat to the eyes, encapsulating the 90's manga aesthetic that we all know and love.

As an avid romance manga lover I couldn't believe there was a "gem" out there I hadn't found out about (there's a bunch I haven't read yet, but I do know of their existence). Following that, I gotta say I was a bit disappointed. The writing was meh most of the time, with characters needing to lie, hide stuff, or jumps to conclusions in order to drive the plot, which is an automatic "lazy writing" characteristic in my book.

I can see how if this is one of your first romance mangas you can get hooked, cause it has that good "keeping you engaged" ... situations, but as for plot, is just another typical dumb, clueless protagonist archetype (I might be being a bit too harsh, he's not stupid, it's just hard to explain) falling for every scheme and dumb conclusions he can think of.

If you're an avid romance manga reader, you'll find it meh, okay at best, lots of the secondary characters were way better than the protagonist, and his proper growth doesn't really keep up with the situation, he's always behind in the character development department and that gets annoying. The artstyle is fantastic though!