The Man I Love Review: Io Sakisaka's Most Honest Romance

Quick Take

• A 26-year-old woman and her grandmother's neighbor slowly fall in love across four quiet volumes
• Io Sakisaka at her most restrained and most honest about adult feeling
• A josei romance for readers who are tired of high school settings

Who Is This Manga For?

• Readers who want romance with adult protagonists and adult emotional stakes
• Those who appreciate quiet, slow-burn romance over dramatic conflict
• Fans of Io Sakisaka's other work (Ao Haru Ride, Strobe Edge) who want something for a slightly older reader
• Anyone looking for a complete, short josei romance with depth

Content Warnings & Age Rating

Age Rating: T (Teen) Content Warnings: Age gap between main characters, some mature emotional themes

Very gentle in content. The mature element is the emotional sophistication, not explicit content.

Yu's Rating

Category	Score
Story Depth	★★★★☆
Art Style	★★★★★
Character Development	★★★★★
Accessibility for Non-Japanese Readers	★★★★★
Reread Value	★★★★★

Story Overview

Hotaru Takagi is 26, a graphic designer, and has just been through a painful breakup. She travels to her grandmother's house in the countryside to recover, and there she meets Souichirou Kurosawa — a 36-year-old professor who has been looking after her grandmother.

He is direct, a little intimidating, clearly intelligent, and completely honest about his interest in her.

Hotaru resists. She is not in a place for another relationship. She is suspicious of someone who seems too certain. She has reasons she does not initially share.

The manga follows their relationship across the four volumes — Hotaru's resistance and the reasons for it, Kurosawa's patience, and the slow process of two adults learning to trust each other.

Characters

Hotaru Takagi is one of Sakisaka's most interesting heroines. She is not a high school girl uncertain of her own feelings. She is an adult who has been hurt, who knows what she feels, and who has deliberately chosen to protect herself. Her journey is not about learning to feel — it is about deciding to be brave again.

Souichirou Kurosawa is rare in romance manga: a male lead who is unambiguous about his feelings and patient with no self-pity about the wait. He does not pressure Hotaru. He simply remains present and consistent.

The relationship between them is adult — built on mutual recognition and deliberate choice rather than accident and circumstance.

Art Style

Sakisaka's art is beautiful and distinctive — clean, elegant lines with exceptional expression of emotional nuance. She draws the small gestures of attraction — the ways people hold themselves around someone they are aware of — with real precision.

The rural grandmother's house setting is rendered with warmth. The seasonal changes across the four volumes give the story a temporal texture.

Cultural Context

Josei manga (manga directed at adult women) occupies a different emotional register than shoujo. Where shoujo romance tends toward the intensity of first love, josei is more interested in the complications of love with history attached — previous relationships, career pressures, the self-knowledge that comes with experience.

The Man I Love is a classic josei romance in this sense. Both Hotaru and Kurosawa are people with pasts, and those pasts are part of why this particular love story is difficult.

What I Love About It

I read this after a period of only reading long, complicated manga. Four volumes, I thought. A short commitment.

The four volumes are worth more than three times that count in most series. Sakisaka is a writer who knows when not to say something, and this is her most restrained work. The silences carry as much as the conversations.

The moment when Hotaru explains why she was holding back — the real reason, not the surface one — is the best piece of romantic writing I have found in a short manga. It is specific and true and exactly right.

What English-Speaking Fans Say

English-speaking readers often discover this through Sakisaka's more popular work (Ao Haru Ride has an anime) and are surprised to find this quieter series. The consensus is that it is her best writing, more honest than the high-school romances because the characters are old enough to know themselves.

The age gap is occasionally noted in discussions, though most readers find it handled with appropriate adult framing rather than as a problematic element.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The conversation near the end of the series where Hotaru finally tells Kurosawa what happened in her previous relationship — why she protected herself so carefully — is the scene the four volumes have been building toward.

His response is exactly right. Not dramatic, not reassuring in a false way. Just present.

Similar Manga

• Ao Haru Ride — Sakisaka's shoujo work; younger protagonists, same emotional quality
• Strobe Edge — another Sakisaka romance; high school but with her characteristic restraint
• March Comes in Like a Lion — different genre, same quality of emotional honesty
• Happy Marriage!? — adult romance manga with similar josei sensibility

Reading Order / Where to Start

Start from Volume 1. Four volumes, linear story.

Official English Translation Status

VIZ Media published all 4 volumes in English. The series is complete and all volumes are available. Given its brevity, it is often sold as a complete set.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Complete in four volumes — a perfect length for this story
• Hotaru is one of the best protagonists in josei manga
• Sakisaka's art is beautiful and emotionally precise
• The restraint makes every emotional beat count more

Cons

• Very quiet — readers who want dramatic conflicts will find it too gentle
• The age gap may not appeal to all readers
• Short enough that some readers want more

Format Comparison

Format	Notes
Physical	VIZ volumes; clean presentation
Digital	Available on VIZ platforms and Kindle
Omnibus	The four volumes are sometimes packaged together; worth looking for

Where to Buy

Get The Man I Love on Amazon →

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