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A review by sarahtribble
My Brother's Husband: Volume 2 by Gengoroh Tagame
3.0
This review will cover volumes 1 and 2 of the My Brother's Husband omnibus.
My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 rating: 4/5
My Brother's Husband, Volume 2 rating: 3.5/5
Overall series rating: 3.75/5
My Brother's Husband is a two-volume manga about a single dad named Yaichi and his young daughter Kana, whose lives are pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of Yaichi's brother's widow, Mike. Yes, you read that right: Yaichi's twin brother, Ryuji, was gay and married to a beefy Canadian man named Mike. (He is so beefy.)
I don't know a lot about the gay scene in Japan. According to Amnesty International, at first glance, the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Japan appears satisfactory. There isn't really any directed national outcry against the LGBTQ+ community, but LGBTQ+ people still face discrimination in their homes, workplaces, centres of education, etc.. The most significant thing I learned from My Brother's Husband, however, is that being gay isn't really talked about in Japan. Yaichi knows that his twin was gay. Ryuji came out to him in high school, and Yaichi certainly didn't disown his brother, but he never brought up his brother's sexuality, either. He ignored it completely, perhaps hoping that if they never talked about it, it would go away. And it does -- or at least, Ryuji does. He moves to Canada, where same sex marriage is legal, and meets and marries Mike Flanagan. After Ryuji's death (which, much to my chagrin, is never explained), Mike comes to visit Yaichi and his daughter in Japan to see where his late husband grew up, and Yaichi is finally forced to confront his brother's sexuality, his subconscious prejudices, and the major socio-cultural issues present in Japan.
My Brother’s Husband challenges Japanese gay culture and critiques the national attitude towards homosexuality, while also commenting on the influence that Western acceptance and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community has had on the Eastern view of homosexuality. (It also challenges the image of what a “typical gay man” looks like. This series really pulls out all the stops.) It does all of these things primarily through the lens of Yaichi, who is the protagonist of this charming little tale. Yaichi was, to me, a unique character because he doesn’t fall one way or the other on the stance of same sex marriage. He’s not for it; he’s not against it. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have given it much thought at all. He has compartmentalised it away into the back of his mind, so it comes as a rather alarming shock when Mike, whom he has never met before, shows up on his doorstep and forces Yaichi to confront his brother’s sexuality with an intimacy that has never before been required of him. Yaichi’s begins pretty clueless, of the opinion that same sex marriage is strange and weird; at the end of the first volume, he awakens from a nightmare about Kana marrying a woman. However, Kana ends up being Yaichi’s guiding light. She’s probably about 8 or 9 years old, and she has never heard of two men getting married before Mike comes to visit, but when she learns that it’s possible, she has no trouble believing it, finds nothing strange about it at all, and her immediate acceptance influences Yaichi’s own eventual acceptance of his brother’s sexuality, and that of his brother’s husband, too.
I think that the most important lessons that this series has to offer is this: just because you aren’t actively discriminating against someone, doesn’t mean that you aren’t prejudiced towards them. Yaichi does not discriminate against his brother, but he does execute unconscious prejudice, prejudice that he isn’t even aware of at the start of the first volume. When he notices this, however, he begins to focus on disentangling and dismantling his preconceptions. There is nothing wrong with same-sex marriage, and indeed, Yaichi isn’t anti-same-sex couples; he just feels kind of weird about them. The main narrative arc of the series follows Yaichi’s realisation that his values are inherited through social osmosis, and his subsequent decisions to unlearn these prejudices and to not just accept his brother’s sexuality, but to speak it with pride. The character development that Yaichi undergoes is easily the strongest element this manga series, and it also provides readers with an invaluable lesson: question your biases, and where they came from.
I felt that the first volume was stronger than the second, but on the whole, I really liked this manga. It is so wholesome and heart-warming, a cheerful, carefree slice of life, and yet it also touches on major socio-cultural issues in Japan with a lot of tact and care. It's poignant, and deals with some serious subject matter, but it is never sad or distressing. On the contrary, it is remarkably optimistic and cheery. I don’t think that the second volume in the omnibus is as strong as the first, but regardless, I think this is a great story and a good manga for someone like me, who is only beginning to dip their toes into the world of manga and needs somewhere to start.
My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 rating: 4/5
My Brother's Husband, Volume 2 rating: 3.5/5
Overall series rating: 3.75/5
My Brother's Husband is a two-volume manga about a single dad named Yaichi and his young daughter Kana, whose lives are pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of Yaichi's brother's widow, Mike. Yes, you read that right: Yaichi's twin brother, Ryuji, was gay and married to a beefy Canadian man named Mike. (He is so beefy.)
I don't know a lot about the gay scene in Japan. According to Amnesty International, at first glance, the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Japan appears satisfactory. There isn't really any directed national outcry against the LGBTQ+ community, but LGBTQ+ people still face discrimination in their homes, workplaces, centres of education, etc.. The most significant thing I learned from My Brother's Husband, however, is that being gay isn't really talked about in Japan. Yaichi knows that his twin was gay. Ryuji came out to him in high school, and Yaichi certainly didn't disown his brother, but he never brought up his brother's sexuality, either. He ignored it completely, perhaps hoping that if they never talked about it, it would go away. And it does -- or at least, Ryuji does. He moves to Canada, where same sex marriage is legal, and meets and marries Mike Flanagan. After Ryuji's death (which, much to my chagrin, is never explained), Mike comes to visit Yaichi and his daughter in Japan to see where his late husband grew up, and Yaichi is finally forced to confront his brother's sexuality, his subconscious prejudices, and the major socio-cultural issues present in Japan.
My Brother’s Husband challenges Japanese gay culture and critiques the national attitude towards homosexuality, while also commenting on the influence that Western acceptance and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community has had on the Eastern view of homosexuality. (It also challenges the image of what a “typical gay man” looks like. This series really pulls out all the stops.) It does all of these things primarily through the lens of Yaichi, who is the protagonist of this charming little tale. Yaichi was, to me, a unique character because he doesn’t fall one way or the other on the stance of same sex marriage. He’s not for it; he’s not against it. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have given it much thought at all. He has compartmentalised it away into the back of his mind, so it comes as a rather alarming shock when Mike, whom he has never met before, shows up on his doorstep and forces Yaichi to confront his brother’s sexuality with an intimacy that has never before been required of him. Yaichi’s begins pretty clueless, of the opinion that same sex marriage is strange and weird; at the end of the first volume, he awakens from a nightmare about Kana marrying a woman. However, Kana ends up being Yaichi’s guiding light. She’s probably about 8 or 9 years old, and she has never heard of two men getting married before Mike comes to visit, but when she learns that it’s possible, she has no trouble believing it, finds nothing strange about it at all, and her immediate acceptance influences Yaichi’s own eventual acceptance of his brother’s sexuality, and that of his brother’s husband, too.
I think that the most important lessons that this series has to offer is this: just because you aren’t actively discriminating against someone, doesn’t mean that you aren’t prejudiced towards them. Yaichi does not discriminate against his brother, but he does execute unconscious prejudice, prejudice that he isn’t even aware of at the start of the first volume. When he notices this, however, he begins to focus on disentangling and dismantling his preconceptions. There is nothing wrong with same-sex marriage, and indeed, Yaichi isn’t anti-same-sex couples; he just feels kind of weird about them. The main narrative arc of the series follows Yaichi’s realisation that his values are inherited through social osmosis, and his subsequent decisions to unlearn these prejudices and to not just accept his brother’s sexuality, but to speak it with pride. The character development that Yaichi undergoes is easily the strongest element this manga series, and it also provides readers with an invaluable lesson: question your biases, and where they came from.
I felt that the first volume was stronger than the second, but on the whole, I really liked this manga. It is so wholesome and heart-warming, a cheerful, carefree slice of life, and yet it also touches on major socio-cultural issues in Japan with a lot of tact and care. It's poignant, and deals with some serious subject matter, but it is never sad or distressing. On the contrary, it is remarkably optimistic and cheery. I don’t think that the second volume in the omnibus is as strong as the first, but regardless, I think this is a great story and a good manga for someone like me, who is only beginning to dip their toes into the world of manga and needs somewhere to start.