#my brother's husband

[pierppasolini]

My Brother’s Husband — by Gengoroh Tagame

My Brother’s Husband (2018) // dir. Teruyuki Yoshida

[strangemonochromes]

My Brother's Husband (弟の夫) // Gengoroh Tagame

[haveyoureadthiscomic-poll]

This is cute but I wish publishers would be brave enough to bring more of Gengoroh Tagame's more explicit works (as well as more geicomi in general) over.

[thehouseprophet]

My Brother's Husband - Gengoroh Tagame

[queer-and-dear-books]

Title: My Brother’s Husband

Author: Gengoroh Tagame 

Genre: Comics | Family | Friendship | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Homophobia | Death

Overall Rating: 10/10

Personal Opinion: Quite possibly my most favorite manga of all time. I own a lot of Tagame’s works so I’ve always been a big fan of his art style. To see it in a mainstream book all about educating people on queer folks? That is just chef’s kiss perfection. It’s wholesome, it’s intelligent, it’s refreshing, and it will break and fix your heart over and over again. Please purchase a copy for yourself.

Do I Own These Books? Yes! I own both volumes and I even have the first volume signed by Tagame himself!

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- First and foremost, the art style. I personally love it. And not just because of the details of Yaichi’s and Mike’s muscles when they’re bathing. No, I just adore all of their character designs and the vibes they give off. Yaichi is a single dad who is a bit unsure of himself, I can see that in how he stands in volume 1′s cover. Kana is a precocious child but a child nonetheless, I see that in how she stands in volume 1′s cover. Mike is Mike. I see that in, well, you know already. 

- Kana is the most adorable thing. She has a very pure view of the world that was unaffected by her father’s bigoted views because he never taught them to her. And it is mainly through her that Yaichi, her father, begins to understand queer folks better. When she says she doesn’t get why gay people can’t marry, he pauses and rethinks his position. It’s adorable and inspiring witnessing a parent learn from their child and being open to learning from them too. 

- That’s the thing I love most about these books. Yaichi has a lot of bigoted and narrow-minded opinions concerning his brother’s sexuality. But a lot of that is because he was never educated on it. After Ryoji tragically passed away and Mike came into his life, he realized it wasn’t too late to learn more about his estranged brother. Because here was someone still connected to Ryoji and probably knew him better than most people. Mike taught Yaichi a lot and Yaichi was open to learning. He kept his bigoted thoughts to himself, never actually voicing them out, and instead took in everything Mike told him and grew from it. By volume 2, Yaichi was even prepared himself to tell people about his brother’s husband from overseas and how it’s perfectly normal.

- Mike is just a giant teddy bear and I find him to be adorable and hot. Mainly though, I just like him for being such a big-hearted fellow. He’s proud of himself, he’s open about his sexuality, he’s curious but respectful of the culture around him. He’s the ideal man in my opinion. And I just love the role he took up as the jolly uncle in Kana’s life. They were so wholesome playing together in basically every chapter. Ugh, my heart still breaks for Kana when Mike had to go back to Canada. She loved him so much.

- Speaking of Mike being open about his sexuality, it’s a little hard to see (for my color blind eyes anyway) but his shirt on the covers include a pink triangle. It was once a badge of shame employed by Nazis to identify LGBTQ+ people but was later reclaimed to be a symbol of pride. Mike knows this and that’s why he wears that shirt and that’s why I love him so much. Yes, know your history Mike!

- Kana’s mother, Natsuki, and Yaichi are divorced. But they maintain a healthy and friendly relationship. I fucking love that. They acknowledge that they were a bad match when they were married and that they’re better as individuals and as Kana’s parents when they’re separated and I find that to be so wholesome. But I also just love that Natsuki was so open-minded about Mike herself when she met him. These four characters all together make such an adorable family unit.  

Dislikes:

- Yaichi admits his mistakes and homophobic outbursts were wrong but damn did I cringe at some of the things he thought. The story is mainly about his growth though so I’ll give it a pass.

- There’s honestly nothing I really dislike about this story. Everyone should go purchase a copy for themselves. 

[fictionalcanadianshowdown]

Mike Flanagan is from My Brother’s Husband, a manga by Gengoroh Tagame, later turned into a tv show:

Yaichi is a work-at-home suburban dad in contemporary Tokyo; formerly married to Natsuki, and father to their young daughter, Kana. Their lives suddenly change with the arrival at their doorstep of a hulking, affable Canadian named Mike Flanagan, who declares himself to be the widower of Yaichi's estranged gay twin, Ryoji. Mike is on a quest to explore Ryoji's past, and the family reluctantly but dutifully takes him in. What follows is an unprecedented and heartbreaking look at the state of a largely still-closeted Japanese gay culture: how it's been affected by the West, and how the next generation can change the preconceptions about it and prejudices against it

Scott Pilgrim is from Scott Piligim vs The World, a graphic novel later adapted into a movie. Scott Pilgrim's life is totally sweet. He's 23 years old, he's in a rock band, he's "between jobs," and he's dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott's awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes.

[beyondthespheres]

Gengoroh Tagame, My Brother's Husband, 2015

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Working on Duolingo and came across this.  Which I think is a cute homage to to..

Because the brother’s husband in this case is in fact Canadian.

So Kudos Duolingo!

[surpriserose]

go read my brothers husband btw👍

[nyx-b-log]

was very distracted and almost forgot to do this! whoops.

i did finish paul takes the form of a mortal girl and don't really have anything to add beyond what i said last week. orlando is on my reserved list at my library, so be interesting to see what i think of that!

also finished the city we became, which was very much a fun time. it manages to do horror and humour and social commentary and like, comic book hero all equally well without sacrificing the value of any of those pieces individually. even when i wasn't necessarily vibing with it, i could appreciate what it was doing. also as someone who doesn't know new york very well i found it mostly accessible, but that's with years of unintended cultural osmosis so idk. don't currently have book two but it's definitely on my tbr!

have pushed on a bit with mortal coil but idk, either i'm getting burnout on these or it's the culmination of the plot points i don't like (caylan, fletcher, the looming stuff with the teenagers), or even that this one isn't read by rupert degas for some reason. think i'll take a break and come back to them either in print or at some other time.

this morning i also started maurice by e.m. forster, so i'm maybe 20 minutes in? it's a queer classic written in 1913-14 about two separate relationships in the titular maurice's life (one unhappy as a young adult and one more relaxed as an adult). interesting enough so far, with some very well written lines and laying down of ideas for later. some period-typical racism but so far no more egregious than i was expecting. the guy reading it pronounces his name like 'morris' which caught me off guard but i'm getting used to it now.

feel weird counting it (since i skipped the inter-chapter sections) but i did technically read two-thirds or so of volume two of my brother's husband (i finally have the rest!) but i don't think i can spare the time to really come back to it until i've finished ace attorney investigations 2 (which will be soon, i swear). it's still excellent btw, thoroughly recommend.

that's it for this week, will update again next week! for people who have it, enjoy the bank holiday!

[semper-legens]

121. My Brother’s Husband, vol 2, by Gengoroh Tagame

Owned?: No, library Page count: 342 My summary: The second and last volume in the story of Yaichi, a single father raising his daughter who finds his brother’s Canadian husband, Mike, has come to visit. Yaichi is forced to confront everything he has thought about gay people and every assumption he has ever made, as his daughter Kana gets closer and closer to her Canadian uncle. Can this family bring themselves together? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Well, if this isn’t the most wholesome damn thing I’ve ever had the fortune to read. This is the second and final volume of a manga about a Japanese man, Yaichi, whose brother was gay and lived in Canada with his husband. His brother passed away, and after some time, the Canadian husband (Mike) has come to Japan to learn about the family he has been kept away from. Yaichi has a very traditionalist attitude towards the idea of being gay, and as such is polite but hostile towards Mike. Not helping is the fact that his daughter, Kana, loves Mike. That was all in the last volume, so how does it turn out?

The writing in this manga is pretty simplistic - ideas are presented as they are, laid plain. I don’t know if this is a translation thing or if this is the same in Japanese, but assuming that it is, I can see that this is the author’s attempt to start a conversation. Gengoroh Tagame is gay himself, and casting a light on Japan’s homophobia and treatment of gay people. I can totally see this manga as a way to provoke conversation, to show Japan and the world exactly what being a gay man in Japan is like, and the issues faced by gay men in the situations of these characters.

I love the way Yaichi’s character develops throughout. He starts out quite closed-off, traditionally-minded - despite the fact that his own family structure, as a divorced single dad, also isn’t exactly normative. Over the course of the manga, we see him become a lot more comfortable around Mike, including in this volume where he goes to an onsen with Mike and isn’t uncomfortable being around him naked, or where he defends Mike to Kana’s class teacher despite that going against every sense of propriety that he has, to the point where he misses Mike just as much as Kana when he returns to Canada at the end. I like, as well, that Yaichi and Mike don’t end up attracted to each other or anything - this isn’t a romantic-love story, this is a familial-love story, and a story about acceptance and understanding.

And, quite frankly, everything about the little family these four create is just damn adorable. Mike is so sweet, and a couple of times meets men who are gay around Yaichi’s home and helps them through their struggles around being gay in their society. Yaichi sticking up for Mike and treating him like a brother is so cute, and Kana’s hero-worship of Mike, to the point of wanting to show him off to all her friends, is heartwarming and wholesome. I really loved this manga, and I’d read it a thousand times over.

Next up, Victorian London, and there’s murder afoot!

[pierppasolini]

My Brother’s Husband — by Gengoroh Tagame

[justfinishedreading]

My Brother’s Husband V.1 & 2 by Gengoroh Tagame

This isn’t really something I’ve ‘just finished reading’, after a few significant life events last year I’m still catching up with reviews of books read months and months ago. One of last year’s reading highlights were volumes 1 and 2 of My Brother’s Husband: they follow Yaichi, a Japanese man whose twin brother Ryoji died not long ago in Canada, one day Ryoji’s foreigner husband Mike shows up at the door, he wants to reconnect with Ryoji’s family and see where his husband grew up.

This is a beautiful story, Yaichi is not a bad person but he has prejudices that he’s never voiced before, never analysed or taken the time to address, we hear his inner voice and how it changes as he becomes more acquainted with Mike. Once Yaichi understand what’s wrong with some of his preconceptions he is then able to identify the subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination in society.

Yaichi’s daughter Kana brings so much heart to the story, she is a reminder of how youth is not inherently prejudice, how accepting and open they can be and how it is the attitudes of adults around children that influence their outlook.

Mike is dealing with grief and it can’t be easy to see his late husband’s identical twin, yet he is a positive, cheerful person that brings much joy to Kana’s daily life. Mike is the enthusiastic Japanophile us manga-loving foreigners can all relate to, and this book is also about how foreigners still stand out in Japan.

For author Gengoroh Tagame this is his first work for all ages, his other work is gay erotic manga often quite pornographic, I’ve read a lot of Yaoi manga but Yaoi is homoerotic manga mostly drawn by women for a female audience, manga drawn by gay men for gay men is quite different, I would have previously described this work as ‘Bara’ except for what I just read on Tagame’s Wikipedia page:

“Tagame's artwork is often associated with bara, a colloquialism used by non-Japanese audiences to refer to Japanese erotic art featuring masculine men. Tagame has rejected this association, citing the term's historical use as a pejorative for gay men and calling it ‘a very negative word that comes with bad connotations.’ ”

Tagame’s men in My Brother’s Husband are hypermasculine, their muscles and build are overemphasised, in particular in shower scenes, by refreshing contrast women’s bodies aren’t given the hyperattention they normally are in heterosexual media. For me it’s pleasing to see a focus on the male body, from the perspective of a gay man, and at the same time to not have to focus at all on the representation of female bodies.

The last thing to talk about before spoilers is production quality, it’s lovely to see manga in hardback format, the cover designs by Chip Kidd are stylish and the volumes feel like proper nice books. I had to order volume 2 from the United States, sorry to say I prefer the inside paper quality and glossy cover finish of the UK edition.

Warning: Contains Spoilers

There are two details that I love: Yaichi is introduced as a single, stay-at-home dad, at first both Mike and the reader assume that Kana’s mother passed away but we later learn that they divorced but are still on good terms. So many times in manga if a parent is single it is because their partner has died, it’s so refreshing to see depictions of more realistic families, divorce is common and yet rare in manga.

A neighbourhood boy who is gay seeks out Mike to be able to talk to someone about his sexuality, this just highlights how important it is for people, of all ages, to have someone to talk to, to see and know people who they can identify with.

By the end of My Brother’s Husband, I, like Yaichi and Kana, was so sad to say goodbye to Mike as he returns to Canada, sad to say goodbye to them all.

Happy Pride Month everyone, xxx.

Review by Book Hamster

[hakonohanayome]

My Brother’s Husband, Gengoroh Tagame

[lambdalibrary]

My Brother's Husband | Otōto no Otto

Content Warnings

Homophobia

Links

A link to Penguin Random House where you can buy the volumes. You can also find read them on manga sites, but the fan translators stopped when the volumes were officially translated in order to help promote the work. That's only for English however. Sites I've checked have the full work translated in Spanish and Portuguese if you are fluent.

Tagame's website where you can see his other work. This link is NSFW

Tagame's Twitter. This link is also NSFW.

Something I'd like to say while linking to these sites and before I talk about the manga itself is how different My Brother's Husband is from Tagame's other work. My Brother's Husband is a light hearted slice of life manga, and Tagame's other works are very explicit. I've seen other people explain this difference before they recommend people check out Tagame's other work in a way that I would say feels very judgemental, if not homophobic, even if the people saying it are LGBT themselves.

While I obviously think its good to warn people that his other work is NSFW and therefore may not be what they're looking for, its important not to end up putting his NSFW stuff down in the process. In fact, I think its important that his other work is so explicit. Sexuality after all, is about sexuality. LGBT erotica and pornography is just as important to LGBT history and culture as anything else. Plus, it's not like My Brother's Husband doesn't have a few panels of barely covered men anyways.

Summary

My Brother's Husband is a slice of life manga about Origuchi Yaichi who has to deal with both his homophobia and the death of his brother Ryoji and what family means as Ryoji's husband Mike Flanagan comes to visit.

Thoughts

Definitely check this out if you're a fan of manga especially slice of life manga or you're just looking for something short and sweet. It's just really cute and I mean sometimes that's all you need. That's not to say there's not substance here because there is, its just explored through a more lighthearted genre.

Like there's the idea of culture and tradition that's explored. It's important not only that Mike is gay but that he's also white. That Ryoji went to Canada to be himself and died there versus in Japan. While this is a large part of the manga, I don't feel qualified enough on the LGBT culture of Japan to go into detail on it myself though, especially when comparing countries based on their LGBT rights records can contribute to pinkwashing.

The only real negative thing I can say is that My Brother's Husband might be a bit too...educational focused? Like I as a gay person don't need a chapter to inform me why other LGBT people might stay in the closet, but a cishet person might. But that's not even a negative thing, that's even part of the reason it exists to help educate people about gay issues in Japan. But it never educates from...for lack of a better term, a cishet gaze? Obviously partially because the author himself is gay but even though the narrator is not it just never slips into treating Mike as a purely educational tool. He's his own character, just like everyone else in the manga.

[arkumami]