My Brother's Husband

Since I have already read My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness previously, I’ve decided to focus my post for this week on My Brother's Husband. Which admittedly, out of the two books resonated with me the strongest.

My Brother’s Husband is such a genuine and sweet story that I found to be very compelling. It is the one of the few manga that successfully manage to portray homosexuality in an honest light, and makes no attempt to fetishize it in any way. I love the way it presents the relationships between the characters as they all grow together. Yaichi especially is a very accurate representation of a person in today’s modern world who is not technically homophobic, but is clearly uncomfortable with homosexuality, perhaps because of it being unknown territory to him. I think it is important that we start from that point of view and see how it gradually changes since it is so common for people to think that way, whether they are conscious of it or not.

I especially like how many of the curiosities and thoughts that Yaichi has are expressed through his young daughter, almost to show how undeveloped or naïve some of those thoughts are. This creates a safe space for Mike to inform Yaichi, Kana, and the reader as well about whatever curiosities they might have. The author seems to genuinely want to educate readers of how things are like from the perspective of someone who is part of the LGBTQ community, and doesn’t talk down on those who might be ill-informed. The simplicity in which he presents some of it is a breath of fresh air and truly how it should be discussed. People are just people and should be treated no differently, no matter where their interests lie. This book has so much heart put into it and it is truly an enjoyable read. I would highly recommend it!