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REVIEW: My Brother's Husband GN 1


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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2862
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:44 am Reply with quote
as a (snide) side note, the reviewer did not note the fanservice (yep , reviewed by a female) I assume it is because the fanservice is oriented to gay males, so it's difficult to register for non.

now, this was a really good, fresh read, pretty much a gender swapped equivalent of the top slice of life yuri series. It's the only yaoi I ahve read that is actually that good.
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PsychoPearl



Joined: 27 Oct 2016
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 10:52 am Reply with quote
Rather than yaoi, this would fit more into the bara genre. Bara is geared towards gay men, since the male characters are much more beefy and muscular than the pretty boys in yaoi series, which are for women.
This story does stray from the typical bara, which is usually centered around sex. It's more family friendly. I'm happy there's a manga to show that gay people are just as normal as everyone else. In Japan and Asia in general, there's still some homophobia and barely any understanding of the LGBT community. Hopefully, this manga helps with educating some people and changing their views.
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Animechic420



Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1727
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 11:03 am Reply with quote
PsychoPearl wrote:
Rather than yaoi, this would fit more into the bara genre. Bara is geared towards gay men, since the male characters are much more beefy and muscular than the pretty boys in yaoi series, which are for women.
This story does stray from the typical bara, which is usually centered around sex. It's more family friendly. I'm happy there's a manga to show that gay people are just as normal as everyone else. In Japan and Asia in general, there's still some homophobia and barely any understanding of the LGBT community. Hopefully, this manga helps with educating some people and changing their views.

I'm a woman and I like Bara, as well as Yaoi. To an extent.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 11:04 am Reply with quote
I did notice the fanservice (lots of shower scenes!), but I thought they were ancillary to the plot; the emotional content was so much more important. But I probably should have at least brought it up. I did think it was worked in cleanly so as not to distract from the story, which isn't always the case in any genre.

Yes, bara would be a better term, but I actually don't see this really being yaoi or bara in terms of content - in this volume, at least, it's just about family; the romance part of the story is over before the plot begins. (People who have read further may know more; this is all I've read thus far.)
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SDnekojin



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 10
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 12:40 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
but I actually don't see this really being yaoi or bara in terms of content - in this volume, at least, it's just about family; the romance part of the story is over before the plot begins. (People who have read further may know more; this is all I've read thus far.)


The English speaking fandom is pretty quick to throw around the word Yaoi. They pretty much use it to describe anything with prominent gay relationships even thought yaoi really just means gay porn.

The art style could be called bara just because that is Tagame's style (He normally does hardcore muscular gay porn) but you are right, Irene, that this isn't really yaoi or bara, it's just a family/slice-of-life manga. There's no romance or sex in this manga, just topics of family and tolerance.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2245
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 12:43 pm Reply with quote
So I feel a little nitpicky asking this, but what did you mean by:

Quote:
Gengoroh Tagame's work is different not only in that his characters are typically much more masculine in appearance, but in that he is a gay man (rather than a straight woman) writing about male/male relationships. But that's almost incidental to Pantheon Books' release of his series My Brother’s Husband, which deals with a man meeting his deceased twin brother's Canadian spouse for the first time and finding himself dealing with not only his own homophobia, but the rest of the neighborhood's as well.


Because judging from the content of the review, it seems like the artist actually being gay is a major factor for why we got a more true-to-life story like this in the first place. (Just FYI, but I'm not at all familiar with any of his other work.)
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
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PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 1:58 pm Reply with quote
pretty sure this is his only family friendly work, aka not porn.

SDnekojin wrote:


so, we call this "macho ai" then , I love how the western anime fandom wants to separate the adult only- fanservice yaoi and yuri from teh family friendly stuff, so much that they created the terms shounen ai and shoujo ai, which are used in japan to refer specifically to pedophile stuff.
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Princess_Irene
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Joined: 16 Dec 2008
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Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 2:39 pm Reply with quote
@whiskeyii

That's a good nit-pick. Smile What I meant was that this isn't really yaoi, so the fact that it doesn't follow what are considered (by western fans at least) genre norms isn't entirely relevant. It's a family story written by a gay man whose writing normally falls into the racy romance category.
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katscradle



Joined: 05 Jan 2013
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 2:42 pm Reply with quote
I’m very happy to have My Brother’s Husband to recommend to people I know since while I love Tagame’s other works, they are not general audience. I got my copy last week too and it’s such a nice little hardcover edition.

My Brother’s Husband is from a men’s magazine though, so I do hope it doesn’t get pigeonholed as BL or gay manga, since those genres bring up a lot of preconceptions. I think that is what the review was trying to express? Marketing demographic categories are just marketing but, it’s a very big deal this series was published outside of a gay or BL publication. Monthly Action runs a lot of varied series so I think that speaks to the accessibility of this story for many different groups. At least I hope lots of people will read it now that it’s also coming over in English.
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garlogan78



Joined: 01 Mar 2014
Posts: 171
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 4:23 pm Reply with quote
Do they explain how the husband gets to stay in Japan for an extended period? Like does he have a job over there that sponsors his visa?
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 6:05 pm Reply with quote
Does anyone else look at the cover and think "Japanese King of the Hill"?

katscradle wrote:
I’m very happy to have My Brother’s Husband to recommend to people I know since while I love Tagame’s other works, they are not general audience. I got my copy last week too and it’s such a nice little hardcover edition.

My Brother’s Husband is from a men’s magazine though, so I do hope it doesn’t get pigeonholed as BL or gay manga, since those genres bring up a lot of preconceptions. I think that is what the review was trying to express? Marketing demographic categories are just marketing but, it’s a very big deal this series was published outside of a gay or BL publication. Monthly Action runs a lot of varied series so I think that speaks to the accessibility of this story for many different groups. At least I hope lots of people will read it now that it’s also coming over in English.


I was wondering what sort of publication this would be in, as the subject matter comes across more to me as something an indie publisher would pick up here in the States, and it doesn't seem like there'd be many manga magazines in Japan willing to pick up something topical and controversial like this.
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Tomibiki



Joined: 08 Jul 2007
Posts: 834
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 7:14 pm Reply with quote
Keep having to tell myself this is not a story about Kevin Owens
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2862
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 7:54 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:

I was wondering what sort of publication this would be in, as the subject matter comes across more to me as something an indie publisher would pick up here in the States, and it doesn't seem like there'd be many manga magazines in Japan willing to pick up something topical and controversial like this.


you are underestimating japan's freedom of speech; while society itself is very restrictive, thye allow you to read/publish whatever; the infamous censorship law actally was made not to censor thigns per se, but to make sure certian subject matters (incest) were published in proper adult magazines.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 8:02 pm Reply with quote
maximilianjenus wrote:
you are underestimating japan's freedom of speech; while society itself is very restrictive, thye allow you to read/publish whatever; the infamous censorship law actally was made not to censor thigns per se, but to make sure certian subject matters (incest) were published in proper adult magazines.


Well, it's more that actual homosexuality is not quite as accepted in Japan as it is in some other countries and the culture revolving around silencing of dissenting viewpoints. This series is exactly that, a kind of subversive attempt to tear down the walls in a country where the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
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Zendervai



Joined: 06 Apr 2012
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Thu May 18, 2017 10:24 am Reply with quote
garlogan78 wrote:
Do they explain how the husband gets to stay in Japan for an extended period? Like does he have a job over there that sponsors his visa?


Canadians are allowed to visit Japan for 90 days without a visa as long as they are not receiving any money and they have a valid passport. Yeah, he sticks around for ages, but he's got three months without an issue.
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