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REVIEW: Is Love the Answer? GN




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Toyokaaaa





PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:11 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, this manga was very relatable.
Hoping to see a review for I Want To Be A Wall vol.2, it also needs more exposure.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2240
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:07 pm Reply with quote
I strongly suspect this will be a very cathartic reading experience for me. Definitely gonna keep a pack of tissues handy. (Also, I have no idea if the English covers we get stateside resemble their original counterparts in the slightest, but that ace flag banner is PERFECT.)
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2597
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:26 pm Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:
I strongly suspect this will be a very cathartic reading experience for me. Definitely gonna keep a pack of tissues handy. (Also, I have no idea if the English covers we get stateside resemble their original counterparts in the slightest, but that ace flag banner is PERFECT.)


It definitely was for me. Isaki has a second ace book out in English that somehow slipped under my radar - Mine-kun is Asexual. It's a digital-only release from Irodori. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. (Cover's not as great, but I guess we can't win 'em all!)
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catandmouse



Joined: 02 Mar 2011
Posts: 211
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:59 pm Reply with quote
This review sounded like a lot of my experiences. In elementary school, I was fairly “normal”, but once I hit middle school (and puberty) I think my trauma intensified and I became unable to deal with boys. I remember very clearly thinking one day in high school as a saw a classmate talk to a guy so naturally how was she able to do it? They weren’t saying anything too deep , but I wasn’t able to talk that comfortably. I’ve always felt awkward and if anyone showed any interest in me, I felt grossed out. Even the suggestion that someone may be interested freaked me out.
In my case I wasn’t SA because of my asexuality and it may have prevented me from doing dumb things in order to try and be “normal”. (On my road to recovery I did play with the idea of dating and even pushed myself to try and flirt with someone, luckily for me it didn’t go anywhere). It was in my college psychology class that I learned about asexuality and something clicked. For a while I was comfortable with that label, but I still felt it was not quite right. I still had crushes, even though having crushes made me uncomfortable and I’ve never quite understood romance. I thought I might be aromantic, but that didn’t fit. Eventually I came across lithromantic/akoiromantic and it all came together. I’m glad that slowly there are more stories about asexuals being released. As much as I enjoy some types of romance stories, for the most part I can’t understand the character’s motivations.
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Lactobacillus yogurti



Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Posts: 833
Location: Latin America
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:09 pm Reply with quote
It's really validating to find more ace representation and clarification in manga.
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Fluwm



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 874
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:38 pm Reply with quote
I spent an embarrassingly long time growing up assuming that people who talked about sex a lot we're just lying, or otherwise exaggerating. for one reason or another, because surely no one really cared that much about it.

Now in my (feigned) maturity I've grown to suspect that perhaps a large part of the reason why the world is as ****ed up as it is... is because they weren't.

Anyway, I'm very glad to see the continued localization (and ANN coverage) of these sorts of titles. This is the kind of resource that could've spared me so much nonsense had I had access to it growing up, I think.
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SaneSavantElla



Joined: 25 Jan 2013
Posts: 215
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:28 am Reply with quote
Always happy to see works aimed towards aces. I'd love to check it out. Not to minimize the experience of other LGBTQ+ groups, but as one, I feel like aces are misunderstood on a different level. Like, it seems to me that many understand, even if they do not quite accept, people being attracted to the same gender (or to multiple), but they don't get the idea of not being attracted either sexually/romantically to anybody.

Even my own parents once told me to "come out" already (they thought I was a lesbian), telling me they'll accept me, or that they're afraid some childhood trauma contributed to my loveless state... Friends and acquaintances keep on insinuating that I'll "get it" once I meet the right person, reasoning out that I'm not asexual because I DO GET romance and sexual attraction, because I "swoon" with them to love stories and such (real life or imagined). At this point I've given up trying to explain that sure I do, but I just don't want any of that for myself!
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Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2373
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 12:14 pm Reply with quote
I'm not asexual, but I have so many ace friends (and all of them are attractive... oh, woe is me) and they all deserve stories about people like them. Thanks for the review and recommendation! I've been collecting more LGBTQ+ manga as of late and this will be a great addition~

SaneSavantElla wrote:
[...]reasoning out that I'm not asexual because I DO GET romance and sexual attraction, because I "swoon" with them to love stories and such (real life or imagined). At this point I've given up trying to explain that sure I do, but I just don't want any of that for myself!


As someone who is attracted only to women in real life (and I'm confident in this), but find myself attracted to both men and women in fiction, I resonate with this so much. Same when it comes to erotic interests. My irl interests are vanilla only (again, I'm confident in this, from direct experience), but I have a lot of fun with crazier fantasies in fiction. It's probably a weird concept for most people and a bit too early for mainstream discourse, but it does make me wonder if we couldn't find some kind of adjective or prefix/suffix to specify fictional/fantasy interests and identities separate from real ones.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 12:50 pm Reply with quote
I've been circling this manga for a while now, I guess I'll give it a read... As someone who is not quite as much asexual as "aromantic and asexual-leaning with additional Issues", I always appreciate the existence of manga handling such themes, but I tend to find them difficult to read. Partly because in my experience they tend to walk a very thin line where it's easy to fall into awkward expositions re: various identities, or even preachiness, and partly because while many mangaka have their hearts in the right place, not all of them have the writing chops to go with it. And it can be sad when a story about such themes, obviously created with the mangaka pouring a lot of themselves into it is just... not very good. So it's good to have these reviews.
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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:50 pm Reply with quote
From the cover and title, this one seemed a bit too on-the-nose, like it's some sort of educational pamphlet about asexuality. But it sounds like there's more actual story and depth to it than that, so I might get it at some point. I also recommend the bizarrely-titled "I Want To Be A Wall" for anyone thinking about this one.

I still don't know exactly how to define myself, but I do know that it took a very long time for me to piece together that most people do, in fact, have sex. With each other, in real life, even when they don't want kids, sometimes multiple times a day. It took even longer to figure out that my cluelessness about this might be due to a lack of interest, rather than social awkwardness or unattractiveness. I suspect being asexual or "a-spec" (such a weird contraction) is a lot more common than people think, given the immense social pressure to find a romantic partner, and how common it is for people to admit to not enjoying sex with said partner.
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xxmsxx



Joined: 06 Sep 2017
Posts: 554
PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 11:42 pm Reply with quote
SaneSavantElla wrote:
At this point I've given up trying to explain that sure I do, but I just don't want any of that for myself!

Me too. Coming out to my parents was a failure at best. I have given up trying to explain to them about me anymore.

kotomikun wrote:
I suspect being asexual or "a-spec" (such a weird contraction) is a lot more common than people think, given the immense social pressure to find a romantic partner, and how common it is for people to admit to not enjoying sex with said partner.

I think this is why visibility is a real issue for LGBTQIA+ communities. Frankly, I think there are a lot of people who live an entire life without even knowing they are a-spec because they never thought to question themselves in a relationship.

I am 50% in the book and I like it more than I thought I would. Will finish and promote to other a-spec people I know.
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TsukasaElkKite



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 3942
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 8:17 am Reply with quote
This book was fantastic. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I'm ecstatic that so much manga are being licensed concerning things we relate to.
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