Manga Thoughts: Is Love the Answer?
Jun. 2nd, 2023 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerOnce I’d bought a copy of Uta Iska’s manga Is Love the Answer?, I took some time getting around to reading it. This had something to do with the sense this manga had very much got my attention, it was more significant than one more instalment in some long-running series inertia played some role in continuing it, and waiting amounted to “saving the best for last.” At the same time, though, I was at least a little uncertain about what I’d be left with once I’d finished it.
It wasn’t that many years ago that I picked up on the concept of asexuality. I have to admit it intrigued me. Even so, when I begin to dwell on it too much I get to thinking, among other things, how I started reading Bloom Into You after an early review mentioning there seemed something asexual about one of its main characters. Then, when the tension between that and the more conventional “girls’ love” elements resolved at last with pretty clear proof Yuu had just needed time blooming to the point of having sex and had enjoyed it too, that had seemed very much the next best thing to me. It was a reminder there could well be other explanations why my personal life is so unexciting, and most of them seem too unflattering and embarrassing to do more than hint at. Having read a proper non-fiction book on the subject of asexuality, Angela Chen’s Ace, through my library’s ebook lending service doesn’t make much of a difference there now.
At the same time, in acknowledging the importance of “more people can see themselves represented in fiction these days” I can wonder if a different thought can get obscured, namely that fiction is a way to begin to get a sense of people different from you. It was a bit of a jolt to run into a warning of “sexual violence” on the table of contents page of this manga about asexuality, but as its high school protagonist Chika goes into a spiral over not having got “the deal when you go over to a guy’s house” I did start wondering about how a different sort of story might have just jumped to “you’re unfortunately traumatized.” Being introduced by her girl friends to a more respectful guy doesn’t make a difference. Chika enters university wanting to study psychology and get a better sense of herself, but when a guy puts on a bit of pressure for club recruitment and she’s starting to break down again a professor comes to the rescue, gives her a first explanation someone doesn’t “have” to “fall in love,” and winds up offering her a room in a “UFO house.”
That’s just the first chapter. Chika does manage to make a few friends who get past efforts to “help” her get hooked up; one is a young woman who shouts early on “Them saying my otaku activities are just a substitute for love kind of ticked me off!” That feels a bit more familiar, somehow, even if I’m very aware that without extreme care trying to say anything more might seem like whining how “women have things easier than men.” It just so happens that this leads to Chika getting to watch an old magical girl anime on DVD (which links back to a much earlier moment where she bumped into what everyone else supposes is “normal”), but she does happen to think an “older butler” character is her favourite and starts wondering at once if this means she’s not asexual after all. The professor eventually talks her down from her worries while making a brief point also briefly made in Angela Chen’s Ace that asexuality doesn’t have to mean “not even the embarrassing stuff, not ever,” and mentions in the process personally identifying as agender despite passing as female (which Chika supposed at their first meeting) in a mutual-aid marriage of convenience. To be fair despite the way I’ve been writing here, the thought of being agender sometimes crosses Chika’s mind as well.
Despite a comment or two from Chika about how she doesn’t react to certain stories with the slashy urges of her fanatical fan friend, she does manage to mediate the romantic problems of another acquaintance. As the manga wraps up, I did realise I’d mixed up her male friend (whose worries that perhaps not being one hundred percent gay could get in the way of his friendship with two young women were resolved) with another student rooming in the “UFO house” and resenting how Chika had lucked into the room the cat always sleeps in. That young man is also asexual, but had only really realised that after having sex because “that’s what you’re supposed to do,” not liking it at all, and getting into trouble for going through several partners. Getting past that brings the manga to a pretty satisfying close. With all of that said, even with comments in it that there’s a lot of variety to asexuality I remain cautious about any sort of personal commitment. The manga remained a thought-provoking and affecting experience anyway.
It wasn’t that many years ago that I picked up on the concept of asexuality. I have to admit it intrigued me. Even so, when I begin to dwell on it too much I get to thinking, among other things, how I started reading Bloom Into You after an early review mentioning there seemed something asexual about one of its main characters. Then, when the tension between that and the more conventional “girls’ love” elements resolved at last with pretty clear proof Yuu had just needed time blooming to the point of having sex and had enjoyed it too, that had seemed very much the next best thing to me. It was a reminder there could well be other explanations why my personal life is so unexciting, and most of them seem too unflattering and embarrassing to do more than hint at. Having read a proper non-fiction book on the subject of asexuality, Angela Chen’s Ace, through my library’s ebook lending service doesn’t make much of a difference there now.
At the same time, in acknowledging the importance of “more people can see themselves represented in fiction these days” I can wonder if a different thought can get obscured, namely that fiction is a way to begin to get a sense of people different from you. It was a bit of a jolt to run into a warning of “sexual violence” on the table of contents page of this manga about asexuality, but as its high school protagonist Chika goes into a spiral over not having got “the deal when you go over to a guy’s house” I did start wondering about how a different sort of story might have just jumped to “you’re unfortunately traumatized.” Being introduced by her girl friends to a more respectful guy doesn’t make a difference. Chika enters university wanting to study psychology and get a better sense of herself, but when a guy puts on a bit of pressure for club recruitment and she’s starting to break down again a professor comes to the rescue, gives her a first explanation someone doesn’t “have” to “fall in love,” and winds up offering her a room in a “UFO house.”
That’s just the first chapter. Chika does manage to make a few friends who get past efforts to “help” her get hooked up; one is a young woman who shouts early on “Them saying my otaku activities are just a substitute for love kind of ticked me off!” That feels a bit more familiar, somehow, even if I’m very aware that without extreme care trying to say anything more might seem like whining how “women have things easier than men.” It just so happens that this leads to Chika getting to watch an old magical girl anime on DVD (which links back to a much earlier moment where she bumped into what everyone else supposes is “normal”), but she does happen to think an “older butler” character is her favourite and starts wondering at once if this means she’s not asexual after all. The professor eventually talks her down from her worries while making a brief point also briefly made in Angela Chen’s Ace that asexuality doesn’t have to mean “not even the embarrassing stuff, not ever,” and mentions in the process personally identifying as agender despite passing as female (which Chika supposed at their first meeting) in a mutual-aid marriage of convenience. To be fair despite the way I’ve been writing here, the thought of being agender sometimes crosses Chika’s mind as well.
Despite a comment or two from Chika about how she doesn’t react to certain stories with the slashy urges of her fanatical fan friend, she does manage to mediate the romantic problems of another acquaintance. As the manga wraps up, I did realise I’d mixed up her male friend (whose worries that perhaps not being one hundred percent gay could get in the way of his friendship with two young women were resolved) with another student rooming in the “UFO house” and resenting how Chika had lucked into the room the cat always sleeps in. That young man is also asexual, but had only really realised that after having sex because “that’s what you’re supposed to do,” not liking it at all, and getting into trouble for going through several partners. Getting past that brings the manga to a pretty satisfying close. With all of that said, even with comments in it that there’s a lot of variety to asexuality I remain cautious about any sort of personal commitment. The manga remained a thought-provoking and affecting experience anyway.