Tanu is a careerwoman, Negi is her lover, and their story – how they met, what their life is like together, what their plans for the future are – make up this non-fiction comic essay, Manga de Tsuzuru Yurina Hibi (まんがで綴る百合な日々).

Their story is fairly typical – they talk about recognizing that they liked women in school, how they met at a drinking party and became friends, then lovers and eventually moved in together. The very calm predictability of it is what makes it worth reading. It’s utterly relatable. The end of the book is a Q&A with Tanu and Negi, moderated by lesbian talent and author, Makimura Aasako (author of Doukyonin no Bishoujo ga Lesbian Datta Ken and Yuri no Real.

The text is all handwritten, which makes this book a challenge for readers like myself and the story is not exciting, per se, but this is another great addition to our comic essay library of adorable examples of lesbian life in book form.

Ratings:

Art – 5 Cute cartoons, rather than sophisticated art.
Story – 6 Slice of life
Characters – 7

Overall – 7

I would have given this book a higher rating if Tanu and Negi were comfortable enough to show their faces. As it is, they are clearly not out, so the normality of their life depends upon a certain amount of secrecy and is therefore not actually normal.  I sympathize, but….

Makimura Asako is a woman who, for the last few years, has been working very hard to make a name for herself in Japan as a LGBTQ advocate and activist with books like Yuri no Real and her essay on being a “Yuri” otaku in the Eureka “Current State of Yuri Culture” issue. In Doukyonin no Bishoujo ga Lesbian Datta Ken (同居人の美少女がレズビアンだった件), she and her erstwhile roomate, artist Koike Miki, create an autobiographical comic essay about her life.

The principle concept is that in expensive Tokyo, there are “share houses” which function much like a dormitory – as many as 16 people in a room with bunk beds, sharing a kitchen and bath facilities. Koike, having come to Tokyo for a job, finds herself renting space in a share house and meeting Makimura. Makimura Asako, former Miss Japan finalist and TV personality, comes out to her housemates and they just sort of all get over themselves.

The middle of the book is more autobiography about Makimura’s life and experiences coming out and building a career post-coming out. And then…she falls in love. Her girlfriend, known here as “Mori-girl” or “Moriga” for short, is a French woman who was into anime that ran on French TV, learned Japanese and came to the land of miruku and hachimitsu. She and “Makimuuu~” meet at a club and fall in love. Now the housemates have to not only deal with the idea of a lesbian, but the actuality of a lesbian couple.

Ultimately, Koike and Makimura move out together, while Makimura travels the world, Koike stays behind to work on this book, which was, in part, motivated by Higashi Koyuki and Masahara Hiroko’s own bio comic essay Lesbian-teki Kekkon Seikatsu. We get a little side trip into Koike’s interest in having a romantic partner, but not much. There is quite a lot about Makimura meeting and being accepted by her French in-laws, and a bit about Same-Sex Marriage becoming legal in France. These are paralleled by Koike’s struggle to make the book work, and her editor’s coming out as Trans*.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 10

Overall, this is a pleasant read, with an emphasis on the cute and silly moments, and nods to the struggles of LGBTQ folks, without wallowing. If I were teaching a class in Japan on LGBTQ issues, this seems like it would make a nice addition to the curriculum.

In spring 2013, Higashi Koyuki and Masahara Hiroko made waves all around the world with the first ever same-sex wedding ceremony at Tokyo Disneyland Resort (TDR). The two are both activists and writers, and their story was widely shared around the Internet and in print publications.

Lesbian-teki Kekkon Seikatsu (レズビアン的結婚生活 ) is the manga retelling of their story. Beginning with their decision to do a wedding ceremony at Disneyland and their experiences convincing TDR to accommodate them, the story is a very honest, very real, touching and sometimes painful discussion of their lives, their lives together and their love for one another.

Koyuki-san, a former Takarisienne, is the more high-strung of the two. She has also written a book about familial abuse she suffered as a child. After flashbacks to her first love in school, we hear very little about her life, except to mention briefly how difficult life at Takarazuka is.

Hiroko-san is, of the two, the way more mellow personality. We get a fair amount of detail about her life, and her relationship to her parents, all of which is actually relevant to the narrative at hand, as her parents help pay for the extravaganza. Her father’s speech at their wedding is illustrated with guests bawling happily and I was no different. Hiroko-san’s parents were, in some ways, the real heroes of the book.

My favorite chapter tells of Koyuki-san asking Hiroko-san to propose to her romantically, then grading her half-hearted attempts. My favorite was the moment Hiroko-san came home. “I’m in the bathroom,” Koyuki-san says. “Let’s get married,” Hiroko-san says. “Negative 5 points,” is the reply. ^_^

Many of these flashbacks are related as answering questions from the wedding guests. When did you come out? Where did you meet? Who proposed? All told with humor and honesty, interspersed with educational essays about LGBTQ terminology, coming out and other LGBTQ life issues.

The artwork by Sugiyama Eriko is appealing and cute, rather than realistic. It balances out the heavier moments well and allows readers to focus on the story and the people, rather than getting lost in detail.

If you can read even a little Japanese, I’d recommend this book with all my recommends. The story it tells is a moment of history that may well be the moment a tide turned. This is as real as real gets.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 10

Koyuki-san and Hiroko-san have written a second book, about becoming mothers, titled Futari no Mama kara, Kimi-tachi he, so you can follow their continuing story. ^_^