In Otouto no Otto, Volume 1, we meet Yaichi, a Japanese man whose entire life is turned upside-down by the arrival of his late brother’s Canadian husband, Mike. 

In Otouto no Otto, Volume 2, (弟の夫) Yaichi is confronted by the existence of many things he just never wanted to deal with before, but which will not wait for his convenience.

But first, we meet Kana’s mother, who is a perfectly nice person. She and Yaichi are friendly and Mike thinks they suit each other well, and Yaichi has to admit the marriage failing was pretty much on him.

More and more we can see that Yaichi is a traditional Japanese man, who never really thought he’d have to think much beyond his job, and expected, in a sort of vague way, that things would be “normal” for him.

For one thing, Yaichi has never truly dealt with the fact that his beloved brother was gay and he never really accepted that. He’s confused by his own feelings about Ryouji’s death and Mike’s relationship with his brother. And there’s his daughter, Kana, who stubbornly refuses to be embarrassed by this hairy, foreign, gay uncle.

Mike continues on his quest to visit his late husband’s early life and as he and Yaichi become more friendly, by sharing stories of Ryouji, Yaichi begins to question a lot of what he thought and felt…and it’s making really him uncomfortable.

In the meantime, Kana is also starting to feel the effects of homophobia, as friend’s parents share rumors and keep their children from playing with Kana. Her distress is upsetting to Yaichi, who feels extra guilt because he himself was just as homophobic as the neighbors.

The damn begins to break when a neighborhood kid starts hanging around and finally breaks down to tell Mike that he too, is gay. Understanding that Ryouji must have felt that alone is the final push Yaichi needs to begin to empathize.

But as the book ends, Yaichi’s dreams are just getting weirder and weirder…would he be okay if the gay kid was his own? What if he started liking Mike “that way”? What if…?

I love this series. It’s covering everything all at once, and without anger, but with a calm, pleasant conviction that all the negativity needs to be surfaced to be understood and seen to be banished. Yaichi is everyman and watching him painfully confront his own bias and discontent is both satisfying and frustrating in equal measure.

I’m gonna say flat out there are not enough awards to give this series. It’s an excellent read. At the Tokyo Comics Showcase, Vol.1, Tagame-sensei (who is a lovely, lovely man) said that he doesn’t know what the average reader of Action Comics thinks of his manga, but that he is getting a lot of positive feedback. And that, I think, is the beginning of change.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 5

Overall – 10

Thank you, Tagame-sensei, for being part of the beginning of change.

2017 Update: Pantheon Books has released it in a gorgeous English-language (what will be 2-volume, so Volume 1 includes this Japanese V2) edition. My Brother’s Husband, Volume 1 has launched! 

If there is one book that I would suggest everyone read in 2016, it is Lillian Faderman’s epic history of LGBTQ rights in the United States, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle.

Many of us are familiar with the Stonewall Uprising, and the subsequent Christopher Street Liberation Parade that birthed a hundred Gay Pride events worldwide, but fewer of us truly understand the events that lead up to it.. or to a similar “uprising” at a bar in LA before that, or the systematic destruction of gay lives before that. This book put into perspective the reaction of feminists to the “Lavender Menace,” and LGBT reaction to Anita Bryant‘s virulently anti-gay campaign and the importance – both bad  and, almost counter-intuitively, good – of the AIDS crisis.

More than anything, it puts into perspective the setbacks we’re struggling with now. As one reads, it becomes obvious that any progress is met with an irrational anger and attempts to send us back into the closet. And those angry attempts gain traction, which galvanizes our community and allies and we push back harder and make more progress. Again and again, the same scenario plays out, the destruction of lives, followed by the reversal of the law that enshrined bigotry. It’s almost said how predictable it becomes, honestly.

It’s fascinating, too, to realize that as bad as the current bathroom and freedom to discriminate laws are, the playing field is different. The law of the land no longer considers gay people criminal or crazy. It’s these discriminatory laws that are on the defensive now. They will be overturned. And the next step will give rise to other irrational laws that attempt to enshrine hatred and those too will be overturned. The cost, of course, is real lives thrown into chaos. But the arc of the universe continues to bend towards justice.

The other significant lesson one can take from this book is a primer on organizational lifecycle. Faderman tells the story in cycles, rather than purely chronologically, detailing the people, the organizations and the circumstances of specific battles such as the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, the decriminalization of “being gay,” the repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and so on. In each cycle we see people banding together, and breaking apart, over and over and over. Every group pushed forward, then is overtaken by a groups of younger, more radical protesters who demand more. It’s an honest and fascinating look at how hard it is to keep people focused – even when their lives are at stake.

Faderman, best known as a historian of lesbian history and content in books such as Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, takes on a long and dark history in this book…and she does a very good job of it. But she doesn’t make too much of an attempt to remain an unengaged observer. It’s not hard to tell, for instance, in her chapter on gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, her unbridled contempt for California politician – now Senator – Dianne Feinstein. While in an academic look at history this kind of personal emotion is discouraged, it is exactly this personal passion for the topic that makes The Gay Revolution such a compelling read.

At 650 pages of content and another 150 of notes, the book appears too large and intimidating to tackle. But I blew threw it in mere days, and kept making time to read “just a bit more” until I was done. It was that good a book.

Ratings:

Overall – 10

This is our history. These are the names and places we need to remember.  You should really read this book. Consider it your summer homework.

When actress Ellen Page came out as a lesbian in 2014, I barely noticed. Movie celebrities are pretty far outside my sphere of interest, except as a retweet on a slow day. (and, frankly, I often forget that celebrities coming out is still a thing for some people. “zOMG so-and-so is gay?!?” over some celebrity/actor/singer is so 2000.

But Ellen Page has been pretty outspoken about gay rights and has braved some pretty toxic people to be so, and I give her props for that.  She’s also created a mini-series for Viceland called Gaycation, in which she and her friend Ian travel to various places around the world, meeting gay folks and talking to people about gay culture in their countries – and facing any number of homophobic elements head on.

While working on my alt-manga lecture (this Thursday at Baruch college!), the lecture organizer asked me if I had seen this series. I’d caught like half an episode, but I thought I’d really sit down and watch Episode 1, in which Ellen and Ian go to Japan.

There is both good and not-so-good in this episode. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of the Western “zOMG wacky Japan!” mentality, which means we spend more time than I’d personally like at niche-y things.

A good chunk of the segment is a visit to a Newhalf club, in which they sort of lump that in with trans life uncritically, rather than discussing the possible place it might have for people who might, maybe, one day come out as trans, or did and this was a stop in the process, or that many of the men aren’t trans  and for them that this is fetish or fantasy without any implicit trans identity.

They visit a Buddhist temple that holds (not legally valid) same-sex marriage ritual. In a moment of supreme western indulgence, they go through one, as if that would give them insight into what it would mean to an actual gay couple. I found this segment tone-deaf, orientalist and embarrassing.

Another thing they do is listening to a BL Drama CD with straight fujoshi, and they are present when a guy “rents a friend” to be there when he comes out to his mother. This is moving, but again, weirdly voyeuristic, as they aren’t really there for any reason. If they wanted this to have context and meaning they should have talked to the guy, rather than about him.

These segments fill up more time than talking to actual LGBTQ people, although they do do that as well. They mention BL manga, but again, not with the subtlety one might wish, or the recognition of Bara or GL (which I am using here to indicate moe and mainstreamed f/f manga, not gay, per se) or Yuri (by gay women, as Bara is by gay men.) Ellen and Ian have some valid thoughts around the exploitation of gay men’s sexuality in BL, but not enough depth of recognition to really give it context and they never mention Yuri, so we can only guess what they might see if they saw that.

In Shinjuku Ni-choume, they visit a long-standing gay bar and another long-lasting lesbian bar. Here, at least, we get some insight to gay life from gays and lesbians. Also, a shout-out to Tokyo Bois! Yuki Keiser, who was their guide for this segment.)

The end of the episode very briefly covers the baby steps in same-sex couple recognition in Shibuya, and in visibility with the gay pride parade. I kind of wish I could take Ellen and Ian around myself to see some of the things that they missed. ^_^ Gosh, they forgot to watch a Takarazuka show. /eyeroll/

It’s worth watching if only to see what Japan *still* looks like from the outside. And it reminds me how important first-person narratives by Japanese gay people, as in Lesbian-teki Kekkon Seikatsu and Coming Out Letters, is. These are the real stories of the real struggles. Ellen and Ian’s whirlwind tour is practically a flyover.

Ratings:

Overall – I’m really on the fence about this. It was enjoyable, but the more I think about it, the more things I don’t care for about it. Let’s say a 5. Maybe it had good intent, but it got lost in the need to be entertaining and the wallowing in wacky Japan.