She Likes Gays, but Not Me Volume 1 Review
Trigger warnings: This manga has a parental warning about Explicit Content and also contains references to suicidal ideation and homophobia.
“What is ‘normal’ sex?” Jun, in an online chat with Mr. Fahrenheit.
High-schooler Jun Andou is deeply conflicted. He knows he’s gay but he longs for a normal heterosexual life, with a wife and children. He’s secretly been seeing a middle-aged man for sex, Makoto Sasaki, who has a son the same age and likes Jun to call him ‘Daddy’. But it’s when Jun meets class/schoolmate Sae Miura at the local bookstore and he spots that she’s buying a Boys’ Love book, that the two get into conversation. She’s embarrassed that he’s found her out and begs him not to reveal that she’s a fujoshi. He dismisses the BL manga she reads as fantasy and asks, “Why do you like gay guys?” “Because they’re pretty unusual, I guess,” she answers after a long moment’s reflection.
At school it seems to Jun that all his classmates can talk about is sex and who’s doing it with whom and how. His childhood friend, Ryouhei Takaoka, is far too eager to tell him all the physical details of their classmate Onnichi’s first time with a girl – but why does Ryouhei always greet Jun by grabbing his crotch? Just guys together, larking around?! Jun and Miura start hanging out together and he learns from her that fujoshi can receive hate from other girls.
Online, Jun has been chatting for some time with ‘Mr. Fahrenheit’ (a name borrowed from the Queen song ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’) who is gay and is willing to hear Jun’s concerns and offer advice. However, as time passes, it becomes painfully obvious to Jun that Mr. Fahrenheit is going through some traumatic life experiences and that – if he really is who he says he is – he’s badly in need of help and support.
Meanwhile, Jun rushes headlong into dating Miura, even though he’s admitted to himself that he likes her but doesn’t feel any kind of physical attraction. On a joint date to an amusement park with classmates (including Ryouhei) he kisses Miura on the Ferris wheel. But afterward, Ryouhei is visibly upset and insists that he’s attracted to Miura. Is that really the reason he’s upset? Jun is too caught up in his own confusion to pay attention and invites Miura back to his home when his mother is out. A make-out session ensues but, putting himself under so much pressure to perform, the results are predictable. Miura thinks it’s her fault that he isn’t turned on by her and he is consumed with guilt that he’s led her on. Will a trip to a hot springs resort in Odaiba with her student fujoshi friend Nao Sakura and Nao’s homophobic boyfriend, Hayato Kondou, help smooth matters over? Unlikely… especially as this is where Makoto-san is also on holiday with his family! Jun has never needed advice from Mr. Fahrenheit more than now – but when an unexpected automated message comes in, he’s at a loss as to what to do.
This manga by Akira Hirahara is based on a novel by the late Naoto Asahara, a gay writer who sadly died in 2023 at the age of 38. It’s been adapted into an eight-part NHK TV drama and a film (2021). Even though currently unavailable in English, French publisher Akata brought it out in 2019 with the title Je ne suis pas un gay de fiction.
The songs of Queen permeate the whole narrative; they are playing in the background of Kate’s cafe where Jun meets up with his much older lover Makoto-san. Apparently the chapters in the original novel are named after Queen songs (as are the episodes of the drama). The choice of Queen songs which are now regarded as ‘rock classics’ but in the 1970s and 80s were outrageously, blazingly transgressive is… interesting, thanks – by and large – to the talents of frontman Freddie Mercury, who is name-checked here. But that was a much less permissive time when a diagnosis of AIDS was too often a death sentence and the legacy of that era is evoked in Jun’s online conversations with Mr. Fahrenheit, with some very painful revelations about the ever-present dangers of contracting HIV through unprotected sex.
There are several LGBTQ+ issues highlighted in this first volume, some universal, others possibly more relevant in Japan. But Jun’s view of how he doesn’t fit into society presents a very negative picture of life for a young gay person today. Is Jun looking for a father figure in his relationship with Makoto-san (his parents are divorced and his father absent)?
Mangaka Akira Hirahara has made some significant choices as to how to present the main characters. Jun is portrayed as slender and young-looking for his age (compared with his classmates). This, inevitably, makes the explicit scenes in which he has sex with middle-aged Makoto (who is consistently shown with a predatory and deeply unpleasant facial expression) very difficult to read as they look like child abuse. The panel showing the two of them side by side in the baths at an onsen reinforces the difference in their age and stature. What strikes me here is that the mangaka, by heavily emphasizing the difference in age and experience, is able to communicate with these disturbing images and facial expressions in a more direct way than – perhaps – the original novel (not currently available in translation). By making the characters look like this on the page, the mangaka heightens our revulsion at the older man’s actions and the boy’s vulnerability.
The first volume of She Likes Gays, but Not Me is translated for Yen Press by Leighann Harvey who also provides a very useful page of translation notes at the end; lettering is expertly done by Rochelle Gancio. There’s a colour page at the start of the volume. Volume 2 is due out in August and the series concludes with the third volume.
This is not an easy title to recommend, although it raises some important issues. The fact that Jun has confined himself in a closet largely of his own making is significant but many will find the age gap same-sex relationship depicted here a deal-breaker and look to other LGBTQ+ titles instead by gay mangaka and authors.
Afternote: some suggestions for alternative Boys’ Love manga and memoirs to read.
Is Jun’s lonely closeted life still a realistic depiction of the 2020s? We’ve recently been presented with more positive real-life accounts (some via manga, others as memoirs) by male gay Japanese writers: Ryosuke Nanasaki’s Until I Meet My Husband (Seven Seas) and Why I Adopted My Husband by Yuta Yagi: ‘The true story of a gay couple seeking legal recognition in Japan’ (Tokyopop), as well as explorations in fictional manga-form by Kazuki Minamoto in The Gay who Turned Kaiju (Yen Press) and I Think Our Son is Gay (Square Enix Manga) by Okura.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
