Childhood Friend Romance: Gakurouta has been in love with Sousuke ever since they met when they were kids. Unfortunately for Gakurouta, it's entirely one-sided since Sousuke is straight, and has had multiple girlfriends in the time they've known each other while Gakurouta remains silent about his own feelings. Gakurouta is a gay man who has always been extremely close to his childhood friend, Sousuke. Ten years ago, he realized that he'd fallen in love with his friend...who was very popular with the ladies and gave no indication of any interest in men. He's since tried to fall out of love with Sousuke, but it didn't work, and he has now resigned himself to forever nursing a one-sided love.

That said, I’m not entirely convinced at the strict heterosexuality of the other guy, given his incredibly rapid cycling of his girlfriends and some rather suggestive prose that crops up. It would be rather ironic if people who constantly get mislabeled accidentally did the same to him instead. Anyway, I am really happy with this set up and really optimistic about its handling of aspec identity which is so, so nice since there aren't many honest explorations of those experiences. And I want to establish - the English translation does simply refer to Yuriko as "asexual," though it is established through conversation that she experiences neither romantic nor sexual attraction. I've been informed that this is likely a translation thing that they don't seperate aromanticism and asexuality, but Yuriko IS aroace, there is no denying it. Yuriko is asexual. Gakuroura is gay. Naturally this means that they’ve just gotten married to camouflage their true natures behind the norms of society. Even with this marriage, however, they’ve got a lot to learn about one another and there’s still more than a little prejudice out there… The premise for I Want to Be a Wall is too great to not garner attention. An asexual, aromantic boys love (BL) fan marries a gay man still in love with his childhood best friend. The first volume of this quirky manga is a sweet slice of life story about a married couple who will never be attracted to each other. When I read the premise, I hoped the book would fall into a group of manga that I have come to adore. I call it “married couple, with a twist”. It’s where I categorize series like The Way of the Househusband and The Full Time Wife Escapist. And I’ve heard Spy x Family may fall into this too but I’ve not experienced that series yet.

Just because you’re ace doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything

While this introductory volume makes sure that the audience understands that premise, Shirono doesn’t use it for gags or laughs. Instead, the characters and the volume just see it as the state of things. Moving from that starting point, this volume suggests that the series will be one filled with love and care. Even if our protagonists don’t fall for each other. Gaku’s first determined effort to be a perfect husband (according to the guidebook on it). Both Yuriko and Gakurouta are well-established in this. We are introduced to their circumstances, the reasons they both agreed to this arrangement, and how they are attempting to navigate the dynamic of being married to and coexisting with each other. (Unfortunately, neither can cook, so RIP to their kitchen and their stomach linings.) Gaku is pining for his (straight) childhood best friend, and Yuriko has been followed her whole adult life by people encouraging her to find a man... woman... anyone??? You can't really want to be alone forever, do you??? When I heard about this manga I was surprised, because I heard that it was about an aroace woman and a gay man. I have seen aroace representation in manga once before, and I thought that was the only piece I would get. I am so happy that there seems to be more aroace characters being created, and the sexuality is beginning to be understood! Nov 20 From the U.S. to Japan, You Can Control the Life-Size Moving Gundam from the Comfort of Your Own Home Gee, it's almost as though being aspec is inherently queer and our struggles line up with other queer identities due to not fitting into established social narratives and that exclusionist movement that persisted for a couple years when I was a teen was full of shit and needed to shut up and actually listen to us about our experiences and no I'm not still haunted by that, it's not like I ran an aspec blog during the height of that bullshit and had to field terrible shit when I was sixteen, nope, not at all.

Nov 25 i☆Ris the Movie - Full Energy!! - Anime Film Teaser Visual Revealed at i☆Ris Live Stage in Anime NYC & i☆Ris First Performance in New York Successfully Completed What's It About? Yuriko, an asexual woman, agrees to take a husband to satisfy her parents—which is how she finds herself tying the knot with Gakurouta, a gay man in love with his childhood friend with his own complicated family circumstances. And so begins the tale of their marriage of convenience. Ditto watching Yuriko fret about Gakuroura learning more about her BL collection (based on this book and my own friends who are ace, it does seem like they all get issued massive book collections). The guy’s gay and interested, Yuriko, don’t shame him or yourself! That’s the meat of the story, which has precious little to do with the marriage side of things, really, although once the jokes are out of the way, there’s some warmth to be found in the story of these two friends in a marriage of convenience learning to come together and be a little closer, even if not do much in the romantic sense.Platonic Life-Partners: While Yuriko and Gakurouta aren't attracted to each other, they still treat their marriage as a serious partnership and act as a support system to one another. Also Gaku is so earnestly sweet trying to show interest in her hobbies to make her more comfortable with living with him, and I can't help but laughing that he actually starts getting into her books and that she has to live with the embarassment of answering questions like, "Hey, Yuriko... What's omegaverse???") In a cute realization, Yuriko comments that “They say ‘like marries like’?”. I love this scene because the story allows Yuriko and Gaku time to see each other as similar through their mutual desire to care for one another without expectations beyond that. This idea of many ways to care is supported through Yuriko’s self-discovery story. Shirono explores Yuriko’s ace identity in a complex way that reminds allosexual and alloromantic folks that there are many ways to want to be around and care for people.

The Mary Sue has a strict comment policythat forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.— Yuriko and Gakurouta know the sides of each other that won't allow them to fit in with regular society, but otherwise they know very little about each other. This first volume shows them gradually adjusting to their new married life and figuring out what that relationship means for them. This manga left me feeling torn. On the one hand, Yuriko and Gakurouta were a sweet pair, and I enjoyed watching them try their hardest to make their marriage work despite not having a clue what a marriage that doesn't include sex or romance should look like. On the other hand, I felt like the manga started at the wrong point, leaving me with all kinds of questions. Also, I wasn't entirely comfortable with how Yuriko's interest in Gakurouta's one-sided love for Sousuke was written.I gave this 3.5 stars on LibraryThing. I started off rounding it up to 4 stars on GR, then rounding it down to 3 stars, and finally settling on 4 stars again. Its issues bugged me, but there were also quite a few scenes I loved enough to reread. I felt like there was more depth and sensitivity to the way Yuriko was written than the way Gakurouta was written, and I wasn't entirely comfortable with the way Yuriko hovered around Sousuke and Gakurouta like she was witness to some kind of lovely BL tragedy. She genuinely felt for Gakurouta's sadness over his love being one-sided, but still...Gakurouta wasn't some fictional character in a story, he was a person, and it didn't always feel like Yuriko really understood that. Instead, our married protags dedicate themselves to a caring partnership just because they want to. Yuriko decides, after a bad attempt at cooking breakfast by Gaku, to make dinner for them. She decides to “channel her OTP” and make some “Croquettes of Love”. In her own determination panel, fist clenched around her phone and a determined, though more fanatical, look on her face, Yuriko buys the ingredients. Only to get home and realize that Gaku did the same thing. Yuriko is the strongest element of the book, honestly, and the portrayal her aromantic nature seems about right, but what I think the book does especially well is portraying the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ nature of others talking to those identifying as ace, which I’m going to wager is still pretty prevalent.