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. 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. 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

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. 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!

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. Just as there are a plethora of different sexual orientations, there are also variety of different relationship dynamics that people can experience throughout their lives. Society very much establishes how certain relationships are supposed to have their importance informed, such as how marriage is seen to signify a union between partners that are romantically and physically committed to each other. Obviously that is not always the case, but I wasn't expecting to come across a book that would show how marriage itself doesn't define the strength of a relationship, rather it's in the specific pleasure that two people can foster between each other. This is a story about an asexual/aromantic person being married to a gay man yet finding complete satisfaction in that arrangement; in fact, it's probably one of the healthiest marriages I have seen in manga. There is no sexual or even romantic tension between our two leads, but there is a strong kinship that I would argue goes beyond what I think we typically expect from how friendship is portrayed in media. These two listen to each other's worries, try to do right by each other, and are very open about their doubts while trying to overcome them and do their absolute best to understand the hobbies of the other. 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.

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. Gakuroura’s story doesn’t land quite as strongly just because he’s certainly not the first nor last gay guy in manga by this point, whereas Yuriko represents a very underserved demographic, even if he also feels the weight of heteronormative society on him. He’s also a lot more taciturn than Yuriko is as a general rule. 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). 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! I Want To Be A Wall (わたしは壁になりたい Watashi wa Kabe ni Naritai) is a Slice of Life manga by Honami Shirono, which was serialized in B-Log's Cheek from 2019 to 2023. The manga follows the lavender marriage of Gakurouta and Yuriko Hanazono, a gay man and an aromantic asexual woman, respectively. Despite the fact that they'll never fall in love, they still work to accommodate for their newlywed life along with Yuriko's love for Boys' Love and Gakurouta's hidden feelings for his childhood best friend.The Beard: Gakurouta and Yuriko are mutual beards to one another, as Gakurouta isn't attracted to women while Yuriko isn't attracted to anyone. 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. Overall, I’m excited to see where this series goes. It’s a unique queer love story that I hope continues to develop slowly. The first volume invested me in the lives of these two fully realized characters and never overplayed the premise that they won’t fall in 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. 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.

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. Nov 20 From the U.S. to Japan, You Can Control the Life-Size Moving Gundam from the Comfort of Your Own Home 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.The jokier aspects of this story tend to fall flatter than a possum on the interstate during Labour Day weekend, however. Comedy about people being awful at cooking is incredibly played out in manga, but especially when trying to tell a more serious story. Yeah, it’s cute that they both end up terrible at it, but so, so corny. 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… As a very specific gender identity, asexuality feels like the one where people are most likely to offer the most useless advice from either well-meaning ignorance or regular old jerk ignorance. Yuriko has to deal with a lot of ‘you could land a man if you tried harder’ or ‘you haven’t met the right person yet’ that simply ignores her preferences in favour of trying to force her into a specific box.

I spent the entire volume wondering how Yuriko and Gakurouta had met, learned each other's secrets, and decided to get married. They clearly liked and wanted to support each other, but they also barely knew anything about each other - it read like an arranged marriage that had somehow worked out. Did they meet via some kind of LGBT+ matchmaking service?

Interest Stacks

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???