Book 632: My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2 – Gengoroh Tagame

My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2, if possible, is even more perfect than Volume 1. We pick up with the story where Yatchi is continuing to digest what it must be like for LGBTQ+ individuals to come out and not be accepted. He’s internalizing everything and applying it to his own relationship with his daughter.

As Yatchi is doing he comes to the realization that he may not have fully accepted his twin’s sexuality. He finally acknowledges that they grew apart and that it wasn’t Ryoji’s growing distant and physically moving to Canada, but that he became distant with his twin as soon as he came out.

In contrast to volume one where we have the hopeful story of Kazuya, we have the story of Ryoji’s high school friend Katoyan, a closeted gay who barely acknowledges Mike but somehow gets him to meet him in another district to talk about his and Ryoji’s friendship growing up.

The saddest part is when Mike asks if he can say hi/acknowledge Ryoji if they see each other, and Ryoji says no. Unlike Kazuya who has hope for the future and sees a relationship and marriage in his future, Katoyan will remain closeted for the rest of his life.

While all of this is going on there’s still the turmoil Yatchi faces as he begins to fully understand that husband is husband no matter who the other partner is and husband is family. As he comes to this realization it is really about all the feels. There’s a portion where Yatchi stands up to societal pressure and tells Kana’s principal, and anyone for that matter for the first time, that Mike is Kana’s uncle and his brother’s husband and that she has no reason whatsoever to stop talking about a beloved uncle.

And then a few frames later I’m basically bawling because he finally asks Mike to see the photos of Mike and Ryoji’s life in Canada, their vacations and their wedding, basically everything he’s missed that Mike showed Kana early in volume one. And then to make it even more of an ugly cry, Yatchi takes Mike and Kana to visit his parent’s graves and to participate in the traditional cleaning and honoring of them.

Recommendation: This book is so well-crafted visually, thematically, and structurally. The story has impact whether you know anything about Japanese culture and can (and has) resound with a global audience. I teared up re-reading parts as I was writing this book a week or so after finishing it because it’s just that good.