On April 14-15 at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, a conference entitled as the “Queers & Comics Conference” is to be held. To be considered as “the first ever university-based LBGTQ comics conference” and the second conference following the May 2025 conference, the event is to be attended by the author of the PSA type manga on the view of the LGBTQ people in Japan, Gengoroh Tagame.
The manga, entitled “ Otoutou no Otto” a.k.a “My Brother’s Husband” was first published in November 2014 in the Futabasha’s Monthly Action Magazine. It tells the story of the life of Yaichi and his tween daughter Kana mainly, however, that is not how the story truly begins. The story’s beginning is actually the aftermath of the unseen story of Yaichi’s twin brother Ryouji, who, as a young adult, moved to Canada once he revealed himself as a homosexual.
During his time there, he built a life and he married to a man named Mike; but to due to reasons yet unknown, he tragically dies and leaves both his adopted and biological family bereft with grief and wondering of what his life might have been like in both countries. So that he may pay his respects, Mike sets off to meet the family he’d previously never known.
From this we have the manga’s plot, a tale of three family members becoming a unique family of their own while also going through the unfamiliar concepts turned sentimental education that is, gay marriage, the time-honored traditions of mourning the dead and Western culture .
In the time of its publication, the manga has earned a recognition for having received a nomination for Best Comic at the 44th Annual Angoulême International Comics Festival and winning an Excellence Award at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2015.
Currently there are three compiled book volumes of the series and starting in June there will be an English omnibus format of the series to be done by Pantheon Books.