Holiday Review: I THINK OUR SON IS GAY

After another awful year, we could all use a good laugh.  Thankfully, Square Enix provided us with a fine comedy about family, understanding, and really poor attempts at staying in the closet.

I THINK OUR SON IS GAY (Uchi no Musuko wa Tabun Gay), by Okura.  First published in 2019 and first published in North America in 2021.

PLOT:

Tomoko suspects something about her eldest son Hiroki.  He keeps talking about guys in his class and the prospect of getting a boyfriend, only to get flustered and try to babble his way out of it.  She suspects he's gay but she's willing to give him the space and support he needs to eventually come out on his own.

PLOT:

There's a lot of earnest, sincere-to-a-fault works out there about young queer teens and The Struggle: the struggle with sexual orientation, the struggle to come out to family and others.  I Think Our Son Is Gay is certainly a lot more light-hearted that these stories tend to be, but its heart is in a good place and its affections are sincere.

Bless Hiroki's heart because this kid is absolutely terrible at hiding how gay he is.  He is constantly making Freudian slips and his attempts to hide them with loud, stammering declarations of how totally straight he is don't work for a red-hot second.  He's also bad at hiding things like his search history or coffee table books about buff dudes.  He's also clearly got it bad for his best friend Daigo, as every interaction between the two either leaves him in a panic to look cool or positively radiant. 

Luckily, his mother is kind, understanding, and has learned to gently deflect conversations instead of questioning the slips.  Over the course of the volume, we see Hiroki's younger brother Yuri join in as well, bringing his own deadpan energy.  Both of them figure out the truth, but are willing to give him the time he needs to come out on his own time and it's rather heartwarming to watch.

That's not to say that Hiroki's haplessness at playing straight is the only joke or drama to be found here.  His dad shows up for a few chapters, on break from a long stint away at work.  Sadly, his dad is rather casually and vocally homophobic.  As we see in flashbacks to Hiroki's childhood, this is not a new phenonmenon.  Thus it's up to Tomoko and Yuri to either try to change the dad's notions or just plain change the conversation.  The text makes it clear that the dad is not actively bigoted so much as thoughtlessly heteronormative, but that his attitude is no less harmful to his son.  It does give us hope that over time he can change - after all, we see Tomoko almost have a bit of a freak-out herself upon realization, only to come to her senses after a bit of rational thought.  It's the love and trust she has in her family that forms the beating heart of this series, giving readers the feels alongside the laughs.

ART:

Okura's characters have these very simple, ovular heads with equally simple features and flappy mouths.  That simplicity works in favor of the comedy, as Hiroki flails wildly, stretches his face into a wide-eyed shout, and glows almost incandescently with blushing and sweat.  Design aside, the art here is otherwise naturalistic in posing, background, and detail.  Tomoko's home could be any average Japanese family home and that's part of the point.

RATING:

I Think Our Son is Gay is a sweet and gentle comedy that pokes good fun at the titular son without crossing the line into outright mockery.  As such, it's a manga comedy that can be enjoyed by anyone.

This series is published by Square Enix.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 4 volumes available.  2 volumes have been released and are currently in print.

Only one more day remains in our annual Holiday Review Giveaway! Let us know about your favorite manga of 2021 to win a $25 RightStuf gift certificate!  Click on the link above for more details.  The contest ends on Christmas Day!