It’s June, and that means Pride Month for many. While many countries will celebrate Pride, and we’ve certainly talked about how Japan coexists with Pride and the LGBTQ community, it looks like Tokyo’s Spanish Embassy will take the top prize so far for the best Pride event. Why? Because mangaka Gengoroh Tagame will be there.
The Embassy held an event on June 6th for Spain’s SOMOS: Diversity and LGBTQ+ Cultural Narratives exhibit. The exhibit is meant to foster cultural exchange between Spain and Japan, give insight into LGBTQ history and highlight the works of Japanese artists that include LGBTQ themes. The event was free, though reservations were limited to those who managed to book through email.
Gengoroh Tagame discussed two of his most popular manga, Our Colors, and My Brother’s Husband, and the exhibit also showed off panels from the My Brother’s Husband manga.
Gengoroh Tagame has been a prolific gay manga artist and was most well known for his erotic works before finding mainstream success with My Brother’s Husband, which tells the story of a single father named Yaichi, who must not only come to terms with his estranged twin brother’s death but also be confronted with the last link he has to his twin; his brother’s husband.
The manga has won several awards since its release in 2014, including an Eisner award in 2018. Our Colors was released in 2018 through Monthly Action magazine and ended in 2020. It tells the story of a high school student named Sora Itoda who’s stuck in the closet and chafing against the casual homophobia all around him. A chance meeting with an older gay man gives him a kindred spirit and a new perspective on himself and his life. Pantheon Books released Our Colors in English in May 2022.
This kind of event is incredibly cool to see, and while it is a joint venture between the governments of Spain and Japan, there’s no way this kind of event wouldn’t be popular elsewhere. Artists like Gengoroh Tagame have several decades of experience in art and as part of the LGBTQ community. No doubt this event will resonate with all kinds of people.
Source: Anime News Network
