Chika has long struggled with understanding what it means when someone “likes” someone else. If a date is just two people hanging out, how is that any different from what she already does? Why do people say she has “no common sense” if she takes an invitation to a guy’s house at face value and doesn’t in fact want to have sex? And there’s no way she can empathize with all the break-up songs her friends sing at karaoke either.
So, seeking answers, Chika enters college and hopes to study psychology from a professor she admires. Chika’s freshman year doesn’t quite go the way she planned or hoped, but self-discovery rarely does.
When I first saw the title Is Love the Answer? my aromantic asexual self’s first reaction was “No.” and it was only on a second glance that I saw the Ace Pride colors on the cover (which I don’t believe was on the Japanese edition) and that the manga-ka was Uta Isaki whose work I’ve enjoyed before. Now branching out from Mine-kun is Asexual, where the story was told from the straight partner’s point of view, this is not only a story where the protagonist themself is ace but it’s also a full-length volume, not a short story, and I was delighted to see that the same care found in Mine-kun was also present here.
Isaki says in the author’s notes that since Chika doesn’t like conforming to the definition of “normal” that they made her into a character who doesn’t fit the definition of “asexual” very well either but I would disagree on that part; I feel like I’ve met and known many Chika’s during the past decade when I’ve gotten to know many fellow aces, both in person and online. I do think that Chika’s story will resonate more with younger queers or people who find themselves questioning their sexuality or gender. Is Love the Answer? is very much a “coming out, but to yourself” kind of story, and it does a lot of things I wish other queer stories would do, like having Chika unconsciously gravitate towards other queer folks even before she begins to understand herself (trust me, it’s a real phenomenon).
Having multiple queer characters around, including several other aces, also allows all of them to be “messy” since then none of them have to shoulder the burden of being the singular representation of their group, another common issue in stories where there’s only a single queer character. I especially liked that one of Chika’s new friends, another college freshman who identifies as gay, says that while he’s occasionally been attracted to women in the past (“that kind of… wavering, I guess you’d call it? It happens.”) that it doesn’t stop him from calling himself gay, because ultimately the word is a label that you choose to use, not a universal property written into your very atoms.
On the flipside, since this is a story of a college student’s self-discovery, it may bore some folks who are tired of “coming out” stories; I personally haven’t drifted away from my in real life ace meet-up group because I hate the people in it but because so many of the events are related to questioning and other ace 101 topics that I’m simply less interested in by this point. And that’s fine, not every story is for every person, although the sheer novelty of having an ace protagonist with nuance certainly makes it more engaging than some other “coming out” stories. Honestly there are brief mentions of quite a few niche topics that I don’t usually see discussed outside of ace circles like: the difference between orientation and libido, different groups under the large “asexual” umbrella, how some people still want long-term relationships and others don’t, and a very brief mention of romantic orientation vs. sexual orientation. It’s not exhaustive and at the same time it doesn’t come off as “preachy,” or “hey guys, look at this new topic the creator just learned about!”; Chika’s dives and discoveries into what being asexual can mean feel very authentic.
Visually speaking, it was also fun to see Isaki bring back some of the visual metaphors of space that previously came up in Leaper; now that they’ve done a full-length story about asexuality I’d love to see them do something longer than a one-shot in a sci-fi setting. I do wonder if their publication history (going from Mine-kun to this) is representative of their own coming out story; in the author’s notes they wonder if they are also asexual but aren’t sure and it’s impossible to read that and not also think about how they described Chika’s asexuality as not fitting the “definition”. My general rule of thumb on the topic is: “cis/straight people do not spend this much time thinking about their gender and/or sexuality, so if you find yourself thinking about that, it’s definitely grounds to explore it more” just like Chika did here.
As a neat and nice single volume story, I would love for Is Love the Answer? to make its way into libraries everywhere for teens and even adults to discover and explore both the story and their own selves.