Manga: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

This week, I read My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi. It is an autobiographical manga about a woman's struggles with mental illness and her experience with a lesbian escort agency. When I was reading this manga, it felt very different from any other manga I've read. I couldn't think of Japanese comics that were like it. Though the art and writing style are quite different, it reminded me of Western works such as Blankets and Maus since it is a story taken from real life. I wonder if this is because there's more of a cultural difference with the way Japanese society talks about mental illness and sexuality compared to Western society. Nagata Kabi also addresses the anxiety and the struggle to find a stable job in Japan and to impress one's parents.

Another aspect about this manga that stood out to me was that even though there's nudity and sex in the comic, it's not a very "sexy" comic. I was worried that it was going to be a mostly erotic manga and I was surprised that most of the comic is about Nagata Kabi's mental health and her internal struggles. Even when there is a sex scene, the way it's drawn and paced out isn't meant to look titillating, it's meant to show how she was actually feeling. She draws herself with goofy weird faces and puts in every awkward moment. It felt realistic and I could understand the awkwardness and embarrassment she was feeling. One thing that I thought was funny was that her expectation going in was that the experience would be like an "erotic doujinshi," and the types of doujinshi she reads are yaoi doujinshi. I'm wondering why it is that so many lesbians (at least ones I know) are yaoi fans, or discovered their sexuality through yaoi. Maybe it's because yaoi is catered toward women in the first place. Yuri is catered to men and is therefore less appealing to gay women than yaoi, ironically. But that is going on a tangent that I don't really have answers for.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this manga, and I would love to know if there are more autobiographical Japanese comics like it. The art style is very cute and I loved the simple use of pink in it.