While there are many manga on the market focusing on action, fanservice, or more recently a seemingly countless number of takes on the ‘isekai’ genre, the gems continue to be those that buck the trends and instead focus on families, attempts at navigating through the complexity of life, and/or otherwise delivering heartwarming experiences that leave you walking away with a greater appreciation of people. Some examples from recent years that come to mind include bunny drop, Wandering Son, With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, Medalist and many others. From Seven Seas Entertainment, the focus of today’s review is Love Me For Who I Am, also known by its original Japanese title Fukakai na Boku no Subete o (不可解なぼくのすべてを) or FukaBoku for short, not only joins this collection of memorable manga, ticking all the boxes to become a memorable and timely tale, expertly weaved across five volumes by Kata Konayama (粉山 カタ).
I feel one’s experience with the manga starts before you even open the book, with its title. Love Me For Who I Am. With this title, I think it sets the tone and overarching question for the five volumes and hundreds of pages ahead… why can’t everyone love or at least acknowledge someone for who they are? It is a fitting title for the events that unfold, a mix of navigating the cruel and tough reality of ‘traditional’ values which place males and females in boxes with certain values attached, and the complexities around friendship and relationships based on different gender and sexual identities. Even though the tale is set in a maid cafe, a locale most typically aligned with fanservice, what we get instead is a canvas for many approachable characters and well-thought-out events.
Love Me for Who I Am focuses on Tetsu Iwaoka, a cis male student whose older transgender sister Satori owns and runs a maid cafe known as Question! As its name implies, it is staffed by and serves as a safe haven for those who have different sexual orientations and gender identities, all coupled with adorable maid uniforms and an assortment of costumes. One day after school, Tetsu approaches his classmate Mogumo, mistaking them to be another cross-dressing boy, and invites them to work at Cafe Question. Here, they open up about being ‘non-binary’ or ‘Gender X’. As they begin working at the cafe together, not only does affection bloom between the pair, but a range of events involving the individual servers, Mogumo’s long-time friend Kotone, and the events behind their family. Everything comes back to the core themes proposed in its title and the experiences faced by some in the LGBT community. It should be said that while this is a LGBT supportive manga work, it does focus on some darker themes including suicide and self-harm in the latter volumes, so please keep any triggers in mind before diving into this work.
For this being their inaugural multi-volume single-author manga work outside of the doujinshi scene, Kata Konayama proved to be an incredible manga author and artist, delivering quality and consistency across each and every chapter. This was clearly not just a manga created to make a quick buck or reach mass appeal, but rather encompassing the hardships faced by some in the LGBT community through consistent storytelling, but balancing the heavier-hitting content with some genuinely charming, comedic and heartwarming moments, and a visual style that doesn’t just feed upon typical tropes but combines an element of realism with a cute charm. One particular example of note is in the second volume, where their summer event uniforms were not based on swimsuits but traditional Chinese clothing, which was a unique and down-right adorable option. Ultimately, the entire series hits the correct tone, doesn’t deviate from its intended plot, and has a small cast that pulls its weight greatly.
As the localiser and western publisher of Love Me For Who I Am, Seven Seas Entertainment did a great job in both translating the original words of Konayama, and ensuring they remained aligned to the appropriate language, such as using correct pronouns for each character. My only minor qualm is that while the volumes were mostly printed well, there were a few pages that seemed a little bit smudged or a little less clear than others. Furthermore, it was a shame not to see this available on more store shelves when I went hunting for the volumes across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane before defaulting to online sellers… but maybe this is because they are just sold out! It is hard to provide much negative about the work itself, however, being a consistently enamouring and enticing read.
Kata Konayama’s Love Me for Who I Am stands strongly in that category of ‘niche manga that everyone should read’, whether they are LGBT themselves, an ally, or someone who needs to inform themselves of the experiences faced by those in the former group who reside in a society not always allowing them to embrace who they are, and be loved for who they are. With consistently high standards in both its writing and artistic qualities, this is a standout manga that delves into the complexity of gender and sexual identities, offering both heartfelt and insightful explorations of LGBT themes, and ultimately proves to be a rewarding read that resonates with both charm and depth. I hope to see even more works like this localised into English in the coming months and years, and perhaps Konayama dive into more similar works in the future as well.
