That said, I’m not entirely convinced at the strict heterosexuality of the other guy, given his incredibly rapid cycling of his girlfriends and some rather suggestive prose that crops up. It would be rather ironic if people who constantly get mislabeled accidentally did the same to him instead. Overall, I’m excited to see where this series goes. It’s a unique queer love story that I hope continues to develop slowly. The first volume invested me in the lives of these two fully realized characters and never overplayed the premise that they won’t fall in love. Gakurouta is a gay man who has always been extremely close to his childhood friend, Sousuke. Ten years ago, he realized that he'd fallen in love with his friend...who was very popular with the ladies and gave no indication of any interest in men. He's since tried to fall out of love with Sousuke, but it didn't work, and he has now resigned himself to forever nursing a one-sided love.

This manga left me feeling torn. On the one hand, Yuriko and Gakurouta were a sweet pair, and I enjoyed watching them try their hardest to make their marriage work despite not having a clue what a marriage that doesn't include sex or romance should look like. On the other hand, I felt like the manga started at the wrong point, leaving me with all kinds of questions. Also, I wasn't entirely comfortable with how Yuriko's interest in Gakurouta's one-sided love for Sousuke was written.The premise for I Want to Be a Wall is too great to not garner attention. An asexual, aromantic boys love (BL) fan marries a gay man still in love with his childhood best friend. The first volume of this quirky manga is a sweet slice of life story about a married couple who will never be attracted to each other. The Beard: Gakurouta and Yuriko are mutual beards to one another, as Gakurouta isn't attracted to women while Yuriko isn't attracted to anyone. Yuriko is an asexual woman who loves reading about fictional characters' romances, particularly in "boys' love" (BL, m/m) manga and novels, but who has spent a large portion of her life feeling like she doesn't really fit in because she's never been in love and doesn't even really want it to happen to her.

The jokier aspects of this story tend to fall flatter than a possum on the interstate during Labour Day weekend, however. Comedy about people being awful at cooking is incredibly played out in manga, but especially when trying to tell a more serious story. Yeah, it’s cute that they both end up terrible at it, but so, so corny. Yuriko and Gakurouta know the sides of each other that won't allow them to fit in with regular society, but otherwise they know very little about each other. This first volume shows them gradually adjusting to their new married life and figuring out what that relationship means for them. As a very specific gender identity, asexuality feels like the one where people are most likely to offer the most useless advice from either well-meaning ignorance or regular old jerk ignorance. Yuriko has to deal with a lot of ‘you could land a man if you tried harder’ or ‘you haven’t met the right person yet’ that simply ignores her preferences in favour of trying to force her into a specific box. Yukiko discovering the word “asexual” puts things into perspective for her. Even if the people around her don’t get it, it comforts her, and that’s what matters. She now knows that there’s an explanation for how she feels, and as we see her relationship develop with Gakutouta, she suddenly has someone who is supportive of her identity. Gakutouta is in a similar situation himself, as we get to see him growing up and wondering “what’s wrong with me” when he realizes he’s in love with his childhood friend, Sousuke. He’s been watching Sousuke from the sidelines, keeping his feelings to himself as he watches him enter into new relationships. He hasn’t had anyone to confide in until Yukiko, so the two have settled into a relationship where they support each other. Childhood Friend Romance: Gakurouta has been in love with Sousuke ever since they met when they were kids. Unfortunately for Gakurouta, it's entirely one-sided since Sousuke is straight, and has had multiple girlfriends in the time they've known each other while Gakurouta remains silent about his own feelings.

That’s the meat of the story, which has precious little to do with the marriage side of things, really, although once the jokes are out of the way, there’s some warmth to be found in the story of these two friends in a marriage of convenience learning to come together and be a little closer, even if not do much in the romantic sense. Instead, our married protags dedicate themselves to a caring partnership just because they want to. Yuriko decides, after a bad attempt at cooking breakfast by Gaku, to make dinner for them. She decides to “channel her OTP” and make some “Croquettes of Love”. In her own determination panel, fist clenched around her phone and a determined, though more fanatical, look on her face, Yuriko buys the ingredients. Only to get home and realize that Gaku did the same thing. While this introductory volume makes sure that the audience understands that premise, Shirono doesn’t use it for gags or laughs. Instead, the characters and the volume just see it as the state of things. Moving from that starting point, this volume suggests that the series will be one filled with love and care. Even if our protagonists don’t fall for each other. Gaku’s first determined effort to be a perfect husband (according to the guidebook on it). I am absolutely in love with this relationship! A pair of friends, an ace/aro woman who only enjoys the concept of sex and love in her BL (boys' love) books and a gay man in love with his straight childhood friend, have a marriage of convenience and they're SO GOOD to each other. I can see this going many ways with this plot setup, but this is a strong start. There's finally a respectful representation of ace/aro people in manga! However, she's a fujoshi and I can see how her love of yaoi might skirt into the "women fetishizing gay men" territory for some readers. It's not nearly as bad as others, like Wotakoi and Princess Jellyfish, and some might find her reasons for enjoying yaoi justified (she doesn't have to see women/herself represented). It really depends on the reader's comfort level. I personally enjoyed this; my demi heart felt very validated. I Want to be a Wall is fresh and fluffy and I'm looking forward to future volume(s)!

I Want To Be A Wall (わたしは壁になりたい Watashi wa Kabe ni Naritai) is a Slice of Life manga by Honami Shirono, which was serialized in B-Log's Cheek from 2019 to 2023. The manga follows the lavender marriage of Gakurouta and Yuriko Hanazono, a gay man and an aromantic asexual woman, respectively. Despite the fact that they'll never fall in love, they still work to accommodate for their newlywed life along with Yuriko's love for Boys' Love and Gakurouta's hidden feelings for his childhood best friend. Ditto watching Yuriko fret about Gakuroura learning more about her BL collection (based on this book and my own friends who are ace, it does seem like they all get issued massive book collections). The guy’s gay and interested, Yuriko, don’t shame him or yourself! I gave this 3.5 stars on LibraryThing. I started off rounding it up to 4 stars on GR, then rounding it down to 3 stars, and finally settling on 4 stars again. Its issues bugged me, but there were also quite a few scenes I loved enough to reread. Gee, it's almost as though being aspec is inherently queer and our struggles line up with other queer identities due to not fitting into established social narratives and that exclusionist movement that persisted for a couple years when I was a teen was full of shit and needed to shut up and actually listen to us about our experiences and no I'm not still haunted by that, it's not like I ran an aspec blog during the height of that bullshit and had to field terrible shit when I was sixteen, nope, not at all.

Yuriko is asexual. Gakuroura is gay. Naturally this means that they’ve just gotten married to camouflage their true natures behind the norms of society. Even with this marriage, however, they’ve got a lot to learn about one another and there’s still more than a little prejudice out there… What's It About? Yuriko, an asexual woman, agrees to take a husband to satisfy her parents—which is how she finds herself tying the knot with Gakurouta, a gay man in love with his childhood friend with his own complicated family circumstances. And so begins the tale of their marriage of convenience. Gakuroura’s story doesn’t land quite as strongly just because he’s certainly not the first nor last gay guy in manga by this point, whereas Yuriko represents a very underserved demographic, even if he also feels the weight of heteronormative society on him. He’s also a lot more taciturn than Yuriko is as a general rule. I spent the entire volume wondering how Yuriko and Gakurouta had met, learned each other's secrets, and decided to get married. They clearly liked and wanted to support each other, but they also barely knew anything about each other - it read like an arranged marriage that had somehow worked out. Did they meet via some kind of LGBT+ matchmaking service?