#is love the answer

[molsno]

Is Love the Answer? by Uta Isaki

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace books with a university setting!

Ace of Hearts - m/f marriage of convenience romance, sex-repulsed ace MC

Dear Wendy - two aroace MCs, friendship/anonymous rivalry

Loveless - aroace coming-of-age/coming out

Is Love The Answer - aroace coming-of-age/coming out

Tears In The Water - identity questioning & sports romance, with an acespec MC, demi LI, and aroace side characater

The Society for Soulless Girls - witchy thriller, one MC is maybe ace/demi (though it doesn't really solidify if she is or not)

Let's Talk About Love - m/f romance with a biace MC

Create My Own Perfection - fantasy short story with an aroace MC

Fallen Thorns - paranormal coming of age with an aroace MC

#aspec books / aspec database

[aroaceineveryplace]

[mossy-aro]

Ace/aro books coming out this year that I’m looking forward to!

Is Love the Answer by Uta Isaki - stand-alone manga about a college girl who discovers she is aroace. The same mangaka also did ‘Mine-kun is Asexual’ a couple of years ago which I liked, though it was much shorter, so I’m happy to see a full length release from them. This came out just last week, so I’m super excited to read it when it gets here!

I want to be a wall (Vol.2) by Honami Shirono - manga series - releasing 17th Jan. I already posted about how much I enjoyed Vol 1 of this series, but for recap it’s about an aroace woman and her lavender marriage to a gay man who is unrequitedly in love with his best friend. I’m really excited to see how their non-conventional relationship plays out :) it’s very slice of life and cozy!

I am Ace by Cody Daigle-Orians aka Ace Dad Advice - releasing 21 Feb 2023. I’m glad to see a book about a sexuality actually written for an ace audience, because I feel like a lot of aspec books/articles are aimed at raising awareness with allos. I’m excited to see how this one goes!

Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else - by Kayla Kaszyca and Sarah Costello - releasing 21 Feb 2023. I’ve listened to their podcast a bit over the years and I’m curious to see what they come up with in this book!

If you want to see a fuller list of all the ace and aro books coming out this year, check out this list HERE!

[yelenaa-romanova]

Fellow aces, you know of Loveless, so here's a new gem 💜

[asexualbookbird]

hi hello hey im gonna need everyone, especially queer people, double especially aspec people, to read this immediately

cw for assault on page two

axolotl pin from Ray Starshine ( @raystarshine )

space ace and chaotic ace from thisishannako ( @thisishannako-real )

ace flag button was handmade by a friend

[kiwimuichiro]

OMG AN AAA BATTERY

[lilradridinghood]

finally got around to posting another BookTube video~

[pocketseizure]

from Uta Isaki's asexual pride manga Is Love the Answer?

[morallygay]

🟩⬜️⬛️ Animes for aro/ace people - Part 2 ⬛️⬜️🟪

The list was getting a bit too long so I decided to make a different post.

~if you see this post as a reblog, make sure to go to the original post, chances are I edited and updated it! ;)

part 1 here

“Yofukashi No Uta” / “Call Of The Night” (13 episodes)🔻

The protagonist wants to become a vampire, but for that to happen you need to be bitten by a vampire you are in love with, and he’s aro (can be both seen as aroallo or acespec). It’s not canon canon in-universe, but like, it’s canon, that’s literally what the plot is about. It has awkward wording/takes coming from the characters sometimes but it got the spirit. I haven’t finished the manga but I’ve been told that the character’s aromance is not invalidated to the end, and the story is precisely about how he doesn’t need to be “fixed”. The show tackles amatonormativity and the value of platonic relationships :). If you can’t handle or don’t like sensual/sexual stuff though, know that it’s omnipresent.

“Shimanami Tasogare” / “Our Dreams At Dusk” (4 volumes)🔻

An LGBTQ+ manga with multiple kinds of representation, including an AAA battery (character who is agender/nonbinary and aroace). Canon and they said the word! Although they didn’t differentiate between aromantic and asexual; in my translation they used ‘asexual’ and meant it as aromantic as well I assume.

“Death Note” (37 episodes)🔻🔹

Another big one but I’ll assume you don’t know about it so, basically: So misogynistic it’s gay. But also so homophobic it’s aroace. And since it’s a psychological thriller, romance is virtually nonexistent, except for a side character annoying girl who is in LOVE with the protagonist. Protagonist who does not show any interest whatsoever in romance/sex. He’s a serial killer but #diversity win I guess. I have admittedly only read the manga once when I was 12 so I may not remember these things accurately.

“Mob Psycho 100” (37 episodes + 2 OVAs)🔹

A must watch regardless. But in this context, a show about life wisdom and connection in the most fundamental human way, which makes it a very platonic show. Because of the nature of the relationships between the protagonist and the other main cast (master/‘parental’ figure, brother, intergenerational friendship), there is literally not even the place for shipping, apart from like the 1 friend his age. And these platonic relationships, oh boy, are they explored and developed and heartwarming. The protagonist has an idealized crush on a girl and that’s the only romantic element there is, and it’s handled maturely and to carry the same main themes I mentioned earlier; it’s absolutely not there for the sake of being romanticized.

! Mp100 is a phenomenal show in many ways, queer representation is not one of them. it is very much incredibly cishet. warning for transmisogynistic humor.

“Gintama” (367 episodes + specials and movies, but don't worry 'bout it)🔹

Genre: comedy. Gintama really is such a platonic show and I mean that as the highest compliment from an aspec person. If you’re looking for actual found family and other wholesome unconventional types of relationships you should know gintama is always there for you. Everything I said about mp100 just above is valid here too. Literally I don't know how to properly express how to me this show is about the celebration of platonic bonds! I literally made this meme, it's to this extent. An anime to bring up if someone pretends life (or fiction) without romance is pointless or less meaningful or whatever. And I'm not the only one who headcanons/interprets Gintoki (the protag) as aro(allo) <3.

warning: unsurprisingly for a comedy from the 2000s there is some offensive/insensitive queerphobic humour but it's (usually…) in a "they're a little confused but they got the spirit" way. Most importantly it's always humanizing. Like, the main characters would call me a slur while fighting alongside me for my rights. The LGBTQ+ community (me) has forgiven gintama.

It's unanimously beloved for a reason too, and aro ppl have all the more reason to vibe, so I recommend it in general; and don't think about the amount of episodes because I did at first and eventually I found myself devastated there were only like 50 left.

“Kimi No Sekai Ni Koi Wa Nai” / “Is Love The Answer?” (1 volume)🔻

Another manga. It is a queer manga specifically about aromance and asexuality, following an aroace character (touch repulsed) and their experience of comphet and general compallo, feeling alienated, and then learning about this identity, finding queer community and accepting herself. It delves into the topics of labels and identity, acknowledging and embracing fluidity, vagueness, and spectrums. It actually presents specific aspec microidentities I’ve never seen acknowledged anywhere else in fiction, much less explored. It made me feel like crying and kicking my legs with glee. I won’t go say everything it talks about but I truly recommend it for anyone, not just aspec people; in general but especially if you want to learn more about the world of aspec identities. (Also not that any are reading this but I recommend it to exclusionists. Like idk how you can read this and not feel it evident that aspec people are queer)

The same author also did a manga called “Mine-kun Is Asexual” prior to this one, and wrote other things on the topics of romance, sexuality and gender identity :)

“Koisenu Futari” (="two people who can't fall in love" idk the official engish translation if there is one) (8 episodes)🔻

This is a japanese drama. I have broadened the original topic of these posts a bit but I realized that with the microscopic amount of representation we have, why would I intentionally deprive people from knowing about the existence of this show? It is specifically about aromance and asexuality, and follows 2 aroace people who decide to live together and form a queerplatonic relationship. There are many other elements to the story and it touches upon multiple aspects of the aspec experience (lol aspects aspec), starting obviously with allonormativity and amatonormativity. Also our 2 main characters are both fully aroace but the show does make the distinction between aromantic and asexual, and shows a alloromantic asexual character at one point just for that clarification.

“Last Gender” (3 volumes)🔻

Similar to Shimanami Tasogare; it’s an LGBTQ+ manga. This one is centered around a sex bar which 'accepts anyone of any gender or sexuality'. It has an aroallo character, a lithromantic character, and a character who, to my understanding, would be the closest labelled as greyromantic and greysexual. That’s just for the aspec characters but there are other, particularily underrepresented, identities and kinds of people in this manga, like a pansexual person, a bigender person, polyamorous people, or ‘simply’ a gnc woman.

content warning: it’s sexually explicit. I mean the setting is literally a sex bar.

[rosie-moon]

There is no love in your world (きみのせかいに恋はない)

[joseinextdoor]

Chatty AF: Ace/Aro Representation in Anime and Manga

It's Ace Awareness Week, making it the perfect time to plug the two-part aspec rep podcast I did with Cy and Alex for Chatty AF! Because what better way to learn than through geekery? 💜🖤

✨️ Transcripts Included ✨️

Ace/Aro Representation in Anime and Manga - Part 1: General Discussion and Animanga Grab Bag

Ace/Aro Representation in Anime and Manga - Part 2: The Isaki Uta Appreciation Hour

[mossy-aro]

my manga is hereeeeeeee !!!!

[lex-blogs]

"You don't have to conform to some generic idea of what asexuality is. If you think you're asexual, that's enough."

- Shinobu Ishii, Is Love the Answer?

[animefeminist]

Chatty AF 182: Ace/Aro Representation in Anime and Manga – Part 2

Catch up on part one here!

Dee, Alex, and Cy return to their discussion of asexual and aromantic coding, and dive deep into the works of Uta Isaki!

Episode Information

Date Recorded: February 1, 2022 Hosts: Dee, Alex, Cy

Episode Breakdown

0:00:00 Intro 0:00:35 Mine-kun is Asexual and sex-repulsed vs non-sex-repulsed 0:18:06 Ace stereotypes 0:20:55 Is Love the Answer? 0:22:58 Allosexual social and societal pressure 0:31:56 Ishi, mentorship, and aromantic relationships 0:35:26 Ume and sex repulsion for heteroromantic men 0:45:33 Asexuality as an orientation vs identity 0:52:00 Hopes for future ace/aro rep in media 1:00:00 Outro

[aroaceconfessions]

I’ve only just finished reading the Manga Is Love the Answer and I strongly recommend it as an introductory text. It goes into way more detail than a lot of other coming out aspec tales, covering microlabels, questioning and alternate relationship structures. TW for SA though.