Queer Manga for Pride Month and Beyond
I always feel a little strange writing a Pride Month newsletter. Not because I don’t want to talk about queer manga. Quite the opposite. I love that we have more and more queer stories available in English now. I love seeing them on shelves, in shops and in people’s hands.
But I also don’t want queer manga to feel like something we only pull out once a year. These stories matter in June, yes. But they also matter on a random Tuesday in November. So this is not meant to be a perfect Pride Month list. I don’t think such a thing exists anyway.
To celebrate Pride Month with you, we put together a special collection aaaand of course, there are some special prices too.
Annika and I each picked three favourites from the collection, which was honestly much harder than expected. My first list was way too long. 😬
There are just so many great, fun, heartfelt, messy, romantic, thoughtful queer manga to choose from. So please take this as your reminder to check out the full collection as well. Our picks are only a tiny starting point.
There is so much more waiting for you there.
Kerstin’s 3 Picks
Is Love The Answer
I have a real soft spot for stories about people realizing that maybe the problem was never them.
Is Love the Answer? follows Chika, who has never really understood why everyone around her seems so obsessed with romance. Crushes, dating, physical attraction, love as the big life goal... Almost like everyone else received a manual she somehow missed.
I love this Oneshot. Because even if you don’t share Chika’s exact experience, that sense of being out of sync is very easy to understand. The pressure to want the “right” things. To move through life in the “right” order. To have the kind of feelings everyone assumes are universal.
It’s not about finally falling in love. Instead, it’s about finding language for yourself. About realizing that not wanting romance or physical intimacy doesn’t make you broken. It just means your life might follow a different shape. And I really like that.
She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat
This one is such a comfort read for me. Okay, to be fair, there are some content warnings here, so it’s not always easy-peasy cozy. But still, it gives me that very specific kind of comfort only food manga can give. And honestly? It’s a shame this series still has so few readers.
Please don’t let the rather plain covers fool you. By now, we should all know that sometimes the most boring covers hide the most beautiful stories.
On paper, She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat sounds almost too simple. One woman loves cooking big portions. Another woman loves eating. They start sharing meals.
I really like stories where romance doesn’t begin with fireworks, but with care. With small gestures. With remembering what someone likes to eat. With sitting down together after a long day. With the slow realization that someone has become part of your everyday life.
And over time, their little circle grows into such a lovely friend group, full of people caring for each other. I really, really love that. It’s a simple series in the best sense, but also much deeper than it first appears. You can feel that the mangaka genuinely cares about the LGBTQ+ community, and that care shows in the way the characters are written.
Also, yes, this manga will make you hungry. Extremely rude of it, actually. 😬
Run Away With Me, Girl
Run Away With Me, Girl is one of those romances that hurts in a very specific adult way. Not because it is overly dramatic, but because it understands how complicated first love can become once time, fear, expectations, and “adult life” get involved.
Maki never really got over Midori, her high school girlfriend. Back then, Midori ended things by saying they were too old to keep “fooling around” dating girls. Ten years later, they meet again by chance and Midori is engaged to a man.
What I like about this manga is that it doesn’t make love feel clean or simple. Sometimes love is beautiful. Sometimes it is selfish. Sometimes it arrives too late. And sometimes running away is less about escaping everything and more about finally asking yourself where you actually want to belong.
Annika’s 3 Picks
Hi,
Remember last year? I’m back with 3 hand-picked titles for Pride Month that you should have read yesterday.
This time, I specifically chose titles that are already finished - plus one brand-new series that has only just started - so there are officially no excuses left.
Love Bullet
This amazing hit girls’ love manga series is all about angels, lost love, and modern-day matchmaking - with guns. Yes, we are literally shooting people to make them fall in love. Pew pew.
Not convinced yet? This series almost got axed, then suddenly went viral on social media and turned into a proper series - and honestly, for good reason.
Our main character Koharu has a tragic backstory (no spoilers, you’ll have to read it yourself) and ends up becoming a modern-day cupid. Her chance at redemption? Making people fall in love. Sounds easy, right? Absolutely not.
Choosing the right match for someone is way harder than you’d think, so expect our main cast to do a lot of sneaky eavesdropping, emotional detective work, and very dramatic decision-making before firing their cute little heart-guns.
The series is action-packed, funny and surprisingly thoughtful about whether there even is a “right” choice when it comes to making people fall for each other. I’m really excited to see the story unfold more and to find out how the other characters turned into cupids.
The next volume is expected toward the end of the year, so now is the perfect time to catch up early.
Dysfonctional Family Theory
One of my favorite sub-genres of boys’ love is found family, which is also the main focus of this two-volume series.
The two main characters, Sentarou and Touma, suddenly both find themselves suspected of being the father of six-year-old Meguru, whose mother recently passed away. On top of that, they realize they have actually met before.
This leads to a very funny and chaotic situation where they decide to move in together with their possible daughter. From that moment on, little Meguru turns their lives upside down and forces both of them to make some much-needed lifestyle changes.
You get to watch all three of them grow together as a family, slowly adjusting their lives to make this unusual living situation work. What I especially like about this one is how it talks about loss, responsibility, and what it really means to be a family.
Even If There Is No Rainbow Tomorrow
Last but not least, let me tell you about this very underrated one-shot.
In this story, we follow the relationship between “Whip” and “Insomniac Salaryman,” who first meet online and now have regular late-night phone conversations. They have never met in person, though, and Whip is convinced that things would never work out if they did.
Since Whip works at a gay bar as a drag queen, he is unsure whether the person on the other end of the phone would truly accept him. Then, suddenly, Insomniac Salaryman shows up at the bar and realizes that Whip is the person standing right in front of him. What happens next? You’ll have to read it for yourself. ;)
What really stands out to me here is the drag representation, which we unfortunately still do not see very often in manga. The story also touches on heavier topics such as harassment and the mental consequences it can have on victims, which helps explain Whip’s guarded and dismissive behavior.
And of course, this manga also questions how much gender and self-presentation really matter when it comes to being seen, accepted, and loved.
Pride Sale Collection
And while I’m checking out Annika’s recommendations myself, I can finally share a few more details about the sale.
For the whole month, selected titles from our Pride Month collection will be available with 25% off. The discount will be automatically added in your cart!
This is the perfect moment to browse the collection, discover something new, finally pick up that one title you have been eyeing for a while, or just let your basket make some questionable but very understandable decisions 😬.
Check out the collection, maybe treat yourself to a new favourite, and have a wonderful Pride Month. 🌈
