From my understanding good parents just want their kids to be happy. I may not be a parent myself as of the time of writing this review but I do see this in my mother who supported me and my younger brothers in whatever we wanted to accomplish as we grew up. Although she could be a little probing about it she has also been at least somewhat supportive of our love lives whoever we happened to like at that time. I do wonder sometimes about one thing though neither my brothers nor I have ever been attracted to anyone whos the same sex as us but if any of us were would our mother love us the same in the same way the protagonist in the manga Im reviewing today loves her own son? No matter what the answer to that question may be she definitely raised me to be the kind of person happily willing to read a manga about a boy who might be gay. Ladies gents and nons here is my review of Okuras I Think Our Son Is Gay known in Japanese as Uchi no Musuko wa Tabun Gay literally Our Son is Probably Gay. I Think Our Son Is Gay is mainly told from the perspective of Tomoko Aoyama a married mother of two. Her younger son Yuuri is a bit of a cool kid who isnt interested in romance and her older son Hiroki wears his heart on his sleeve and is very bad at hiding things. Case in point one night he lets it slip that hed like a boyfriend who could cook only to frantically backtrack and say he wants a girlfriend instead. This along with several hints from before and after this particular moment leads Tomoko to believe that Hiroki might be gay but she would prefer to wait until hes ready to come out to talk to him about it. In the meanwhile Tomoko watches over Hiroki as he goes through high school and in the process her worldview expands a little more each day. At the time of this mangas creation Japan still wasnt too open about samesex relationships with samesex marriages still not being legal in Japan and that is reflected here. While there are no LGBTQ+ characters being shown physically harassed there are heterosexual characters who make notalwaysaccurate assumptions about the community while people making such assumptions actually happening in real life makes this manga realistic and while its made clear that theyre not necessarily true those kinds of moments might not be a fun read for some. With that being said though while there isnt a whole lot of LGBTQ+ representation outside of homosexuality and a little bit of asexuality the representation that is there is solid. No gay character is shown to be overly campy or stereotypical and although being gay is an important part of their identity thats not all there is to them. To start off talking about this mangas characters Id like to talk about the most obvious example of what I just mentioned Hiroki. Although hes not the mangas viewpoint character we do get to know about as much about him as we probably would if he was. Although he joins a school club later in the story for the sake of spending time with his crush he gives club activities his all nonetheless. He also displays feelings of inadequacy and low selfconfidence at times which is painfully relatable. Above all hes a good kid who cares a lot about his family and friends. He is canonically gay but instead of a caricature hes a fullyfleshed character whose mangaka wrote him well. One could also say that Hirokis mama raised him well inuniverse and with how good of a person Tomoko is thatd be easy to believe. She just wants to support her boys and let them live happy lives and while she does have her own feelings of inadequacy about her parenting abilities at one point anyone could see how good of a job shes doing with both Hiroki and Yuuri. Speaking of Yuuri while he isnt the type to show his emotions often he goes through his own struggles and chapters focusing on him tend to be interesting. Plus its revealed that he also knows of his older brothers sexual orientation and the little ways he shows support for him are quite sweet. Rounding out the Aoyama family is Akiyoshi Tomokos husband and Hiroki and Yuuris father. While hes not a bad father by any means he is a little behind on his sons lives due to his job taking him away from home for lengthy periods of time and early on in the manga he expresses some closeminded views toward the LGBTQ+ community unintentionally hurting Hiroki with his comments. Fortunately especially with Tomokos help he is able to gain a more open mind by the end and also build a good relationship with his son which is nice. The members of Aoyama family arent the only characters in the manga however. We also get to know about some of the people in each of their lives such as Daigo Hirokis crush Asumi Hirokis childhood friend who has a crush on him and some of Tomokos mom friends. One particular character who stands out to me is Touno Tomokos coworker at a bento shop who happens to be gay and living with his partner. Through Touno Tomoko is able to learn about the experiences of a gay guy whos not her son which further expands her worldview. I may have lamented the lack of LGBTQ+ representation outside of homosexuality but its still nice to have him and a few background characters mentioned throughout the manga around so that it doesnt seem like Hirokis not the only gay person in its universe I spent too much time talking about the characters so lets move onto the artwork. There isnt really much I can really say about it though. Its cute its simple and its a good fit for a sliceoflife story like this one. The character designs are also solid without a single outlandish design in sight. Yeah I think that sums up how I feel about the artwork. Do you know what I think? I Think Our Son Is Gay is a pretty good manga. Those who are in the LGBTQ+ community may enjoy its solid representation and even relate to Hirokis awkwardness and those who arent may come out of it with a more open mind either way its worth the read. Hopefully if/when I get married and have kids of my own Ill be able to follow Tomokos example no matter what sexual orientation or gender identity they turn out to have.