Kimi no Sekai ni Koi wa Nai
Is Love the Answer?

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Have you ever felt you were “not normal” or simply just didn’t fit in? There are around 7 billion people yet you have no one to “love” or “be loved” by anyone just because you don’t have the so called normal life which comes naturally to everyone around you. You can’t seem to understand what exactly “love” is that so many appear to know naturally yet have no idea since majority of them break away from one another. Have you ever pondered upon whether you might be asexual? Or even gender neutral? Yet you feel you don’t seem to fit in with any of the ... gender labels out there. Yes, you’re going through a huge identity crisis and nothing out there can help you since you feel you’re a bit of everything yet not anything. So what and who exactly are you?

Similar is the case with Chika, who felt she was an alien since she couldn’t just fit in. She is asked out by someone she got along with but was grossed out when that dude pushed her down on the first day. She is forced by others perspective that she just hasn’t found “her one” and once she does things will fall into place. Honestly, we all think about having that one who we will cross paths with someday. But what if there’s no one like that :-) such is the journey of chika who goes to college and after interactions with a psychology professor and taking quizzes etc to get to know herself finds that she may be asexual afterall.

Now that’s not all to it. The manga gets into both psychological and philosophical realm. You will see characters having a Socratic dialogue regarding the difference between romantic and sexual attraction, thereby, what constitutes cheating - is it just touching someone else’s hand or kissing/sex with someone other than partner…this further takes us to the root question what exactly is love? What defines love? Turns out everyone has a different definition of love or actually even sexual orientations and so on. So how are we to judge who we are - is it what we think of ourself or is it what others think of ourselves, that is, if I see myself as an asexual but my friend’s projection of me is not asexual does that make me one or not?

The manga also briefly dives into different spectrums of asexuality, for example - what if you don’t feel (sexually/romantically) attracted to people yet you feel some sort of feelings, for say, fictional characters or even celebs, which may be just platonic (or maybe not) but you still don’t see yourself ever getting down on with them like ever. Would you still be an asexual or not?

So these are the basic themes dealt in merely 6 chapters of the manga which is so fascinating because I’ve never read a manga like this before. Also it’s clear how the mangaka was writing from personal experience because it really hits the unvoiced part of the like minded readers.

I’ll definitely recommend literally everyone to check out out because it is a must read!

I thought that this manga was just..okay. When I heard it was about an aroace character, that got me excited to read it. But I can only say im sort of..disappointed? The characters felt quite bland, and it bothered me that Chika mentioned that asexual people can still fall in love, yet throughout the rest of the manga aromanticism and asexuality are still treated as the same thing. They're not. The title is "Is Love The Answer?" but she's an asexual woman. In general the manga felt very surface level and bland, the characters aren't developed on a lot, and it doesn't feel like they ... had a great place to develop from in the first place. I often found myself getting bored, especially throughout the later parts of the manga.

At the same time though, not every manga has to be incredibly deep. So I think this manga works well for someone who just wants a bit of basic escapism and representation. But even though the entire manga is about asexuality, it feels like the rep for it wasn't done well at all.

DESIRE FOR AFFIRMATION STEMS FROM THE NEGLECTION OF ONE'S SELF

The concept of romance which dazzles around the eyes of an adolescent in hope of an ideal high school life accompanied by an relentless anticipation and an unexpected introspection.

'Is Love the Answer" or locally known as 'Kimi no Sekai wa Nai is a one-shot manga by Isaki Uta who have also created other works tackling with similar themes of asexuality in adolescents and people around them.

The story is somewhat promising with its profound concept of promoting asexuality in the mind of its readers but fails in many prospects to make it a success. The story follows ... Chika Hanai, an college student who wasn't able to fathom the concept of romance throughout her high school life constantly hoping for validation but as she starts college, she finds people who finally understand her and a psychology teacher who is on the same boat as hers which eventually lead to her long awaited affirmation with identifying her condition of not feeling romantic attraction towards other people as 'asexuality'.

One of the reasons why this manga fails in its promising theme is the lack of character development which is usually bounded to occur in the one-shot formats. The characters in this manga are heavily stereotyped to their archetypes which makes it rather blend and lackluster which isn't stopped at the characters. The idea of 'asexuality' and 'romance' are heavily stereotyped which makes any prospects for a deep understanding of its core theme unlikely. The manga tries to connect the idea of LGBTQ and Asexuality together which are technically two really different concepts.

The manga explores the themes of unrequited love, identity, self discovery, desire for acceptance, intimacy and so on.
What makes this manga unenjoyable is its recurring cliched themes and blend characters which can be ignored to some extent if you are looking for some nice change of pace with a short story about an obscure theme in animanga that may appeal to romance manga fans. The artwork is somewhat mediocre still not bad.

In conclusion, Is love the answer? is a manga which lacks direction for its themes it has tried to navigate.