Love My Life
Ichiko Izumiya is a young woman living a life she wouldn't complain about. She's eighteen and pursuing a career in languages, she has a loving father who's also a successful professional translator, she has fond childhood memories of her dead mother, and she has a wonderful lover who is everything she could possibly want.
However, she has a problem.
Meet Eri Joujima. Eri is Ichiko's lover, a 21-year old law student, oh, and she's also a woman.
Ichiko really wants to come out of the closet to her father but she's afraid that he might react badly.
After discussing it with Eri, she gathers her courage and reveals her lesbian lover to her father. Much to her relief, they hit it off gloriously, and despite the initial shock, her father was very accepting of her sexuality.
But no sooner did she get past that problem, she finds out that she's not the only one who's been keeping secrets...
And so begins this gentle Josei manga by Ebine Yamaji, which follows the story of Ichiko as she struggles with her newly discovered lesbian identity while learning about what it means to be gay in Japan.
A faithful live action movie was created on December 2006 and was released in the US the following year. The manga itself was licensed in English on February 2012 and is available for purchase in Jmanga.com.
Love My Life contains examples of:
- Adorkable: Ichiko has plenty of awkward moments, and her reactions are always amusing.
- Also Take-chan, helped by the fact that he wears glasses.
- Alone in A Crowd: The girl with the shaved head that Ichiko meets feels the most lonely in the presence of others.
- Archnemesis Dad: In Eri's case.
- Author Appeal: Ebine Yamaji's interest in Western music and literature is shared by the characters, who often mention American or European books and singers.
- The Beard: Ichiko takes this role to help her gay classmate.
- Notably subverted with Ichiko's parents. Yes, they were a gay man and a lesbian who married each other despite a lack of sexual attraction, but they did so because they wanted to have a family together, not to hide the fact that they were gay.
- Coming Out Story: Turned on its head.
- Coming of Age Story: For Ichiko.
- First Episode Spoiler: Ichiko's dad is gay, and so was her mom. They weren't in love in that way, but they were friends, and one day, after the two had a bad breakup with their respective lovers, Ichiko's mom decided that she wanted to have a family and Ichiko's dad went with it.
- Instant Expert: Arguably, Eri as a writer. Her first book wins a prize and is highly praised by Ichiko's dad.
- Josei
- Live Action Adaptation
- Single-Target Sexuality: Discussed and deconstructed.
- Slice of Life
- Title Drop: The very last panel of the story.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Characters sometimes seem to switch clothes every few panels.
- Yuri Genre