BLog: Our Dining Table
BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.
[image error]Our Dining Table
Story and art: Mita Ori
Translation: Amber Tamosaitis
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Release Date: December 17, 2019
For young salaryman Hozumi Yutaka life is bland. He goes to work, goes home, eats store bought food, maybe occasionally making his own onigiri. A chance encounter in a park with an adorable four-year-old brings Yutaka into the life of Ueda Tane and his much older brother, Minoru. After sharing his onigiri with Tane on a couple of occasions he’s invited to their home to teach the boys and how to make his delicious rice balls. Since their mother died not long after giving birth to Tane, the Uedas have been enjoying regular but uninspiring meals with their father. As the relationship between Yutaka and Minoru develops they discover that there’s something magical about cooking together, and something healing about sharing a meal.
On its surface Our Dining Table is a fairly simple one-shot manga; a slow burn, there’s nothing earth-shattering or cataclysmic in the lives of these characters. Mita Ori uses the act of cooking and eating together, food, as a frame for exploring the lives and experiences of these two young men. Kid brother Tane latches on to Yutaka and demands he return to make curry with them. Yutaka, who’s never been able to enjoy meals with people since his childhood, finds himself breathless in anticipation of their time together at the dinner table.
But beneath this adorable surface there’s something deeper, the manga is an examination of loneliness and grief. Yutaka has trouble relating to people, and we find out early on that he was adopted and had a fraught relationship with his siblings. Minoru became a surrogate parent for Tane early on, and isn’t sure he’s been doing right by his little brother. Again, there’s tragedy and sadness in their backgrounds, but there’s nothing overwrought or melodramatic. People deal with abusive or negligent family members, parents die too young, but life moves on and we move with it, even if we hold onto sadness deep down.
Even if its clear from early on, from the moments they share or glances on the pages of the manga, that a relationship between Yutaka and Minoru is inevitable, the journey is still worth every page. The manga is wholesome–no sex other than what you want to imagine in your head–but its the build of intimacy, the reveals within their developing relationship, that keeps it a page-turner romance.
Yutaka and Minoru are lovely, but from start to finish Tane was the highlight of Our Dining Table. Similar to one of the more charming elements of Don’t Call Me Dirty (or one of the weirder dynamics of Fourth Generation Head: Tatsuyuki Oyamato) you don’t expect to see a kid as a central character of BL storylines. In Don’t Call Me Dirty the kids at Old Man Kaji’s convenience store formed a Greek chorus to Shouji’s woes and foibles. In Fourth Generation Head the protagonist ends up the sex slave of the father of one of his boyfriend’s kindergarten children–like I said in the review, it’s a weird one.
Tane, on the other hand, is a central character, and inspires the inciting incident that brings their little chosen family together. He’s so cartoonish and extreme in the way children are, both in behaviour and in art style. He’s constantly and adorably getting in the way of Yutaka and Minoru’s relationship, in the way children do. If Minoru became a surrogate father to Tane by necessity, Yutaka becomes something of a surrogate mother to Tane without hesitation. He cooks for him, cares for him, but Our Dining Table isn’t heavy handed or prescriptive about gender roles; in a post-manga note Mita Ori even writes “To be honest I never figured out who is the seme and who is the uke,” and with reason, it’s not particularly pertinent to the story. I haven’t read Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband–it’s currently staring at me from my “to read” pile–but I’d be curious to compare the role of another central child character in another gay manga.
If, like me, Tane ends up your favourite character, the cherry on top of the delicious cake that is Our Dining Table is a bonus comic that depicts an aged up little brother. It will have you begging for another helping.
Level of Problematic: A tasty curry shared with a loved one; an examination of love, loneliness, grief and chosen family uncomplicated by bad politics. My compliments to the chef!
Level of Adorable: Onigiri with adorable, edible faces; like a decorated rice ball that’s almost too cute to eat, you’ll be left reflecting on what’s exactly in this manga that makes it oh so delicious.
Level of Spiciness: A kimchi tomato and cheese hot pot, mild enough for a four-year-old’s stomach; if you’re looking for sex or smut you’ll have to try another restaurant. This dish is a slow-burn boys love romance.
