There Are Things I Can’t Tell You Review

There AreThings I Can’t Tell You is an adult LBGT manga that delves into the struggles of two millennial queers as they struggle to come to terms with their identity. We follow the protagonist, Kyousuke Shiina, as he reunites with his childhood friend, Kasumi Amemiya. The story follows their friendship, relationship, and turmoil as Kyousuke struggles with internalized homophobia. The author takes a light-handed approach with this theme, but still manages to portray the emotional constipation that comes with internalizing and ignoring one’s true feelings. The art adds to this portrayal as the story is overall well illustrated. 

This story falls short in how it shows the characters overcoming their internalized homophobia, which is to be expected from an idealistic happy-ending sort of story that ends up coming into being. We are given a lot of background on the relationship between the two love interests that set up our protagonist as having deep set anxiety that certain romantic feelings are “wrong”. For these feelings to be disregarded so quickly for the sake of a happy ending is a little unrealistic. It’s hard to say with certainty though because there are illustrations that imply there is quite a bit of time that lapses from the beginning of the manga and its conclusion. 

Would I recommend this manga? For a short feel-good read with a hint of realism, yes. As a wholistically realistic depiction of the queer struggle, not really.