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Fish and Water

Name: Fish and Water
Price: 15.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Gengoroh Tagame
ISBN: 9780593702239

Ebook

Published on Jun 23, 2026 | 192 Pages

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Published on Jun 23, 2026 | 192 Pages

Buy from Other Retailers:

A new graphic novel from Eisner award-winning graphic novelist Gengoroh Tagame, which asks: what if The Odd Couple were Japanese, living in the middle of COVID-19, and just might be . . . gay?

From Gengoroh Tagame, the brilliant mind behind My Brother’s Husband and Our Colors, comes Fish and Water, which follows the unlikely love story of two “straight” friends. Having met at a mutual friend’s wedding, Akira, a business sales administrator, and Koji, a freelance writer, quickly become close buddies. One day, during a visit with a farm client, Akira is offered a case of freshly picked cabbage. Since no one at his office wants it, and he is no cook, Akira decides to see if Koji (who loves to cook) might be interested. Koji accepts and invites Akira to join him. Lonely and in the midst of pandemic-related shutdowns, Akira welcomes the chance and one meal becomes many. Once they get past how to be COVID-cautious, they become quite relaxed with each other, creating an amusing but emotionally perplexing scenario. Eventually, Akira and Koji grapple with deciding if they are just friends, or something more.

Part exceptionally drawn character study, part contemporary comedy of manners, Fish and Water is a delightful love story for the modern era, considering how love and connection can find you in the strangest ways.

“Tagame’s work combines a charming sitcom sensibility with simmering sexual desire, recognizing that humor and heat go hand in hand. It’s also a great story about how food brings people together, and Tagame uses meals to build intimacy by satisfying both physical and emotional hunger.”
—A.V. Club

“Sweet. . . . Tagame’s manga art is better than ever: in addition to his renowned talent for capturing brawny men in various states of undress, he also displays a flair for depicting cuisine. This lighthearted bromance-to-romance should charm the socks off fans of queer love stories.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In meticulously drawn black-and-white inked panels . . . Tagame reveals a charming love story. . . . Manga aficionados will likely notice inventive, tempting foodie parallels with Fumi Yoshinaga’s delectable, ongoing What Did You Eat Yesterday? series. . . . Tagame particularly excels in capturing nuanced emotions and gifts audiences intimate access to a couple tentatively falling in love. . . . Satisfyingly swoon-worthy fun indeed.”
—Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness

“Tagame’s food illustrations look delicious . . . making it easy for readers to connect with Akira’s intense excitement over meals with his friend. . . . Through moments of domestic intimacy, this story captures the joy of building a loving relationship.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Fans of cooking manga like What Did You Eat Yesterday? and Confessions of a Shy Baker will find much to like here.”
—Booklist

“Fish and Water is . . . a collective embrace of everyday moments in life and falling in love. . . . One of the best romance graphic novels I have had the pleasure to read.”
—Gay League

Author

Gengoroh Tagame

GENGOROH TAGAME was born in 1964 and lives in Tokyo. After graduating from Tama University of Art, Tagame worked as an art director while writing manga and prose fiction, contributing illustrations for various magazines. In 1994 he cofounded the epochal G-Men Magazine, and by 1996 he was working full-time as an openly gay artist. He is the author of dozens of graphic novels and stories, which have been translated into English, French, Italian, and Korean. His artwork has been exhibited in galleries across Europe and America. His first all-ages title, My Brother’s Husband, earned him the Japan Media Arts Festival Award for Outstanding Work of Manga from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. In 2018 it received the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia.

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Fish and Water

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Part of Pantheon Graphic Library