Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide, Vol 1
Ok, I was actually annoyed by this. The quick overview of this is 2 guys (in love with each other) decide to go on a trip to multiple different countries, and in this first volume, they leave Japan and go to Thailand, India, and Georgia. The manga provides travel advice/tips (such as "USD is easier to convert to any other countries money than Yen is" "Several countries have laws against single use plastic bags so you should carry around spare bags because you might need them"), as well as highlighting things about each country/locations- such as Georgia being the birthplace of Wine, The sheer amount of people in India, etc. You get to see landmarks, local food, etc.
But when they land in Thailand, they run into a transgender woman, and we then get taught about LGBT folks in Thailand, how open (especially in comparison to Japan) the country is with regards to LGBT individuals, etc. They end up going around with this person and another LGBT individual on some adventures, and it actually was really interesting to me! I was thinking "oh, cool, it's also going to be about different LGBT cultures around the world, that's actually a really cool idea for a BL!
....and then we get to India, a country where gay sex was literally a criminal act until 2 years ago....and we don't get ANYTHING about LGBT culture. Instead, we get a borderline racist chapter where every single person in the country is trying to scam them as foreigners? It's just really out of nowhere. We then go to Georgia, a place with not the best LGBT laws but not completely awful (ie, no unions/marrige allowed but there are anti-discrimination laws, you can get your gender recognized, etc), and again nothing is brought up.
I just feel really disappointed, If they hadn't done the stuff in the first location, I wouldn't be expecting it at all, but when it's the first thing you do, I kind of expect more of it, instead of just ignoring it.
