There's a running line of internet commentary that holds that if men got pregnant, abortion would be a God-given right and that pregnancy care would be a whole lot better and more accessible. While that's largely an American perspective, and I don't want to get too political here, it still seems to be the baseline for Eri Sakai's manga He's Expecting. When men began to be able to carry children roughly ten years ago (in the story's world), not much changed —the default expectation was still that mothers would be the primary caregivers, and pregnant men were low-key looked down on. Male pregnancy didn't bring about the legislative or social revolutions people were half-expecting, which Sakai's story points out. So when Kentaro finds himself expecting after a casual hookup, he's unsure what to do. But as he weathers the micro (and macro) aggressions and thinks about what he really wants to do, he decides to have the baby—and to make things easier for the other birthing dads out there.

Although this isn't written from a blatantly political place (and that pregnancy care isn't a political issue everywhere in the world), there are a lot of fascinating points. For starters, the obstetrician Kentaro consults doesn't even bat an eye when he suggests that abortion is an option; his only caution is that male abortions (and births) require longer to recover from than female because of the lack of a birth canal— in the story's world, men apparently have uteruses but not vaginas or other delivery methods, and so all male pregnancies end in abdominal surgery, whether carried to term or not. That means that a quick and quiet termination of Kentaro's pregnancy isn't possible: he'll have to take at least seven to ten days off of work. Although he's allowed that, especially for a medical procedure, he's uncomfortable telling people why he'd be taking time off.

Sakai makes it clear that gender has nothing to do with the way people feel about their pregnancies and abortions, and that's a major strength of this book. Both are presented as human issues, and the volume is divided into chapters by character perspectives. Kentaro opens the book, but chapters are also given to a pregnant woman trying to decide if her boyfriend will leave his other woman and what impact that will have on her, a teenage boy who had an abortion, and the mother of Kentaro's child, as well as a married couple where she birthed their first child, and he's pregnant with their second. While on the surface, there are gendered comments as the world readjusts its expectations, in practice, all that's happening is that traditional gender roles are being reversed. This is most obvious in Tsubasa's story—the stigma for him is more that he was pregnant and had an abortion in high school, and parents on both sides reacted badly. The struggle for him is complicated by the casual cruelties of his male classmates, but the real issue is one that he and his girlfriend need to work through together. That goes for Noriko, the married woman with the pregnant husband, as well: she's struggling both with the way that this has changed her relationship (and how much more of a baby he is now that he's pregnant; he thinks the rules should change for him compared to how he treated her) and the fact that this was something that made her special: the ability to give birth. To Noriko, this is a masculine intrusion on a feminine domain, and that's not easy to deal with.

This book has a fabulous concept and execution that doesn't quite go far enough. Kentaro never really sees himself as different from the pregnant women he meets (although that's something he must learn with Mizuki's help). Still, most social commentary is pretty low-key, so if you're reading this looking for a revolution, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, women who become pregnant or who have the possibility of it are often treated as lesser workers and citizens, and the book does handle that; in fact, it seems to be using gender roles to show that reproductive health is an everyone-issue. That's the most potent piece of this volume—this tries to consider all angles. It's interesting in a very positive way, and we can see how the café geared towards men with children is present throughout the story and how it helps change perspectives. The mere fact of its existence may be the most aspirational part of the volume because the days when men "babysat" their children instead of "parenting" them are hopefully truly on the way out, and they, too, need changing tables in gendered bathrooms and spaces where they can take their kids. It's too bad that Sakai doesn't try to push the envelope more, but maybe that's unnecessary because, upon reflection, He's Expecting still does a lot to work with the issues at hand.