Inside Mari: A Partial Review

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Inside Mari (Boku wa Mari no Naka)
by Shuzo Oshimi
Chapters 1-26 (available on Crunchyroll Manga)

Summary (from Crunchyroll)
A young man is a shut-in, with nothing to do but kill time. The sole pleasure in his life is following home an angelic high school girl he sees every day in a convenience store. Today, like any other day, he follows her, but… Shuzo Oshimi, the creator of Drifting Net Café and Flowers of Evil, continues to open hidden doors of the heart in this monthly serialized story!

Review (so far)
The Flowers of Evil (Aku no Hana), one of the most uncompromising stories to be committed to both manga and anime in recent memory, enthralled me because it took teenage melodrama so seriously: that is, in all its ridiculousness and self-dramatization to the point of serious cringe. There was nothing noble or romantic about Kasuga’s self-loathing or repressed sexuality, or Nakamura’s sadistic nonconformity: it was what it was, ugly and fascinating at once.

Inside Mari, a more recent title by Flower’s manga artist Shuzo Oshimi, continues the tradition, and not from a completely unrelated angle. Inside Mari tells the story of a hikkikomori named Isao Komori, who has been stalking a local high school student named Mari at a nearby convenience store. One day, he finds himself awake in a strange bed, and in a strange body, of the opposite sex…Mari’s body. Now Isao/Mari has to navigate school life, as a girl, all the while pretending to everyone that Mari is still Mari even though Isao has no idea how to be a woman.

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This is not a new concept, of course, as it’s been treated both comedically and semi-seriously in other anime and manga stories, and often with dollops of melodrama on top. (cough*Kokoro Connect*cough) What is different, and refreshing, about this take is how it is introduced, and how Oshimi dramatically complicates the situation over time. The first volume and half makes it appear that Isao is experiencing a bit of a morality play: you have objectified and lusted after this high school girl, now you get to see what it feels like to be one, and it’s not so fun! For example: one of the very first things Isao/Mari becomes aware of is how men check her out all the time, a glance here and a glance there. This is on top of now possessing those body parts that he had previously so lusted after and not knowing quite what to do with them…and that’s before the period begins. (Quite graphically, too: the reader is not spared the pain and messiness of the experience.) An explicit critique of the “male gaze” is very much in operation here, much like Kasuga’s actions served as a critique of the standard manga/anime “nice guy” who thinks he’s pure and romantic. Instead of an external catalyst like Nakamura to prod him into another mindset, though, he literally must walk in another person’s shoes, to see an experience foreign to his insulated ways.

Women know when you're doing this, guys.
Women know when you’re doing this, guys.

The story would be worthy enough, though simplistic, if it had been left at that. But Oshimi goes further, in an apparent (not, as of this writing, 100% confirmed) twist that turns the tables on what the apparent “moral” of the story is and how we understand the characters of both Isao and Mari. Mari is not completely all together, in the tradition not so much of Oshimi’s Nakamura, but of Saeki, whose twistedness was explored much more in the manga than the anime was able to show. Like Saeki, Mari has a near-perfect exterior that masks much pain and possibly instability. That facade, due to Isao living inside of her, is painfully and ruthlessly torn down, and the poignance of watching her social relations unravel is hard to watch sometimes. At that point, the boundaries begin to blur and the reader wonders just who these people are, and how much of what we call friendship and civility is really held together by pretense and hiding. If my theory about what is going is correct, what we have is a challenge to the whole notion of identity itself, whether it’s based on gender, social standing, or otherwise. Who is Mari? Who is Isao?

Identity crises are classically adolescent, and Oshimi is a rare talent that explores just how dark and confusing they can be. Inside Mari, barring a disappointing finale or revelation, furthers his oeuvre of hurting and desperate youth who can’t seem to stop wondering who they are, who they belong with, and what life means when you can’t seem to feel at home anywhere.

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Inside Mari is available on Crunchyroll Manga. It is recommended for mature readers as it contains some explicit nudity, though it is necessary for the storytelling.

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.

5 thoughts on “Inside Mari: A Partial Review

  1. Interesting, experiencing different perspective. Yes, I love Nakamura’s role as trickster. I hope they animate Inside Mari too. Kashimashi was also great, it wasn’t like possessing someone’s body, but gender change totally changed life. But this one, becoming a girl made the main character happier. Yuri life!

    I want to be checked out by girls. But sadly I’m not ikemen, so I rather want to be inside ikemen body. Or I want to be inside my crush’s boyfriend, so I can experience ultimate skinship!

    Everyone has dark secret, and no one is not suffering. Some people choose to live alone, don’t make friends or lovers, hedgehog dilemma advocated by Schopenhauer. So, not to get close, not to get hurt by spines.

    1. If there is anything that is true about an Oshimi story, it’s that his characters almost never become happier because of some change in life, not for long anyway 🙂

      Sadly, I suspect Inside Mari is too much for an anime studio to bankroll. Given how poorly Flowers of Evil did financially, and how almost anti-otaku Oshimi’s work tends to be, it’s unlikely anyone will take a chance. If you read further in the manga of Aku no Hana you will probably discover why they probably felt they couldn’t keep going on that one either. The man is an iconoclast to say the least.

  2. I hadn’t heard of this before now, so thanks for writing about it. The premise sounds weird all right, but I can hardly imagine the potential it has as a character study. Oshimi does it again, huh? I can’t *not* check it out, really!

    1. Let me know what you think! It really is a character study; the premise is just a high concept to hang that on. If more of these gender swapping stories actually took the concept seriously, this is what you might get.

  3. Theories about what’s going on? I have some too 🙂

    Me, I think Isao-in-Mari is actually a mental construct of Mari’s if not outright schizophrenia. As you say, her own life was rife with conflict and thus I reckon it’s escapism for her.

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