#inside mari

Shuzo Oshimi’s name is one that evokes a sense of dread in many circles. His most famous work, Flowers of Evil, is legendary for the rawness with which he depicts the most destructive parts of adolescence, centering as it does the toxic, coerced relationship between a boy who steals his crush’s underwear and the girl who caught him.

Oshimi’s work has not lost its raw power and interest in toxic relationships–almost all of his manga have a central relationship that at least starts off based on shared secrets, shame, and the threat of exposure. However, 2012’s Inside Mari marked a turning point: many of his later works explore the experiences of queer adolescents trying to escape from heteronormative, transphobic, and often misogynist ideas of how one should live. Inside Mari begins with a young man waking up in the body of a girl he’d been watching from afar and meeting the lesbian girl who was harboring a crush on her. The one-shot Waltz, published the year after Inside Mari was completed, centers on a girl who comes to feel possessive of her transfemme classmate as the only one who knows her identity. And Welcome Back Alice, his most recent work, stars a trio of characters each struggling to find an answer to what living a life without gendered expectations would mean, triggered by the return of their childhood friend shortly after their transition into an agender, trans feminine identity. All of these works are astonishing in the specificity with which they depict queer adolescence, with Oshimi clearly bringing his experience to them. If anything, they demand a reframing and reconsideration of much of his earlier work, showing us a new way of thinking about his depictions of women.

Oshimi’s work overwhelmingly focuses on adolescent sexuality; often the protagonists are insecure young men on the throes of adolescence, who meet a young woman that inspires in them both fear and desire–Oshimi self-deprecatingly refers to this in the afterword for Welcome Back, Alice as “[trying] to hook male readers by inflaming their libido.” But he goes on, “But I was never satisfied by just fulfilling their desires that way. I think the reason is that I myself felt something unsavory in those desires, and it ate at me that this wasn’t what I truly wanted.” The fan service heavy early moments of his works inevitably become bait-and-switches, evolving into stories that explore anxiety about sex, the gendered social expectations that come with it, and the violence that the characters wind up perpetrating against each other in an attempt to navigate these standards.  

general things i want to get to:

physical appearances, idolization of mari, and non canonical headmate status of the other two

yeop its all "me" except the people that are not. this makes no sense to anyone least of all me!! in general i just love the way identity/memory confusion is portrayed throughout the entire manga

hashtag my memory.... this scene makes me physically ill and angry

recently had a long term best friend of like. almost a decade drop me because of . plurality (its a much longer and more nuanced story than that but um. it was a large part of it and really fucking hurt my feelings) and a large part of it was because she just didn't believe me. ouch! self explanatory I hope

just really like this panel. its charming, it feels realistic, and like yea man sometimes you just have to investigate and list out everything you(plural) have

most of us have been operating like this/forcing each other to operate like this for years

hall of fame plural moment. this is i think one of our number one wretched spirals so forgive me for not adding too much.

thatsssss it for tonight!!

Gender Swap:

- All Because of You

- Until I Become Me

- Onimai

- Ranma ½

Body Swap:

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- Inside Mari

- Heavenly Delusion

- Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

Unrelated Magic:

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- Fire Punch

- One Piece

No Magic:

- My Senpai is an Otokonoko

- Boy Meets Maria

- Stop! Hibari-kun

- The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All