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The literary girl
An episodic structure facilitated inside a high-school and its lonesome 2-member literary club, though moreso within the enigmatic, oblique mind of defacto literary girl Maria Kodama. While the school club romcom of Girl A and Boy B subgenre is something I've grown a stale taste for, Kodama Maria is a refreshing baptism with its captivatingly dry dialogue and humor. If thinking inside the box is the norm and thinking outside is the goal, then Kodama Maria does both simultaneously. As straight-forward it'd be to reference literary works inside a literary-themed story for easy meta-humor, Yoshiharu Mishima interestingly writes not with reference of, rather, inspiration from literary works. What makes this furthermore interesting is that these literary works are literary, cultural, linguistic, even scientific essays and papers, from Roland Barthes' The Eiffel Tower to Albert Einstein's Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, therefore takes inspiration from the diverse, obtuse subject matters for its chapters.
Do you understand?
What derives from this is conversational bingo and metafiction extremely reminiscent of the Monogatari franchise. The most puzzling aspect of Kodama Maria is also how wonderfully introspective, meditative it is. That is, the softcore, layman linguistic linguini Maria shoves down your throat at every given chance. Although the episodic plots initially find themselves situated in humdrum, Maria contrives semantic, philosophical, even existential, meaning from them. In the process of verbally communicating oneself through Lego blocks and the likes, come the demarcated, yet understanding conversations between Maria and Fueda. Perhaps best described as an Araragi-Senjougahara conversation majoring in literature, the main staple interaction builds off of Maria's vast knowledge and Fueda's ignoramus. Easy it'd be to turn their dynamic into a slapstick, they both play off rather apathetic and pokerfaced, giving ambiguity and vibrant quirk to their relationship. The typical exchanges include dry banter, but mostly comprises of Maria's pensively semantic lectures and Fueda's weak, clueless reactions.
The meta-humor, while touching on character archetypes regularly like others, tickles the cerebrum more than the funny bone. With cultural and linguistic papers at its inspirational disposal, the metafictional aspect of Kodama Maria takes apart literary tropes, semantics, sentence and grammatical structure, cultural phenomena in lieu of language and literature, etc in a way that one questions the plot. Though, it does water down the concreteness with quirky metaphors and examples. For such a literary-centered story as Kodama Maria, it surprisingly references literary works on such few occasions that the literary-inept need not worry about being gatekept out of the humor. Though, you most certainly will be rereading and questioning.
And for how literary it is, Kodama Maria possesses a stylistic dependence on strong, organic strokes and lines smelling of calligraphy. Nearly all of my favorite mangaka in the weird market draw with blobbish simplicity and Mishima is no different. Character designs and backgrounds are leveled with such dullness that contrasts the lively, eccentric nature of dialogue and interaction and complements Maria and Fueda's usual apathy and deadpan mannerisms. I often subtly preach it in past reviews, but simplicity is a fine virtue.
A very Monogatari-esque monologue and a very particular headtilt...tap in, SHAFT
Conclusion
Comprehensive of linguistic and cultural phenomena, yet more of a phenomenon itself, Kodama Maria is a silent and enigmatic force to be reckoned with. Perhaps written with no audience in mind, rather, written in of itself for the sake of clever metafiction; the episodic chapters are unsuspectingly idiosyncratic with no real plot in mind. Kodama Maria Bungaku Shuusei reads off very much like a collaborative orgy between NISIOISIN, tugeneko and panpanya, with its frivolous, chattering nature. Yoshiharu Mishima writes with original and refreshing meditation of language, verbose, culture, interpersonal borrowing inspiration from real-life published papers that give consistent color to the incomprehensive dialogue and interactions in his story. Though, his intent isn't at all so intently deep as I worded it. There's no push for the audience into meditating or learning from the eccentric verbal jamborees, but perhaps to immerse them into the world of the enigmatic existence known as Kodama Maria.