Inside Mari

Inside Mari is a very beautiful manga. It broke me but it also made me understand of so many things. I've never read something like this before, and I don't think I will ever find something as remotely similar as this. It is special and it is meaningful to me. This review will be full of spoilers and feelings that I had while reading this manga.

Inside Mari, to put it simply, is about to be yourself, to be just yourself. You are you, all parts of you are you and every one of you is you. It's about how important it is to keep continue on living as you. You are yourself and no one could say otherwise. What made you you is what you think is you and what you feel is quite you. You will be able to continue to live as you when you accept yourself wholly. When you have found your innate sense of self, all you have to do is to live with it and just be yourself.

It is also about connection. The connection Mari had with other people made her sense of self crumbled. Why is that? They were all trying so hard to make Mari as they want her to be, not what she really is. This made Mari questions herself. She doesn't know what she's worth, she doesn't know what she needs to be or to do so she can feel connected with other people. The only way she can think of to achieve that connection is to put her real self in a mental prison and took other people's expectation of her to build the 'perfect' Mari. As the story goes, she got real tired of being perfect and snapped. The first person that came to her eyes was Isao, a person who, in Mari's perspective, has achieved true freedom. He was perfect in her eyes, thus her story of being Isao-Mari started.
After she had taken the soul of Isao and put it in her body, she met Yori. Yori is, I may say, the most important character for Mari. Mari's understanding of human connection that was so rotten to the core, all changed after her life with Yori. Funnily enough, Yori at first was just like any other people in Mari's life. She made an idealized version of Mari in her own mind, which explains why she was so mad with Isao-Mari's early behavior. But as Yori lived along with Isao-Mari, she began to understand Isao-Mari more and more and her sparks of love for Isao-Mari began to spark. The same goes for Isao-Mari. This development of Yori's character is so important because this is the only thing that made Mari changed her understanding of connection, to a much better one. Their relationship really has always been a tricky one, yet they keep on being together until the end. That's because they want to try to understand each other, they don't want to give up on each other, they want to be connected despite everything. This struggle of them trying to acknowledge each other is what makes me think their relationship is so beautiful and important. This manga is trying to show that the right connection with the right person or people will help you to find yourself. In a world that felt so lost, even the most little connection with the right person can make you found and be found again.

The climax scene of this manga is what hit me the most. The three version of Mari is standing and looking at each other. They're asking who they really are. They're trying to make a sense of their own selves. First Mari was trying to give up, she was willing to give the body to Isao-Mari. Then it happened, the moment that I think is the most prominent key point of this whole story. Isao-Mari, the idealized version that First Mari made, told her that they should go together. Isao-Mari understood. Isao-Mari understood what is the purpose of all three of them. The idealized version of Mari by other people (First Mari), the antithesis of former version: idealized version of Mari by herself (Isao-Mari), and the one that was kept hidden for a long time because her sense of self was overwritten by her mother (Fumiko), they are all part of Mari and they are the ones that make Mari whole. In the end they all merged into Mari as she is, making her a new self, the non-idealized version of herself, the one that she felt quiet right. All parts of Mari is what make her Mari. It is not right to make one or the other disappear, instead they all should be one. They all should be Mari.

The final pages of the manga made a perfect conclusion of this manga. The colored pages gave me a warm feeling. After reading what I would call a very heart-breaking emotional ride, I felt like the final pages were trying to give me a hug. I broke down crying for a few minutes and I had to sit in silence for an hour.
I feel like the final steps that Mari took toward the unseen road in the very final page were trying to give me this message: Although your whole life may be an idealized version of everyone's expectation of you, you can always make a blank page for you to write on and decide what kind of self you will pursue in your life. Continue to keep living as you, I believe that's what this manga is trying to tell me.

There's also one last thing that I want to talk in this manga, the one topic that you may have seen in many discussions about this manga. The experience of being a woman as a former man. I'm talking about this as if we don't know the ending yet. In one chapter, there was an eerie moment where it looked like Isao and Mari unmerge and doing sexual stuff with each other. Soon after that, Isao looked at Mari and said he want to be one with Mari. He wish to disappear in her and be completely one with Mari. There's a reason why he wanted this. He wants to escape from his former life. He thought his life as a NEET shut-in male was too much of a pain that when he got the chance to be to be a woman he idolized, he wasn't going to let it slip at all. While this is a genuine desire coming from Isao, there's something that keep him away from being one with Mari. It's illustrated in this very chapter: the one thing that holds him down, the sexual urge Isao has towards Mari. Afterall you cannot wish to be someone while wanting to fuck that someone sexually. Then the incredible "Who are you?" said by empty hole-faced Mari to Isao. This questions how Isao really look at himself in Mari's body. This begs Isao to look at himself objectively. This one chapter is a very great depiction of how Isao connects with Mari's body. This leads to Isao-Mari rejection of his original self, Isao Komori. After Isao Komori confessed his love to Isao-Mari, Isao-Mari felt so disgusted. Isao-Mari was able to look at the original self and that made Isao-Mari realize how gross he really is as a male. This radicalized Isao-Mari. Isao-Mari never lust after Mari's body again. This point is also stated in Shūzō Oshimi's afterwords in Inside Mari vol. 1. I don't think there is a greater way to describe how I feel other than this. I think it's kind of crazy how much I relate to this.

I actually want to talk further about this but I cannot find the right sentences to describe it so let this afterwords speaks for me.

Thank you Shūzō Oshimi, thank you Inside Mari. This kind of story is the one that will stuck with me for the rest of my life and I am very grateful of that. I love this manga so much in a way that no other would ever understand. I hope many people are able to feel this manga as much as me.