ぼくは麻理のなか

BOKU WA MARI NO NAKA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
9
RELEASE
September 6, 2016
CHAPTERS
80

DESCRIPTION

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…

(Source: Crunchyroll)

CAST

Mari Yoshizaki
Yori Kakiguchi
Isao Komori
Momoka

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Drakmalar
80/100
This was a weird but entertaining manga
I began reading this manga due to Super Eyepatch Wolf's recommendation on YouTube; i was expecting a manga that would explore the human psyche and what it means to be an individual. One that would talk about identity and the way in which we and other perceive us. And that, along with some beautiful and clean artwork was exactly what i got.

Let me start by saying that this is... a weird manga, the kind of weird that Oyasumi Punpun is. What i mean by this is: Inside Mari is the kind of story that shows what humans are capable of, in both the good and the bad. There were many pages that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and while they aren’t even close to what u would find in Oyasumi Punpun they certainly can leave an impression and be quite disturbing for some, so consider it a warning. This is a manga that talks about identity as a whole and what it means to be oneself. There are violent scenes, plenty of quiet time, plenty of silence, sadness, dread, a bit of love, and a lot of sexual themes.

So what is it about? Well, the story puts us on the shoes of Isao Komori. A college student that has hit his absolute low, he doesn’t go to any of his classes, doesn’t have any friends, jacks off all day and spends his time playing video games while his mother calls him every once in a while to tell him that they have sent him some more money so that he can keep studying far from home. She's unaware of the depressing state in which Komori finds himself, and so Komori is left with nothing else than time and videogames.
We are then told that he only leaves his home for the sole reason of buying porn at a convenience store, where he meets a young beautiful girl who he then eventually begins to follow home. And after some time, he follows her one last time. And the exact same moment that she finally turns around one day to notice his presence, everything turns blank.

It’s a brand new day, brand new ceiling and room. He's no longer his old self, and has now turned into the girl that he was following. Who was exactly this girl? How did it happen and why? And most importantly, what is this guy going to do now? he needs to learn how this girl used to act and behave, so that he can mimic what were her usual manners and try to fit in this in this world where he clearly doesn’t belong... right? Well, what would you do? Would u try to live as what was the old self of that girl or would u take advantage of being able to reset your life and live a comfortable and pretty life as a new person? That’s one of the main themes that this manga tackles at first, but then it evolves into something deeper and much more intriguing that makes us wonder if this is all real.

It might seem like a perfect chance to turn over a new leaf and start over, but it quickly becomes apparent that the way in which this seemingly perfect teenage girl was living was nothing more than an illusion. And there we have Isao Komori, an already unstable person trying his best to perform under pressure and learn how to adapt in the middle of even more unstable situations and people that used to surround this young girl.

So basically... great and beautifully detailed artwork and an intriguing premise and interesting concept about what becomes of a person when he is faced with a life that isn’t his and people who do not truly care about him. What becomes of a person who is unable to return to his past self but who also fails at becoming what should be his present self? This is a story about collecting the broken pieces of a person when there is nothing left and remembering what we truly were.

Despite the premise being great and intriguing enough to the point that i read all 80 chapters in a day, i think that it could have been handled in much more interesting ways and i also firmly believe that there was plenty of room for a lot of character development. It was a story with great potential and it’s in my eyes a great exploration of what it means to be someone and the human psyche, it isn’t the best or greatest story ever told about the human mind but it is an entertaining ride.
It is also pretty fun to see the depictions of emotions that the author presents through his artwork, this is a really really pretty manga with breathtaking art and i really want to make an emphasis on that point. The author knew how to perfectly convey emotion through his characters and lines, the facial expressions on this manga are truly something remarkable.

And here let me make a quick comment about the ending... it felt pretty... empty to me. But as far as i am concerned, it was worth the read and it wasn’t "bad", in fact to some it might be a genuinely cool and deserving ending for a series like this.

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Aetherys117
100/100
Dans l'intimité d'un ange de supérette
Les gens n'arrivent pas à la reconnaître, aujourd'hui. Elle se comporte bizarrement, parle bizarrement et elle semble ailleurs...

Mais qu'est ce qui est arrivée à notre Marie, la star du lycée à qui tout réussit ?

Si seulement les gens savaient et pouvaient comprendre...

Que dans le corps de cette lycéenne, c'est l'esprit d'un jeune NEET de 23 ans nommé Komori qui y a élu domicile ,du jour au lendemain, sans savoir pourquoi. Pourtant, ce comportement étrange n'échappe pas à Yori, une fille qui semble très proche de Marie... Très rapidement, les masques tombent et les faits sont là :

Sous une nuit pluvieuse, alors que Komori suivait comme à son habitude Marie, son "Ange de la supérette", leurs regards se sont croisés,puis plus rien. Le noir complet. Au petit matin, Komori était devenu Marie. Les questions fusent, et une qui n'est pas des moindres :

Ou est passé l'esprit de Marie ?

Ce manga de 9 tomes propose ici sur le papier un récit somme toute classique de body swap, mais en vérité, il le pousse bien plus loin pour mieux pouvoir le déconstruire. Les débuts de la nouvelle existence de Komori ne se font absolument pas hésitants. D'emblée, Komori se lance à la recherche de l'esprit de Marie, tente de suivre le quotidien de cette fille parfaite... Mais plus le récit avance, moins il semble obtenir de réponses. Les éléments perturbateurs s'accumulent, le rythme est soutenu, aucune place n'est laissé à l'humour ou au slice of life plan plan.

Le trait est réaliste et le découpage se focalise très souvent sur les visages, en plan serré, mettant face à nous les émotions pures des personnages. Toute l'anatomie y est scrutée à la loupe durant les pérégrinations existentielles de Komori, sans fioriture et toujours dans une volonté de servir l'intrigue.

Alors que toi, lecteur, tu t'attendais sûrement à une œuvre légère, remplie de scènes ecchi, il n'en est en fait rien : L'œuvre traite énormément de sujets et jongle volontiers entre réalité et fantasme pour laisser certaines scènes libres d'interprétation, même si toutes les clés sont données à la fin. Certaines scènes, notamment celles où les personnages se mettent à nu, sont emplies d'un symbolisme poignant et puissant qui laissent nos sentiments eux aussi à nu.

On se laisse donc porter par le voyage hallucinant et halluciné de Komori et par toutes ses découvertes, levant le voile sur les secrets de Marie, tout en se découvrant lui même ainsi que son corps féminin. En faisant le pont entre un étudiant en plein naufrage social et cet idéal qu'il voit briller tout les soirs à la supérette, le mangaka permet de mieux faire comprendre les intentions du personnage et ce qui l'anime à vouloir aider Marie.

Bien évidemment, l'aventure ne sera pas aussi simple, et dieu sait jusqu'où vont l'emmener toutes ses révélations...
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illmachine
95/100
Inside Mari is a beautiful piece of art that completely broke me.
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.
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