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sofiastefanisacademicblog · 2 years

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Inside Mari: Gender and sexual identity

In a previous post I talked about inside Mari and how it relates to the Male gaze. An other layer about it that I find interesting is how it seems to have captured what it feels like to inhabit different sexual and gender identities for a lot of people.

As discussed in a previous post, it captures the feeling of being a woman and struggling to perform what is pushed on to you by society whilst also experiencing and internalizing the male gaze.

I related to the previous paragraph as someone who was raised as a girl, but the story also resonated with me as someone who identifies as non-binary. Not all of the aspects of the story were relatable to me, when Mari reaches a point where she feels comfortable in her body and sexuality I stopped relating, but the parts of the story where Komori feels trapped in a body that is alien to him, as well as the difficulties he has keeping up a persona, and the horror of existing in that state really resonated with me personally.

It could also be argued that Mari’s dissociative episode was a way to cope with her attraction to other women. Internalizing the identity of a man to come to terms with the fact that she likes women. This can be evidenced by the way her relationship with a female classmate of hers develops throughout the story and her feelings seem to become romantic. As Komori, Mari kisses their classmate, and contrary to a similar experience they had with a guy (where they felt disgusted) they expressed that this one felt instinctive, and it was like Maris body moved on its own. However, there is no explicit confirmation that Mari is gay.

Still, the story seems to have resonated with Lesbians. As an example, in a post titled ‘Inside Mari was shockingly accurate to what its like being a lesbian’ Reddit user bottleoficedtea describes how inside Mari related to her. ’For me, I didn't stalk a 21 year old college drop out perv (lol) but I totally felt like one. I felt so disgusting, immoral, etc etc realizing that I was attracted to my female classmates.’,(u/bottleoficedtea) she states that ’Mari couldn't cope with who she actually was, she felt like a perverted man in a girls body. I feel like it really captures the guilt and shame’ (u/bottleoficedtea)

Inside Mari could also be interpreted as an allegory for trans womanhood. In her post titled ‘Seeing your dysphoria in someone else’s story’, Brooke Holden explains how as a trans woman she found aspects of the story very relatable and had even followed a similar trajectory to the character of Komori, becoming a shut-in, before they transitioned. (Holden, 2018) She also speaks a lot about the author’s note as it has a lot in common with the way she thought before she realized she was trans. She states that ‘Seeing my dysphoria and pre-transition angst mirrored with eerie accuracy was extremely difficult. Reading this manga felt like I was reliving all of it and took a LOT out of me to get through it. I consider it to be one of the most important transgender related works out of Japan.’ (Holden, 2018)

Overall, I think it really speaks to how good the author is at writing characters if what he wrote could resonate with people of so many different gender and sexual identities, and while I do believe it’s important to have explicit representation, I also think stories like this are important. And to his credit I find it really impressive that he was able to write such a personal story of an experience that is not his own (as far as we know in terms of being cis)

Bibliography

u/bottleoficedtea (no date) R/manga - inside Mari was shockingly accurate to what its like being a Lesbian, reddit. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/pxosci/inside_mari_was_shockingly_accurate_to_what_its/ (Accessed: January 10, 2023).

Holden, B. (2018) Seeing your dysphoria in someone else's story. inside Mari and me., Medium. Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@eldarose/seeing-your-dysphoria-in-someone-elses-story-inside-mari-and-me-5a4e5b2a2412 (Accessed: January 10, 2023).

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