Inside Mari vols. 2 & 3

The first volume of mangaka Shuzo Oshimi’s latest look at how the life of a milquetoast male is upended by an unconventional female didn’t get off to the best of starts in my opinion.  There was some drama to be had in seeing how shut-in Isao Komori wound up in the body of high school girl Mari, but it was of the conventional and familiar kind. Vol. 2 isn’t as much of an improvement over that as I would’ve liked to see even though it digs further into the complications Isao faces in Mari’s body.  Complications like doing makeup and the far more difficult task of maintaining Mari’s relationships with other girls. That last bit takes a dramatic turn for the worse when Isao/Mari goes with her friends to hang out with some boys at a nearby mall and winds up wittingly and unwittingly sabotaging every important relationship she has.  Including the one with Yori, the sole person who knows about her situation.

We find out that Yori has her own reasons for wanting to get Mari back and they seem to imply some kind of unrequited romantic affection.  This, along with the amateur detective stuff she and Isao/Mari get into with these two volumes, is enough to make me want to see where Oshimi is going with this character.  So it’s a little disappointing to see her shoved into the background for the majority of vol. 3. Not helping vol. 3’s case either is the fact that it’s mostly an extended cringe read as Isao/Mari’s life falls apart in exactly the way you’d expect.  From dealing with the complications from the one bit of female physiology we all knew he was going to have to deal with, to the loss of her social status, and a forced bit of romanticism from one of Mari’s male friends, much vol. 3 seems designed to make the reader feel as uncomfortable as possible.

At least Oshimi makes an effort to move the plot forward by the end of that volume.  Unlike all of the cringe-read stuff that preceded it, I didn’t expect the mangaka to have their protagonist directly address the problems facing them in this manner.  It leads to Yori getting back in the picture, an interesting revelation about Mari’s relationship with Isao pre-body swap, and even the current Isao getting swept up in things.  All of this is enough to give me renewed hope for the series. It’s not the best place for a series to be in after three volumes. Yet it’s enough to give me hope that the Oshimi who made “The Flowers of Evil” and “Happiness” such compelling reads will show up eventually.