This will definitely be a good read if you have a less or zero knowledge about.It will keep you invested to know what's exactly happen to Mari.
As for my case, since I know and have read about beforehand, I just read the manga to confirm my theory. Tho I can say it's a good read because you able to get a gist of what people experiencing even though it's a bit dramatic. Give it a try!

... Last updated on August 29th, 2023, 9:22am

The premise, the general start/mystery, and the art were good, but it's everything in between that could have just been snappier. There was a whole lot of nothing/filler for the better part of this story...I got bored and just skimmed from chapter 20 to the end pretty much.

As far as gender benders go, it's as realistic as it's going to get and that's why the beginning was so interesting. However, the plot isn't really tight and things aren't well explained. This author usually likes vagueness and a psychologically messed up cast, but this story left too much to the imagination when it had 80 chapters to work with. It's not so much things need to be spelled out, but things flat-out just weren't clear. For instance, the whole 10 or so chapters with Mari's original friend group. It's clear these are shallow, hollow friendships and I suppose the author is trying to say that "real" Mari is a shallow, hollow vessel, but...okay? What's the point though? Did we need to spend so much time with these characters just for it to go no where? The love interest in this is also a piece of work and I didn't find their romance remotely endearing. They're teenage girls so I forgave the mellow-drama, but as someone said, it gets day-time soap-opera with it. The love interest also has their own life drama and that's hinted at and resolved, but never really explored in any level of depth.

Above all things, the "twist" was...anti-climactic as hell, to say the least, and beyond dumb for all the build up. I thought something horrific happened, but in reality, it wasn't that bad and because of that, I wish we'd learned more about Mari's parents relationship beyond what's hinted at and how & why it is that way since that seems like a HUGE part of why Mari experiences life the way she does. I also wish we'd gotten more flashbacks of the dynamic between Mari and Isao because we get some major things dropped on us in the last five chapters. You know those old detective stories where, during the final scene, the detective reveals THE mystery-solving clue and it's one that wasn't shown to the reader the whole story until that very moment, meaning the reader was left in the dark until the last moment? That's basically what happened. And then after allll that drama, everything wraps up WAY too neatly with a time skip. No talking, no addressing Mari's behavior, nothing. Just skip a year ahead.

My frustration with this manga in general is all the hinting without showing and the characters being half developed and all over the place. The pacing, as far as the story goes, isn't bad -- the author doesn't take you on a wild goose-chase or pull out a bunch of annoying red herrings, but it's slow and a bit too meandering slice of life for a mystery like this. Oshimi always adds a 'perverse' element to this work, which I appreciate, but here it was distracting and it could have been incorporated earlier. I really want to recommend you read it, but there are too many elements that are just half-baked from my perspective. Read if you are a fan Oshimi's work in general, but if this is your intro to this author, it's likely not the best.

I like how this manga makes focus on the characters and how the development in set up between the characters, the body switch plot is quite interesting and to the end it was pretty good, even though the ending could have been better with a better context, it wasn't any bad.
A lot of emotions were pretty well executed and it's a bit sad how it ended but still worth reading.

Don't just post willy-nilly about the "twist" that only gets truly revealed in like, the last five chapters.

Regardless, this was a good manga. The body swap device was handled very well and realistically and the characters were engaging. The end left me a little, unsatisfied? I felt like there could have been much more left to explore post-reveal. But as it is, the manga was still worth my time.

... Last updated on October 8th, 2016, 5:10pm

As far as gender benders go Inside Mari is one of the more realistic ones. Komori's actions do feel like how one would act if they woke up with a girl's body, though out of respect & admiration for her he restrains any perverted desires. When it comes to the atmosphere the entire story has an underlying current of dread. Something feels off, but Komori (& the reader) don't know what it is. As it progresses one starts to wonder what an identity / an ego consists out of. Who is Komori really? Is he still Komori? Has he slowly adopted Mari's personality? It keeps you wondering. And the ending is something most would see coming as they go through the chapters, its natural conclusion.

One of the things I find most boring about this manga is despite the body change, is that I still get the feeling that Mari is still Mari (or that she acts like a typical female despite being taken over by a man). I never once think of Hobo as taking over Mari's mind; occasionally, I remember that it is Hobo, not Mari, who is in control. Yes, it is interesting in the fact that he is being humble and he respects Mari's body and he was trying to live out her lifestyle for her sake. The twists in the plot are actually pretty good and quite unpredictable in what happened in each other's past (particularly Mari's).

The artwork, honestly, is nothing to write about. No exaggeration and no surrealism/abstract/etc. So the emotional and mental aspects of this manga is pretty straight-forward, which is pretty easy to relate to. But I find it boring because there are hundreds of manga that allows readers to feel the same way. I would only recommend this if you just want a slight change from reading typical cheesy high-school romance manga...and if you don't mind the fact that is very slow-paced.

It's good, but at this point I'm only here because I'm stubborn and need to ride it out. A lot of wild plot twists, but it's overstayed its welcome.
Solid art and very unpredictable. Not your usual body-switch manga.

And that's what makes me follow all the manga of Oshima Shuzu avidly. The initial premise of a teenage awakening in the body of a girl he has a crush on is something that may have been done before. But what happens subsequently is consistently surprising. And that's true even though everyone acts, on a daily basis, like a human in their situation might reasonably be expected to act. There are no cliche developments in any of this mangaka's work, and this series is no exception.

He also draws well. He also paces developments well, so that enough happens/changes to keep you interested, without any rushing to the next development or the ending. Most fascinatingly, there are THREE people in this story, two of whom inhabit one body, and since they are teenagers there is lots of potential for yearning of various sorts, and it is very often unclear just who is yearning for whom. That really keeps the interest level high!

But the bottom line here is the truth I think this manga reflects—that many teenagers about this age would do anything to escape having to be just their confused selves, alone in the world in a period of change.

Oshima Shuzu is creative enough tell a story that is believable on the everyday level, creative and weird overall, and totally unpredictable as to outcome.

Manga are SO OFTEN cliched. This one is not at all.

... Last updated on October 4th, 2016, 6:34pm