Inside Mari
ぼくは麻理のなか
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A shut-in seems to wake up inside a high-school girl's body — a mystery about who has really been watching whom.
Isao Komori came to Tokyo for university, failed to make a single friend and stopped going to classes. He lives on games and his parents' allowance, and his one pleasure is a high-school girl he sees at the convenience store every night and privately calls its angel. One night he follows her. She stops, turns and smiles at him, and his memory breaks off. He wakes in her bedroom, in her body: he is Mari Yoshizaki, a popular girl at the local high school.
Living as Mari, he is found out almost at once by Yori Kakiguchi, a solitary classmate who has adored Mari from a distance, and the two set out to find the real Mari. The clues are strange. In Mari's room is a magazine Komori once sold to a second-hand shop; Yori finds evidence that Mari had been watching Komori. Yet the Komori living in his flat is still himself, and says he has never heard of Mari. Meanwhile Mari's life slips: Komori goes out with her friends, a boy from her circle forces a kiss on her, and her parents quarrel over the school she is missing. Calls come from someone claiming to be Mari; they turn out to be the real Komori, disguising his voice. One night, in Mari's body, Komori goes to the real Komori and there is sexual contact between them: a grown man and a high-school girl, which is the sexual abuse of a minor. The real Komori then asks her out, and she recoils.
Old photographs, and a half-memory of a grandmother calling her Fumiko, lead Komori and Yori to an amusement park, where he remembers that Mari was born Fumiko, a name her grandmother chose and her mother changed after the grandmother died. He collapses, and Mari's body is left awake and empty. Mari's mother insists to Yori that the girl was glad of her new name. In the last episode, with Komori back inside, Mari and Yori visit the real Komori, who has gone back to his family's home, and read his diary. Everything there is new to the Komori in her head, and Mari's own memory surfaces of reading that diary in his flat. That Komori was never Komori at all: he was a person Mari made from watching a lonely young man she envied. He fades away with the child Fumiko, Mari returns to herself, and she asks Yori to be her friend.
Starring
Elaiza Ikedaas Mari Yoshizaki
A popular high-school girl in whose body Komori seems to wake, lonelier and more unseen at home than anyone knows.
Mari Yoshizaki’s story
Mari is the girl Komori calls the angel of the convenience store, and for most of the story she is absent from her own life. Someone else lives it, drifting through her friendships and skipping school, while her parents quarrel about her instead of talking to her. Clues show that she had been watching Komori, not he her. When she remembers that her grandmother named her Fumiko and her mother changed the name after the grandmother's death, Mari falls silent, awake but answering no one; her mother insists to Yori that Mari was glad of the new name. At the real Komori's family home, Mari remembers reading his diary in his flat: the young man inside her is someone she made from watching him. He fades with the child Fumiko, and Mari, herself again, asks Yori to be her friend.
Ryo Yoshizawaas Isao Komori
A friendless university student who has stopped going to class, and the young man who seems to wake up inside Mari.
Isao Komori’s story
Komori's one pleasure is the schoolgirl he watches at the convenience store; one night he follows her, she smiles, and he wakes as her. Yori sees through him, and they search for the real girl, while the Komori in his old flat says he has never heard of her. He goes, as Mari, to the real Komori, and there is sexual contact between them, a grown man and a high-school girl: the sexual abuse of a minor. When that Komori asks her out he recoils, and on learning Komori made the calls posing as Mari, he hits him. Following the name Fumiko, he collapses and is gone for a while. Back inside Mari, he reads the real Komori's diary and recognises nothing: he was never Komori, only someone Mari made. He fades away with the child Fumiko.
Yurika Nakamuraas Yori Kakiguchi
A solitary classmate who has idolised Mari, spots the stranger inside her and helps search for the real girl.
Yori Kakiguchi’s story
Yori has worshipped Mari from across the classroom without ever speaking to her. She sees at once that someone else is behind Mari's face, and the two of them search for the real girl. She is angry when the stranger goes out with Mari's friends instead, and upset when he meets her own elder sister; after what happens with the real Komori, she calls him dirty. Once she believes that Mari is still inside, she draws closer. When Mari falls silent after the amusement park, Yori goes to Mari's mother and learns that the girl was once Fumiko; Mari, waking for a moment, tells her to get along with Komori. At the end Mari, herself again, asks Yori to be her friend, and the two become close.
Naomi Nishidaas Eriko Yoshizaki
Mari's mother, who changed her daughter's name after the grandmother's death and insists that everything is fine.
Why it matters
Inside Mari begins as the story of a man who watches a girl and ends as the story of a girl no one really looked at. For most of its length it rides along with Komori's gaze, including into a teenager's body, and that is its most uncomfortable choice. The ending turns the premise inside out: the watcher was Mari, and the young man in her head is someone she built in order not to be herself. The issues it raises are hard ones: the fixation on schoolgirls that the premise trades on, a mother who renamed her daughter and never saw the child in front of her, and dissociation as a way of surviving a family. The twist explains the middle episodes without making them comfortable. What stays is Mari's last question, whether Yori will be her friend, asked at last in her own voice.