Boku wa Mari no Naka

[Dark Wing]

Boku wa Mari no Naka by OSHIMI Shuuzou

The manga follows an "angel-like" beautiful high school girl with a certain secret she has been hiding from everyone, and an idle hikikomori (one who abnormally avoids social contact) young man; the highlight of his day is seeing Mari at the convenience store. The story begins as Mari wakes up in her room, but something feel amiss about the room and even her own body.

I didn't see a thread for this manga so i made one. Now for the skeptical who will say "I've seen this all before." It's important to note that while at first it starts off as your usual gender-bender with jokes about hygiene and clothing but once these are out of our way, we start to see their is a lot more this story then meets the eye.

We are currently up to chapter 14 and all I'll say is in the last couple of chapter there has been a very unexpected turn of events...

[GundamZZ]

Mari is a mystery. Not even her family knows her real identity. It's also her charm. The protagonist is a NEET college student. He stalks Mari every night. After he possess her body, he finds out

Spoiler:

she stalks him for a long time.
Maybe the girl who stalks the protagonist is not really Mari. Real Mari might be disappeared.

The protagonist is experiencing Mari's experience.

NSFW

Warning: Not safe to view at work or school!

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[Utsuro no Hako]

Three new chapters out.

You know, I think this would make an awesome visual novel. Instead of the normal inane choices, you can try to win over yandere lesbian girl, steal a friend's boyfriend, or steal that friend from her boyfriend -- all with the possibility of nice-boat endings.

[Kirito]

A thread gets about this series sweet. I wonder what is going to happen now since the dude pretty much overdid "herself" and caused problems for the girl and the "friend". Not only that, it seems the issues are going to get more complicated as time goes on, especially since the guy's a woman now... and that happened "shudders". This could get messy.

17 chapters in and still no sign of Mari (The real one). Is she a witch or something because that's the impression that I'm getting.

[Xion Valkyrie]

One of the popular theories floating around is that Mari is suffering from a split personality disorder and that the NEET is actually just her split personality. She knows so much about the NEET because she's been stalking him this entire time and basically knows all his mannerisms.

That'd explain why wen Mari finally confronts the NEET he shows no interest in her. She believed that her NEET self stalked Mari when it was Mari stalking him the entire time.

[GundamZZ]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

One of the popular theories floating around is that Mari is suffering from a split personality disorder and that the NEET is actually just her split personality. She knows so much about the NEET because she's been stalking him this entire time and basically knows all his mannerisms.

That'd explain why wen Mari finally confronts the NEET he shows no interest in her. She believed that her NEET self stalked Mari when it was Mari stalking him the entire time.

Personally, I don't buy this theory.
"Mari" knows details about Diablo 3 walkthrough. It's too much for a girl who spent most time with her friends and books. "Mari" even knows NEET's high school days. Unless she can duplicate his memory, the theory of her disillusion is overboard.

The story is heading toward more playful direction. It's borderline ecchi. Hopefully, the kinky factor is limited at the level of Yuutai Nova. The kinky factor from Devil Ecstasy was too much, it became very gross.

Spoiler:

Mari's change in the restroom is not gross. It was still shocking, because I didn't expect the scene in the last page. "something is out". Is that something a man should know!?

It also shows that the NEET still worships her.

Images

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[GundamZZ]

The NEET is changing his attitude toward Mari. In the beginning, he has a pure naive love for Mari. So, he refused to look at her body. After the moon phase days, he has to change the t-mpons constantly. Now, he just look at her body with the blank thought.

He still tries to repair Mari's friendship with Mari's friend. Mari's freind is ignoring Mari and talks about her boyfriend with other friend. While the NEET is still struggling with Mari's condition, Mari's friend's boyfirend is giving Mari a call. Mari's cell phone has his contact information. Didn't they just meet in the previous chapter. They already exchange the phone number......

[GundamZZ]

Isao(the NEET) actaully agrees to meet Hiroki! Did Hiroki know Mari? He gives Isao/Mari a playful stare. It gives Isao a bad feeling. To add up the stress, Mari's friend Momoka wants to have a serious conversation with Isao/Mari.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

One of the popular theories floating around is that Mari is suffering from a split personality disorder and that the NEET is actually just her split personality. She knows so much about the NEET because she's been stalking him this entire time and basically knows all his mannerisms.

That'd explain why wen Mari finally confronts the NEET he shows no interest in her. She believed that her NEET self stalked Mari when it was Mari stalking him the entire time.

This sort of makes sense given that Mari has her own stacks of porn and she never comes home early.

Read a theory that sort of makes sense given what we know. Mari's father looks a bit creepy. It might be intentional. Mari is a victim of sexual abuse that it results to her hidden lifestyle as escapism. Mari is a lesbian, a pervert who buys hentai magazines and slut that seduces her friends boyfriends because of what her father did to her and is continually doing to her.

Now where does the NEET figures into this? Inside Mari wants to be different. Her idealized self is Isao's ideal girl. She stalks the guy and learns every facet of him. In the process creating a split personality. All that time at the convenience store was her split personality taking over. Thing is they never switched back the next morning.

This just another level of escapism for Mari as she does not want to deal with her reality.

[Velsy]

I really liked it in the beginning, how he was being honest and respectful towards Maris body, he'd do what he can to not peek and stuff. For a looser type like him I thought it was kinda praise worthy. But from that last chapter, its like he doesn't seem to care anymore. Frustrating in a way because that was something I liked about him. He needs to rework his gameplan from here on tho, he got sloppy. Alot of aspects I like to this manga. I like supernatural gender bender/body swapping genres that play out the emotional/confusing backlash of being in a foreign body with different chemicals at work. Such conflicts between the mind and body and if emotional breakdowns. So I still got a little hope. As long as he doesnt just turn into a pervert this could be something good and interesting.

[ReddyRedWolf]

There is obvious hints of trauma with Mari. She is averse to intimate touch whether it is her mother or that suitor of hers.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Now available on Crunchyroll, though they only have the most recent chapter available right now.

[JediNight]

What an unexpected early title addition for them. Considering it wasn't even strongly supported by fan translations to this point. And how graphic some of the chapters have been.

At least it's nice to get a HQ release instead of chinese speedscan raws and /a/ group translations.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Chapter 25.

Still traumatize because she was kissed. Mari's mother offers her pills. Mari tells her she is not Mari but Isao. Her mother ignores that and tell her to take them so she'll be back to school.

This furthers my suspicion Mari has Dissociative Identity Disorder. And her mother knows all about it.

Unable to sleep Mari visits and spies on Isao. It turns out the glasses girl also lives in the same apartment complex.

Clues are forming how all this started.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Newest chapter confirms Mari as a stalker with hints that she may have envied the hikikomori's lifestyle.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

Newest chapter confirms Mari as a stalker with hints that she may have envied the hikikomori's lifestyle.

Which supports my theory Mari has DID.

Isao's typical boring life is turned upside down when a crazy girl crashes his place and claims to be him.

Normally he wouldn't help cause it screams crazy girl but since she is a pretty high school girl he is probably thinking he may get a girlfriend out of this.

[GundamZZ]

That smile...again. I am certain there was no mirror during that night. Mari can still see this vision. She even replays this vision of smile to Isao and Yori. Yori seems to know something. Yet, she is holding back her thought.

[Utsuro no Hako]

The latest chapter is really smacking us over the head with the possibility that Mari is delusional. The way her parents talk, it sounds like she's borderline hikikomori herself.

[Meat2004]

I'm interested about the mysterious call she got. I can't say that was a delusion due to the caller ID, but it could be possible.

[Jan-Poo]

I've picked up this manga recently, it's quite interesting, and I'm going to write my thoughts about it.

I'm aware of the two dominant theories: "Body Switch" and "Mari has DID". I think at this time both are equally valid interpretations, but there are a few considerations to make for both cases.

The main problem with the "DID" interpretation is that, if it is true, then we necessarily need to conclude that several things that we have seen were complete lies.

I'm going to mention the most relevant:
1) The introduction, which is seen through the eyes of Isao. There we learn that Isao is obsessed with Mari and that he kept admiring her for a long time, however the Isao which is objectively seen by both Mari and Yori doesn't seem to know anything about her, and it doesn't even seem like he is lying. If the DID interpretation is true, then this was just one of Mari's fantasies.
2) Isao's past. In chapter 4 Mari remembers Isao's life as a young student when he was still in the country. It is impossible for the real Mari to have these memories. So the only explanation (if she has DID) is that she made them up, or, at best, she recreated them in her mind after listening to the real Isao.
3) The fateful day. This is the day when supposedly Isao followed Mari and when, as it seems, everything started. However, again, Isao would remember that if it really happened.
The chances that it didn't happen, however, are very slim in my opinion. This seems a pretty important plot, moreover if Mari really made that up, she would have made up the rest, instead she doesn't remember what happened after, which means something important happened, and if it's important then it must have really happened.
The DID explanation alone, therefore, doesn't suffice. We need to think that something is going on with Isao as well.

Regarding the phone call. Since we already need to imagine that Mari is having delusions and illusions, then the call could have been in her mind alone.


Mari wanted to switch places with Isao.
This is the only certain (99%) fact. We have a lot of evidence about that.
However this isn't really something that supports the DID theory any more than the body switch theory. In fact most of the works that entail body switches often start with one or both parties involved having a strong desires to be in the other person's shoes.

If there is some Hocus Pocus involved then perhaps Mari actually achieved what she wanted (I'll go back to this later), or maybe she tried to perform some kind of body swapping that went completely wrong.
If the DID theory is true, however, then she completely messed up, because what she actually wanted was to live Isao's life, not being Isao. She's still trapped inside Mari's body and Mari's world.

It may be that the current Isao is actually Mari
If the body swap is true, then memory loss to a certain degree is also true, because Isao doesn't remember what happened from the fateful day to when he woke up the next day.
It might as well be that Mari's dream could only be perfectly executed if she also forgot about who she was and completely identified herself as Isao. So a total memory erase and replacement.
This would explain how it is possible that there are two "Isao" at the moment.
However the phone call then requires additional explanations. It may be that Isao is becoming crazy (quite understandable) or that Mari (in Isao's body) sometimes has relapses and returns conscious of who she truly is.


Things that makes me skeptical regarding the body swap theory.
Mari doesn't really look like Isao anymore to me. It may be that somehow Isao went through some kind of character growth, however I wonder if it is logical to assume that his basic character could change that much.
Mari is being very assertive, confronting and overall a pretty decent person. Isao is the kind of person that can't even find the motivation to throw away the trash. Would the true Isao really have told Mari's mother all those things? Would he have had the courage to stand against Momoka and her clique to defend Yori? Would he really be so shameless to ask to his other self to masturbate in front of him?
I dunno, that seems very odd to me.


So in the end, I think that neither the body swap and DID theories are satisfying. I think that they are probably both wrong, or at very least incomplete.